Delegations address housing and social services at ROMA conference
Christian Gammon-Roy
Tribune
Multiple delegations attended this year’s Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) conference to meet provincial ministers in hopes of getting local problems on their radar. The conference took place in Toronto from January 21 to 23. The municipality was represented by West Nipissing mayor Kathleen Thorne Rochon and councillors Jamie Restoule, Kris Rivard and Jérôme Courchesne, who met with Minister of Children, Community and Social Services Michael Parsa to ask for better representation on the District of Nipissing Social Services Administration Board (DNSSAB).
Councillor Restoule also took part in the DNSSAB delegation alongside board chair Mark King, meeting Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Paul Calandra to highlight the homelessness crisis caused by a lack of affordable housing. King was in a second delegation as the vice-chair of NOSDA (Northern Ontario Service Delivery Association), asking to streamline the social services delivery process in all of Northern Ontario, and funding to make that happen.
DNSSAB Board representation
In its meeting with Minister Parsa on the Tuesday afternoon, the municipal delegation requested an additional seat on the DNSSAB board, which would give West Nipissing two voices among the 12-member board. The current board make-up is outlined in the District Social Services Administration Boards Act, which would have to be amended to allow for the change.
North Bay currently has six seats, with one each for West Nipissing, East Ferris, Temagami, Papineau-Cameron, South Algonquin and the district’s unincorporated townships. West Nipissing contributes over $3 million annually to DNSSAB, more than twice the amount of the other represented municipalities excluding North Bay, which pays over $13 million.
However, it’s not clear if a second seat for West Nipissing would mean adding a thirteenth seat, or eliminating another municipality’s seat in West Nipissing’s favour. “It doesn’t matter to us, we just want to have the additional representation that is commensurate with the population and the funding that we’re providing, and the fact that we are the only area served by the District of Nipissing Social Services Board, outside North Bay, that has an urban centre,” says Mayor Thorne Rochon.
The request was supported by DNSSAB’s chair, Mark King. According to the mayor, King sent a letter to the Minister’s office “supporting our request and reiterating that, given the size of West Nipissing and our contribution, that what we’re asking for is fair.” However, while King supports West Nipissing’s bid for more representation, he hopes that doesn’t come at the expense of someone else’s seat. “We’ve worked really hard to meet the needs of all members, and that balance is important to maintain. A group that is working together, rather than apart, makes it so much easier. This board has accomplished a lot, there’s a lot going on, and there’s, more to come,” he says. King believes that adding a seat would prove to be the more elegant solution. “There’s no question that’s the way to do it, just make room. Then, you have an extra person at the table.”
According to Thorne Rochon, an extra seat at the table would put West Nipissing and its social service agencies in a stronger position to negotiate for the things they need locally. The push for more representation came after residents decried an absence of local services for homeless people, which were all concentrated in North Bay, for example. The mayor adds that an additional voice could also help lobby for access to more French language services within healthcare and social services, to better meet the needs of West Nipissing residents, the majority of whom count French as their first language.
DNSSAB looking for a quick fix to housing
Mark King says the DNSSAB itself made a number of asks to the Housing Minister in order to help combat the ongoing housing and homelessness crises, which according to him, go hand-in hand. He says that the most pertinent part of this delegation’s meeting was the request for seed money to buy up housing units throughout the district and turn them into rental accommodations. “We’re well-versed in making that work, and those properties would fit directly within our housing agency and become part of that operation of providing support to those that need them,” he explained, adding that DNSSAB currently operates over 1500 rental accommodations in the region already. This housing generally supports low-income individuals, many of these units being geared-to-income rentals.
King calls this a “quick fix” compared to other current projects that DNSSAB might be undertaking. “Any proposed projects right now, if they were to actually get the financing in place, I would suggest at this point they would be at least a year-and-a-half down the road before they became even a viable option for people to live in,” he explains. The purchase of a building already designated as housing, and with much shorter timelines to potentially turn into apartment units, means this solution helps in the shorter-term.
Furthermore, by simply buying housing units in communities outside of North Bay, it is a quicker way for DNSSAB to extend its support services to the smaller communities, such as West Nipissing, who are facing an unforeseen homelessness crisis. As King continues to point out, it takes a lot of time to get projects built from the ground-up. “I chair the planning board meetings at the city level, and I know how onerous it is to get through the planning process, put the financing together, to actually get property, to find property. To make all those parts of a long-term plan work is substantial,” he describes, adding that without the ministry’s support, “there are no quick fixes here, there’s nothing happening quickly.”
NOSDA wants to review service delivery in the North
NOSDA’s most important ask, according to King, was that they be able to work on a brief which would be presented at the AMO (Association of Municipalities of Ontario) conference in August. “It would provide a guideline for not only streamlining, but changing the way social assistance is provided in Northern Ontario,” he explains, adding that he was pleased to see interest from the provincial minister at the idea. “What we’ve been trying to do at NOSDA throughout the years is to get the province to understand the differences in northern Ontario compared to southern Ontario,” he says, pointing out that the north has unique challenges with geography, population density, and the economy.
King says the north is almost fully covered by DSSABs, district boards mandated by the province to deliver social services to smaller municipalities who cannot provide these services on their own. “Sudbury is the only one that is actually administered by the municipality, and comes under the umbrella of the Greater City of Sudbury. Everyone else in Northern Ontario is administered by a separate DSSAB board, and it’s regional in scope.” The proposed streamlining of service delivery is still something that needs to be discussed and researched, and King admits that part of the request at ROMA was for financial support in putting a proposal together. Ultimately, there could be nothing done at all if the provincial government refuses to support NOSDA in undertaking this initiative.
Unfair burden on municipalities, King says
The mention of government funding also brings up a host of frustrations for King, who says that both provincial and federal levels of government are not taking their full responsibility, and that it’s leading to municipalities having to bear the brunt of the burden for increased costs. “I see it developing at the council table in North Bay for example, where we’re starting to account for increased costs that are associated with social services that basically aren’t accounted for, but the municipality gets stuck with the cost. What happens is the property taxpayer picks up the cost in the end,” he deplores. When asked to elaborate, he brings up examples of public works costs adding up in North Bay, due to homeless individuals breaking into chemical warehouses, or an encampment near the YMCA which “created havoc with the overall mechanical operation of that facility, and of course remedial action had to take place.” A big part of his frustration is over the responsibility to provide housing, which King is adamant should not fall on municipalities, but would be the solution to the city’s woes. “All of these facilities are impacted by the lack of housing, and I certainly believe we could stop that impact if people just had a roof over their head.”
