Surprise! It’s a surprise meeting, and that means a surprise meeting recap! Following up the first big political controversy of 2026, a special city council meeting was called to figure out what was to be done about the sudden cancellation of the daytime shelter plan out of Royal City Mission and Stepping Stone. The details were mostly in-camera, but you will learn all about what came out of it in this recap of the meeting… Continue reading “The Week at Council: Two Hours In Camera”
Let us wrap up a very busy, and a very difficult 2025 in the council chambers. You can click here for the amended agenda from City Hall, and you can click here for the Politico preview. For the complete blow-by-blow of today’s council meeting, you can follow along with the thread below from BlueSky, or you can watch the whole meeting for yourself by watching it on the City’s website here. Continue reading “RECAP: City Council Meeting for January 13, 2026”
It seems as though the City of Guelph is feeling the heat following the sudden announcement on Thursday that a long-awaited daytime shelter program for the unhoused and precariously housed would not open as scheduled on Monday. A demonstration downtown on Saturday seems to have pushed Guelph’s mayor to pencil in a special council meeting this coming week while the City of Guelph is explaining itself in a surprise Sunday post. Continue reading “City Moves to Quell Concerns About Daytime Shelter Debacle”
On Monday, a new daytime shelter service was supposed to begin out of the Royal City Mission, and while it was not going to offer the 12 hours of service per day that was originally intended last fall, it was, if nothing else, a start. But on Thursday there was a sudden turn in this story, separate announcements from both Stepping Stone and Royal City Mission that their collaboration on a new daytime shelter will not be going forward. Continue reading “Daytime Shelter Plans Fall Apart Four Days Before Opening”
For years now, we’ve seen the pressures of housing and affordability explode into a crisis, and the answers to that crisis never seem to make themselves known. Maybe things are changing. In November, the City of Guelph and Wyndham House announced that by this time next year, they will have effectively ended youth homelessness in Guelph. What makes them so confident? Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #499 – Finally, a Good News Story in the Housing Crisis (feat. Kristen Cairney)”
It’s been almost a year since Guelph City Council approved the Public Space Use Bylaw. You may not see as many tents as you once did, especially in the open in places like St. George’s Square, but don’t think that they’re gone. There are still many people in Guelph who are unhoused, unwell, and are still searching for help that’s hard to come by, and this week will talk to one of the helpers. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #480 – The Encampments You’re Not Seeing (feat. Danny Liu)”
Getting back to work after a week off for the Victoria Day holiday, council dived into some controversy. Promised since the beginning of the month, council dug into the question of where to put a daytime, or perhaps where not to put it. There was also some additional discussion about the renewed Code of Conduct and the Community Climate Action Plan, but for all the details check out this recap! Continue reading “This Week at Council: Shelter Debate, Climate Action, and Code of Conduct Amendments”
Let’s dig into the last council meeting for the month of May! You can click here for the amended agenda from City Hall, and you can click here for the Politico preview. For the complete blow-by-blow of today’s council meeting, you can follow along during the meeting on Blue Sky or recap the complete thread after the meeting below. You can also watch the City’s own live-stream of the meeting here. Continue reading “RECAP: City Council Meeting for May 27, 2025”
This week Guelph city council is taking a holiday break, and perhaps understandably, because it has been a very busy year in the chambers so far. The first four months of the year brought a lot of change, a lot of drama, and some pretty big decisions that tested the fiscal and political capacity of a rapidly growing Ontario city. Now, we will pause and take stock of just how far we’ve come so far… Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #471 – The Year at Council So Far Part 1 (January-April)”
After a busy week at council, and then a week off following the May long weekend, council will get back to work with some fairly unusual circumstances. First, council must fill a whole new slate of committees with a whole new slate of members, and then they will have to look to their own membership because right now council is one person down! On top of that, there may be some additional commentary about this month’s Committee of the Whole agenda! Continue reading “City Council Preview – What’s on the Agenda for the May 27, 2025 Meeting?”
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