BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter, from Champagne Thomson on behalf of the Gilbert Centre, is in response to 'Complex problem': Council takes aim at chronic homelessness,' published May 17, and 'Council paints stark picture around need for homelessness plan,' published May 18.
On May 17, 2023, Barrie city council passed a motion without notice that directly impacts our ability to provide quality harm-reduction services within our vibrant community.
We believe that the motion without notice, both in how it was tabled and worded, will negatively impact those who we serve and will reduce the humility and dignity provided to individuals who are experiencing homelessness and systemic oppression within our community.
We find it regrettable that the Gilbert Centre, various invaluable community partners, and those with lived experience were unable to engage in deputations, raise concerns, or provide consult surrounding the motion without notice by deeming the motion an ‘emergency,’ which bypassed these integral processes.
All municipal responses that directly impact systemically marginalized communities should meaningfully seek and incorporate the perspectives of those with lived experience and subject matter experts. The direction of the current motion without notice will result in problematizing people’s existence in public spaces, create gatekeeping systems, and adjusting policies to align with colonial ideals of displacement and space ownership.
This motion without notice directly impacts the life-saving work of harm-reduction and outreach workers throughout the city of Barrie, including that of the Gilbert Centre.
Our centre receives funds from both provincial and federal governments to provide invaluable and client-centred harm-reduction services designed to address the opioid epidemic. Should the motion without notice proceed, community organizations who already have a rapport with the street-involved population will be limited in their ability to continue the work they have been funded to undertake.
As an organization that empowers systemically marginalized community members, we are calling those in positions of power to aid us in uplifting the city of Barrie and all its citizens, housed and unhoused.
Please remember our civic duty to use our voice, which you can do by contacting your local ward councillor and mayor to provide your perspective on this and all municipal motions.
Champagne Thomson
Gilbert Centre, senior manager, community outreach and fundraising
