How a single mom's woes helped bring a $1.5M change to homelessness funding
Samantha Craggs | CBC News | Posted: December 13, 2016 12:52 PM | Last Updated: December 13, 2016
As Natasha Findlay-Clairmont spoke, councillors sat in stunned silence
She's been hit by a van. She's survived two winters warming her apartment with space heaters.
Sooner or later, the chickens had to come home to roost. And now that's happened. - Joe-Anne Priel, general manager of community and emergency services
Surrounding apartments are infested with bed bugs, so she's always caulking and sealing, caulking and sealing. She's a full-time student and a single mom of two. She does it, she says, on $750 a month in OSAP.
But Natasha Findlay-Clairmont only had one request for Hamilton city councillors Monday — put more money toward a benefit to stop people like her from becoming homeless. As she spoke, they listened in stunned silence.
Findlay-Clairmont was one of a chorus of voices urging city council to top up the housing stability benefit — an emergency fund that covers unpaid hydro bills and other costs for about 7,000 people a year in danger of homelessness.
With electricity bills skyrocketing, the fund is $1.5 million short this fiscal year, said Joe-Anne Priel, general manager of community and emergency services. Rent arrears and beds for people with disabilities also contribute to the pressure.
Where do we go? What do we qualify for? - Natasha Findlay-Clairmont
Without a top up, Priel's staff was looking at trimming the program, which would have stopped about 600 people from accessing it. It also would have cut some of its other uses, including adult beds and bed bug remediation.
The problem dates about about four years, when the province rejigged homelessness prevention funding, Since then, Priel said, the city has juggled to cover necessary services. Combine that with increasing hydro rates, she said, and there's "a perfect storm."
"Sooner or later, the chickens had to come home to roost," she said. "And now that's happened."
The emergency and community services committee, at the urging of Coun. Sam Merulla, found a temporary measure Monday.
As they're eating caviar and champagne, we're sitting here eating tuna sandwiches and chocolate milk. - Sam Merulla, Ward 4 councillor
When Horizon Utilities merges with other local utilities to form a new company — temporarily called MergeCo — the city gets closing dividends. The amount is unknown, but they could be between $3 million and $9 million.
Priel said $1.5 million of that money will take the city to the end of March. Next year, if the $5.7-million fund is exhausted, the city will have the same problem again.
The issue, councillors said, rests with the province.
"As they're eating caviar and champagne," Merulla said, "we're sitting here eating tuna sandwiches and chocolate milk."
The fund isn't the only one running out of time. Findlay-Clairmont got a sudden eviction notice in September — through no fault of her own. She's fighting it at the Landlord and Tenant Board, but expects she has to be out by the end of the year. She told the story in a Hamilton Community Legal Clinic rally before the committee meeting.
She has only a tacit verbal agreement for a new place, she said, and trouble with first and last months rent and moving expenses.
Her building has numerous problems, she said, including outdated electrical work. That's why she doesn't have baseboard heating. Her main hope now is for a new place, and a good job once she finishes her child and youth worker program at Mohawk College.
"Where do we go?" she said. "What do we qualify for?"