The decision on the future of tiny transitional homes has been moved to county council in an unanimous vote at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
Councillors were given three options to vote on, from a motion made by Coun. Anne Marie Gillis back at the meeting on Sept. 9.
The first option was having the city hire a social services project manager and a budget to be given to a consulting firm to start the implementation of a transitional tiny house community.
The second was moving the request to the Lambton County Social Services division.
And the third was deferring the addition of the social services project management position and initial budget to the 2025 budget deliberations.
With Councillors Dennis and Burrell backing a motion by Coun. Geroge Vandenberg to “forget about the whole thing,” Mayor Mike Bradley asked if those opposed would be against voting through the second option.
“It’s come up numerous times at the county and every time it’s the staff that say we aren’t interested,” said Bradley.
“I think it would be good as a city to get on the record what the county’s political position is on this.”
Bradley revealed he asked over the weekend for meetings with the warden, city police, the group behind the town hall meeting last week and the rotary group to see if they can identify and deal with three or four of these issues and come back to council in a few weeks.
“To say, look, we have to break this log jam, we've got to find a way forward, and I even had individuals suggest to me that maybe sometime down the road look at our role in relation to housing,” said Bradley.
“The reason we joined the county was they were going to take the big services, housing, and health and all those services and provide them through the region. What is unfolding is we are only getting a part of that packaging.”
Ultimately, Vandenberg withdrew his motion of scrapping the tiny transitional homes, deciding to back option two.
Bradley decided to change the option from the Lambton County Social Services division to Lambton County Council instead.
“So it’s dealt with at the political level,” explained Bradley.
Coun. Gillis, who put forward the original motion, tells The Journal that she wasn't a fan of any of the options put forward by city staff, feeling that a decision should have been made one way or another, in regards to moving forward with the action plan of transitional tiny homes.
"Looking at the room and how there was some very nasty stuff floating around during that debate, and listening to what the mayor was saying, he was basically telling us many good things are going to be happening tomorrow. So rather than just not enter into the discussion at all or be out on the sidelines, I thought this is what we've been talking about, that we have to work together," said Gillis.
"If they [County Council] are going to do nothing, then we still have the action plan in play. If they are going to take up the initiative and come up with some alternatives to shelter services, we are working together in lockstep. You have to recognize when there is an opportunity to advance something that you're passionate about and I felt that was one of those opportunities."
County council meets on Wednesday, but Bradley said while this will not be discussed, the homelessness issue is on the docket.
“I’m not going to delay it anymore, we can’t afford to continue doing what we are doing, it's that simple,” said Bradley.