A Better Tent City land use agreement extended to 2025

A Better Tent City will be able to stay at its current location for at least the next year and a half.

On Monday, the city announced it had extended the tiny home community’s land use agreement to May 2025. It’s been at the site on Ardelt Avenue, which is owned by the City of Kitchener and the Waterloo Region District School Board, since moving in 2021.

It’s good news for the 50 people experiencing homelessness who live there – including one who’s ready to move on.

“I recently got housing,” says resident Rick King. “I’ve been about 11 years on a waiting list for it. So that was a long time coming, but it came at a perfect time.”

According to King, it would have never happened if it weren’t for A Better Tent City.

“I'd probably be in the ground by now – there’s no probably to it, I would be.”

King, 57, has been without a home for just over a decade. He explains he once had a very different life, with a job, a home and a family,

“I got into the drug scene and it just snowballed,” he says. “It seemed like a flash and I was on the street – nothing left. Everything I had saved up and accumulated just dwindled away and I was left with nothing.”

A Better Tent City, pictured here on Oct. 17, 2023, is home to 50 people experiencing homelessness, each with their own cabin. (Terry Kelly/CTV Kitchener)

Three years ago, he found shelter at A Better Tent City and began to put the pieces of his life back together.

“The thing about A Better Tent City, it's a place to grow,” he says.

He got the call with the supportive housing offer just a few days ago.

'I AM SO GRATEFUL'

A short time later, A Better Tent City received its own good news about the lease renewal.

“I am so grateful,” says Nadine Green co-founder and site co-ordinator of A Better Tent City.

“Without that lease, there will be 50 people being out on the street, and this is not the time. Winter's coming, and we're knee deep in a homeless crisis.”

A Better Tent City resident Rick King (left) poses with site co-founder and co-ordinator Nadine Green on Oct. 17, 2023. (Jeff Pickel/CTV Kitchener)

According to Green, stability and consistency are vital to helping the people who live there.

“Coming from where they were before to now. It is amazing. Just seeing them now, I'm so proud of them,” she says.

But despite personal improvements, King is just the sixth person to move from a Better Tent City to supportive housing.

“There's just nothing,” Green says. “There's just nothing available for people right now And I think that with the housing, they're trying to just get the people off the street.”

(Terry Kelly/CTV Kitchener)

With King moving on, it opens up one more tiny home for someone currently living in a tent.

“It does the heart good,” he says.

And despite moving away, he says he’ll be back as much as he can to hopefully help someone else get back on their feet.

“If I could talk with one person and steer them away from this and get them on the right track as it's worth everything in my life.”

A Better Tent City’s temporary land use agreement will be up for renewal again in May 2025 and will be reviewed on an annual basis.