Not willing to wait any longer for a system response to the housing crisis in their community, a group of citizens in Brantford, Ontario has taken it upon themselves to do what they can.

Tony D’Amato Stortz, who has a wealth of experience helping tiny-home communities thrive in Canadian cities, spent an hour with the March 7 Tiny Home Working Circle to share his insight and help the group advance their efforts to create affordable housing in the Brantford, Ontario community.

Brantford, Ont. city staff have indicated they see no reason not to give a green light to plans for the construction of two tiny-home prototypes — a one-bed dwelling and a two-bed dwelling — on property secured in the city, a signal that the project to bring a tiny-home community to life has advanced another step.

A group in Brantford, Ont. has been meeting fortnightly since 2021 in an effort to bring together local strengths and talents to create a tiny-home community as a citizen-led response to the housing crisis the city of 102,000 is experiencing.


This is a fascinating conversation at the intersection of culture, criminology, and recovery.

Dr. David Patton is a criminologist and recovery researcher. Most recently David has been engaged with a Recovery Pathways Research Team coming to grips with the variety of pathways people take on their road to recovery from addiction. 

Editor’s note: At a Community-Based Response to Housing Summit earlier this year, which Axiom News came alongside for, Belonging Brant’s Jocelyn Birkes raised her hand to say yes to doing something. In this Q&A, Jocelyn speaks with Peter Pula about her inspiration to step up, the integral connections she’s made along the way, and what her visions are for the future of housing in Brantford, Ontario.

Oliver Escobar was raised in a country governed by a dictatorship. Now he is making a life work in democratic research, teaching, and advocacy. He says many or most of our democracies are very underdeveloped. They focus on just a few practices, elections and party politics, which are important but very limited aspects of democratic life. That underdevelopment may have played a role in bringing about what is now a time of great upheaval. That upheaval might in turn serve up an opportunity for renewal.

Peter Block says now is a time in which we can reclaim our capacity to produce our own wellbeing in our communities, workplaces, in our faith, schools, journalism, art, and architecture.

Jenny Finn’s life has been an adventure. As a young woman she broke suddenly from addiction. She then found herself on a discovery journey into life-centred ways of interacting with the world.