Is a Gatineau Homeless Encampment in the Hands of a Real Estate Company?

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Jimmy Wilson’s world took a turn four and a half years ago.

He used to work for a property management company in Gatineau where he checked on newly-built houses to make sure the foundation and heating were functional. In 2020, the company shut down operations. He lost his job and then his home, because he couldn’t afford rent anymore. 

Wilson told me he stayed with his friend in Ottawa for about six months in a studio apartment. In early September that year, he came to the only shelter in Gatineau, Le Gîte Ami, by the old Robert Guertin arena. We sat talking in the common area at the shelter. It was like a high school cafeteria filled with chatter and New Order playing on someone’s speakers. 

When he first started living in the area, he used to stay in his car all day and then sleep at the shelter at night. He kept to himself, didn’t associate or talk with anyone, and he said he felt better that way. Recently, he signed up to be a resident in a new container village that’s under construction within the same encampment grounds. His rent there would’ve been $200, coming out of his monthly $800 social assistance cheque. His plan was to look for a job while living there, and then get out of the encampment area as soon as possible.

“I’ll be happy to get out of here — there’s too much bullshit,” he said.

On Jan. 10, three days before Wilson was supposed to move into his own container home in the new transition village, Le Gîte Ami’s social workers found he passed away in his sleep in the shelter. 

François Lescalier, executive director at Le Gîte Ami, says that when you live on the streets, being 50 years old is the same as being 70. He said Wilson had his own share of health issues, smoked a lot, and like many others in the encampment didn’t have access to decent health care. 

“When someone you’re close to dies, suddenly you see your own death, especially in the shelter,” says Lescalier, who has seen around 10 people pass away at the shelter in the four years he’s been working there. 

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Gatineau’s Vieux-Hull neighbourhood, one of the oldest in the city, has been a spot for the homeless community for decades. Year after year, people have set up their tents by the old brewery’s creek and lived on their own through disasters and misfortunes. 

The Robert Guertin arena site is one of the biggest encampments in Gatineau, with roughly 100 people staying in tents and trailers at the site on a given day. It’s within walking distance of downtown, close to the highway for people to panhandle, and most importantly it’s near community services like Le Gîte Ami and the Hull soup kitchen. 

It’s also a high-demand spot as one of the last empty spaces in the downtown core. 

Parts of the encampment itself have been dismantled many times, people were forced to move further out of sight, and the City of Gatineau proposed to build a police headquarters there last year (an idea met with strong opposition within the community). The city is still discussing the demolition of the area and what will be built there, while considering what will happen to those living in the encampment in the process. 

In the winter of 2023, The real estate company Devcore, which owns $500 million in real estate in Quebec and Ontario, entered the scene. Devcore’s founder Jean-Pierre Poulin spoke about the need for real estate to be involved in the solution to homelessness and raised money through private funders to set up “Guertin Camp” — 48 heated tents on the encampment grounds to be used by those living there. The tents were set up around Christmas and kept over 50 people warm through that winter.

Some community organizations and locals were skeptical of a real estate corporation putting their hands in an issue they saw as a public responsibility. Others welcomed this move by Devcore because it came at a time when homelessness reached a crisis point in the city. Quebec’s homeless population doubled from 2018-2022, and during the same time the homelessness rate in Gatineau rose by 268 per cent. The heated tents weren’t a permanent solution, but they did ensure that nobody died that winter. 

In the spring, Devcore dismantled the heated tent campground which included toilets, a heating centre and a security station, because it didn’t have the funding to continue their management. Though, the company did let people keep the heated tents. It also announced that it would be back with a “phase two” of Guertin Camp soon. 

Not long after, Devcore introduced its plan to build the transition village — a set-up of 60 shipping containers to house 100 selected people at the Robert Guertin site. Those selected from the encampment were interviewed and approved to rent the container homes within the fenced-off area for a reduced rent of 25-30 per cent of their income. 

