Lambton won’t help Sarnia with encampment response bill

Lambton County council declined Wednesday to share the city’s costs for health and safety measures at an encampment in Sarnia’s Rainbow Park.

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A letter from the city “respectively requesting financial assistance” from the county was received and filed by county council, with no further action.

Sarnia said in the letter the city had spent about $90,000 as of July 26 on measures such as fencing, 24-hour security, temporary lighting, portable washrooms, drinking water and waste disposal in the park where a large number of tents and shelters are located .

Lambton’s budget for homelessness prevention is about $9.3 million a year, with roughly $1.7 million of that coming from the county and the rest from the province and federal governments, said Melissa Fitzpatrick, the county manager responsible for the services.

“Those dollars are fully allocated both internally for homelessness prevention programs, as well as to over 15 community partner agencies,” she said.

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Provincial and federal funds the county administers come with “very strict guidelines, which remain housing-focused,” Fitzpatrick said.

“Our priority has to be to invest in programs and services that move folks along the housing continuum” and reallocating funding would mean “having to end services to community partners or internally,” she said.

County staff would “look for council’s direction if that’s something it wanted to do,” Fitzpatrick said.

The county already is expected to be over budget this year because it kept its winter overflow shelter on Exmouth Street open through the summer in response to encampments, Fitzpatrick said.

Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley asked why some funding for the overflow shelter, which is running below capacity, can’t be redirected “to a very immediate need that is very visible” in Rainbow Park.

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Fitzpatrick said most of the cost of running the overflow shelter, including wages and security, are the same even when it’s not running at capacity.

County council could reallocate some of the money for homelessness to the cost of the city’s measures in Rainbow Park, Bradley said.

“That to me would be a really good signal that we’re all in this together and we’re not just going to leave the City of Sarnia abandoned to deal with this crisis,” he said.

“We are all in it together,” said St. Clair Township Mayor Jeff Agar. “We’ve come from that.”

Agar said the county is providing “lots of shelter space,” but “it’s not our fault they don’t want to give away their passion for drugs and stuff like that.”

County council did support Bradley’s request that a notice of motion he prepared for Wednesday’s meeting be referred to council staff for a report to be considered at a future meeting.

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It asks if the local shelter system can be adjusted so Sarnia can move to legally shut down the Rainbow Park camp. It also asks if the county would back the city in seeking a court injunction.

Sarnia has unused emergency shelter spaces, but recent court rulings in Waterloo and Kingston, and a third-party legal opinion obtained by the city, say such beds aren’t enough to justify removing people from public parks, in violation of Charter rights to life , liberty and security.

Truly accessible shelter spaces — allowing couples to stay together, people to bring in pets or drugs, and ensuring safety from violence and sexual predation — are needed.

The city will need the county’s co-operation if it decides to seek an injunction, Bradley said.

Also Wednesday, county council backed a motion by Warwick Township Mayor Todd Case saying, “if the City of Sarnia chooses to end the encampment, that the County of Lambton supports the city with the mandated social services. . . the county has responsibility to provide.”

“I just thought it was a statement that needed to be made in front of our 17 county councilors to the city that if you choose to end the encampment, we will be there and we will provide those services as mandated, through social services,” Case said after the meeting.

With files from Tyler Kula

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