The City of Vancouver has allocated substantial resources to manage homelessness, yet the financial and logistical viability of its approaches remains under scrutiny. Between 2021 and 2024, maintaining the CRAB Park homeless encampment cost the city $3 million, covering sanitation, law enforcement, emergency services, and outreach programs. In contrast, a Tiny Shelter Pilot Project was approved in 2022 to provide 10 small shelter units for up to 20 individuals at a total cost of $1.5 million. Both models present distinct financial and operational challenges, raising the question of whether one provides a more sustainable alternative than the other.
Encampments remain a persistent feature in Vancouver. Large-scale sites were previously established at Oppenheimer and Strathcona parks, collectively costing taxpayers over $6 million between 2018 and 2021. These encampments have required consistent municipal intervention, yet their closure has left many individuals without viable housing alternatives. The Tiny Shelter Pilot Project was intended to introduce a lower-cost, structured alternative, but it has faced delays and operational challenges, preventing immediate relief for those displaced.
With both approaches drawing significant public funding, a comparative analysis is necessary to determine their cost-effectiveness, scalability, and impact. We will examine both models’ financial breakdown, logistical feasibility, and outcomes, considering how similar initiatives have performed in other cities. The objective is to assess whether encampment maintenance or temporary shelter projects offer a more pragmatic solution to Vancouver’s homelessness crisis.
The Three Million Dollar Experiment at CRAB Park Encampment
Between 2021 and 2024, CRAB Park served as a makeshift shelter for Vancouver’s unhoused population, creating significant logistical and financial challenges for the city. Over its three-year span, the encampment consumed millions in municipal funding, with recurring expenses allocated to waste removal, emergency response, and law enforcement. Weekly operating costs underscored the financial burden, reflecting a continuous need for intervention beyond the encampment’s closure in late 2024.
Encampments like CRAB Park also carry indirect costs that often go unaccounted for. After the site’s dismantlement, the city faced further financial pressures related to environmental remediation and public space restoration. These post-closure expenses, though less publicized, add another layer to the debate over whether encampments represent a sustainable approach to addressing homelessness.
Past encampments at Oppenheimer and Strathcona parks offer similar lessons. The combined cost of managing those sites highlights how quickly expenses can escalate when homelessness is concentrated in public spaces. While these encampments provided immediate refuge for vulnerable individuals, their reliance on temporary fixes underscores the difficulty of creating solutions that balance cost and long-term impact.
Can the Tiny Shelter Project Solve Vancouver’s Housing Shortage
In February 2022, the Vancouver City Council approved the Tiny Shelter Pilot Project, a two-year initiative designed to provide temporary housing for individuals experiencing homelessness. The project called for the construction of ten small shelter units at a site adjacent to an existing shelter on Terminal Avenue, with Lu’ma Native Housing Society overseeing operations. Each unit was built to house one or two individuals, offering heat, air conditioning, electricity, and secure storage while relying on shared facilities for restrooms and meals.
The project’s total cost was $1.5 million, with $460,000 allocated for construction and $1.02 million designated for operations over two years. This placed the price per unit at approximately $46,000, excluding maintenance and staffing expenses. While proponents argued that the cost was significantly lower than traditional permanent housing, critics noted that the small scale raised questions about whether such an investment could meaningfully reduce homelessness. Had the pilot been expanded, replicating the model across the city would have required substantial long-term funding.
Despite initial plans to launch in fall 2022, the project encountered multiple setbacks, delaying its opening to late 2023. Issues with fire safety regulations, site preparation, and construction coordination slowed progress, with only a fraction of the units available by the revised deadline. The delays fueled concerns over bureaucratic inefficiencies, particularly when compared to the speed at which encampments emerge and expand. The slow rollout raised broader questions about whether temporary shelters can be deployed swiftly enough for an effective emergency response.
How Do Tiny Shelter Projects Work Elsewhere?
