Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Across the country, housing spaces are limited, particularly in bustling downtown neighbourhoods – a challenge that is leading some developers and tenants to repurpose overlooked spaces into unconventional homes.
Third-year engineering student Tayseer Nejim is slowly getting settled into his new place, a tiny brick structure in Montreal that used to be part of a larger building.
“I actually bumped my head at least three times already,” Nejim said with a laugh as he showed a camera crew around his bedroom, where a sloped ceiling hangs over a bed that takes up most of the room.
This one bedroom, one bathroom pad is smaller than anywhere Nejim has lived before. Spread out on three storeys, the entire living space is just 350 square feet.
“The first thing that came to mind is, ‘how am I going to manage to work in this place, it's really small’,” Nejim told CTV National News. “’Where am I going to put a desk here?’ But then I discovered they actually have a desk here.”
The small desk, which folds up into a box on the wall when not in use, came with the apartment, which was furnished already with pieces chosen to fit the bite-sized space.
Located steps away from Concordia University, Nejim’s apartment and a set of matching units are part of a project aimed at finding creative ways to maximize housing spaces downtown.
A real estate developer has transformed century old brick structures that long served as back staircases into six tiny homes.
“We took the stairs that were the fire escapes for the front and moved them outside so we could then use this space, which was a great space because it was a brick structure, so it had the bones we needed for us to rework the interior,” Lexa Serafini, Groupe Forum Director of residential development, told CTV National News.
“Otherwise it would have just been a lost space and it would have been a missed opportunity.”
The rental market has become increasingly fraught for tenants in Canada amid a housing crisis characterized by fewer units and higher prices. A 2022 report authored by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) stated that Canada needs another 3.5 million housing units by 2030 on top of what is already being built in order to meet the need – a goal which a CMHC economist said this month may not even be attainable.
Housing Minister Sean Fraser said on CTV’s Power Play on Wednesday that he doesn’t believe it’s impossible to build another 3.5 million unit.
“I believe it will be difficult,” he acknowledged.
The tiny homes now available to rent in Montreal are all about making efficient use of the limited space, according to Serafini, who helped design the units.
The stairs that connect the three levels of each unit have drawers built into the steps for added storage. The narrow bathroom – which has the sink situated just inside the room underneath a ceiling showerhead, and the toilet tucked into the back of the space – is inspired by the setup in an RV, Serafini said. Photos of the kitchen show a two-burner stove, with a dishwasher and a microwave.
It was tricky to furnish the small space; the first couch she chose was too big.
“It was more of a modular couch, but it actually didn’t fit up the stairs, so I found this couch that came in three pieces that we assembled once we got up here,” she said.
The average unit size for an apartment can vary widely across Canada depending on the city or the current rental outlook, but 350 sq. feet is definitely on the small side. A report on rental trends posted by Rentals.ca in July 2022 found that the average unit size in Montreal at that point was 773 sq. feet, while the average rent was $1,719.
Read more: Lease swaps becoming more common in Quebec as rents rise
A report by the same company released this September found that Montreal’s rent is growing fast, with an annual growth of 16.4 per cent pushing the average rent in the city to $2,001, the first time it has surpassed $2,000.
The tiny house units established near Concordia University can be rented for $1,995.
Are these tiny homes a creative way to tackle a lack of housing spaces, or a worrying symptom of the country’s larger housing crisis? Whichever it is, it’s clear that Nejim’s apartment is no traditional home.
“At the beginning, I thought, ‘ok, so I'll live here for a month and maybe I'll find somewhere else,’ but I believe now I'm liking it, actually,” Nejim said.
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.