New public health initiative will track homeless deaths in Peterborough

You’re reading the December 7, 2023 edition of the Peterborough Currents email newsletter. To receive our email newsletters straight to your inbox, sign up here.

---

Earlier this year, Currents reporter Brett Throop wrote a story about the way Peterborough fails to formally track the deaths of people experiencing homelessness. At the time, Peterborough wasn’t unique. Most jurisdictions don’t track this data, with Toronto and British Columbia being two exceptions, Throop wrote.

In the absence of any official effort to track these deaths, some community members have organized ad-hoc vigils and memorials in recent years, Throop added. 

Now, there is a more formal effort underway to track the deadly toll that homelessness takes in our community. Last week, Peterborough Public Health (PPH) launched a community-based mortality tracking initiative under the banner of the newly-established Peterborough Community Knowledge Network.

“A group of community partners identified a gap in data around people experiencing homelessness,” said Jocelyn Qualtrough, health promoter at PPH. “So our goal was to implement community driven data collection that is useful and sustainable for the community.”

Qualtrough described how the new system works. Community agencies that serve people who are experiencing homelessness have access to a new secure online form. Workers at the agencies are asked to fill out the form every time they become aware of a death in the homeless community. The form asks for biographical information such as age, identifying physical features, and housing situation. It also asks about the circumstances of a person’s death and what might have caused it.

As custodian of the data, PPH will compile and analyze it, Qualtrough said.

“Homelessness is a public health issue,” she said. “We will be using this [data] to understand mortality trends with the goal of working with partners to develop interventions to support those experiencing homelessness.”

While there are no plans as of yet to release the data to the public, that could change in the future, Qualtrough said. The data gathered by Toronto Public Health is released to the public monthly.

Qualtrough said the new initiative will rely on the knowledge and efforts of frontline staff who serve people experiencing homelessness. “It wouldn’t be possible without the work that they do on the streets, providing outreach and making those relationships and connections with folks every day,” she said.

DISCLOSURE: The Peterborough Community Knowledge Network was developed in partnership with the Research for Social Change Lab at Trent University, where Currents publisher Will Pearson works as an administrator. Currents maintains independence over all its editorial decisions.

Budget Podcast: Why these pedestrians might have to wait until 2029 for a sidewalk

There’s a stretch of Sherbrooke Street near the city’s western limits that is nasty for pedestrians to navigate. Folks who walk along this part of Sherbrooke wish the city would build a sidewalk to make their commutes easier and safer.

Fleming College student Anjana Silwal walks along Sherbrooke to catch a Peterborough Transit bus to campus. “It’s very risky to walk sometimes,” she said. Silwal wants a sidewalk on Sherbrooke “so that not only me but everyone passing through this way feels safe,” she said.

But it doesn’t look like Sherbrooke pedestrians will get their sidewalk any time soon. That’s because the city is struggling to keep up with its infrastructure costs and is prioritizing other road projects first. 

During November’s budget talks, city councillors voted down a proposal to spend $1.8 million on a temporary sidewalk to help pedestrians out until the city can afford a more permanent fix.

Episode four of our 2024 budget podcast dives into the capital budget. We cover:

• The $70 million hole in Peterborough’s capital budget
• Major capital projects for 2024, including the new twin pad arena
• Why councillors voted to kill Peterborough’s traffic calming program
• The sidewalk on Sherbrooke Street
• Should we think of trees as capital assets?
• And more!

You can listen to the episode (or read about it) here.

Other stories to watch

• Mayor Jeff Leal and the local Chamber of Commerce disagree over a proposal to shift about $3 million of next year’s tax burden away from homeowners and onto businesses. Councillors approved the plan during finance committee meetings last month as a way to lower next year’s tax bill for residential property owners. In a press release issued last week, the Chamber of Commerce wrote that shifting the tax bill “to one group of property owners and calling it savings for another does not give the impression that we are all in this together.” But in an open letter released this week, Leal called the shift “a modest rebalancing” after more than a decade of business tax cuts that have left citizens to absorb more than $20 million in new taxes.
  
  
• City councillors voted on Monday to further explore the idea of taking over the provision of drinking water from the Peterborough Utility Commission, the Peterborough Examiner reports. The PUC is an arms length company owned by the City of Peterborough that provides drinking water to citizens. Last year, a consultant’s report suggested the city could save money by delivering those service in house rather than through an outside company. Councillors voted on Monday for staff to write a report about the possibility and for a working group to be struck to consider the idea further.
  
  
• The Curve Lake Recreation Committee, OPIRG Peterborough and Wild Rice Records are hosting a spaghetti dinner and beading workshop on December 9 to raise funds for new playground equipment at Curve Lake First Nation. There is a free bus leaving Nogojiwanong/Peterborough at 2:30 p.m. For more information and to register, click here.
  
  
• The Peterborough Singers’ annual presentation of Handel’s Messiah is on Monday December 18 at 7 p.m. Learn more here.
  
  
• The 19th annual Focus Fair is this weekend at the Theatre on King. Focus Fair is a holiday market featuring a curated selection of gift ideas hand made by local artists and makers.

Thanks for reading the Peterborough Currents email newsletter! Here’s where you can sign up to have these sent straight to your inbox.