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Sprung structure discussion | Not the best option
- Ward 3 Office
- Nov 1, 2024
- 16 min read
Updated: Jun 5
Compiled by the Ward 3 Office
Update - November 8
I have released a detailed thought piece acting as a summary of this issue, which can be found here.
A rendering of a Sprung Structure provided by the City of Ottawa. (City of Ottawa)
Click the arrow to expand the heading for content
Councillor's comments
Update - November 7
City staff released a 20-page memo regarding their site investigations and related criteria for sites regarding a sprung structure.
The 2 sites selected by staff for a sprung structure are:
1) 1645 Woodroffe Avenue (intersection of Hunt Club & Woodroffe), and
2) 40 Hearst Way (as required)
The memo can be found here
Update - October 29, 2024
The session will be an opportunity for Councillor Lo and Councillor Hill to provide a concise account of what the proposal is, what has happened so far, what we have done and will continue to do to oppose it, and what to expect next.
There will also be an opportunity for residents to ask questions and share their concerns and feedback about the proposal.
Please share the session with as many people as possible. We hope to see you there!
Update - October 18, 2024
The communal Sprung Shelter plan is in the process of being staff and consultant reviewed and I anticipate hearing back by early November with the latest plan. A communal tent sprung shelter is not appropriate for Barrhaven and it is not appropriate for Ottawa. There are proven, existing programmes that can and should be scaled up in order to meet the asylum seeker demand.
Update - October 8, 2024
Technical site evaluations by independent engineering firm to be complete by month’s end. This update was part of Councillor Lo's update (Barrhaven East). We are working closely on this issue as this effects the entirety of our community. Councillor Lo's full update can be found in his newsletter here.
Newsletter - August 16, 2024
Regarding the City plan to establish communal sprung shelters for refugee claimants, bottom line is there is no change since my last newsletter. City staff continue to revisit their plan. They have committed to releasing an official short list of potential locations for sprung shelters and their criteria matrix. Until staff release the list, (which they have not) any speculation about location and intention may well be based on outdated information. This delay is a good thing from my perspective because it means that the concerns that have been raised with this programme are being heard and taken into account. As much as we all want to know what is happening right now, I would much prefer to give staff the time they need to revisit their plan based on my recommendations, then to pressure them to prematurely release half-baked information. I promise that as I become aware of more detail on this, I will share. The bottom line is the following: Should the plan impact on Barrhaven, I will have a series of public engagements in order to transparently and efficiently ensure that you have all of the information and that you have your voice heard. My position on this has not changed; I do not support a long-term vision of communal tent living in Ottawa. We can do better. If you wish to see more on this, go to this link which has my recent comments and media engagements.
My position on sprung shelters - July 26, 2024
Newsletter - July 19, 2024
As you are likely aware from my previous newsletter, Barrhaven was included as a community to potentially receive a communal sprung shelter designed to house asylum seekers/refugees, as reported by City staff. Today, I’m going to speak more about why this project is wrong for our city and the people we’re trying to help but first, let’s start with an update.
Since we spoke about this issue last week, I’ve had numerous meetings with the Mayor and stakeholders to underscore the importance of this issue to our community. I feel that he is listening but I also recognize that he is under a tremendous amount of pressure. I’ve heard from many of you asking how you can help on this issue. The Mayor needs to hear from you. I know Mark to be a reasonable and thoughtful leader. The more Barrhaven voices he hears with concerns on how communal sprung shelters will impact our community and the city, the better. You can send the Mayor an email here.
Some of the concerns and ideas I’ve shared with the Mayor, staff, and media include the following:
It shouldn’t take 13 months to address a crisis.
Communal Tent Shelters are not an appropriate structure to house people.
This is perpetuating the misery of the communal shelter system instead of addressing the root issue – housing supply and our refugee crisis.
The Federal Government needs to step up: $$, land, buildings and address the policy roots associated.
