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”
We have a weird situation: We’ve elected two new governments at both upper levels in the last four months and the hope is that they can turn things around, and yet, these are also, essentially, the old governments. How can we possibly expect better results from the new old people in charge, and are we even more alone than ever here on the local level? We’ll put this to one of the people whose job it is to advocate. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #470 – The Poverty Elimination Gut Check (feat. Dominica McPherson)”
It makes sense spending Christmas with a Kevin. The Kevin we’re talking to this Christmas though sits at the intersection of fighting poverty practically and fighting a growing spiritual malaise. In fact, he was the first and most obvious choice for this year’s holiday chat by the fireside, and he joins us this week to not only talk about the crisis around homelessness, but also the accompanying crisis of compassion. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #448 – Christmas With Kevin (feat. Kevin Coghill)”
September arrives, and that means it’s back to school and back to work for the Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Board of Health! It looks like the public health staff spent their summer writing some pretty big reports on the health effects of poverty, the lingering effects of the pandemic, increasing immunizations and vaping. Plus, we’re getting ready for cold and flu and COVID season this fall. Get ready, because there’s a lot of ground to cover Continue reading “MEETING PREVIEW: Board of Health Meeting for September 6, 2023”
Coming off a municipal election that was, in many way, about affordability, comes a reminder of the stakes when it comes to what “affordability” really means. At the start of Living Wage Week 2022, the Ontario Living Wage Network has announced, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the living wage in Ontario has gone up once again. In Guelph and Wellington, that number is now $19.95, one of the largest in the province. Continue reading “A Living Wage in Guelph is Now Nearly $20 Per Hour”
A coalition of 230 social services and community groups have called on the Provincial government and Premier Doug Ford to double Ontario Works (OW) and Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) rates. In an open letter, the group says that current crises around poverty, homelessness and mental health can all be tied to years of under-funding in social services, and doubling the rates would be a good start to begin a redress. Continue reading “Over 200 Advocacy Groups Demand Immediate Increase to Social Assistance”
An in-person ceremony commemorated the completion of the capital campaign to buy and renovate the old Norfolk United Church, which you may know as the headquarters for HOPE House. Part of that ceremony was the official rename of the church as the David Barr Memorial Building, a rechristening of sorts that marked both the beginning of a new era at HOPE House and the continuation of their efforts to help Guelph’s most vulnerable. Continue reading “HOPE House Celebrates the End of a Successful Capital Campaign”
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