Ontario housing minister hears firsthand about Sarnia-area needs

After a weekend huddle between Lambton County officials and Ontario’s municipal affairs and housing minister, Warden Kevin Marriott said he hopes the province will help Lambton build new supportive and affordable housing to help address homelessness.

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County officials met with Paul Calandra, the Ford government’s point person on housing, at a Mackinac sailboat race weekend event in Point Edward. Calandra joined Sarnia-Lambton MPP Bob Bailey, Sarnia-Lambton MP Marilyn Gladu and about 200 others at a VIP breakfast during a Rotary Club of Sarnia and First Hussars Mackinac Extravaganza on the St. Clair River shoreline.

Next to the tent where the breakfast was held, sailboats passed by the St. Clair River and into Lake Huron for the start of the 100th running of the Bayshore Mackinac Race from Port Huron to Mackinac Island.

The fact the minister made the trip and agreed in the huddle to speak again with county officials next month before an Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference in Toronto, are positive signs, Marriott said.

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“We feel like he’s committed to doing something,” he said.

Calandra said he and the ministers of health, and community and social services, have been “challenged” by Premier Doug Ford to “break down your silos” and “work together” to respond to the issue.

Many communities like Lambton are asking for “wrap-around services” to give individuals “a hand up” so they can eventually rejoin the community “where, ultimately, they want to be,” Calandra said. “That is the model that we’re looking at, and I think we’ve got to move quickly.”

But it will require partnerships with the federal government and communities, Calandra said.

“To bring the community with you is literally a gamechanger in every single situation” and “this is really awesome,” the minister said about what he heard Saturday about efforts in Lambton. “They’ve done a really good job.”

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Marriott said the upcoming meeting with Calandra will be a chance to lay out Lambton’s plans for building new affordable and supportive housing, which county officials have made clear will require provincial and federal financial help.

“We have building sites,” Marriott said. “The county has committed $30 million over 10 years and that’s important to the ministry. . . that the community is involved first.”

Lambton County council, which is responsible for social services and public housing, has declared responding to homelessness and creating new affordable housing its top priorities and it recently formed a partnership with Indwell, a charity providing affordable supportive housing in communities around Ontario.

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Indwell’s Graham Cubitt, who was part of the county huddle with the minister, also spoke during the breakfast, and with the minister as he toured displays at the event.

“There are solutions,” Cubitt said. “Building supportive housing that integrates health supports actually changes people’s lives and transforms them from homeless to not homeless.”

Affordable housing sites Indwell is involved with often include nurses, housing support and food security workers, psycho-social and addiction professionals.

The first phase of the county’s plan is to build 100 new housing units in the first year and 300 units in the next three years, Cubitt said.

“Cash investment by our senior levels governments will get new housing built, new supports put in place and new results we want to see in the community,” he said.

Heather Martin, part of a group of Rotary Club of Sarnia members who have been working to rally the community to respond to the need for supportive, affordable housing, said last year’s VIP breakfast event raised $85,000 for the cause.

This year’s Extravaganza was expanded to include several vendors, along with the VIP breakfast and displays by the First Hussars and first responders, she said.

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