Chatham-Kent to seek more cash to combat homelessness

With homelessness at a crisis level amid rising living costs and other factors, Chatham-Kent plans to lobby for more money to help ease the burden, noting it hasn’t received the same increases as other communities.

Council got an update this week from staff, who noted jurisdictions across Canada are having to expand services to meet the demand.

“Those on social assistance, or in low-paying work, continue to see their incomes decrease,” said housing services director Josh Myers. “Wait lists for programming and housing are at all-time highs, and some have given up on trying to access these programs.”

The municipality’s employment and social services division manages the provincially funded Homeless Prevention Program. Chatham-Kent received a 6.7 per cent increase, bringing total funding to nearly $3.04 million.

But that increase “does not cover the growing need or the inflationary pressures on services and does not allow for the creation of new programming,” a staff report said.

Other municipalities have announced greater increases, with some, such as London, Windsor-Essex and Sarnia-Lambton, seeing percentage increases in the double digits.

When this was discussed with the ministry, they explained Chatham-Kent is not “seeing the level of homelessness and housing precarity” as some neighboring communities, the report said.

“This is no consolation for those in our community relying on these important services and in turn requires tough decisions on future shelter operations,” the report said.

Council also was updated on the Victoria Park Place shelter, which opened just over a year ago on Murray Street in Chatham.

Since opening, 54 per cent of people using it have not had a previous stay in any emergency housing programs in Chatham-Kent.

“Chatham-Kent, like our neighboring communities, (is) left with a difficult problem of still requiring emergency shelter, but lack(ing) the funding to sustain its operations,” Myers said.

The municipality is working with ROCK Missions to engage with individuals living in small encampments.

Some individuals are encouraged to come to the shelter, the report said. But others have needs existing services can’t meet or aren’t interested in the services.

Given the current situation, and forecasts, there is no way to predict when Chatham-Kent won’t need an emergency shelter or housing program, staff said.

The department is seeing more than twice as households needing emergency housing than in it did in 2018-19, when the municipality relied solely on motels for emergency housing.

“Administration will be seeking proposals to allow us to consider alternate ways of delivering the service that are better than our current operations,” Myers said.

Before opening the COVID-19 emergency shelter at the John D. Bradley convention center early in 2020, administration asked several agencies to run a shelter. But there was no interest then or six months later.

Should administration get no qualified proposals, there will be a recommendation that municipal staff continue to operate this service.

If that is council’s direction, administration will provide an updated budget request taking into account various funding challenges.

The costs and recommendations will return to council after the request for proposals.

After the presentation, South Kent County. Anthony Ceccacci entered a successful motion asking staff to bring back recommendations this year for affordable and emergency housing, whether they are retrofits or new buildings, plus financing options and preferred sites.

He also asked that Chatham-Kent lobby the provincial and federal governments for more capital and operating funds.

“This is a very graphic and very concerning report,” Ceccacci said. “It really shows the challenges that we are going to be (facing) in the very near future.”

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BY THE NUMBERS

Since opening on June 1, 2022, Victoria Park Place has provided the following services:

• 390 nights operating
• 15,479 bed nights used
• 100 households moved directly back to housing
• 321 households served
• 35 families and 62 children received emergency housing
• 23 percent of admissions diverted successfully to alternative forms of housing