We can better steward our money. It costs $20-30M to build a hotel. A temporary sprung shelter in San Francisco cost $12M USD in 2018 or $20.6 million CAD with inflation. A scattered housing model like what Matthew House, Carty House, and Stepstone House currently do for the city, provides significantly more flexibility and can be scaled up rapidly at a better cost per bed.
Use real buildings: retrofit vacant buildings in the short term and invest in low-cost, factory-built housing in the mid-term (can be built in a year)!
If these concerns make sense to you, or if you have your own unique concerns you need to share, please send an email to the Mayor.
Part of why I am so passionate about this issue is I am not new to sprung shelters. The sprung shelters Ottawa is considering would focus on single adult refugee claimants who are fleeing conflict and strife globally. My last deployed operation was to Lebanon where I spent over a year in 2018-2019. I commanded Canadian soldiers in our efforts to support the Lebanese Border Brigades who were overwhelmed with the tragedy of massive refugee inflows due to the Syrian civil war. The refugee camp that many of our partners would coordinate with was in Arsal, which from my perspective is one of the saddest pits of despair globally. My church, Barrhaven United, sponsored several Syrian families to come to Ottawa, and I had the fortune to visit one when I was in Zahlé, Lebanon. I can only imagine how demoralizing it would be to hope for the dream of starting anew in Canada and being assigned to a communal shelter tent not too different from the refugee camp you just came from. Studies have overwhelmingly demonstrated the drastic negative impact on mental health from living in a communal shelter over two weeks. Current estimates for this communal tent shelter system go well beyond that timeframe. This is why the safety and security of having walls, a roof, a lockable door and the dignity of some privacy are so important both to trauma recovery but also to prevent the descent into misery that consistently follows the communal shelter system. There are many cases of our homeless opting to live rough on the streets to avoid the safety risks and stresses of the communal shelter systems.
In the past several years, the Canada-wide refugee problem has overwhelmed our city. As a direct result of that crisis several downtown recreation centres have been turned into 'physical distancing centres' to house homeless people, many of which are refugees. This is why the city is looking to house these asylum seekers with overflow capacity by procuring two large 150-bed communal sprung shelters. Many locations have been considered and my understanding is that no final list has been completed by city staff. Part of the work I am doing behind the scenes is attempting to influence staff before a final decision is made. Once the list is finalized, I will make sure it is available to you immediately. Due to Wilson, Catherine and my own advocacy City staff are revisiting some of the core assumptions of these projects. We believe the current plan to be the wrong way forward for our community, but this initial engagement with the Mayor and staff is a start. Many community leaders, notably including the Alliance to End Homelessness support our position. It is critically important for community, business and non-profit leaders to be heard on this issue.
I am not advocating that Barrhaven should not help support our most vulnerable. We are doing so and we will continue to do so. We are supporting refugees here in our neighbourhood through Matthew House, Multifaith Housing Initiative, local sponsorship and other supportive community and faith institutions. When the chips are down, Barrhaven steps up. I saw this first hand during the recent tornados and derecho. What I am saying is that the drastic modification to our current homelessness policy to establish a communal tent shelter system is inappropriate. I don’t want it for Barrhaven and I don’t want it for the city. It is not dignified. It is not fiscally prudent. It is not flexible. It does not address the root of the issue.
See this link for the numerous media stories on this topic over the past week. I will continue to advocate to my colleagues, the mayor's office, other levels of government, other stakeholders and community leaders to find a better solution for Barrhaven and Ottawa alike.
Once I have more information, you will be the first to know. I wish I had more concrete news to give you, but the fact that city staff have not yet made their proposed locations and criteria matrix public is a good sign because it gives me time to impact their final decision, which was close to a done deal less than a month ago. Our advocacy matters, which is why I need your voice. Please consider writing an email to the Mayor. If this project does ultimately impact Barrhaven, I will convene several public meetings to discuss the implications. Thank you for your time and engagement on this important issue for our community.