Vancouver is not the first city to experiment with tiny shelters to respond to homelessness. Similar programs have been implemented across Canada and the United States, with varying degrees of success and challenges. While some municipalities have seen short-term benefits, others have faced financial hurdles, construction delays, and community opposition, raising questions about the long-term viability of these projects.
In Victoria and Duncan, BC, tiny shelters were introduced as an alternative to encampments, with shared washrooms and support services. The Victoria model placed 30 converted shipping containers in a city-owned lot, offering insulated units with heating, ventilation, and monitored fire alarms. Duncan’s program involved 39 small cabins, each equipped with basic electrical outlets and insulation, but no private facilities. Both programs required significant government and nonprofit involvement, and while they provided a safer environment than tents, they did not replace the need for permanent housing solutions.
In Hamilton, Ontario, efforts to establish a 25-unit tiny shelter village faced severe financial and logistical challenges. The project’s estimated costs exceeded initial projections, with fully equipped modular units—including showers, washrooms, and kitchens—expected to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per unit. In addition to financial strain, the plan encountered strong opposition from local residents, leading to the project’s cancellation in late 2023. Safety concerns were also raised, escalating tensions at public meetings over the proposed site. The Hamilton experience highlighted the political and logistical complexities involved in securing public support and financial backing for tiny shelter initiatives.
Tiny Shelters vs. Encampments Cost Comparison
Temporary housing solutions have significant financial implications, but costs are distributed differently depending on the model. Encampments require ongoing maintenance, with funds allocated to sanitation, emergency response, and enforcement, while tiny shelters demand upfront construction investment but operate on a fixed-term budget. Evaluating the cost-effective approach depends on long-term sustainability, scalability, and resource allocation per person.
Encampments have proven to be recurring expenses, requiring constant municipal funding to address health, safety, and infrastructure concerns. The funds spent maintaining a single large-scale encampment could cover multiple cycles of temporary shelter housing. Yet, once dismantled, encampments continue to emerge as people return to public spaces. In contrast, tiny shelters involve an initial investment but function within a controlled cost structure once built. However, their limited capacity means that expanding the model would require significant additional funding, potentially offsetting initial savings.
A direct financial comparison shows that operating a sanctioned encampment for multiple years can cost as much as building an entire village of tiny shelters. Still, neither option offers a long-term housing solution. While tiny shelters provide more security and structure than an encampment, their limited scale and implementation delays raise questions about whether they are a financially sustainable alternative or just another temporary fix.
Is There a More Effective Approach to Housing Solutions
The financial and logistical realities of Vancouver’s response to homelessness present a clear contradiction. Encampments cost millions in ongoing municipal spending, yet they persist because alternative housing solutions remain limited in scale or inaccessible to many. While structured and secure, tiny shelters require substantial upfront funding and face significant delays, raising doubts about their viability as a rapid-response alternative. Neither model offers a permanent solution, yet both demand continuous public investment, forcing the city into a cycle of temporary interventions.
Reallocating encampment maintenance funds into shelter construction might seem logical if the issue were purely financial. However, the constraints of zoning laws, public opposition, and bureaucratic processes mean that even well-funded shelter projects often struggle to materialize. Meanwhile, encampments continue to grow because displacement does not equate to housing, and removing one site does not eliminate the conditions that create homelessness in the first place. As a result, Vancouver—and cities across Canada—remains caught in a pattern of crisis management rather than systemic resolution.
The fundamental question is not whether one model is cheaper than the other but whether either is financially or socially sustainable in the long run. Encampments generate recurring municipal costs without reducing homelessness, while tiny shelters provide temporary relief but require continuous expansion to be impactful. Until the city aligns emergency response efforts with scalable, permanent housing solutions, it will continue to invest in short-term measures that address symptoms rather than structural causes.
Denise is a long-time advocate for affordable and dignified housing in the Downtown Eastside. Having lived in SROs and volunteered in homeless shelters, she brings a personal understanding of the housing crisis and its impact on the community. Her work reflects years of lived experience, frontline work, and commitment to creating better living conditions for DTES residents.
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