The City of Ottawa is poised to purchase a former downtown hotel for use as transitional housing for families experiencing homelessness. In a report prepared for the city’s finance and corporate services committee on March 3, city staff recommend buying 377 O’Connor St., located on the southeast corner of O’Connor and Gladstone Avenue, to help […]

Ottawa city staff are proposing a new way to help people experiencing homelessness and addiction while also addressing community safety concerns. The proposed system, jointly governed by the city’s community and social services department and the Ottawa Police Service’s community outreach initiatives, would consolidate what are currently multiple outreach teams and centralize them under a

Kayla DeMong agrees with almost everything she heard at a town hall Thursday night to discuss safety concerns about the supervised consumption site she runs in Pleasant Hill. The executive director of Prairie Harm Reduction listened to an hour and a half of speakers during a meeting that attracted more than 150 people. Some shared

Nicole Chantal Pauluzzo says she almost lost two of her fingers to frostbite last month while trying to stay warm in a bus shelter in Thunder Bay, Ont. Temperatures reached -47 C with the wind chill, she said, during a cold spell which saw the northwestern Ontario city enact a severe weather response. “You can

The Municipality of Chatham-Kent is drafting a bylaw seeking to curb a controversial practice that some say contributes to homelessness. The motion to discourage so-called “renovictions” was unanimously approved by municipal council on Monday to cheers from residents who attended the meeting. “Any time that someone is forced out of their affordable unit … it

In just 10 days, a group of builders put together a home in Kuujjuaq in an effort to help tackle housing challenges in remote northern communities. Tinybox Systems, a Canadian housing tech startup, began discussions with Kativik Regional Government in late 2024 regarding a pilot project to lower the cost and alleviate the difficulty of

An overnight warming centre will open next week at a south London church, providing at least 30 people a place to rest and respite from the frigid cold. Ark Aid Mission and several local churches are partnering to open up the space at Holy Trinity St. Stephen’s Memorial Anglican Church near Southdale Road East and

The City of Toronto has confirmed that the winter respite facility at the Better Living Centre will be closing its doors a month early. In an email, a spokesperson said the 24-hour site at Exhibition Place will stop accepting new admissions by mid-February and shut down operations entirely next month. The seasonal facility opened in

More than 700 comments that flooded in under a Feb. 2 Facebook post from Nunavut MP Lori Idlout, asking Nunavummiut how many of them had been on a housing waiting list and for how long. The federal government announced in January a plan to build 750 homes in the territory in co-ordination with the Government of Nunavut

The City of Greater Sudbury has officially announced the opening of the city’s long-awaited Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hub with services set to be rolled out in two-phrases. The provincially-funded hub will begin providing services February 17 at 105 Elm St., in the city’s downtown core, and it will be led by Health