Lambton County warden wants more federal help with affordable housing

Sarnia and the rest of Lambton County have a desperate need for more affordable and supportive housing but municipal governments can’t build it on their own, says Warden Kevin Marriott.

“Like many communities in Canada, Lambton County is grappling with increased homelessness and a need for holistic supportive housing services,” Marriott says in a letter to Sean Fraser, the newly appointed federal minister of housing, infrastructure and communities.

In the letter, Marriott asks for more federal financial help to address “the dire need for additional affordable and supportive housing in Lambton County.”

Sarnia council recently voted to offer a city parking lot on Victoria Street near downtown to the county as a site for new affordable housing but Marriott said, “There’s just no way that we can do new builds without both the province and the feds.”

Lambton County council voted recently to signal that shelter and affordable housing are its No. 1 priorities, and to apply to a new federal Housing Accelerator Fund to help provide it.

The county, which is responsible locally for public housing, previously said it wants to build 74 affordable housing units by 2025.

Earlier this year, the county said about 300 people were believed to be homeless in Lambton, including those living in shelters, “precariously housed or couch-surfing.”

About 20 per cent of those people may also be in need of supportive housing, which can include mental health support, addiction counseling and other services along with affordable rent, the county said.

“The government talks about all the money they have earmarked but it’s really difficult for anybody to access the funds,” Marriott said.

“It has just become really frustrating.”

The land the city offered makes up “only a small part of what it takes to make a project go forward,” Marriott said.

“We’ve got to get more people banging the drum,” he said. “We’re really just getting frustrated with the system.”

A group including members of the Rotary Club of Sarnia is raising money and working to start affordable and supportive housing projects in the community.

Lambton County also has a $7 million project underway to add 24 apartments at Maxwell Park Park, an existing affordable housing building for seniors in Sarnia.

Work began last year on a project using modular construction. The federal and provincial governments contributed $3.1 million for the expansion.

“The province has been pretty good at getting us through the housing crunch with the COVID pandemic, but there has been very limited dollars from the feds,” Marriott said.

While the federal government contributed to the Maxwell Park expansion, “it’s high time we get something new,” he said.

“We know there is shortage of affordable housing across Canada and there must be an all hands on deck approach to increasing the supply of housing,” the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation said by e-mail in response to a request for comments about Marriott’s letter to the minister.

“That is why we are working closely with all other levels of government and the non-profit housing sector, to create the right type of supply that meets the housing needs of everyone living in Canada.”

It added Lambton County has received about $5.4 million from the federal Reaching Home homelessness strategy since joining the program in 2020, and that an agreement with Ontario calls for a $5.8 billion federal-provincial affordable investment in housing in the province.

Lambton County increased its funding for new affordable housing this year to $2 million from $1.2 million the previous year.

“We’re serious about that,” Marriott said.

“I know that if we had both levels willing to partner with us, that we could get something done,” he said.

“It takes so much money to build something, once you have the land,” Marriott said. “It’s just not possible on our own.”