Wellington County’s Social Services Committee are meeting again, and they’re meeting again in the Guthrie Room of the Administrative Centre. Good thing because there’s a packed agenda that includes the Paramedic Service, childcare, and yes, housing too. Money matters, quarterly metrics, and future programming in many of the areas is also on the docket so let’s dig into the agenda and see what’s coming up.
NOTE: This meeting takes place at 1 pm in Guthrie Room at the Wellington County Administration Centre on Woolwich Street.
Paramedic Service Response Performance 2022 and Performance Plan 2024 – Guelph Wellington Paramedic Services Chief and GM Stephen Dewar will present to the social services committee the same report he gave to Guelph city council back in July.
To recap: In 2021, GWPS was only able to exceed the compliance rate in only one of six categories (though they did come close in two others). The service is working with Guelph General Hospital to find ways to address the offload delays, but with the expectation that 2022’s pressures will continue into 2023 no changes are recommended to the performance plan for 2023.
Social Services Financial Statements as of August 31, 2023 – There’s no formal report for this item, just the balance sheets, and everything seems to be chugging along as scheduled. (Check it out for yourself here.)
Wellington Directed Growth and the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care System – Back in June, the Ministry of Education released its Access and Inclusion Framework document to help guide the growth of affordable child care spaces in the region, including how to direct that growth to help support underserved and vulnerable populations. You can see the full plan, which covers 2023 to 2026, here, but the goal is to achieve an access rate across the county of 37 per cent in the next few years. Presently, Erin is the only area that gets close with just under 35 per cent; Guelph is at 28.8 per cent, and Wellington-wide it’s 22.6 per cent.
2023 Canada-Ontario Community Housing Initiative and Ontario Priorities Housing Initiative Funding – The Government of Ontario has allocated $1,633,500 in funding from the 2023 Ontario Priorities Housing Initiative (OPHI) and $1,186,200 from the Canada-Ontario Community Housing Initiative (COCHI). The OPHI money will be allocated to various renovation projects at Wellington County properties, while the funds provided by the COCHI will be issued after the completion of an RFP, or a request for proposals.
Increase in Emergency Shelter Spaces – County staff are looking for $150,000 in emergency funding – approximately $15,000 from Wellington and $135,000 from Guelph – in order to reactivate emergency shelter beds at Stepping Stone facilities in Guelph. The need has gone up for emergency shelter beds and the numbers from just January to June of this year saw those numbers jump to 105 unique individuals from 79 in all of 2022. There’s also a greater need for shelter space for families, and that’s what the facility on Waterloo Avenue will be dedicated to.
Housing Services Status and Activity Report Q1 and Q2 2023 – As noted above, there’s been a big increase in the number of people looking for shelter beds in the first part of the year, at the same time though, the County has been seeing the number of people leaving the By-Name List outpacing the people being added to it, and at the end of June there were 83 people on the BNL. There have also been an increased number of housing placements in the first part of the year, but that has to do with some catch-up after the pandemic years.
2024/25 Preliminary Budget Impacts Housing Services – As you may know, Wellington County is the Consolidated Municipal Service Manager for social services in Guelph; we pay them to administer things like Housing Services. To tackle issues of homelessness and affordable housing, the County developed a 10-year plan and that helps lay out some of the upcoming expenditures.
For example, the County is looking to increase the Housing Stability Programme by $500,000 in 2024 due to the increased demand for assisting eligible households with utility and rent arrears and one-time rental fees/moving costs. Another $2.1 million is planning for emergency shelter services including an increase in the number of available beds and accompanying staffing, plus another $314,000 for transitional housing and $776,000 for supportive housing.
Guelph Politico 