GuelphToday received the following from Ed Pickersgill regarding homeless housing initiatives in Guelph.
Wellington County is offering to buy 65 Delhi St. from Guelph if the city agrees to rezone the property as residential so it can be used as a shelter to be managed by the "Drop In." I support the county taking over that building for a shelter so that's not what the laugh out loud is about. Rather it is about whether the city will fast track a zone change ... of course it will.
Three decades ago Guelph was the last remaining major municipality in Ontario to form and operate a municipal non-profit housing corporation. The Ministry of Housing attended a city council meeting to argue and pressure the city to agree to incorporate such a legal entity which then would be granted a variety of allocations to create a number of subsidized apartments and town houses. The ministry's push was supported actively by local a number of local community based organizations.
The city did finally agree to establish the Guelph Non-Profit Housing Corporation and to accept the offered allocations. But city council still did not want to get involved in operating non-profit housing. So the the city and the county chief executive officers met (over coffee apparently) and worked out an Agreement that Wellington County would be contracted to manage and administer the Guelph Non-Profit Housing Corporation. The deal was done and continues to this day
If Wellington County wants a zone change on 65 Delhi St. then Wellington County will get a zone change on 65 Delhi St. No issue at all with perhaps the only issue being who will bring the coffee.
At the same time it does beg the question why would the city consider investing in the purchase of the Parkview Motel? Wouldn't it be much tidier if Wellington County purchased that property which is moving towards being the other shelter to be managed by the same "Drop In" corporation? That would smooth out the hodge-podge approach to developing properties for a shelter provider and some separate service provider to manage the new duet whether the latter be the shape shifting "Drop In" corporation or some other more experienced and qualified service provider in the field of homelessness, addictions and mental health diagnoses.
There should be a consistency in how these two projects move forward into the years ahead. The properties should be owned by the one housing provider (Wellington County) with contracts offered to qualified service providers (not necessarily the same for both properties but more depending on the mix of residents with attention to issues such as men, women, transgender, addictions, mental health diagnoses, racism and the like).
All that being said I return to the laughing out loud moment of whether city council would ever say "we really should talk all this through" to the 8,000 pound gorilla which manages social services and all housing related issues in Guelph.
Not so funny at all is the current stream of decision making to put safe injection sites on property at the Loyola House Shelter which is being rented by the county and managed by the "Drop In" corporation as a step towards what will likely follow at the Parkview and on Delhi Street.
Not difficult to imagine the uproar in the Parkview neighbourhood when people realize they're likely to have a safe injection site if or when that project moves forward. But more importantly not difficult to envision what it will be like for shelter residents without injection needs or wants to be co-habiting inside such shelters nor what will be in those needles and how those substances will arrive on site let alone issues about needle users getting preferred service which the smokers. snorters and pill poppers do not.
Ed Pickersgill
