Staff from the City of Kingston, Ont., will be presenting a location next week’s council meeting that may be able to host just under a dozen sleeping cabins this winter.
Council recently approved the concept of the cabins, inspired by the “A Better Tent City” initiative in Kitchener, which has recently housed dozens of people in micro homes. According to Kingston Mayor Bryan Paterson, a major impediment to the project has been finding a location.
Kingston’s initiative will follow the same track – people will be able to sleep in cabins when they don’t feel comfortable staying in a shelter.
Next week, council will discuss a staff proposal to set up sleeping cabins on the city-owned property at Portsmouth Olympic Harbour.
Speaking on Global News Morning, Paterson says the site could handle up to 10 cabins.
The mayor said the harbour location has a facility with washrooms, showers and kitchen facilities – all things required to service 10 sleeping cabins.
“We have a community group that has raised a lot of funds and has done a lot of the work to put this together, as a city we want to be able to partner with the community group to help with this,” he said.
He said the city would have to offer up about $250,000 on top of the community investment to make the harbour location a reality.
He also said council will be discussing a location for an additional warming centre, where people can take refuge in the colder months.