Simcoe County Alliance to End Homelessness

Simcoe County Alliance to End Homelessness Optimistic over New Affordable Housing Units
The County of Simcoe in conjunction with the Federal and Provincial governments has recently announced the creation of 108 new affordable housing units to begin construction in 2010 in Orillia and Angus. “These are steps in the right direction from all levels of governments towards reducing the housing and homelessness crisis in Simcoe County” says Trevor Lester, Chair of the Simcoe County Alliance to End Homelessness. “We are certainly encouraged by these new units and continue to encourage our local political leaders at all levels to advocate for additional units for this area.”

To that end, the County of Simcoe’s Warden Cal Patterson recently directed senior housing personnel “to urge the Province to recognize the significant need in Simcoe County for affordable housing when it is considering future allocations”. “The Alliance is very pleased by Warden Patterson’s continued commitment to affordable housing for our County, he has been a friend of the Alliance as mayor of Wasaga Beach and now we are thankful of his efforts as Warden”.

“As the Simcoe County Alliance to End Homelessness, we are Simcoe focused” continues Lester “and we do recognize that the other municipalities that are experiencing high growth are also dealing with a crisis in housing and homelessness. We are not calling for extra housing in Simcoe County at the expense of other high need areas; we are advocating that all future housing be focused on the parts of the Province that need it most and Simcoe County must be in that category.”

The need for Social Housing originated in 1946 when the Federal Government was challenged to house returning soldiers from World War II and their families. During the following 50 years, public and social housing was developed, funded by the Federal and Provincial governments. In 2002 the responsibility for social housing was transferred to the municipalities from the Provincial government.

“The problem of transferring social housing to the municipalities is that housing in almost all other major countries is a federal program. Canada is the only major country without a national housing strategy. The creation of additional housing being borne by property taxes alone is unrealistic” says Lester. “We need the Federal and Provincial governments to continue to contribute the capital funds to add more needed housing for low income families. We join with Warden Patterson in the call for future funding to be provided to the areas of highest need – and we certainly list Simcoe County as a high need area.”

Sheila Storey, Executive Director of Shelter Now in Midland echoes that need. “We opened the doors to our 20 unit transitional housing complex in July. We are now full to capacity and all of our programs are working well as we hoped but the hardest part is still to find affordable housing for our clients to move into once they leave the program”.