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City council softened its stand, a little, on Cornerstone to Recovery paying development charges (DCs) on its new Barrie facility.
A motion to deny the community treatment centre for women’s request for a $158,000 refund was sent back to general committee Monday night, to be discussed at a later date.
“The understanding was that there wasn’t going to be (development) charges through Cornerstone for providing a free service,” said Coun. Natalie Harris. “It’s addressing an emergency we have had… with respect to addiction and a mental health crisis in our city.
“It’s the first women’s treatment centre in the County of Simcoe,” she added. “This is something that’s unprecedented. This is an exceptional situation.”
“This organization is trying to fill a gap for service that is needed, but is not being provided by provincial service or federal services,” Coun. Sergio Morales said.
Being built at 236 Dunlop St. W., Cornerstone to Recovery’s 1,800-square-foot building is being expanded by 3,500 sq. ft. and will house as many as 12 women at a time, providing them with their own bedroom and washroom. Site work is already underway and it’s targeted to open in late August.
But Blaine Hobson, Cornerstone’s executive director and co-founder, said the not-for-profit group’s budget doesn’t include development charges, which are designed to recover the capital costs associated with residential and non-residential (commercial, industrial, institutional) growth within a municipality from developers, so that existing residents don’t have to foot the bill.
“We stretch a dollar a very, very long way,” he said. “Our mission is to reach out and save lives. We are not a for-profit. We don’t take cash as a consideration into the treatment.”
Barrie city council has endorsed Cornerstone and given it an interest-free, $400,000 loan to renovate a building for the centre’s operations. The city also entered into a sole-source, two-year agreement, with an option to renew for an additional two years, with Cornerstone to place clothing bins at city facilities, or at mutually agreed-upon locations on public land, for the sole purpose of funding its residential addiction recovery services. The textiles program would save the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in tipping fees and landfill space, while reducing Barrie’s carbon footprint.
“We anticipate that by this time next year we will be diverting about two million pounds (of textiles) from your landfill,” Hobson said.
But Coun. Robert Thomson said Cornerstone is getting preferential treatment on textiles and shouldn’t on DCs.
“We give them the sole-source revenue, which we don’t do to any other charity,” he said. “This is such a revenue generator for this which offsets the cost… to people who are going to need this service.”
Thomson asked about the shortfall in city development charges reserves.
“As of the end of the year, in 2021… we do have a small positive balance in there of $20 million,” said city treasurer Craig Millar. “But we do have a substantial amount of commitments on DC reserves. So it’s positive today but potentially will be back to negative next year.
“We’re on a slippery slope. It’s anticipated we’ll probably go back to negative next year but hopefully that will rectify itself over time," the treasurer added.
Coun. Clare Riepma hadn’t changed his mind on Cornerstone’s DC rebate, either.
“We need to, as a city, need to be consistent,” he said. “So that when we give out money or we give out DC credits, that it’s even-handed. We also have to remember that we have taxpayers who end up picking up the tab here if we give money out.
“I don’t think anyone can say we’ve treated them (Cornerstone) unfairly," Riepma added.
Hobson emphasized that very point Monday night, that the city has been fair with Cornerstone — except on DCs.
When Cornerstone committed to coming to Barrie, Hobson said, it was not to just build a women’s treatment facility. It was also a commitment to build an entire Cornerstone community, he said, which includes a men’s treatment facility and a community centre.
Paying the $158,000 will substantially delay the opening of the next phase, the community centre, Hobson added.
Hobson said that when Cornerstone’s original Tiffin Street property plans fell through, it had to either build something new or do an addition to an existing building, which is the case at 236 Dunlop St. W. But that left Cornerstone subject to DCs, which were not in the budget, he said, noting that the city did apply a reduction because Cornerstone is a not-for-profit organization. This reduced its DCs from about $300,000, counting education DCs, to about $200,000. The city's share is $158,263.
He has said other grants are possible, however Cornerstone already planned to access all of them to fund the capital requirements and operating startup costs of the community centre and a men’s facility.
Cornerstone to Recovery is an addiction recovery support agency and its mission is to support those impacted by addiction to achieve emotional, physical and spiritual wellness.
Cornerstone is a not-for-profit organization that has been offering a program which focuses on community based treatment since 2004. Residents — men only until now — are provided with a 90-day stay that includes family counselling and re-employment training.
The program is heavily subsidized, by Cornerstone, to allow access to those who need it and residents have free lifetime community aftercare available to them. Officials say there is a critical shortage of treatment centres for women in Ontario, as only a third of the available beds in this province are designated for women.