Newsletter - July 12, 2024
Hello Barrhaven,
This week Wilson Lo, Catherine Kitts and I highlighted our concern at City Council about the current plan to put refugees, asylum seekers and our homeless residents across the city in “sprung shelters.” The homelessness crisis we face as a city is such a complex and difficult situation that we find ourselves in and first and foremost, we need to treat this situation with the utmost compassion while addressing the immediacy of the issue in a responsible manner. That’s why I oppose the City’s current plan. I firmly believe we can provide dignity for those in need in a sustainable, efficient, and cost-effective way. The current proposal falls far short of that on all fronts. You will find my comments in Council here. I also had a chance to speak with Kristy Cameron last week on this topic after my intervention at committee as well.
I know people are wondering where these communal shelters could be going. A final decision has not been made by the City, but I do know Barrhaven is an option from the list that staff is considering. When I have something more concrete, you will know it.
What is a sprung structure? A sprung structure is a large tent-like structure with a fabric membrane over metal frames. Typically, they’ll include cement sub-floors and can be customized to include heating, water and sewage systems and some cubicle walls. I understand these structures more so than others as I have routinely lived in them throughout my military career – from the badlands of Yuma, Arizona to Petawawa in the winter. No matter how much you spruce it up, it is communal living. When a child cries, when someone gets sick, when a crime is committed, when someone turns on a light in the night, when the toilet overflows, when the fabric tears in a windstorm… it affects everyone.
It is a fact that over the past five years our shelter system has been put under tremendous strain with COVID and our Federal immigration policies making it worse. But the solution is not to build more communal shelters all across the city, especially non-permanent sprung shelters. Adding communal shelters does not address the root cause and to quote Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa, “it is like managing a flood with a bucket instead of turning off the tap.” This is Ottawa, a winter city and the tens of millions it will cost to invest in tent-like structures would be better spent on factory mass-produced housing. Factory housing is built to be like legos in a lego set and then shipped to the site for construction in weeks. Using this technology, a four-story women's shelter in Waterloo was assembled onsite in less than a month. This is the future of low-income housing support – both temporary and permanent. Housing-First.
We can do better. There are more dignified ways to temporarily house our refugees and homeless neighbours.
The second reason that I was dissatisfied with this report was the simple fact that we are calling the situation a crisis, yet the solution won't be implemented for over a year! Unacceptable. I will continue to advocate for a more appropriate structure that is both dignified, and timely – such as our Multifaith Housing Initiative ‘The Haven’, Steepleview Crossing, Veterans’ House, Nepean Housing and our other non-profit housing and shelter partners. If our target timeline is over a year away, then housing should be the primary consideration, not sprung shelters.
If there is an urgent shortage and the current physical distancing centres either need reinforcing or rotating, then let’s act like there is a crisis and implement something non-permanent immediately! Put a sprung shelter on an existing large municipal parking lot/large open space this fall in time for the winter. Rotate the off-line recreation centres for winter physical distancing use to others across the city. These are the decisive and immediate actions that should be taken if we are truly concerned about people living rough this winter. But the current city plan isn’t taking those actions.
In thirteen months, the City could absolutely use appropriately zoned parcels of city land to construct factory-built, modular, mass-timber housing that can then be ready for use for the newcomer welcome centres in winter 2025. We need more action from the Federal Government, in terms of land, building and support as this is an immigration issue. I was in Kingston when the base received the Kosovar refugees in 1998 and I oversaw the Ontario component of DNDs reception of the Syrian refugees in 2015. The Federal government can do more, they should be doing more, and they need to do more.
Real housing, be it factory-built or otherwise is achievable. It is dignified. It is geography-neutral. It is the right thing for us to do and I will continue working against communal sprung structure shelters in our community because they perpetuate the harm and discord that would otherwise be alleviated with a dignified housing first solution.
There is a lot to unpack here. If you want to talk with me further on this, email me and we can set up a call/meeting because every email, call, or story that I can share with the Mayor, staff, and other councillors will help me make the case that this is the wrong approach for our city. I need your support on this issue. Thank you for your time.
David
Council - July 10, 2024
Committee - June 26, 2024
What can you do?
Let your elected representatives know your thoughts on the sprung shelter situation⬇️
Email Mayor Mark Sutcliffe.
