Some unhoused people in Guelph and Wellington County are getting respite from the cold and taking up temporary residence in Guelph hotels thanks to new one-time federal funding.
The County of Wellington announced last week it had received a $633,000 boost from Infrastructure Canada to help people “find a safer and more stable place to stay” during the winter, the press release states.
It goes on to say the funding “can be used to help people experiencing homelessness including temporarily expanding shelter spaces, time-limited rent assistance, tangible basic needs supplies, storage of belongings for up to three months, travel costs, disability supports, increasing service availability and purchasing cold weather supplies for those who are unsheltered.”
In Guelph, that means a potential room in a hotel until the end of March, though that timeline is subject to change depending on how long the funding lasts.
The county says nine individuals have taken them up on the offer of temporary housing in the latest offers.
“We’re asking people if they would voluntarily like to be placed at a temporary emergency shelter where they would have a room, like at the Silvercreek location,” said Luisa Artuso, social services administrator with the county.
“And if possible, we are trying to acquire hotel rooms for them to (stay) at,” she said.
Royal City Mission executive director and pastor Kevin Coghill said he believes most of the people at the St. George’s encampment left after receiving an offer, and that any vacated tents there will be cleared out in the next few days, though the city couldn’t confirm this.
But he’s happy with their approach.
“I actually think this is good. They're asking people if they can come and do it themselves. I think that's a great human way to do it,” he said.
Coghill said he’s also pleased the city is offering them storage for their belongings, and is only removing encampments people have vacated because they have somewhere warm to stay.
“So I'm actually pretty pleased with how they're doing this,” he said.
Individuals are told what the options are – the Holiday Inn Express on Silvercreek or another hotel near the edge of town, depending on what is available at the time, and can decide from there. The county currently has six rooms at the hotel near the edge of town, though Artuso said they are looking for more hotels in the area to partner with.
“We don't force them into any particular place. We provide them the options and then take their lead and help them with the move,” she said.
In Wellington County, meanwhile, she said they are trying to work with other service providers “to start making connections to those individuals and looking at places for them to stay. So that is more work in progress,” she said.
The one-time funding needs to be used before April 2024, she said.
So far, nine people have accepted the offers, staying in either the former Holiday Inn Express or the other hotel. All nine are from Guelph, some of them from downtown encampments.
When asked about rumours of some individuals being kicked out of the hotels they’re staying in, Artuso said she’s not aware of any particular incidents at this time, but that people are expected “behave in a certain manner.”
“If people are being extremely disruptive, then it’s the owners right to tell people they’re not welcome there,” she said.
When the weather gets warmer and the funding runs out in the spring, Artuso said she hopes by that point the county would have found a more permanent place for them to go.
If not, their belongings will be returned, and they have the choice of staying at the emergency shelter, she said.
In the meantime, if someone has accepted the offer for shelter and abandoned their encampment for more than 48 hours, it could be cleared out – and safely stored – by the city.
“We have a standard operating procedure for encampments,” said Colleen Clack-Bush, deputy CAO with the City of Guelph.
According to that procedure, if Stepping Stone or any other social agencies are successful in transitioning those living in encampments to accessible indoor shelter spaces, those individuals will be told to clean the site.
After 48 hours, bylaw staff will go by to confirm whether the site has been cleared. If it hasn’t been, “staff will seek direction on and approval to clear the site,” the procedure reads. If approval is granted, bylaw staff will return to the site to begin the cleanup process.
Belongings found during the cleanup are then stored by the city for a minimum of 30 days, Clack-Bush said.
“So anything that we collect out of an encampment location we store so that the individual can retrieve their belongings,” she said. “But we generally try to work with individuals to make sure that they’re able to keep their belongings or retrieve them from us if we have stored them.”
Clack-Bush noted that any time bylaw officers are involved in an encampment situation, they “always connect with the Stepping Stone social workers who go in and work with the individuals directly.”
“Our goal is always to make sure that we're being respectful of people's belongings. But we also need to be respectful if people have just stepped away and are coming back. So we'll make sure we're staying in contact with the Stepping Stone social workers because they have much more of that on the ground information than we do,” she said.
But Artuso said the county encourages those individuals to take their tents down and collect their belongings before it comes to that.
“Our role is to support (the individual) in taking down their items and putting them in safe storage,” she said. “Because we know that there are things they can’t bring with them into the hotel room or at Silvercreek.”
