Civic officials travelled south last week to check out Waterloo region’s “progressive” approach to its homelessness issue — with the hope of finding solutions that might work in Orillia.
Mayor Don McIsaac, Coun. Janet-Lynne Durnford, affordable housing committee chair Cam Davidson, and the city’s new housing coordinator went along for the trip, touring the OneROOF youth transitional shelter and a new “managed encampment” site with 50 tiny homes for those in need.
“When we were elected, knocking on doors, homelessness was a huge priority for people in terms of how we can deal with that problem. (Kitchener-Waterloo) has really got a progressive approach to how to deal with the homeless,” Mayor Don McIsaac told OrilliaMatters.
McIsaac, who also met with the mayor of Kitchener during the trip, highlighted the “self-contained, portable units” at the managed encampment site, which include heat and air conditioning, as well as a central area for laundry, meals, and social services — with staff on site 24 hours per day.
“I think there's a lot of good lessons there. Currently, we have homeless encampments in Orillia. They're not allowed on private property; they move off private property, but guess what? They show up somewhere else,” McIsaac said.
He said Orillia needs to consider options, like those implemented in the Waterloo area, to meaningfully address the homelessness issue locally.
“We need to do better; we need to get a permanent solution rather than just a temporary solution, moving from one property to another,” he said. “I think the (managed) encampment … has some promise, and we need to investigate that to see if it’ll work.”
“We had a deputation to council last week with an idea about having a teen transition home, and I think that's got some tremendous opportunity as well.”
In Waterloo, the managed encampment is located on region-owned land and is meant to serve as a transitional space for unhoused people to get back on their feet before finding permanent housing.
Coun. Janet-Lynne Durnford noted how there are only two rules at the managed encampment — that there are no visitors allowed, and to be a good neighbour — and said the project is operating as an 18-month pilot with the goal of getting residents into permanent housing by its end.
"This managed encampments idea, to me, seems to be a very good housing-first approach. There's tons of research that supports housing first, as a really reliable way of addressing people's complex needs," she told OrilliaMatters. "You house people first; you build relationship, and then you work toward long-term goals of independence and permanent housing."
She said she was also impressed by the OneROOF transitional shelter for youth.
As a low-barrier site, Durnford noted some youth at the shelter may be in active addiction, and that the shelter provides safe consumption sites, as well as voluntary programming and social services for youth to participate in.
“It's very built on community and connection and making personal connections with people so that people are ready to access services,” she explained of the approach.
“The next step that they are looking at … is they have one remaining building that's not in use, and it will very likely be a dry house for youth that are choosing to live with abstinence," said the first-term Ward 4 councillor.
“There will be units there for them that (are) slightly separated from the main shelter, so that they can work toward recovery.”
While Durnford said Orillia is “still very much in the planning stages,” she said both facilities show promise as potential solutions for the city.
Moving forward, Durnford said the County of Simcoe will be accepting pitches for projects this fall, and the trip to Waterloo region is part of the process to finding local solutions.
Cam Davidson noted the current council is committed to addressing social needs, like housing, and he has faith the city will work with whatever partners necessary to address the local issues surrounding homelessness.
“I don't think we're gonna let this go. We're gonna investigate it further,” he stressed.
“In my position as chair of the affordable housing committee, this might be one of the next areas that we can work on, (to) hopefully get some units built in a quicker fashion to deal with the people who are really in need and really in need of services," said Davidson.
“That's the game plan … (to) get everybody off the streets, as many as we can, with as many units as we can, and the only way to do it is to build.”
