Timmins council has selected a site for a mining camp style to set up 40 modular housing units for homeless people.
It is city-owned rural land down Pine St. S., under a lease with the Cochrane District Services Board.
That option was chosen based on public input. More than 3,400 people responded to a survey. One third of respondents favour that site.
Councillor Kristen Murray supported the plan cautioning that it is not the be all and end all, and the city has to continue thinking about other strategies for the homeless.
“So I am concerned that this has consumed all of our attention,” she told council, “but we’re not also focusing on other efforts to continually keep that conversation going about this encampment response initiative is one piece of a bigger sort of puzzle that we have to put together as a community.”
Once the camp is operating, the city will remove any tents and other shelters from parks and public land.
