With an eye toward addressing the ongoing homelessness, mental health and addictions crises, city council wants to identify existing service gaps, as well as the level of government responsible for each, in order to get struggling residents the help they need.
In a unanimously approved motion on Wednesday, council directed city staff to develop an inventory of services in the community, monitor changes that result from recently approved and coming provincial housing legislation, and report back on the impact.
The report is due before the next budget deliberations start in September.
Included in the Wednesday motion was authorization to spend up to $150,000 to hire expertise to help develop next steps based on the findings of the service gaps report.
“This is the right thing to do,” CAO Scott Stewart told council ahead of the vote. “We’ve got to tackle this or you will be dealing with this every budget year and you’ll be frustrated with it, I think, because you’re hearing such heart-wrenching stories from the folks that show up (to delegate asking for financial help).
“I hope this gives us some really great answers to address it and then maybe we’re asking (other levels of government) to help fund it.”
Community struggles were a common theme among delegates during Wednesday’s council meeting, which saw the adjusted 2023 city budget approved with a 4.46 per cent residential property tax increase.
Along the way to endorsement, council agreed to put $500,000 into its affordable housing reserve in order to help local projects get off the ground, extend two subsidy programs for Guelph Transit riders at a combined cost of nearly $650,000, and put $202,000 into the Welcoming Streets Initiative, which sees three Guelph Community Health Centre outreach workers support downtown business owners and workers by responding to mental health situations that don’t require a police response, helping struggling individuals connect with needed services.
There are instances, council heard, when municipal funding of one service or program could result in savings for other levels of government, which ultimately impacts the same taxpayers.
For example, Canadian Mental Health Association Waterloo Wellington executive director Helen Fishburn unsuccessfully urged council to approve $2 million in new funding for the Integrated Mobile Police And Crisis Team (IMPACT). That program, which is currently available from 8 a.m. to midnight, sees CMHA workers respond to mental health-related calls along with police in hopes of de-escalating situations without involving the courts or hospital system, which can add to an individual’s trauma.
The additional dollars would have been used to offer the program around the clock.
That investment, Fishburn said, could have saved Guelph General Hospital $2.4 million in unnecessary visits, as well as “in the millions of dollars” for Guelph police.
There were about 3,000 mental health calls to 911 last year, of which IMPACT was able to respond to about 1,000, with 70 per cent of those diverted from hospital.
“That’s one small example, there are many,” Fishburn said of instances where an investment in one area will produce savings in another.
As it is now, IMPACT is funded by the provincial government.
“People with mental health challenges are suffering and dying and literally thousands of people in this city cannot get the care they need,” Fishburn told council. “Just like cancer, without treatment their illness grows, their life deteriorates, their life falls apart while their family watches helplessly.
“The problem is now so big it cannot be solved by any one funder,” she continued. “If we wait for the federal government to talk to the provincial government to talk to the municipal government, it just feels like a giant game of hot potato, literally, while we’re just passing the problem along for somebody to own it.”
The service gaps report is to be presented to council ahead of its next multi-year budget (2024 to 2027), upon which work is expected to formally begin in September with anticipated approval in December. Part of that report is to focus on potential grants and other funding opportunities that exist.
“We’re not intentionally finger-pointing, but that’s what it will probably feel like for some folks looking at this from the outside in,” Stewart said of identifying jurisdictional responsibilities. “We get lost in all of that and it feels like there’s no progress.”
Given this situation isn’t unique to Guelph, Coun. Dan Gibson offered the idea of getting the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) to undertake a study and lobby upper-tier governments to address identified gaps.
“Most of these services, we depend on associations that we pay into to provide us advice on the impacts of provincial decisions,” he said. “We pay a lot of money into AMO, we have professional staff in inter-governmental affairs.”
In response, Guthrie pointed out Guelph is unique on numerous fronts, including its relationship with the County of Wellington and individual service providers.
“They just do not have that local context that we have,” the mayor said. “They wouldn’t be able to have that understanding as a foundational position that can compare it across different municipalities and geographic areas.”
The report, noted CAO Scott Stewart, can be shared with AMO and FCM but they’re limited in their abilities due their “rules of engagement” with governments.
“I just don’t see it happening,” he said of gaps being addressed on a provincial or national scale. “I’m not sure they’re going to take point on this, the municipality has to grab it.”
