The County of Simcoe has no current plans to look after Barrie’s homeless outside its shelter system.
During Monday night’s talks on the county’s 2022 budget, Coun. Natalie Harris asked Greg Bishop, the county’s general manner of social and community services, if there is anything on the horizon.
“I’m more so looking for something that doesn’t connect to the actual shelter services, because the fact is not everyone uses those for one reason or another,” Harris said.
“No, our work to date has been really maximizing the capacity within the existing system,” Bishop said.
The County of Simcoe is responsible for social housing-related services within Barrie, including funding. The city does not directly fund the Busby Centre, Salvation Army, Elizabeth Fry Society, or Youth Haven.
For the past few weeks, as temperatures have fallen, Harris has expressed concerns about sheltering the homeless in winter, as well as there being no warming centre at Barrie’s bus terminal anymore.
“I’m just wondering what kind of discussions have been happening, or have they been happening, around adding warming centres that are outside of the shelter system that would be able to cover individuals who for one reason or another, either choose not to go to a shelter or can’t," she said.
County staff meet regularly with shelter officials, Bishop said, largely to support the motel model of shelter, which accommodates increased numbers of homeless people and maintains public health safety measures due to the pandemic. He also said, more recently, discussions have led to a couple of warming drop-in and respite opportunities for those who are not sheltered.
“Busby Centre is working out of a motel, but their home location (88 Mulcaster St.) will be utilized for respite, washrooms, a shower facility, as well as drop-in warming for individuals who may not want to access shelter,” Bishop said. “We also have funding related to outreach services and really, ideally, our focus that we support the operators is then to connect individuals who are unsheltered to services and sheltering.”
But Harris continued to ask about other options.
“I mean outside of the shelter system,” she said. “So there are individuals that maybe aren’t even looking or ready for whatever reasons, shape or form to approach using those social services and they just need to get out of the cold.
“That’s it, they just don’t want to sleep on the streets in below-zero temperatures, so I’m more so looking for opportunities to get, in a very rapid timeframe, somewhere that these individuals can go,” Harris added. “I just feel that we do need to have some more serious discussions about the funding that does come to Barrie with respect to the number of homeless that we do have.”
She suggested further discussions with Bishop, who then clarified the county’s position.
“When I mentioned other opportunities, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they (the homeless population) would be required to access the shelter, but more offering a number of services, meeting the person where they are at in terms of their readiness for supports and in this way, if I could add, the service providers have a number of staff with expertise that could help promote and you know connect them to services. That’s the intent,” he said.
“There is a number of local, community-based initiatives and partnerships that help when capacity is stretched and that is per the discussions as well, to bring in perhaps other staffing or other partnerships,” Bishop added. “One thing we noted through the pandemic in the motel model, CMHA (Canadian Mental Health Association) was able to come to the table to provide supports for those residing in the motel, as well as paramedics for wellness checks and so similar partnerships are often really a best practice.”
Harris again emphasized the struggles homeless people face everyday, and in Barrie as well.
“Sometimes that means that they’re not even ready to approach somewhere that offers services,” she said. “That sometimes there’s a lot of reasons, there’s not just one — there’s many reasons and really it literally means just staying warm.”
Harris mentioned how the Town of Innisfil uses its public library branches, located on Innisfil Beach Road and Church Street, as warming centres.
The Simcoe County Alliance to End Homelessness enumeration of November 2020 showed 563 people, 82 per cent of them single, were experiencing homelessness — 49 per cent, or 276 people, in Barrie.
