Transformable Personal Space Within a Communal Setting: Housing for the Homeless

The growing homeless population of Toronto is a complex problem that needs to be addressed in new ways. The escalating crisis of homelessness coupled with a shortage of funding for social programs has forced nonprofit organizations to look for alternatives to the under-housed groups. Many attempts have been made at addressing the special issues of ‘sheltering’ a number of vulnerable groups such as the homeless, battered women, psychiatric patients, as well as the physically disabled. Strachan House is one Innovative prototype of communal living that provides long and short-term shelter for seventy chronically homeless men and women in a renovated three-story 19th century warehouse in Toronto. Residents of Strachan House have formed a small community that is largely self-governing, reflecting this project's vision of the homeless as people we can organize, design and build with, rather than people we organize and design for.