A Guelph community member who fell on hard times is considering living in her car again after her living in Eden Mills for about two years since she doesn’t feel safe in her unit anymore.
People are living in precarious housing situations in Guelph and to learn more about what is going on, the Legal Clinic of Guelph and Wellington County hosted its first National Housing Day event.
The event on Friday was hosted at the Guelph Community Health Centre. Speakers included Brendan Johnson from the Guelph Neighbourhood Support Coalition, Nate Davison from the Brant Avenue Tenant Association, Lorelei Root, a disability rights activist and accessibility specialist, and others spoke.
There were booths set up with people from local housing services organizations to answer attendees questions. There was also a conversation corner modelled off the TV show Speakers Corner where people can voice their opinions through a video.
Laura, who asked her last name not be used, is worried she is going to have to live in her car again.
About four years ago she had a surgery on her leg and it left her with a disability. She is unable to work because of it after working at the same job for about 20 years.
“And now that you can't work, you can't balance, you can't function, you can't eat, can't sleep, and you wonder why people are dropping off like flies or asking to be dropped off by flies, because I'm one of them,” she said, in an interview.
She ended up living in her car but she said police told her she couldn’t stay in her car at a parking lot. She ended up in the shelter system and eventually Stepping Stone helped her find a place to live.
“Again, it's very hard for people who aren't in the drugs to have to endure the other kind of life that may be going on, on the streets. So when you're not into the drugs at all or anything, you're housed with them. So on top of being remotely scared and terrified out of your tree, you're even more so because there's no shelters for anybody that have just come into hard times,” said Laura.
Laura has rented a unit in Eden Mills for about two years but it hasn’t been easy. There is a lack of grocery and corner stores she said so she drives to Guelph to access the food bank.
With some issues she’s had with the landlord like the heat not working she said she decided to file a case to the Landlord and Tenant Board. She said she doesn’t feel safe living there anymore citing another tenant had called the police to arrest her because of harassment. “It’s harming everything. It's harming my health as well. I'm now passing out from the stress,” she said.
Laura’s stuff is packed up and she plans to live in her car again since she doesn’t know what else to do. She said Stepping Stone can’t help her this time around because she has an address. “I'm just trying to survive like the rest of them,” she said.
During the speakers portion of the event Stephanie Clendenning, executive director of the Legal Clinic of Guelph and Wellington County, explained what the notwithstanding clause is and why people should care.
The notwithstanding clause would make it so legislation would be protected from constitutional challenges. Recently, a group of municipal and regional councillors have signed a letter asking Ontario mayors to rescind the letter sent to Premier Doug Ford asking for the use of the notwithstanding clause.
Clendenning thinks the reason why the mayors sent the letter was because of encampments. “Housing is a challenge, right? You've got all of these cases that are coming out from the courts saying you cannot clear these encampments unless you have really accessible shelter options available,” she said during her remarks.
She referenced cases coming out of cities like Waterloo, Kingston and one in Hamilton that’s underway.
Courts are coming back to municipalities to say it's a charter violation and to municipalities it can be hard to hear because they’re trying to figure out what to do, said Clendenning. But she doesn’t agree with steps taken to address the encampments.
“So I think whatever your views are on encampments what we really need to ask ourselves is, do we want to live in a society that accepts using a mechanism like this against our most vulnerable and marginalized community members?,” said Clendenning. The other way is to demand change.
She said the notwithstanding clause takes the easy way out.
Yes In My Backyard (YIMBY) is one of the tools the Guelph & Wellington Task Force for Poverty Elimination is campaigning about to help eliminate poverty.
“I think what we're hearing is that people want to feel comfortable, and that's folks who are both unhoused and housed,” said Chelsey Edwards, community engagement and communication coordinator with the task force, in an interview. “It's hard sometimes, when you're not familiar with other community members, to feel comfortable with them coming to you in a more desperate situation, like some might be facing homelessness, and so that's where we're seeing that friction, right?”
With YIMBY it aims to allow people to feel more at ease and “address concerns that are necessary for building safe communities,” she said.
