A local study to find out how many tiny homes there are, where new ones could be built, and what government can do to encourage more will get $200,000 from the Canada Mortage and Housing Corporation.
It is part of the federal government's Housing Supply Challenge, launched last fall to encourage stakeholders to find innovative solutions for Canada's shortage of affordable housing.
The local project is one of 21 shortlisted for funding in the first round, which focuses on data.
Family Services Windsor-Essex has been in the business of finding homes for vulnerable populations for the past seven years. It is partnering with Cipkar Development to create a new mapping tool.
"Our biggest challenge has been to find the housing," said Executive Director Joyce Zuk. "To find a stock of housing that is affordable, and to find a stock of housing that is safe."
Sarah Cipkar (Screenshot from Zoom announcement on April 27, 2021)
Sarah Cipkar, the founder of Cipkar Development, has experience building tiny homes. She broke ground on her own 430 square foot, one-bedroom cottage last August and moved in three months later.
The trouble is, until now, there has been virtually no research on tiny homes in Windsor-Essex or across Canada.
"There have been a lot of ADUs [Affordable Dwelling Units] that have been created that are not necessarily in the system," said Cipkar. "They're not necessarily illegal. They were just created before the most recent batch of legislation, so they're not formally recognized. We don't even know what we're working with."
Once the data is available, governments could use it to design incentives to build affordable housing units or remove restrictions to construction.
Cipkar said if the mapping tool is successful in Windsor-Essex, it could be used across the country.
