Encampment residents will soon move into sleeping cabin community

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The construction of fifty sleeping cabins at the site of the Wolfe Street encampment is complete and people who are currently living unsheltered in Peterborough will move in over the coming weeks, the City of Peterborough announced last week.

The people who will move into the cabins have been selected. “We wanted to intentionally pick people who would be a good fit for the program, and who as well were living outside,” said Debbie Carriere, the executive director of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Peterborough, which will provide support services to residents of the sleeping cabins.

About 55 people have been living at the Wolfe Street tent encampment and 40 of them were selected to move into the cabins, Carriere said. The other ten people selected have been living outside in other parts of the city, she said.

“The numbers weren’t as staggering as we thought that they were,” said Coun. Alex Bierk. “For the people who have been [living rough] for so long, the high majority of them are going to be getting a space here.”

Bierk said the new winter shelter at Trinity United Church is an option for people who are currently living rough but weren’t offered one of the cabins.

Cabin assignment was done in consultation with the program participants, according to Jocelyn Blazey, the city’s homelessness program manager. That means friends who rely on one another have cabins next to each other, for example, and some of the more vulnerable individuals have cabins close to the site’s staff. Couples have been given one cabin each so that if a relationship breaks down no one has to lose their housing, Blazey added.

At least two staff from the Elizabeth Fry Society will be on-site at all times, Carriere said, but sometimes there will be more. There will also be security on-site.

“E. Fry will be working to develop care plans for each of the individuals who come into the community … to help support them to be stable,” Carriere said.

The building that formerly held an emergency shelter next to the encampment has been repurposed for residents of the sleeping cabins. It has a kitchenette, laundry facilities, and offices where local social service agencies can meet with sleeping cabin residents, Carriere said. There are five washrooms and showers for the 50 residents of the community.

The sleeping cabins and support services are funded with $2.5 million from the provincial government.

Blazey said the ultimate goal of the program is to help people to move into more permanent supportive housing. She said the sleeping cabins “allow us to stabilize folks with the intent of then supporting them to flow through to our other programs.”

However, Peterborough’s housing crisis has significantly constrained the city’s access to permanent housing units to offer people.

Coun. Keith Riel said the provincial and federal governments need to step up and provide funding for the city to build new housing. He said the federal government’s support for a new “affordable” building at 681 Monaghan Road is a good start, but the city needs more.

In particular, Riel wants funding to fulfill the city’s vision of redeveloping lands owned by the Peterborough Housing Corporation to build more housing. “We have the plan. We have the land. We just need the money,” he said. 

Other stories to watch

• Mayor Jeff Leal isn’t saying whether he will keep any of the 61 changes the Ford government made to Peterborough’s official plan. Last week, the PCs tabled legislation that would roll back those changes, which included opening swaths of greenspace on the edges of town for development decades ahead of schedule. Leal has until December 7 to decide whether to reinstate any of the province’s modifications, something he has the power to do without the approval of the rest of council, according to a leaked letter from the housing minister. Leal never objected to the province’s changes, and when reached by email last week he did not rule out bringing back some of them, writing only that he is “looking at the 61 changes made in the spring.”
  
  
• A coroner’s inquest into the circumstances of Soleiman Faqiri’s death began this week. Faqiri, who was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, died at the Lindsay jail in December 2016 after an altercation in a jail cell involving around two dozen correctional officers. Read more in the Globe and Mail.
  
  
• Library users can now borrow a carbon dioxide monitor from any library in Peterborough County or City or Hiawatha First Nation. Read more from Peterborough Public Health.
  
  
• A transit strike was averted over the weekend as the city and the union representing local transit operators reached a deal. The new three-year deal was approved by 87 percent of the union’s membership on Saturday, according to a City of Peterborough press release.
  
  
• A new residential college planned for Trent University will be named Gidigaa Migizi College in honour of the late Gidigaa Migizi, or Doug Williams. Gidigaa Migizi was a “professor, elder, and community leader renowned for his dedication to Trent students and to protecting Anishnaabeg treaty rights,” Trent stated in a press release. The college is expected to open in 2028.

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