With council wrapping up for the summer it shouldn’t be surprising that we’ve come back around to one of the biggest ongoing challenges: Creating more housing. More specifically, in this case, we’re looking at the creation of a tiny home encampment somewhere in the city. Long in the works, council was presented with the opportunity to give a greenlight to the project. So what happened? Let’s recap.
Special Meeting of City Council – July 16
Although this meeting was designed to reach a decision about supporting the structured encampment project developed by the Guelph Tiny Homes Coalition, there was an additional last-minute piece of business concerning a summer tradition at a Guelph institution.
Since the days of the pandemic, the Italian Canadian Club has hosted a dine-in tent during the summer, but this year there’s new rules for outdoor patios and the ICC didn’t apply in time to get a variance from the City through the Committee of Adjustment. Mayor Cam Guthrie said that the ICC is a known quantity so it shouldn’t be too big of a deal for council to pass a resolution to allow their tent this summer so long as the ICC gets their minor variance application in to City staff by August 13. The mayor compared it to the time council suspended driveway width enforcement.
Council approved the three recommendations and then launched into the main event.
To recap: There was a directive from Mayor Guthrie to develop a plan to make a Guelph version of a structured encampment like A Better Tent City in Kitchener. At the same time, an independent group called the Guelph Tiny Home Coalition had a similar thought, and their project has been able to advance far enough that they’re now leading the local effort.
The matter was discussed at council in May, and then referred to the Joint Social Services and Land Ambulance Committee meeting in June. At that meeting, Wellington County staff were asked to prepare a report with their input on the project and while they recognized the its potential, it was noted that the current proposal falls short of their expectations though they are willing to offer resources and information to further it along
The meeting picked up from there with no formal presentation from City of Guelph staff, and instead the first of nine delegations was heard.
Mike Marcolongo, one of the organizers of the Coalition, explained how they have a plan, they have a prototype, they have an agreement in principle with Royal City Mission for the provision of services, they have commitments for in-kind donations, and they’ve got over 75 volunteers organized. The one thing they lack is a place to put the encampment, and not just a temporary site as they continue to search for a place that checks all the boxes. They don’t want to move again once they’re settled.
Marcolongo said that he was asking council for an endorsement that this is a viable solution to help address homelessness. More specifically, council needed to send that signal to the County.
There was a lot of back-and-forth between council and Marcolongo that echoed the discussion at committee last month: What kind of financial and in-kind help was the project going to need? Is the intention of this project to be a temporary housing solution of a permanent one? How many people in Guelph are living rough, or living in encampments? Answers to questions about the financial commitment largely depends on where the encampment is set up.
Some of the other delegates present at council had also delegated to committee and made some of the same points about how this project is ideally suited to address the need. So many people fall through the cracks because they don’t conform to the system as it’s currently set up or may need extra support as they make the transition from being unhoused to housed. Stonehenge executive director Kristen Kerr noted one client who they helped set up a tent in his new living room as he made the transition to permanent housing.
Jeff Wilmer from A Better Tent City explained that there were a lot of the same concerns about his project when it was announced four years ago, and its success led Waterloo Region itself to establish a similar site on Erb Street two years later. He also advocated for council to find a property with flexible zoning so that they weren’t wasting time with administrative paperwork instead of proceeding with the project quickly.
It took about two hours to get through all the delegations. Council then took a half-hour dinner break before beginning an hour-long closed session to discuss potential municipally owned sites, but nothing came out of that. Guthrie said that council just received information.
There was a different slate of recommendations from what was posted on the agenda, five in all.
The recommendations endorsed the tiny homes project, directed staff to send a copy of the report to the Joint Social Services and Land Ambulance Committee, and requested a funding allocation of federal government funds promised earlier this year in the budget. There was also a request to the committee that they refer all costs required to temporarily house people on the by-name list not accommodated through the traditional shelter system this winter to a September council meeting, while City staff continue to look for a place for tiny homes as part of the land inventory coming back to council in Q1 2025.
There was some wordsmithing on the motion, but there weren’t too many questions from council. A report about the increasing cost of homelessness will be coming to a September meeting, which is the same month that area agencies will be working on the Point in Time count. That should give the local government more insight into just how many people in the region are living rough.
The five motions were approved unanimously, and so was an additional motion to ask the Housing and Health Community Planning Table to look at prioritizing health and housing support for people living in encampments.
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
Guelph Politico 