A National Film Board of Canada production

As Canada struggles with an escalating housing crisis, people are refusing to wait for solutions. Filmmaker Nadine Valcin highlights individuals and grassroots organizations building creative, inclusive responses to housing instability, showing what becomes possible when communities come together.

Short Synopsis
Canada’s housing crisis is at a moment of reckoning. Communities are taking action to affirm that shelter is a human right. Across Ontario, filmmaker Nadine Valcin follows people turning housing challenges into collective action through grassroots initiatives, community partnerships and bold local solutions. From tiny-home settlements and housing co-ops to online communities, land trusts and communal gardens, four stories reveal how grassroots solutions can open doors to connection while building stability, belonging and possibility for real change. 

Long Synopsis
When a place to call home becomes increasingly hard to secure, people find their own ways forward. Seeking Shelter is a four-part series that follows people boldly responding to the housing crises through creative, community-led solutions. On the journey, filmmaker Nadine Valcin visits several regions in Ontario to meet some of the many people and organizations taking action and to explore what their groundwork embodies.  

In Kitchener, one resident’s fight to end homelessness through a tent city-turned-community of tiny homes paves a path for positive impact. In St. Catharines and Peterborough, locals living on a fixed income—while navigating health challenges and grief—find support that moves them out of isolation and into connection.  

The historic Woodsworth Housing Co-op in Toronto’s St. Lawrence neighbourhood shows the value of collectivity and collaboration as residents govern, build and invest in the longevity and sustainability of their home and those around them.  

There’s a seat at the table in Toronto’s diverse west-end neighbourhood of Parkdale, where a land trust nourishes opportunities for the common good. A beacon of affordable housing expands, while a community garden makes room for newcomers and their families, enabling social and economic well-being.

Community-led solutions to the housing crisis. 

Episode 1: Housing on a Fixed Income

Logline
When personal and ethical issues around MAID and social assistance come to a head, two affected individuals find support through public organizing.

Synopsis
When grief, isolation and health challenges are combined with strained financial means, access to housing can feel like a critical burden. For one St. Catharines resident living with disabilities, medical assistance in dying (MAID) was once a primary option over homelessness. Across Ontario, locals living on fixed incomes find support through social media outreach, resulting in unexpected—yet welcome—community resources.

Episode 2: Communal Land for the Common Good

Logline
Toronto’s Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust is sowing the seeds for innovative housing and communal growth.

Synopsis
In Toronto’s diverse west-end neighbourhood of Parkdale, the local Land Trust provides a sense of place and purpose for underserved groups in search of housing. Many of Parkdale’s grand mansions had been turned into rooming houses in the 1970s. These precious architectural gems are now being reconverted into single family dwellings, leading to a loss of units. Now, in response to fewer affordable rooms, the Land Trust is working with residents to repurpose and restructure some area properties with affordability and accessibility in mind. In addition to these new housing developments, a community garden is helping create connection and nourish newcomers and their families. 

Episode 3: Co-ops and the Power of Community

Logline
Since the 1970s, a Toronto co-operative has modelled a collaborative and people-first approach to housing. 

Synopsis
You shouldn’t have to move if you like where you live. A longstanding co-operative in Toronto has provided long–term housing since the late 1970s. Championing collectivity and collaboration, residents govern and invest in longevity, sustainability and diversity for individual and shared spaces. A result of federal government funding for co-operative housing in key regions across Canada in the 1970s, these residences encouraged downtown living as many fled to the suburbs. Since then, co-operatives not only align with the various economic needs of their diverse residents but provide ways to thrive in the heart of the city. 

Episode 4 : A Tiny Home of One’s Own

Logline
In Kitchener, Ontario, a tiny–home initiative has a big impact by offering support to its underhoused community members. 

Synopsis
Size isn’t the only thing that matters when it comes to accessing shelter. For the residents of A Better Tent City in Kitchener, Ontario, this statement rings true. Founded by two locals—Nadine Green, a former owner of a convenience store-turned-temporary-shelter, and the late Ron Doyle, a local business leader—this tiny–home community offers a space for people experiencing homelessness. Operating as a cohesive ecosystem built on collaboration, facilitation and contribution, it provides a sense of purpose, dignity and support for residents at various chapters of their lives

Seeking Shelter emerged from my experience of living in west-end Toronto’s Parkdale neighbourhood for nearly two decades. It’s an eclectic, mixed-income area encompassing many of urban thinker Jane Jacobs’ characteristics for vibrant and safe streets. Also known as Little Tibet, it is home to many immigrant families from around the globe. Like many other areas of the city, Parkdale is experiencing the pressure of rapidly growing real estate development and skyrocketing rents. 

When I first proposed the project to the NFB, the housing crisis was looming but not quite yet the daily topic of discussion it is now. Then, the pandemic hit and blatantly exposed many of the issues surrounding homelessness and housing precarity in the city. Yet despite the financial pressures and public health restrictions, community members were organizing and activating. Tenants staged rent strikes against large multinational corporate landlords, residents opposed huge condo developments that were out of scale and unaffordable for the majority of residents, and people came together to feed the unhoused and ensure they were safe. 

In the era of late capitalism and individualism, it was moving and inspiring to see communities rallying together. The mobilization wasn’t limited to Toronto, as smaller cities faced (and still do) similar housing crises. This series of short documentaries evolved into a modest showcase of community–housing initiatives and the people making them happen, those stepping in to fill some of the gaps where the various levels of government are slow to react. It was essential to spotlight very concrete projects and highlight their successes in dreaming, building, preserving and creating new housing and co-housing models.