Wellington County gets the early bird worm with the first meeting of 2025 (at least from a Guelph point of interest). After skipping December, the Joint Social Services and Land Ambulance Committee gets together to calibrate for a new year with a look at the 2025 budget, changes to funding for childcare, and the latest updates about housing and social services. So let’s dig into the agenda of the first meeting of this new year!
NOTE: This meeting takes place at 1 pm in the Guthrie Room at the Wellington County Administration Building on Woolwich Street.
65 Delhi St. Transitional Housing Construction Project: Status Report #10 – It did quite get finished before the end of the year, but the latest update about this transitional housing project on Delhi Street says that it will be done by month’s end with some painting and millwork and other finishing touches left to be done.
2025 Budget: Social Services – The Social Services budget for 2025 represents an overall 0.3 per cent increase for the County and a 7.3 per cent increase for the City. Driving that is a 15.4 per cent increase in Social Housing costs for Guelph including $2.1 million to support the operation of Norfolk House, a new position for overnight maintenance at the Delhi and Norfolk facilities, $379,000 for the winter response plan, and $50.8 million for capital costs over the next 10 years.
2025 Budget: Land Ambulance – This is more or less one balance sheet since the Country transfers funds to the City of Guelph to administer Paramedic Services, or what the County calls Land Ambulance, on their behalf. Guelph approved the paramedic budget with the rest of the 2025 budget back in November.
Land Ambulance Third Quarter Budget Monitoring Report – Guelph Wellington Paramedic Services has a $2.5 million operating deficit for 2024, mostly due to compensation, but also, more slightly, because of purchased goods and repayments. The $2.1 million overrun in compensation is because of increased temp staff and overtime to cover sick time and other types of leave. On the capital side, the budget for 2025 and 2026 was increased by $1.7 million so that the service can order new vehicles early due to the lag time to receive the finished vehicles.
2024-25 Winter Response Update – According to this report, which covers till the end of November, 52 people were moved to temporary accommodation, and 46 per cent of emergency shelter beds were vacant each night. Although there was a delay in purchasing, all tangible and basic needs were delivered through various community partners.
Correspondence from The Honourable Paul Calandra, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing – The letter from Calandra outlines additional funds from the provincial government to deal with homeless encampments, but the available money is tied to each municipality to sign a pledge saying that they will work towards “ending encampments in your region.” What that means for the County is outlined in the next report…
Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing Encampment Funding Initiative – With the clear intent of the Calandra letter saying that the available funds were not meant for service delivery, the County looked at programs with the City of Guelph and community partners that could be applicable to the goal of ending encampments. It was decided that they would focus on further developing the temporary accommodation at Norfolk Manor and encampment site restorations.
2025 Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care System and Directed Growth Update – The final funding guidelines were released at the end of November, which replaces the current revenue replacement model under the national plan to get to $10 per day childcare. The Ontario government has also set a growth target of 1,721 licensed childcare spaces for Guelph and Wellington by December 2026. Presently, there are 952 and there’s a plan to add another 448 in 2025 to get us to 1,400, and that includes nearly 200 new spaces spread between two new centres in Wellington North and Guelph respectively.
Guelph Politico 