The units differ between a 100-square-foot room and a 150-square-foot studio. The room comes with a single bed, a sink, a toilet, a counter, a mini-fridge, and storage space, and the studio includes a double bed, full kitchen, full bathroom, and a terrasse. Residents are expected to follow a code of conduct and give their income to the Hull soup kitchen to manage their finances and pay their rent. 

The first few residents moved into the village on Dec. 23, 2024. 

The village is set up like a gated community. There are already intervention officers on site to monitor the area. Violence and any illegal activity are forbidden, and visitors are not allowed in at the moment until the security systems are in place and the construction is over. By spring there will be a security camera installed at an entrance gate with a security guard, and the entire area will be fenced off. 

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In May 2024, Devcore initially proposed the plan for the transition village, which was painted as a temporary solution to help homelessness in the city over the next five years. 

Devcore founded a nonprofit around the same time called Transitiôn Québec specifically for the purpose of managing the village. This allowed them to apply for public funding for the project, receiving $1.5 million from the City of Gatineau and $1.7 million from the provincial government. 

The nonprofit is also looking for 50 investors in the project at $25,000 per container, of which it promises a six per cent return on investment.

The project is managed through a partnership between Transitiôn Québec, which will manage the site along with the Centre intégré de santé et de services sociaux de l’Outaouais (CISSSO), and the City of Gatineau, which provided the land and funding for the project. The Rover contacted Devcore and Transitiôn Québec several times to request an interview but no one was made available. 

The City of Gatineau made a public domain occupancy agreement with Transitiôn Québec to lend the land for free for 10 years. The transition village is planned to be around for five years — what will happen for the remaining five is unclear. The agreement also states that Transitiôn Québec will improve the piece of land in some way during the 10-year term. 

Steve Moran, Hull-Wright district’s municipal councillor, explains that public occupancy agreements are generally for a much longer period of time, but 10 years is the minimum. In terms of improving the land, Moran says it usually means constructing a building or renovating an existing one. In this case, Transitiôn Québec will create access to water and electricity for the lot. 

When Devcore set up the heated tents last winter, Moran was concerned about the private sector getting involved in the city’s homelessness problem.

“It’s our job as a society to respond to people’s housing — it’s a right,” he said “So it shouldn’t be up to the charitable sector or the private sector; it should be state, city, provincial, and federal. The other concern, of course, is that private companies respond to a need to make profit. One of the reasons we’re in the housing crisis is the fact that the housing market is a private market. We need to get more non-market housing.”

At the same time, Moran says that the city had to be pragmatic about the transition village as an opportunity and option for people. But he knows it’s not a long-term solution. 

For some people who want a warm and stable place to stay until they find a job and another place to live, the transition village may be a good option. Lescalier, executive director at Le Gîte Ami says that it’s important for people experiencing homelessness to have choices — one solution isn’t going to work for everyone. And at the end of the day, if resources are getting people in safe environments and off the streets, it’s a win. 

Still, some people at the encampment don’t like the idea of the transition village, according to Lescalier. They don’t want to lose control of their finances, or their sense of freedom and agency by having to adhere to the transition village’s guidelines. 

In an interview with Radio-Canada, Nancy Martineau, executive director of Transition Québec, said they will introduce “life codes” (a code of conduct) starting April 1, and they will also discuss visiting arrangements. Those living there will also have to take an “active part” in the village’s community life. 

Several research studies show the inherent community, mutual aid, and resource-sharing that exist within homeless encampments, and that many people would prefer staying outside in their tents rather than going to a shelter because it would infringe on their independence. If the container village imposes top-down management, it wouldn’t be different from a shelter, which many people stay away from for the same reasons. 

Most recently, site workers at Transition Québec evicted a resident two days before the cold snap mid-January from the container village for not abiding by the regulations. Jean-François Bourgon told a local radio network in an interview that he was warned about smoking inside the container home and that his space wasn’t clean enough up to standards. 

Elizabeth Prince, a research coordinator at Architecture without Borders, is particularly interested in urban architecture and homelessness. Part of her research involves studying transitional housing in Canadian cities and understanding whether they are built to meet the needs of the people who live there. With this framework, Prince is looking into the encampment in Gatineau and the development of the new transition village. 

