The end of chronic youth homelessness in Guelph and Wellington county is in sight, believes Kristen Cairney, executive director of Wyndham House.
Though early in the process, the agency is looking to buy an existing building in the city and renovate it into space for 10 “deeply affordable” supportive housing beds for youth, ages 16 to 25, along with a variety of common areas.
There are currently 10 youths on the County of Wellington’s by-name list of chronically homeless individuals in the community, the executive director noted, stating this project would “effectively eliminate the chronic by-name list for youth.”
“I feel very hopeful that this can be a reality in the imminent future, and I'm happy that we may be able to demonstrate the solvability of the problem of chronic homelessness,” said Cairney. “I think right now in our society, because affordability and the housing crisis are really plaguing many communities, there's a feeling that these problems are overwhelming and unmanageable. “If we work effectively together and kind of leverage funding and resources from different levels of government, we can meaningfully address the chronic homelessness problem, and it is a solvable problem.”
Chronic homelessness, she noted, is when someone has been unhoused for at least six months or on three separate occasions.
Each level of the supportive housing project is to have between two and five bedrooms, as well as a common kitchen, laundry facilities, bathrooms and more.
Wyndham House staff is expected to be at the site around the clock.
One on the main floor will be fully barrier-free, Cairney noted, “which is important because our existing program doesn't have a barrier-free unit.”
The overall cost to purchase and renovate the site is estimated at about $2.5 million.
At this point, Cairney said Wyndham House is working to secure provincial funding for the capital works, though funding requests from other levels of government will follow the purchase.
Earlier this week, Cairney made a delegation to Guelph city council in support of a proposal to increase the amount of money being put in a special reserve account to help with supportive and transitional housing projects.
Cairney hopes the building purchase is finalized “fairly soon,” allowing renovations to begin in the spring and residents to move in before the end of next year.
In addition, the plan calls for units in an existing triplex on the property to be rented out at market rates. Two of the units have two bedrooms, and one is a single.
However, Cairney explained, they may be made available to young people with children or who are facing “unique situations where people require that kind of transitional support that's a little bit different from our intensive supportive housing program.”
This project, should it go ahead, would be Wyndham House’s fourth housing project in Guelph, all of which are focused on youth ages 16 to 26. It already runs a 16-bed emergency shelter, eight transitional housing beds and eight supportive housing beds.
Anyone interested in making a financial donation to the Wyndham House’s housing efforts can do so through the agency’s website. Arrangements can also be made through the website regarding the donation of materials and/or their time and skills.
It’s also set to host ‘The Gift of Home’ fundraising concert on Nov. 30 at Guelph Youth Music Centre on Cardigan Street. More information about that show can be found here.
