Barrie supports the County of Simcoe getting provincial funding from Ontario’s encampment response program.
Council approved a motion to that effect at its Jan. 29 meeting.
“What this funding is doing is it’s going to be used to both provide for (shelter) spaces and the support of services that are required in order to help individuals who are currently living rough or homeless or in an encampment,” said Mayor Alex Nuttall.
There are approximately 12 known encampments in Barrie with more than 100 total occupants, according to the city.
To be considered for this encampment response funding from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, a written pledge from the county was required noting that the money received would be put toward ending encampments by providing housing options for homeless people.
City clerk Wendy Cooke said the funding has already begun to flow.
“The county received over $3 million for the encampment initiative,” she said, “and what that money is going to be used for is providing shelter, some shelter space, to assist with housing people that are currently in encampments, as well as the remediation cost for some of the parks cleanup that will be required.”
The county is responsible for efforts to help the homeless throughout the County of Simcoe, not just in Barrie.
Coun. Amy Courser wanted some assurances, however, of how it will work in Barrie.
“There will not be unhoused people that are camping in parks removed unless there are accessible (shelter) spaces for them?” she asked.
Barrie’s chief administrative officer Michael Prowse answered.
“The county is not responsible for removing encampments from parks,” he said. “The city does that, but we do it in partnership with the county and I can tell you that our protocol requires that they have been offered appropriate housing prior to us ever moving on an encampment.”
Courser then asked a similar question.
“We will ensure that whoever is moved from an encampment has an accessible place for them that will address their specific individual issues?” she said.
“It gets more complicated,” Prowse said. “While we do remove the encampments, we do not provide, as you know, the social housing, so we rely on the service manager — that would be the County of Simcoe — for a number of things (including) confirm the individuals in the encampments have indeed been offered appropriate housing and secondly, through the service provider, to eventually provide that housing if the individual chooses to take them up on that.
“The city does not provide that function, nor do we control that they actually go into housing,” he added.
The motion, sponsored by Nuttall, says the city believes it has a responsibility to its residents to enforce its bylaws, to ensure safe and accessible public spaces for the community at large. It then cites an Ontario Superior Court decision of Dec. 23, 2024 “that the life and security of the applicants (the park occupants) are not put at risk by enforcement of the bylaw. They are put at risk by homelessness with encampments contributing to this risk. They are lawless, dangerous and unsanitary.”
The motion then cites another Ontario Superior Court decision, from a year ago, establishing that evicting individuals from encampments without providing adequate shelter options violates their rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
So the city is unable to enforce bylaws that prohibit camping in public spaces if doing so would be unconstitutional.
In Barrie, there is shortage of affordable housing, social housing supports and temporary shelters beds for people living in encampments, the motion reads.
So the County of Simcoe has submitted an application to the province for funding under the encampment response program to support increased shelter capacity, restoration of public land at key encampments and to provide wraparound support with its partners.
The county is also eligible to receive top-up funding from the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit to support individuals moving from shelter programs into longer-term housing and to free up space to address immediate shelter needs of individuals in encampments.
If the county is successful in this funding application, Barrie would benefit from additional shelter spaces and possible funding for restoring public spaces, such as city parks.