A regional councillor's motion to ask staff to begin thinking about "winding down" operations at the region's hybrid shelter on Erb's Road failed to get much support from fellow members of the region's community and health services committee Tuesday with many saying it's far too early into the pilot project to consider when it will end.
Wilmot mayor and regional councillor Natasha Salonon tabled the motion this morning after hinting she wanted to see some kind of timeline on the site during budget deliberations last month.
She wants to see a plan in place for the Erb's Road site as the region considers where to put a second hybrid shelter. About $3 million has been allocated for a second site in this year's budget.
In her motion, Salonen said the hybrid shelter at 1001 Erb's Road, which opened last April, was given a strict two years to operate under the current wastewater management solution, which the building code defines as "interim."
Salonen wants to see it mapped out well before April 2025 in order to avoid any adverse impacts to its residents when the time comes to move it.
She asked that staff report back with this plan and new potential identified locations no later than May 2024 for input and final endorsement from council.
"That's why I am talking about this. We need to have a plan in place," Salonen said, emphasizing the fact that Wilmot planning staff plan to enforce building code on the site when the two years is up.
Coun. Sue Foxton agreed on the need to formalize a timeline to decide what to do about the interim wastewater solution as soon as possible.
"Because at the two year period, we don't want to come to it and have the township of Wilmot say you have to shut down," Foxton said.
Operated in partnership with The Working Centre, the 24/7 hybrid shelter features 50, 107-square-foot cabins for those experiencing unsheltered homelessness. Each cabin is furnished and with electricity, heating, and cooling, and surrounds a main cabin 'complex' with amenities like running water, a common area, washrooms, and laundry.
Salonen said despite their desire to help house the region's homeless population, some of the site's rural neighbours have expressed concerns about break-ins and nuisance since the facility opened.
A second hybrid shelter is in development for a possible site in Cambridge, but none of the locations under consideration have been made public.
The region's commissioner of community services, Peter Sweeney, said with efforts focused on the King and Victoria encampment and the Schwaben Club shelter, it's not on staff's agenda to figure this out now and would take away from other work that's part of the region's Plan to End Chronic Homelessness which will be detailed for council in April.
"We're eight months into it and learning along the way before we can make an evaluation of what we should be doing going forward," he said.
Sweeney said staff will come back to council "at some point" with a full debrief of the pilot project and recommendations on how to move forward with it.
Regional Chair Karen Redman agreed, saying the timing is off and would divert staff's focus.
Coun. Colleen James said she trusts staff know what they're doing and understand the two-year mark is there.
Sweeney assured councillors that a wind down plan will be thought out compassionately and consistently and would come in due course.
Not only does Coun. Pam Wolf think the timing isn't right for staff, she believes it sends the wrong message to residents of the shelter.
"I'm thinking of the residents at Erb's street who have actually found a secure place to live and by moving this motion we're sort of alarming them that ok, they're going to have to move again," she said.
"I think the way we want to move them is in a gradual way into permanent housing. I think that will be the natural way of ending this pilot project."
Coun. Doug Craig also didn't offer support for the motion, but said going forward it would help councillors to know the impact these types of solutions are having on the community surrounding them.
