Modular cabins for homeless cost $2.4M

City report lays out expenses associated with replacing tent encampment on Rehill lot

The 50 cabins were purchased and installed in the cityowned Rehill parking lot this fall as an alternative to a tent encampment

The city paid more than $2.4 million to build the modular cabins for people without homes in the Rehill parking lot near downtown Peterborough, states a new city staff report — and the cabins are expected to cost the city a further $1.9 million in annual operating expenses.

The report will be reviewed by city councillors at a general committee meeting Monday night at city hall. The 50 cabins were purchased and installed in the city-owned Rehill parking lot this fall as an alternative to a tent encampment that had been there for nearly three years.

The city disclosed in the fall that each cabin cost $21,150, and came from a Cambridge, Ontario company called Now Housing. But it was never made clear how much the city paid in total for construction, or would pay for annual operation of the site, until the report was released Thursday.

The money to pay for the project is coming from the Ontario government.

The city got a boost of $2.5 million from the province’s Homelessness Prevention Program in the fiscal year 2023-24, in addition to other provincial money to address homelessness (for a total of about $7.6 million, for the year) and expects funding to remain at that level for three fiscal years (until the end of March, 2026).

Many residents of the cabins had previously lived in the tent encampment, or they lived outdoors elsewhere in the city.

People adapted to life in their cabins without the usual “period of destabilization” that people experience as they move from chronic homelessness to housing, the report states. Instead residents showed “positive mental and physical improvements within days.”

The new report points out the Elizabeth Fry Society is offering 24/7 help and support to residents, for instance, which the city had disclosed in the fall.

But it mentions for the first time that Finally a Home, subsidiary to the social housing provider Peterborough Housing Corporation, is managing the site and acting as

landlord.

Here are some further details:

Construction costs

■Modular cabins, including a washroom cabin (which has toilets and showers): $1,340,688

■Site preparedness: $821,726

■Setup of the 50 cabins: $65,199

■210 Wolfe St. building modifications (the building is being converted from an emergency shelter into a series of staff offices plus kitchenette and laundry: $220,165

■Total construction costs: $2,447,778

Expected annual operating costs

■Administration and supports: $855,741

■Security (the site has 24/7 security guards): $638,821

■Property management: $48,850

■Meal program (the city supplies a daily dinner to the cabin residents): $177,253

■Repairs, maintenance and garbage pickup: $159,488

■Building usage costs for 210 Wolfe St. (hydro, sewer and water costs, for instance): $124,458

■City operating costs (various additional costs to the city, including project manager job position): $150,000

■Insurance: $28,367

■Neighbourhood liaison work (monthly neighbourhood consultation meetings are run by a professional consulting firm, for instance, and there are further city staff and administrative costs associated with the committee): $16,026

Total costs

■$2,199,003

■Less revenue rental (residents of the cabins pay 30 per cent of their wages — if employed — as rent, or they pay the portion of their social assistance meant to help cover shelter costs): -$240,000

■ Total costs, minus rent revenue: $1,959,003

The city’s neighbourhood liaison committee is made up homeowners who live near the Rehill lot plus neighbourhood business owners and police, and has monthly meetings run by Arising Collective, a Peterborough consulting firm.

The committee was formed after neighbours of the tent encampment told city council they were concerned about violence, vandalism and theft on their private properties.

But since the cabins were installed, the committee has found the neighbourhood around Wolfe Street “is feeling tidier, quieter and safer,” the report states.

In fact it states that in the first 10 weeks after the cabins were occupied, there were four emergency service calls to the property.

Although the report doesn’t say exactly how often emergency crews were called to the property when there had been a tent encampment, there were frequent out-of-control campfires (some of which engulfed tents), and there was also a shooting death on June 2, 2023. Peterborough Police arrested a man in connection with the shooting, six days later.

Meanwhile city council had planned to leave the cabins, which are designed to be movable, on site as a temporary measure until Nov. 30, 2025.

The report states that staff from E Fry are working with residents to find more permanent housing, but it’s challenging since there’s a shortage of supportive housing in the city, the report states.

The plan for assisting people without homes beyond November 2025 hasn’t been developed yet, the report states, but city staff plans to continue to “monitor and evaluate” the Rehill project and write a report, early in 2025, with “a range of options for council’s consideration for the future of the project.”