In the thick of winter a few months ago, Matthew Stone was living in a tent encampment in the woods outside Bloomington, Illinois. “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.”
Central Illinois winter temperatures averaged about 20 degrees Fahrenheit, with a low near minus 8 in January. Three days before the mercury dropped below zero, the city opened its first shelter village: The Bridge, a tiny-house community that offers people experiencing homelessness private sleeping spaces and secure places to store belongings.
Bloomington’s homelessness problem intensified after 2021, when a new manufacturing plant drew job-seekers faster than new housing could be built. The shortage became highly visible in 2023, when dozens of 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 Ministries, the local nonprofit that created The Bridge. “And that’s when the community started to say, ‘you know, it’s not okay that we have people who are stuck outside.'”
Illinois weather can swing from deadly cold to severe storms, making outdoor survival dangerous. After officials shut down the downtown encampment, many people continued living outdoors, scattered across the city. Home Sweet Home Ministries, which has served Bloomington’s most vulnerable for more than a century, looked to other cities for solutions. Burgess researched shelter villages in Burlington, Denver, Missoula and Austin, and visited Missoula to see a “temporary, safe outdoor space” in action.
Finding a site for a shelter village proved difficult. The location needed to be accessible to transit and appointments, but neighbors often worry about proximity to residential areas. Home Sweet Home Ministries eventually purchased a lot across the street from its building, owned by the local transit company; public forums and negotiations resolved zoning and community concerns. The Bridge opened six months after the land was bought.
The campus is fully enclosed and includes a bathhouse and community center. It has 48 tiny sleeping cabins with room for 56 adults. The project cost $2.7 million; roughly two-thirds came from private donations and the rest from a county grant. Unlike many traditional shelters, The Bridge places few restrictions on who can stay there, though people convicted of sex offenses are prohibited.
In its first month, 55 people moved in. They included Stone, who lives in a cabin with his dog Tank. “We got our bed over on the far wall. We got our microwave and refrigerator behind the door. We got our armoire over here that we can put all of our clothes in, and then we got our desk and our chair,” he said. Alarm clocks in each cabin help residents keep appointments. Stone praised the services offered at the village as he prepared to ride his bike to a doctor’s visit.
Burgess says meeting basic needs gives people the stability to pursue longer-term goals. The ministry’s street outreach team reports fewer people living outside than before the village opened. One former resident has already moved into permanent housing. “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?'” Burgess said. “It’s the same words, totally different type of question.”