Dozens sleep outside as homelessness surges province-wide

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Good afternoon, and welcome to the Peterborough Currents newsletter.

As homelessness surges across Ontario, Peterborough’s shelters are at or near capacity most nights this winter and an estimated 50 to 70 people are sleeping outside. 

Currents reporter Brett Throop dropped by the Trinity Community Centre on a recent evening to hear from folks hoping to get a bed at the crowded shelter. And he chatted with a group of volunteers who are working to bring a little warmth to people who are outside on these cold nights.

Also this week:

• A forest researcher critiques Currents’ recent film review
• Councillors reject new process for property expropriation
• More local news!

Let’s get to it.

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Dozens said to sleep outside as homelessness surges province-wide

Figures released by the city show Peterborough is no exception to a recent surge in homelessness across Ontario.

Earlier this month, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) estimated that the number of people known to be experiencing homelessness in the province increased by 25 percent over the last two years, rising to a total of more than 80,000 individuals province-wide in 2024.

In Peterborough, 331 people were known to be experiencing homelessness as of last October, according to a city staff report from that time. That’s up from 285 in January 2022.

Those figures come from the city’s By Name Priority List (BNPL), which includes everyone who voluntarily identifies themselves as homeless to various social service agencies in the city.

The increase in homelessness comes despite the opening of Peterborough’s 50-unit Wolfe Street modular housing community in late 2023. Residents of the modular housing community are considered transitionally housed and are removed from the BNPL when they move in, according to Jocelyn Blazey, the city’s homelessness programs manager.

Late last year, councillors approved more than $1 million in additional city funding for shelters that will allow them to cover rising costs and, in the case of the Trinity Community Centre, expand opening hours. But the number of shelter beds in the system is staying put at 127.

A shelter bed is not a home, though, and the BNPL is intended to connect people to affordable apartments, rent supplements, and housing support services. But it’s not clear how many affordable apartments and rent supplements are actually available to people on the list beyond the Wolfe Street units. In an email to Currents last week, Blazey did not say how many housing resources are dedicated to people on the BNPL. She said the city is “in the process of updating the charts” that list those resources.

What Blazey could say is that in 2024, 56 households were moved into housing from homelessness through the BNPL, including 24 who moved into the Wolfe Street modular housing community. She said the city isn’t currently able to say how many people shifted into homelessness during that same time.

Outside the Trinity Community Centre on a recent cold night, Currents reporter Brett Throop observed the impacts of a shelter system under strain as homelessness increases.

Around 7 p.m., a few dozen individuals lined up outside the shelter’s front door hoping to secure one of the 45 cots that were being set up inside. Soon, shelter staff started handing out tokens for a bed that night.

Not everyone got a token. As a light snow started falling, one man explained that he was third on the waitlist for a spot in the shelter. He said he was also waiting to find out if there was a bed for him at the nearby Brock Mission. There should be more shelter beds in the city, he said.

Around 7:30 p.m., a silver minivan pulled up, and a woman with flyaway brown hair hopped out.

“Hello beautiful people,” Mindy Roderick shouted, announcing that she, along with several other volunteers, had brought hot soup, grilled cheese and snacks.

One woman who arrived late to the shelter and didn’t expect to get a bed as a result said she was grateful for the volunteers with hot food. They “come down and make sure that everybody’s taken care of and it’s great,” she said. “We need more people like them.”

To read more about what it’s like to stand in line for a shelter bed in Peterborough, you can read the full story on our website.

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Researcher offers critique of Reframe film review

Last week, I wrote a review of the film Logging Algonquin, which is currently screening online as part of the Reframe Film Festival. The film is about the past and present of logging in Algonquin Park and poses the question whether logging should be allowed to continue there. In the review, I argued that the film would have given viewers a fuller understanding of the issue if it had acknowledged efforts to bring sustainable logging practices to the park.

After we published the story, Mike Henry, an old growth forest researcher who is featured in the film, wrote a response. He raised some good points, and we wanted to share them.

“I think it is valid to criticize the film, Logging Algonquin, for taking a side in discussion of logging in Algonquin. It clearly does,” Henry wrote. “However Pearson’s article is also guilty of taking a side, and rather than being backed up by extensive interviews and multiple viewpoints, as the film is, the article is supported by one forester’s opinions.”

“I am often frustrated by discussion of Algonquin Park which boils down to ‘protect everything’ or ‘log everything,'” Henry continued. “If we increased the protected area of the park from 35 percent to around 41 percent we could likely protect the remaining large roadless areas and the most valuable old growth forest that still lacks protection. To my mind this should not even be a controversial proposal, it would help defuse some of the tension around logging in the park at minimal cost to local communities.”

“The question of logging in the park is indeed difficult and complicated, more so than the film Logging Algonquin is able to fully convey, though it does a pretty good job. But I thought Pearson’s article would certainly have benefited from more viewpoints,” Henry wrote.

I agree with Henry that more viewpoints are almost always a good thing, especially on a complex topic such as humans’ role in stewarding the ecosystems we rely on. So I’m grateful he wrote to share his perspective with us.

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Council rejects new expropriation process

City council voted on Monday to reject a recommendation from staff that would have given the city a process to expropriate private property for the purposes of housing construction.

Staff’s idea was to establish a new city process to help private developers assemble large pieces of land to build housing on. When developers are buying up neighbouring properties to redevelop, they sometimes run up against property owners who don’t want to sell, staff explained. This leads to “less-than-optimal development proposals” that don’t maximize housing construction and sometimes scuttles projects all together, according to a staff report.

So, staff proposed establishing a city process that would compel property owners to sell their land for developments that the city deems to be in the public interest. To be eligible, developers would have to show that they tried to buy the property without city help and developers would be the ones to pay — not the city. Only properties in the city’s central area would be eligible, and expropriation would be a last resort, with city council having the final say in each specific case, according to staff.

The majority of council wasn’t on board with the idea. Coun. Keith Riel called it “draconian” and Coun. Matt Crowley said while he appreciates the intention of the proposal, the idea of the city forcing a homeowner to sell their house to a developer makes him “extremely uncomfortable.”

Coun. Kevin Duguay was one of three councillors who voted in favour of the new program. He said provincial legislation already allows municipalities to expropriate properties and that the new program would bring clarity and transparency to the city’s criteria for doing so.

Last night’s general committee vote was preliminary — councillors will vote for a final time on the matter at next week’s city council meeting.

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Other news to catch up on

• The City of Peterborough was successful in its application to the federal government’s Housing Accelerator Fund, KawarthaNOW reports.

• Peterborough will be one of 27 Ontario communities where a new Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hub will be established, MPP Dave Smith said during a pre-election announcement yesterday. Local addiction treatment provider Fourcast will run the hub. A PDF released by the Ministry of Health outlines what the goals of Peterborough’s HART Hub will be, but not how those goals will be achieved or how much funding Fourcast is receiving. Read more in the Peterborough Examiner.

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