Email Barrhaven Councillors David Hill (Barrhaven West) and Wilson Lo (Barrhaven East)
In the news
Fleury: Let's be thoughtful about how Ottawa welcomes newcomers | Ottawa Citizen
December 11, 2024
From the Vietnamese in the 1970s and '80s, to Syrians and Ukrainians in modern times, Ottawa has been supportive of newcomers. But we must do this sustainably.
Stop Building New Shelters, City Hall! There is a Better and Cheaper Way to House Newcomers | Neil Saravanamuttoo (the613)
Asylum seekers make up about half of Ottawa’s homeless population.
The number of asylum seekers globally has skyrocketed in the past few years, with Ottawa following a similar pattern.
In our recent Fix Your City article, Catherine and I outlined how the shelter system is not well suited to accommodate the needs of asylum seekers. How communal homes scattered throughout the city are both cheaper and more effective than putting asylum seekers in shelters.
So why is the City of Ottawa considering building two new tent-based shelters to house asylum seekers?
Managing the surge in asylum seekers
During COVID, the City of Ottawa repurposed three recreation centres into physical distancing sites for existing shelters. As the city experienced a surge in refugee claimants, the three centres became the primarily shelters for those newcomers.
The City rightly wants to convert the facilities back to local community centres. To do so, the City is indicating that it would put asylum seekers in two Sprung structures.
Sprung structures are giant tents. They are a thick fabric stretched across a metal frame. Heating, cooling and running water can be serviced into a Sprung structure, much as they would be with other buildings.
You can see a Sprung tent on Carling Avenue at the Civic Hospital. It was put up as a distancing centre during COVID, and has since been repurposed for other hospital uses.
Recognizing the burden on provinces and municipalities created by asylum seekers, the federal government established an Interim Housing Assistance Program. The City of Ottawa has an application with the federal government for $105 million to house asylum seekers and help transition them into Canadian society.
While the details of the application have not been made available, the City has said that it wants to use some of the funds to establish two Sprung structures. These facilities would both house refugee claimants for a number of months, but would also serve as a reception centre that provides asylum seekers with the services they require to be successful in Canada.
Not the right approach
The concept of a reception centre for asylum seekers is a good one. Claimants need access to services right away. Having those services where migrants initially arrive and get processed is a good idea. But after a night or two, we should be transitioning those individuals into communal homes better integrated into the local community.
There are five main concerns with using Sprung tents to accommodate asylum seekers:
Sprung structures are shelters. Shelters are not the solution to homelessness; housing is. Shelters are a band-aid solution, and we should be looking for alternatives before increasing shelter capacity. The Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, in its report Ending Homelessness for People Living in Encampments in Canada, identified 18 possible solutions but only gave a lukewarm acknowledgement far down the list to “Add sprung structures: so long as there is also a wind-down strategy in place in the future”. The City of Ottawa labels these as temporary facilities but talks about them as permanent fixtures.
Sprung structures are tents. They have little insulation and would be costly to heat in the winter and cool in the summer. The exterior fabric can be easily ripped with something sharp.
Housing asylum seekers in dormitories or cubicles offers little dignity or privacy. Newcomers will probably end up staying in these tents for six months or more, if the experience of newcomers in recreation centres is indicative of what to expect. The City of Ottawa can do far better in welcoming newcomers.
Sprung structures are intended to be quick to install. But the City is only planning on having these ready for use in fall 2025. NOT in time for the 2024/25 winter.
And the City’s Sprung approach is probably more costly than other approaches. More on that below.
Communal homes work better …
There is a better way. Charities such as Matthew House, Stepstone House and Carty House have been helping refugee claimants adjust to life in Canada for many years now.
Their approach has been to use communal homes at scattered sites across the city to house newcomers until they can find their own rental accommodations. And to provide onsite the specific wrap-around services onsite that asylum seekers require: legal aid, immigration health services, employment search support, and help in applying for benefits and finding longer-term housing.
The homes provide a supportive communal living environment. Residents cook and eat together. They share in the household chores.
