When subfreezing weather settled over central Illinois this winter, Matthew Stone was living in a tent encampment in the woods outside Bloomington. “It was very horrible, a very horrible experience,” he said. “I was living in a tent with my dog. It was just, all in all, a horrible experience, very cold this winter.” That season the region averaged about 20 degrees Fahrenheit, with a January low near minus 8.
Three days before temperatures dropped below zero, the city opened its first shelter village, a tiny-house community called The Bridge. Developed by Home Sweet Home Ministries, The Bridge provides private sleeping cabins, storage for personal belongings, a bathhouse and a community center. The campus is fully enclosed and includes 48 sleeping cabins with room for 56 adults. The project cost about $2.7 million to build; roughly two-thirds of the funding came from private donations and the rest from a county grant.
Home Sweet Home launched the shelter-village effort after a local housing shortage intensified in 2021 when a new manufacturing plant brought more workers to the area without enough new homes to meet demand. Homelessness became more visible in 2023 when people began living in a tent encampment in a downtown church parking lot. “Literally hundreds of people would drive by it every single day,” said Matt Burgess, CEO of Home Sweet Home. “And that’s when the community started to say, ‘you know, it’s not okay that we have people who are stuck outside.'”
Organizers researched similar models in Burlington, Denver, Missoula and Austin, and Burgess visited Missoula’s temporary safe outdoor space to learn from operators there. Finding a location was one of the biggest challenges. Organizers prioritized access to transit and services but faced neighborhood concerns about property values and proximity to residences. Home Sweet Home negotiated with the local transit agency to buy a lot across from its offices and held public forums to address zoning questions and local objections. The Bridge opened about six months after the lot was purchased.
Unlike many traditional shelters, The Bridge imposes few restrictions on who can stay; people convicted of sex offenses are excluded. In its first month, 55 people moved in. Residents have personalized their cabins with basics — beds, small refrigerators and microwaves, armoires and desks — and each unit has an alarm clock to help keep appointments.
Stone said the stability has made a difference. He lives at The Bridge with his dog, Tank, and praised on-site services as he prepared to ride his bike to a doctor’s visit. Home Sweet Home’s street outreach team says it is finding fewer people living outdoors since The Bridge opened.
Burgess described a change in residents’ outlook. “We’ve seen people’s attitudes shift from asking with dread, ‘what am I going to do tomorrow?’ to asking the same question with hope, ‘what am I going to do tomorrow?'” The program has already helped at least one resident move into permanent housing, an early indication that the shelter village can function as an effective bridge from living outside to stable, long-term housing.