A Toronto area lawyer is calling on the province to send homelessness funding directly to urban municipalities instead of county governments.

And he’s citing some of the issues Sarnia is having with Lambton County Council as evidence county councils are ” standing in the way of efforts by Ontario’s urban municipalities to provide the ‘truly accessible’ accommodation which the courts require as a pre-condition to evicting residents of homeless encampments.”

Sept. 4, Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley asked the county to help pay the $90,000 a month costs for security and sanitation at an encampment in a city park. Over 50 tents now line the perimeter of Rainbow Park. After a neighbourhood outcry, the city installed fencing around parts of the park, brought in security guards and sanitation. The county also provides services to the people living there. A report to county council shows 82 per cent of the work the county’s Community Outreach Workers does is at Rainbow Park. In July alone, the county workers helped eight people find permanent housing and another 17 find services in the community.

But Jeff Schlemmer, the executive director of a Community Legal Clinic in York region pointed to county council refusal to forward funds to Sarnia for security and sanitationas well as a discussion about whether Ontario’s homeless people should be ‘shipped’ to Ottawa to live in renovated office buildings – which Schlemmer called “”remarkably uninformed and counterproductive comments.”

“We are increasingly finding county councils standing in the way of efforts by Ontario’s urban municipalities to provide the ‘truly accessible’ accommodation which the courts require as a pre-condition to evicting residents of homeless encampments,” he wrote in a letter to Paul Calandra, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, and Premier Doug Ford.

“Across Ontario we see similar lack of genuine concern and proportionate assistance by county councillors for this urgent crisis. The homeless encampments are not in the counties, and county councillors, perhaps understandably, are not very motivated – among other things by extremely upset constituents – to take serious and urgent action. 

“These are not the leaders who will solve urban homelessness in Ontario.”

Schlemmer urged the Premier and minister to direct counties to forward homelessness cash to urban centres.

“If this is not urgently done then no meaningful progress can be made in arresting the growth of urban encampments, despite the best efforts of our urban municipalities.”