Toronto has long looked for a way to solve its homeless problem.
But it's doubtful the city will be able to match the incredible solution one billionaire has come up with a long way from home.
A Japanese businessman has done the unthinkable - donated eight of his multi-million dollar mansions in Hawaii to people who have no place to live.
Genshiro Kawamoto, who made his considerable fortune in real estate, started his project on Thursday by handing over the keys to a home worth almost $5 million to Dore-Ann Kahale.
She's a mother of five, who lost her apartment two years ago when her landlord raised the rent beyond what she could afford. She'd been living with relatives and then in shelters ever since.
Now she's in a place she could hardly have conceived of.
Her new digs include a stone staircase, a deep porcelain bathtub, iron gates and sculptured gardens.
The new tenant and her family can live there rent free for at least the next 10 years, provided they pay the utility bills. She was also given ten $100 bills to help with 'moving expenses.'
Kahale was in tears as the owner handed over the keys to the stunning house. "I'm shocked. I'm overwhelmed," she cried. "From the little box we had to what we have today."
It was the first of three houses Kawamoto gave away that day and it won't be the last. The financier owns 22 mansions in the Kahala area of the island and insists he won't miss them. "This is pocket money for me," he responds.
Elementary school clerk Lyn Worley was next on the list of those moving out and moving up. The lease on the house where the 40-year-old mother of five had been living with her brother had just run out, and the family faced a very uncertain future.
That's when Kawamoto rescued them.
"We prayed so hard and cried so much for God to drop something from the skies, and he did," she exults. "And he did, he really, really did."
Both women were among the 3,000 who wrote the benefactor asking for help when he announced his plan last fall. He tried to pick single working mothers who needed the most aid.
The tycoon claims simply handing over money to help fight the homeless problem wouldn't help and he believed more immediate - some might say drastic - measures were needed.
But not everyone who lives in the area is so sure about the mogul's motives. The businessman has been criticized before for evicting tenants of rental homes so he could sell the properties when the prices went up.
Some think he's trying to drive down the value of surrounding mansions so he can go on a buying spree when they inevitably put the places up for sale.
"Everyone's paying homage to him, but in reality, he's the problem," accuses Mark Blackburn, who now lives a few doors away from Kahale. "Houses are homes. They're made to live in; they aren't investment vehicles."
But for the new residents, the controversy is unimportant. They're just happy to be able to have a place to call home. They believe Kawamoto has changed and is trying to make a real statement.
Or at least a real estate-ment.