These organizations can rapidly scale their services up and down to meet demand. They simple rent more or fewer homes.
Read the full substack here: Stop Building New Shelters, City Hall! There is a Better and Cheaper Way to House Newcomers (substack.com)
Talking sprung shelters | CTV
July 20, 2024
The need to look at other options | CFRA
July 18, 2024
Deachman: Sprung structures not ideal for housing| Ottawa Citizen
July 18, 2024
Much of the controversy at council last week was the result of a motion put forth by Lo and seconded by Barrhaven West Coun. David Hill asking council to rescind the authority it delegated to staff last November to pursue, purchase and install Sprung structures.
The pair want the city to consider other options, including mass-timber construction.
Mass-timber construction is a customizable pre-fab option — Hill compares it to Lego — that uses wood components in place of steel or concrete. It’s durable and carbon-friendly and has been used to build sports arenas, office towers, education facilities and multi-family structures. In 2022, it was used to construct a four-storey, 41-unit women’s shelter in Waterloo and a year later an adjacent 10-unit shelter for women and their children. The turnaround time for the initial building was remarkable, going from concept to completion in under a year.
Hill, who in his time in the Canadian Forces lived in Sprung structures and is critical of them, says mass-timber offers far more dignity for those living in them. Lo adds that among the advantages of a mass-timber building is that they can accommodate multi-storeys — current building-code regulations in Ontario allow a maximum height of 12 storeys for mass timber buildings — while Sprung are limited to a single storey, Additionally, if the need for a welcome facility for newcomers lessens over time, the city would have a permanent structure it could add to its housing stock.
Read full article here
Alta Vista, Barrhaven to be considered for tent-like structure to house asylum seekers | CTV
July 16, 2024
Barrhaven is also on the shortlist for a possible location to place one of the structures.
Some councillors, including Barrhaven East Coun. Wilson Lo and Barrhaven West Coun. David Hill, have raised concerns in recent weeks at the city's plan to use the structures for asylum housing.
Lo moved a motion at last week's city council meeting, and seconded by Hill, to take away staff's authority to look at the location options, arguing that staff would be making a multi-million dollar decision on introducing a new shelter system without council oversight. Council ultimately voted down the motion.
"How the city manages its Federal funding in support of refugees is the job of the city, and putting these vulnerable newcomers into communal tents is not the right answer, regardless of the location in the city," Hill said on social media site X.
Read the full article here.
Barrhaven, Alta Vista shortlisted for tent-like shelters, councillors say | CBC
July 16, 2024
At council last week, Lo and Barrhaven West Coun. David Hill tried and failed to derail the plan.
"The problem is a difficult, heart-wrenching problem," Hill said. "I don't think anybody doesn't want to try and find the right solution — I'm just concerned that the solution being proposed here is less optimal than what we could be."
Read the full article here.
City Councillors Talk Sprung Shelters | All in a day with Alan Neal
July 16, 2024
The City is exploring the idea of establishing semi-permanent, tent-like structures to house asylum seekers arriving in the capital. City councillors [David Hill] have conflicting feelings about this proposal's efficacy.
1. A crisis should not take 13 months to address
2. Communal tent shelters are not appropriate
3. Retrofit existing vacant infrastructure
4. Invest in Factory-built, modular, mass-timber
5. Spend tax $ smarter for this crisis and future
See debate here
Épisode du mardi | Radio Canada
16 juillet 2024
Veuillez surveiller mon intervention de 9h27 à 10h02 concernant mon opposition aux abris communaux ICI
Barrhaven councillors fail in attempt to block plan for tent-like migrant centre | CBC
July 11, 2024
'Barrhaven West Coun. David Hill, who served in the Canadian Forces, seconded Lo's motion. He said migrants deserve more than "communal living."
"There's no one that has lived in a sprung shelter here more than me. I've lived in it in 45-degree heat in the dusty Kandahar desert. I've lived in it in the winter in Gagetown, New Brunswick," he said.
"As much as we want to dolly up the language of what these shelter structures are, the structures are cloth with a support."'
Read the full article here.
