Gabriel Imbeau (University of Ottawa)
Rising housing costs in Québec have led to a significant increase in homelessness. This is especially visible in Gatineau, a medium-sized municipality whose metropolitan area straddles two provinces in the National Capital Region. Following their successful formal encampment project in the winter of 2023-2024, local real-estate developer Devcore proposed to usher in a second phase to the project via the creation of a more permanent Tiny Home community. The goal of this community, dubbed Village Transitiôn, was to provide transitional housing to chronically unhoused individuals by using low-cost modified shipping containers, in partnership with the City and, to a lesser extent, the Province. Interestingly, this project was built on the same site the previous formal encampment was built on, which in turn was built on the site of an informal encampment, which itself was built next to a homeless shelter. Additionally, providing heated shelter over the winter was a key motivation for this private developer.
Our exploratory study uses a territorialisation framework to analyse the development of this Tiny Home community throughout the policy process. Using documentary analysis of press articles, municipal bylaws, and city council, executive council, and city planning committee minutes, we assess the influence of “Time” (the urgency of the winter deadline) and “Place” (spatial colocation effects) on the delivery of this public-private partnership. Our preliminary results indicate that the deadline was most important at the agenda-setting and implementation stages, while colocation effects progressively locked-in the site.