Candidates For Mayor on Homelessness
“Are we really doing everything we can?”Andrii Zvorygin
Thanks for sending this. Your Do X → receive Y idea helped me make the progression begin at the first warning of housing loss.
I have updated the platform so that each voluntary step opens a concrete option. Someone concerned about losing their home can call 211, receive prevention help, consent to coordinated information sharing where applicable, have their income and housing needs assessed, and enter the appropriate housing pathway. A household able to sustain approximately $750 per month could join the Affordable Rural Communities founding co-operative process and potentially preserve stable housing before shelter or crisis becomes necessary.
I also added a proposed implementation pathway for an initial ARC project: organize interested households, form a non-profit co-operative, seek recoverable County financing, begin property and dwelling work in spring 2027, and target winter-ready occupancy by autumn 2027. Monthly co-operative fees would repay the financing, while lower housing costs could help residents save toward owning or upgrading their homes.
Contingency Management now appears as one specific tool that shelter, supportive-housing and recovery providers could use within that wider action-to-outcome system.
https://helpos.ca/mayor/housing-homelessness-recovery
https://helpos.ca/mayor/affordable-rural-communities
I appreciate you bringing this forward. It made the overall pathway much clearer and more practical.
Richard Thomas
The Downtown River District should be a place where businesses can succeed, residents can feel secure, visitors want to return, and vulnerable people can get meaningful help. Those goals are not contradictory.Owen Sound already has substantial resources devoted to homelessness, mental health and addiction. The challenge is to make those services work together, create genuine exits from street homelessness and addiction, and manage the impact of disorder on the surrounding Downtown River District.
In Vancouver, housing first met with reasonable success in keeping chronically homeless people in stable housing for longer periods. However, it had little impact on addictions. The experiment was also hampered by a chronic affordable/low-cost housing, similar to what we face here. In our area, housing is a social service provided by Grey County, not the City of Owen Sound. While the county has done an excellent job with housing and community outreach in problem areas, I think it’s time for more advocacy on behalf of the city with the county, provincial and federal governments. Both of the solutions you have suggested are long term, and require participation from multiple levels of government. I believe the downtown River District needs immediate attention. Our community has responded to the ongoing crisis of addiction and homelessness with compassion for those affected. But compassion cannot come at the expense of the safety, livelihoods and quality of life of residents and businesses in the Downtown River District. There has to be balance.
As Mayor, I will seek a council mandate to bring together the agencies and organizations addressing homelessness, addiction and social services to ensure they take greater accountability for the broader impact of their programs. Providing a service cannot be the end of that responsibility. Where a program contributes to significant litter, disorder or other identifiable costs in the surrounding neighbourhood, I believe the organization should participate in solving the problem rather than leaving taxpayers and nearby businesses to bear the entire burden.
I will also propose a municipal licensing and regulatory framework for emergency shelters and organizations operating facilities that provide services to people experiencing homelessness and addiction. Operators will be required to meet clear standards for health, safety, staffing, security and neighbourhood management and to renew their licence annually. Standards could include appropriate staff-to-client ratios, security requirements, property maintenance and procedures for responding to problems occurring around their facilities. I believe we should find a way to help fund Safe ‘n Sounds Neighbourhood Response Team, which reported providing 2000 direct supports to individuals on the streets during a pilot that ran from November 1, 2025 until the end of March 2026
As Mayor, my objective is not to abandon compassion. It is to restore balance.
I will use the lawful tools available to the city, work with service providers, Police, Grey County and community organizations, and insist on measurable results in restoring safety and confidence in the Downtown River District.
(How will you pay for it?) It will be a combination of all of the above suggestions, though I do believe we can find a way within the existing city financial structure.
(What specific actions did you take?) In 2015, I convinced council to adopt a development charge holiday to increase housing supply within the city; in the following three years housing starts more than doubled. Council also continued to work with Owen Sound Municipal non-profit housing; carried forward development charge exemptions for non-profit housing; brought forward official plan policies permitting a range of housing densities, and passed zoning to allow for additional rental units on residential properties.
In 2020, council adopted the Community Safety and Well-Being Plan, and the same year created a hotspot neighbourhood initiative combining targeted police activity and overnight by-law enforcement to deal with a party house that was disrupting an entire residential neighbourhood.
In 2021, the city participated in the Hanover-Owen Sound Task Force, which looked at housing, poverty, mental health and addictions in the two biggest communities in Grey County.
