Motion to wind down region's Erbs Road hybrid shelter 'too premature,' councillors say
Wilmot Mayor Natasha Salonen says regional staff need to develop a plan to wind down the Erbs Road hybrid shelter, but some regional councillors disagreed, saying it's too early to discuss it.
Salonen presented a notice of motion during a community and health services committee at a meeting Tuesday requesting regional staff to look at next steps.
The shelter opened last spring and is made up of 50 small cabins and a shared living space. The shelter was given two years to operate, but there is no current plan in place on what next steps will be once the deadline comes.
Salonen's motion asked staff to work with service providers to have a plan to relocate encampment residents to a new location no later than April 2025 and for staff to come back to council with potential sites by May 2024.
"I just want to make sure we have a plan in place so come the two-year mark, the individuals who will presumably be using the resources and the site at that time aren't left in the lurch and that we have a place for them to go," Salonen told CBC Kitchener-Waterloo's The Morning Edition ahead of the meeting.
She added the shelter was not hooked up to the waterwaste system in the area and so has limited capacity. She said one option staff could have come back with was to look at upgrading the pump station that serves the paramedic services building at the site and include the shelter in that system.
She told councillors Wilmot's building department plans to give notice at the end of the two years that the shelter will not be allowed on site since there is a timeline on how long they can use the current temporary waste solution under the building code.
'A little bit premature'
Several regional councillors during Tuesday's meeting, however, said they wouldn't support Salonen's motion because it's too early to consider next steps.
"We're eight months into this site and I do believe that we need to have a plan in place for what potentially the steps would be and I also feel that it may be a little bit premature of an ask right now given we aren't even a year in," Coun. Colleen James said.
"I would like to hear more as it progresses as to what's happening with the residents there."
Coun. Pam Wolf said it would also be putting pressure on residents who have made the encampment their home.
"By moving this motion, we're 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 and I think that will be the natural way of ending this pilot project."
Salonen's motions was defeated.
Peter Sweeney, the region's commissioner of community services, said some information on the Erb's Road encampment will be part of a report coming to council before the end of April. That report will look at how to end chronic homelessness in the region.
He added a fuller report on the encampment will be coming to council at a later date.
"The goal right now is to continue to run that program with our partners at the Working Centre, learn what we can and at some point come back and give council a full debrief and evaluation on what we learned and recommendations about the potential use of this type of program offering across Waterloo region," he said.