Sarnia needs to “densify” – rather than expand city boundaries – and residents need to welcome more supportive housing projects near them in order to end encampments and keep people off the streets, says Sarnia Coun. Brian White.
“We need to be okay with YIMBYs, Yes In My Backyard, YIMBYism,” he told members of the Golden K Kiwanis Club Tuesday, a day after council grappled with neighbourhood complaints about a large homeless encampment in Rainbow Park.
White said he doesn’t have a quick solution but is convinced Sarnians need to warm to the idea that new affordable housing projects will help the most difficult to house, stop encampments, and improve quality of life for all.
“It’s going to take money and a lot of compassion to be okay with the supportive units that need to be built,” he said.
Everyone has the right to safe shelter, food, water, a sense of community and place, White added. “We have to be okay with what that looks like, so if that’s a supportive unit…we have to be okay with where it has to go, at the very least.”
He said Sarnians should learn to live with less space, and should be open to adding a second housing unit to their property or renting part of their house in order to alleviate the city’s dire need for more housing.
White is also a member of Lambton County council where he serves as deputy warden. The county is responsible for social housing and provides about 700 units to lower income families and individuals. However, studies show Sarnia-Lambton needs closer to 2,500 units.
While several affordable housing projects are struggling to get off the ground, and construction delays are plaguing some, homelessness is increasingly visible in some neighbourhoods.
When residents who live near Rainbow Park interrupted Sarnia council Monday night to ask for help, White said council allowed discussion with them because “it’s important to hear from all sides of this.”
The neighbour’s fears near Rainbow Park are concerning, he said, describing one complaint from a resident who woke in the middle of the night to find a vagrant filling a bucket from his outside tap to take to the encampment where there are no washroom facilities.
“I don’t know how to make it better for them,” White said. “Their fear is legitimate. But at the same time we’re dealing with a human being who is trying to get water.”
Encampments are not the answer, he said. Most who live rough are not dangerous but are exposed to unsanitary, unsafe conditions. However, some are battling serious addictions and experiencing violence, White said.
“Not to mention the fact that (Rainbow Park) is a children’s park and families who live in that neighbourhood have the right and deserve the ability to use a public park.”
Council decided Monday to send in workers to clean up Rainbow Park within days and committed to making a decision May 6 as to whether the encampment will be removed.
White said he tried to warn local social housing officials a decade ago that a serious shortage was coming. However, on Tuesday he was not critical of the county’s progress.
County staff’s efforts to increase affordable housing, provide rent subsidies and provide outreach teams for those experiencing homelessness, are “laudable,” he said.
But he added that delays finishing a $7-million, 24-unit affordable housing project on London Road in Sarnia are “unbelievable.”
Maxwell Park Place is about three years behind schedule for reasons White said he could not divulge for legal reasons.
“It obviously makes the county look bad….I can promise you that staff have done everything they can to move it forward.”
White said he can’t recall a time when he’s been more frustrated than during a closed meeting last week discussing Maxwell Park delays.
“I was not comprehending the nonsense I was reading,” he said. “I wish I could explain it.”