In 2022 council endorsed Grey County’s Housing Action Plan, and supported the Association of Municipalities of Ontario’s “An Integrated Approach to Mental Health and Addictions” submission to the province.
Carol Merton
My responses relating to Contingency Management and Housing First approaches are based on information provided by the content experts, the on the ground service providers and social service support agencies and those providing wellness and recovery treatment programming. I receive regular updates from the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness newsletter and have been a planning team member and attended recent conferences addressing the affordability crisis impacting the unhoused and those with addictions and mental illness. I have spoken directly with those with lived experiences in my community volunteer role as a host, co-producer and co-creator of a TV series We All Belong: Stories of Lived Experiences.
Currently, wellness and recovery care planning for individuals locally involves a variety of approaches including contingency management, housing first with wrap around and mental health services, rapid access addiction management. These approaches are modified during the course of the recovery journey based on the nature of the substances used and consideration of the unique factors relating to past trauma history, social, psychological, biological factors and include consideration of the social determinants of health.
As a Councillor I have introduced motions to have a local Owen Sound Housing Municipal Plan, approved motions relating to the introduction of a new Vital Serves By-Law to protect renters, and represented the City on the Grey Bruce Poverty Task Force.
I have been a Board Member of the Owen Sound Municipal Non Profit Housing Corporation and Owen Sound Housing Company resulting in the construction of a 60 unit affordable, rent geared to income and near market 60 unit apartment building. I supported the motion for Council to purchase and redirect lands to the Owen Sound Municipal Non Profit Corporation for additional opportunity to build housing.
I participated on the Institute of Southern Georgian Bay Housing and Social Finance Working Group that produced a Social Finance Primer for Communities explaining how private and municipal capital can be mobilized to fund affordable housing and regional sustainability, with reports, presentations and suggestions brought back to Council from those groups.
I have presented the concept of a whole community approach to the issue of homelessness and addictions, sat on the planning committees and attended Healthy Communities Partnership Conferences and Small Communities Solutions Conference with keynote speakers addressing the issues of unhoused, addictions and mental illness and strategies used in other locations.
I have participated on a working group regarding Community Wealth strategies and Social Finance tools and participated in discussions regarding lending, spending and investing locally
https://tisgb.com/social-finance-and-housing/affordable-housing-toolkit/social-finance-primer-for-communities/ and a Community Development Corporation for Local Housing currently in early stages of formation under the umbrella of the Community Foundation Grey Bruce. https://www.communityfoundationgreybruce.com/impact/cdc/
The most immediate action point is for increased municipal participation measured by regular attendance at the various community and service agency action tables addressing these issues. We have tools and strategies we can add to the other initiatives including forgiveness of building permit fees for non profit developers, building deeply affordable housing and development fee waivers for the allocation of portions of building projects identified as affordable.
We can review our Community Improvement Plan to consider realigning the current financial allocations and or expanding the categories to fund a portion of local affording housing initiatives.
We can strengthen the link between economic development, tourism and culture to the vibrancy or our downtown area to consider enhancing the use of the MAT fund.
We can request that the encampment protocol scheduled to be reviewed by By-Law in 2028 be prioritized and reviewed earlier. We know from recent reports from the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario, Grey and Bruce Counties that there will be a significant rise in the number of visible homeless and an increase in the By Names list.
We are advised by those with content knowledge and experience that chronic homelessness is solvable. This requires moving beyond our silos so all levels of government, the community and those with financial and program delivery expertise work together. We need to look at our current land availability, Asset Management Plan and Facilities Assessment information to determine if these assets can be repurposed and transferred to a non- profit corporation for development of deeply affordable housing that stays affordable in perpetuity.
Homelessness is a poverty issue. We can advocate up stream at the provincial and federal levels for a living wage and raising the rates of Ontario Works, Ontario Disability Support and operational funding, not just capital funding to ensure new supportive housing can be staffed and maintained. We can support Canadian Mental Health Association and other agencies in prevention initiatives to keep those precariously housed in place with a roof over their heads. We can support the upper tier Grey County funding requirements and requests for additional shelter beds, transitional housing and expanded hours for drop in centres year round. We can support initiatives and advocacy efforts of the Grey Bruce Poverty Task Force https://povertytaskforce.com/
Doing nothing is not an option. In addition to the efforts of other government levels addressing this crisis is also our responsibility. Our streets, our community, our people.