A Better Tent City asks for $155K from region to cover costs of extending power to new location
CBC
Organizers with Kitchener's tiny home alternative housing community will be asking the Region of Waterloo for a one-time $155,000 fund that will help pay for extending power to its new location.
A Better Tent City moved to Ardelt Avenue in October and co-founder Jeff Willmer said that meant the group took on additional costs, like renting a generator to provide residents with power and heat.
Willmer said that investment put a strain on their resources, which is why the group will be asking Region of Waterloo councillors for funding on Tuesday.
"We created a model that works at a really low operating cost, but it was the cost of moving that caused us to inherit these significant one-time costs," Willmer said.
"In order to pay our bills we kind of drained our resources and that's challenging when we still got work to do."
That works includes finishing the construction of washrooms and kitchen facilities on the new site.
The tiny homes are located on a grassy area between Ardelt Avenue and the Conestoga Parkway jointly owned by the the City of Kitchener and the Waterloo Region District School Board.
That location hasn't historically had access to utilities like water, electricity, and sewer, according to a report detailing the group's funding request.
"[A Better Tent City] has incurred significant costs concerning power in particular, including costs to generate power to provide electricity, while work is underway to connect the site to the electrical grid," the report says.
The Region of Waterloo's 2021 housing services homelessness operating budget supports various services to the region's most vulnerable residents, including the tiny home community.
The report said, "there is sufficient capacity in the 2021 budget to accommodate the estimated one-time costs as requested by [A Better Tent City]."
The funding will go to cover the temporary costs of the move, which include:
This story is a collaboration between the Investigative Journalism Foundation and CBC Saskatchewan.
More than 300 patients without housing have gone from Edmonton emergency rooms directly into transitional accommodation since the launch of a unique program in March 2023.
B.C. Ferries says it is replacing its principle model of community feedback, the ferry advisory committee (FAC), which has been the main way the ferry corporation has kept in touch with ferry-reliant communities for over three decades.
The inquest for six inmates at the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre heard Tuesday that five of the men died overnight, one of several commonalities noted in testimony by a corrections consultant.
"Our bodies lie, but still we roam" is written on a wooden cross paying tribute to Paul Gilbert and Donna Whyte — the Windsor couple who were fatally hit by a vehicle on Walker Road last week.
In three years, the number of people who are homeless in Waterloo region has doubled a new report says.
P.E.I.'s minister of fisheries says the Maritime oyster industry has sustained another blow after evidence of a new disease was recently found in oysters from Spence Cove, about five kilometres west of the Confederation Bridge in New Brunswick.
WARNING: This story contains distressing details.
Canadian political leaders can't control the fact that Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States. Neither can they stop him from threatening to take illogical steps that could hurt American businesses and consumers almost as much as they would hurt Canadians.
A First Nation in southern Alberta is suing the federal government for $1 billion, the latest in a series of lawsuits which argue that annual payments promised in treaties should have been adjusted for inflation.
The oilpatch is reacting to Donald Trump's threats to impose a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods with a mix of concern and skepticism.