Many examples of tiny villages, particularly on the West Coast of the United States, initially started through people at encampments coming together to build a self-governing community where they support themselves and live in dignity. When businesses take this idea and institutionalize it into something that is run by a private company, the result is completely different — especially when the people living there aren’t properly included in the planning and development, says Prince. 

“We have to consult the people that have lived experience — they have a lot of things to say, they’re adults, and they know what’s best for them,” says Prince. 

When Prince went to the encampment in Gatineau a few months ago for her research, she spoke to residents about their initial thoughts on the transition village and found that they weren’t consulted much about the new plans. She also noticed that many folks have been moved around since she visited, as the construction of the village is underway. 

Prince has some valid questions about the future of the transition village and about how things will unfold even in the next few months. One of her main hesitations is that Transitiôn Québec doesn’t have the organizational knowledge or culture to run this project, pointing out that its expertise still lies in real estate, not community organization and homelessness.

“A lot of people are probably going to be comfortable with these containers, and a lot of people want them, but I feel it’s still important to understand exactly what’s going on. What are the actors involved? And why did they get involved?” says Prince. 

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Gatineau’s new transition village isn’t completely novel. 

In American cities like Portland and Seattle, similar projects have been set up in the last few years by private businesses. The Navigation Center in Portland opened five years ago and similarly serves as transition housing for the homeless people in the area. While it’s served thousands of people, the current management is coming to the end of its lease, forcing the city to take over. 

But with high operation costs and concerns from neighbourhood groups, the future of the centre is in fog. 

In Antonin Margier’s research paper on this topic, he notes that there’s an increasing role that private elites are playing in managing homelessness. He outlines that as local governments lack the power to end homelessness, local business elites are putting their financial resources into developing social programs. 

“If the private sector is paying for homelessness solutions, the public government needs to spend less, therefore the government becomes codependent on business elites to fund their solutions and businesses pretty consistently act out of their own self-interests,” Margier writes. 

Dahlia Namian and Sara Lambert are part of the University of Ottawa’s legal clinic, Clinique interdisciplinaire en droit social de l’Outaouais (CIDSO) which helps marginalized people in the Outaouais region of Gatineau. They have been documenting the events at the Robert Guertin site since Devcore arrived over the past year. 

Lambert has been working within community organizations in the region for 10 years. She says that there’s a tension between the fact that the transition village meets a real need and the concern about a private actor’s involvement in homelessness. 

“I think our first concern is the risk that the most vulnerable and marginalized people will have less access to services,” Lambert said. “Because those who fit the criteria of the village are individuals who can conform to a code of conduct, who are willing to respect certain rules, and who are capable of committing to certain processes.”

Namian says there’s a risk of further public disengagement with the homelessness issue. 

“There’s a shift away from the collective responsibility around homelessness; it sort of creates a slippery slope where public accountability diminishes — we’re concerned that there’s going to be a normalization of this form,” says Naiman.

There’s also a hit on community organizations. If businesses create non-profits that get public funding, it takes away those funds from organizations that have been operating in the area with a wealth of knowledge on how to serve the community. 

Namian also mentions that she’s seeing “de-politicization of community organizations right now because they can’t really be overly critical about the solutions that are proposed.” They are cornered into supporting the solution that’s available — because it’s the only thing that’s available. 

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As the construction of the transition village continues over the next few months, there are plans to build a community garden and greenhouse, a dog park, a bike repair shop, an arts and culture space, and storage spaces. 

The model images of the transition village on Devcore’s website show pastel containers set up like Lego blocks around some greenspace, people reading on their patios, dogs playing in the park, and sunflowers growing in the garden. It is unrecognizable from the plot of land there today with a police cruiser weaving in and out all day. 

“I think it’s like a showroom display now for (Transitiôn Québec), and they want to prove that the system works and can be set up in different cities in Canada,” says Lescalier.