Our most vulnerable need a made-in-Peterborough solution
People are paying attention to the housing and addiction crises and the pandemic
For the first time in a long while I see the stars aligning to guide Peterborough to the promised land where our triple crises of COVID-19 impacts, drugs and lack of housing are addressed and hopefully solved for the long term.
Kudos to the supervised consumption and treatment site and Four-CAST for introducing a community liaison committee including families and people with lived experience as well as the agency people. Congrats also to the DBIA for its highlighting the “downtown issues” and getting a “system navigator” specifically to address the harm done to the downtown at the same time as truly helping those experiencing homelessness.
Candidates for the October election are also declaring themselves dedicated to addressing the housing crisis, the drug crisis; and MP Michelle Ferreri hosted a roundtable on drug addiction designed to bring people together for conversations and “from there you’ll have calls to action,” she said.
Then we have a generous offer from David McGee of 3.6 hectares (nine acres) of land to the city “to help stem the growing tide of people experiencing homelessness.” He proposes a centre with heath services, educational facilities and housing. McGee says he’s “open to a tiny homes or sleeping cabins community offering people their own space and opportunity to learn new skills … part of a transitional model.” As Ferreri says, “for a private business owner to offer up land like that, that’s significant.”
Last fall, PATH (Peterborough Action for Tiny Homes) had a demo model sleeping cabin borrowed from Kingston on display to show this citizens’ group is proposing one solution to the homelessness crisis. PATH has always said a tiny homes community is just one tool in the tool box, an expression housing portfolio Coun. Keith Riel uses.
Federal funds for “Housing First” initiatives do a fine job of providing supportive housing for those on waiting lists, etc. but models based on those funds have so far been unable to adequately address chronic homelessness and the misery endured by the most marginalized in our society.
There are people sleeping in doorways, sleeping rough, people who do not access the shelters which are inadequate anyway.
McGee is right when he says “if people have nowhere to go, how can they be expected to become contributing members of society? They need support, they need all the different health-care facilities in one spot.”
Other cities have seen the potential in tiny homes communities, using volunteers and staff. See A Better Tent City in Kitchener, HATS of Hamilton or Twelve Neighbours of Fredericton.
PATH’s mission is to “provide homes to individuals experiencing chronic homelessness. Residents have the opportunity in this intentional and relational model to share their gifts, supported by those in the wider community, working together to welcome, nurture, heal and serve.”
Sleeping cabins are envisaged as Phase 1 of the project. The main point is to give people the dignity of their own private secure shelter, within a community — not isolated — with social services supports and time to deal with their issues.
I think there is abundant goodwill in Peterborough to give a hand-up to our most impoverished individuals. Are the stars aligning for a made-in-Peterborough solution? Let us believe it.