As municipalities work to address homelessness, how do they measure success?

Beverly Melanson says her cabin is all she needs when it comes to housing.

"I am so happy here," she said while sitting in the dining area of A Better Tent City, a tiny home community in Kitchener, Ont.

She can lock the door, take her shoes off, microwave something for dinner, watch TV and feel safe.

"It's nice. It's normal," she said.

She knows officials from the Region of Waterloo come to the site once a week to talk to people about getting on the housing wait list.

"I'm not going to waste their time," Melanson said. "They could offer me housing. I wouldn't take it. I don't want to leave."

The 50 tiny homes located on city and school board owned lands on Ardelt Avenue is more than just a place for people to sleep, the volunteers who operate it say.

Laura Hamilton says "it is a community, it's built on relationships."

"We've become home for those for whom no other home has, or could be, provided and we need your support to help our residents to reclaim their dignity, find hope and begin to imagine a different future," Hamilton said.

But recent conversations at regional council have raised the question of whether the project is producing the results officials would like to see, whether it can be deemed a success and what the region should be focused on when it comes to helping people who are homeless.

Housing researchers say the answer is multi-faceted and includes keeping track of people moving through the system, talking to people living in encampments about what they want and getting all levels of government to work together.

Hamilton and other A Better Tent City board members spoke during a regional council meeting on Nov. 8 to ask for $236,390 in 2024 to hire staff who would help residents connect with services, including finding more permanent housing.

The group also applied to a new housing program through the region but was denied the funding.

The exact reason they were turned down was not revealed at the meeting, but Wilmot Mayor Natasha Salonen wondered if it was because in the three years that A Better Tent City has existed, just six people have moved into more permanent housing.