'Addressing a crisis': Tiny home project to bring 40 units to downtown St. Thomas, Ont.

A vacant brownfield site in the heart of St. Thomas, Ont. will soon be a vibrant community filled with 40 tiny homes.

On Monday night, St. Thomas City Council voted unanimously to approve zoning bylaw amendments to convert a vacant lot at 21 Kains Street into the future home of “Project Tiny Hope.”

“We’re working with the YWCA on this and it's really addressing a problem in our community,” said Doug Tarry, owner of Doug Tarry Homes.

“All communities are facing a housing crisis and a housing affordability crisis. We still have to make a profit, but it's also about building a better community and that's also adding resiliency into our community. I don't just mean climate resiliency, I mean, personal familial resiliency, people do so much better when they have a safe place to live,” he explained.

Tarry is the project’s builder, partnering with faith-based Sanctuary Homes and the YWCA St. Thomas-Elgin to make this happen.

“Folks that will be staying with us are people who are working but not earning that living wage yet, folks living on social assistance,” said Lindsay Rice, executive director of the YWCA.

A rendering of the future home of "Project Tiny Hope" at 21 Kains Street in St. Thomas, Ont. The vacant brownfield site will be the site of 40 affordable tiny homes to the heart of the city. (Source: YWCA St. Thomas-Elgin)

The rental units will be one, two and three bedrooms with a kitchen and laundry included.

Rice said 25 per cent of the units will be reserved for people under 25-years-old, while 50 per cent will go to women and women-led families.

“There are certain groups that have more disadvantages accessing housing, and we want to be part of the solution,” said Rice.

“I think the smallest one is about a 400 square foot bungalow,” said Tarry. “It's a cute little design. They're really good looking product. They're very durable, long lasting… so it's [going to] be very cost effective to operate.”

The on-site operation will be done by the YWCA with staff providing support.

“I'd like to get about 10 more of these kinds of projects going,” said Joe Preston, St. Thomas’ mayor.

Council’s approval to re-zone the lot Monday is part of Preston’s goal of building 500 houses per year in the city.

A rendering of the future home of "Project Tiny Hope" at 21 Kains Street in St. Thomas, Ont. The vacant brownfield site will be the site of 40 affordable tiny homes to the heart of the city. (Source: YWCA St. Thomas-Elgin)

“One of the plans we had was to remove brownfields, and to remove those vacant lots near the center of our city and turn them into housing,” said Preston.

He added, “We continue to talk to the federal and provincial government about better use of brownfields. We're a railway city, and we’ve got some places that need to be cleaned up. Well, this is an old industrial site and I’m happy to see people living on it soon.”

Preston expects the project to be given the go ahead after a public meeting in mid-January.

The next step will be fundraising millions of dollars to get it done, but Tarry is already committed to making this happen.

“Now it comes down to how do we build them quickly?” said Tarry. “We're looking at off site panelized framing, things like that. So basically, it's like a kit and we want to be able to assemble the kit on site as quickly as we can.”

Tarry feels the entire project could be completed within 12 months.