After a restful summer break, September is refreshingly brisk — both in the cool morning breeze and in the pace of change. It is the Monday of the year, when most people get back to work in earnest. And I have some things to report after last Monday’s council meeting with regard to the state of housing and homelessness in Northumberland.
Housing
The high cost of housing is the largest element of the high cost of living, with many households in Brighton spending between 1/3 and 1/2 of their income on rent or mortgage payments (“affordable” is best defined as being less than 1/3 of a household’s income). There are a lot of different factors that cause housing to be so expensive, and while the province controls some of those factors, there are some things that we can do locally.
One of them is Land Banking, a program started by the last council. The purpose of Land Banking is for the municipality to acquire properties in order to make them available to address matters of the public interest — in this case, explicitly for the purpose of affordable housing. As part of the Northumberland Affordable Housing Strategy, Brighton agreed to make land available for the County to build affordable housing back in 2019; to date we haven’t donated any land, because we didn’t have any suitable land to give. That’s about to change.
On Monday night we “daylighted” (or made public) a large purchase of land that the municipality has been working on over the past several months. The lots are large enough to develop an entire neighbourhood according to good planning principles: the result should be a mixed-use (both residential and commercial), mixed-density (a mixture of housing types, up to and likely including apartments) neighbourhood. While we’re still a few years away from having the buildings completed, this is still a huge opportunity to get more affordable units for Brighton residents in the mid-future.
Homelessness
Monday night also featured a frank discussion of homelessness in Northumberland County, and specifically in Brighton. I brought a Notice of Motion, and council was kind enough to agree to address it that night (normally a Notice of Motion is addressed at the following meeting). The motion acknowledged that while it is the County’s responsibility to provide services to residents experiencing homelessness, those services tend to be concentrated in Cobourg; Brighton has no shelter, no warming room, no sleeping cabins, or any other emergency sheltering services. Trinity St Andrew’s United Church provides a meal once a week, and I now understand that they provide some space for social service workers to care for local residents. I also learned on Monday night that social services outreach workers have space at the Health Services Centre; I’ve been engaging the issue of homelessness for several years, and I didn’t know they were there! That’s not an indication that they aren’t doing good work, but it reinforces just how much this issue flies under the radar.
The motion directs municipal staff to reach out to County social services and pledge support and collaboration to serve Brightonians experiencing homelessness. It is largely symbolic, a verbal indication of an open door to working together, but I think it’s an important and much-needed symbol right now. Addressing homelessness has been a highly contentious issue in Cobourg and Port Hope for several years now, with the Mayor of Cobourg recently expressing the intent to drive residents experiencing homelessness out of Cobourg (even suggesting they come to Brighton), and publicly musing about seceding from Northumberland County over the issue. Cobourg has passed a bylaw that makes it nearly impossible for Northumberland’s only emergency shelter to operate there, leading to months of negotiations and challenges for County and shelter staff.
The political furor over the issue also makes life more difficult for those who are experiencing homelessness. People sheltering themselves, in encampments both large and small, become more vulnerable to harassment, threats, and even violence from the public, even as they continue to face eviction and uncertainty. The largest encampment, with up to 60 residents, will soon face eviction after the provincial property on which it sits is sold. Whether or not the Mayor of Cobourg was serious about driving these folks toward Brighton, it’s fair to assume that some people who are currently sheltering themselves in the Cobourg area will be spreading out throughout the county; and some Brightonians who lose their homes are more likely to stay and try to shelter themselves here, rather than go to where there are more services for them but also more hostility. Ideally, everyone who needs shelter will be diverted to relatives or friends capable of taking them in and providing stable shelter, and County social services staff have made great strides lately in helping people find alternatives to sleeping rough. But for those who need emergency support, the more we can collaborate to provide that support, the better off all of our residents will be.