Sleeping cabin residents against the clock as deadline looms

It’s been less than two months since Kingston City Council voted in favour of a complete “wind-down” of the sleeping cabins program by Our Livable Solutions (OLS).

With the deadline at the end of March, Wilson says time is running out to find permanent homes for sleeping cabin residents.

“Unfortunately, permanent housing is just really elusive in Kingston and especially affordable, permanent housing,” said Chrystal Wilson, Director at Large for OLS.

Kingston City Coun. Conny Glenn said the city is working to help transition the residents ahead of the March deadline, but said that the deadline doesn’t mean people will be left behind.

“Nobody’s going to be put out on the street, that’s not what we do as a city, and if staff are struggling they’ll be reaching out to us well before then to say ‘okay, what’s the plan?” said Glenn.

“How do you wind it down, you know? It’s called slamming the doors,” said sleeping cabin resident Richard Hewitt.

Hewitt said it’s been tough trying to find somewhere to go with such little time remaining.

He says that he would rather leave town and try to start fresh somewhere else than tough it out on the streets again. But for Hewitt, the place he really wants to stay is in the sleeping cabins.

“If I hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t be standing here today, or anywhere else. I wouldn’t be breathing, highly unlikely, because it was just … I’d given up,” he added.

In the interim, Wilson said they’re working to keep everyone’s hopes up, and also hoping for a miracle to save the program.

Despite the oncoming deadline, Glenn says there’s still time to work on housing the cabin residents.

“We set deadlines so that we have something to move towards, but we’re realistic here at the city and if staff and everyone thinks that we need a little bit more time, they’ll reach back and say that to us,” said Glenn.

Council is expected to discuss the matter further in the coming months.