Homeless citizens ‘just barely existing,’ ex-warden tells Lambton council

Bev MacDougall made the drive back to Lambton County council chambers in Wyoming Feb. 7 to speak about those living with homelessness.

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The former Sarnia councilor spent 15 years on county council, including two years as warden, and she and her husband, Eric, have lived for 45 years in an old, downtown-area neighborhood on the front lines of Sarnia’s struggle with homelessness.

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“I could cry six times a day looking at people just barely existing,” MacDougall told county councillors. “And that’s not enough. It’s not enough for me and it’s not enough for you.”

MacDougall spoke to council the same day he backed a plan to pursue five potential affordable and supportive housing projects in Sarnia and Wyoming that could create a total of 490 new units, if an estimated $143-million in federal, provincial and other capital funding can be secured.

She’s active with the Sarnia Heritage District Neighborhood Watch and, since leaving office in 2018, has spoken at city council meetings about homelessness and its impact on her neighborhood.

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MacDougall said she and her husband welcomed this latest affordable housing plan and news the county provided seed funding for community groups pursuing affordable and supportive housing projects.

And they’ve seen first-hand, on the street where they live, the good work of county outreach workers, specialized city police teams and others to aid the unhoused.

MacDougall said she wanted to thank the county for those programs and partnerships that are making a difference.

“It is not fair when people say the county isn’t doing enough,” she said.

But the MacDougalls have watched, “with escalating concern,” as all that is being done is “not giving people that are struggling, supports that they need to be able to wrap themselves around the problems that they have,” she said.

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That has an impact on neighborhoods like theirs.

“Eventually, your neighborhoods fall” and “the security of everyone else falls,” she said after the meeting.

“They’re not getting what they need and we’re not having the safety and security of being able to live and invest in a community,” MacDougall said.

“We know as you do, that a bed in a shelter, transitional housing or couch surfing with friends does not make for stable housing,” she told councillors.

She knows from experience the money needed to build the housing in the county plan “won’t materialize overnight” and county councilors must do “yeoman’s work” of getting access to provincial and federal decision makers to “bring these dollars to our community,” MacDougall said. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will 490 units of housing be built overnight.”

While that and other community efforts continue, the voices of residents living alongside those experiencing homelessness should be heard, MacDougall said.

“I can’t watch that human condition and remain silent,” she said.

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