The Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) annual conference begins tomorrow (Sunday) and runs through Aug. 21 in Ottawa.
At the beginning of June, we spoke with St. Thomas Mayor Joe Preston regarding which provincial ministers were a priority for the city’s delegation.
At that time, the key meetings would be with the Minister of Transportation, Prabmeet Sarkaria to discuss regional transportation; Attorney General Doug Downey to address concerns facing the St. Thomas Police Service; and the new Minister of Education, Jill Dunlop.
The latter was appointed yesterday (Friday) afternoon after the resignation of Todd Smith, in the portfolio for less than three months after a June cabinet shuffle.
Tag Archives: affordable housing
Shovels are in the ground for Project Tiny Hope: “A great step forward in sustainable, high-performance housing that is also affordable.”
Thursday (June 27) was a highly anticipated day for Lindsay Rice and the other players in Project Tiny Hope.
Construction began on the first tiny home to populate 21 Kains Street where, eventually, 40 such homes and other amenities will provide safe, affordable housing in a downtown neighbourhood community.
A community of more than just housing, it’s a new beginning.
The Project Tiny Hope partnership includes the YWCA St. Thomas-Elgin, Doug Tarry Homes and Sanctuary Homes.
The community will be a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom rental units to accommodate adults, youth and families.
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A key partnership aims to address the lack of affordable housing in St. Thomas
Editor’s note: City Scope has a new Facebook page at http://facebook.com/St.ThomasCityScope
They have become the second largest housing provider in Elgin county by continuing to build affordable housing units. Something they have done over the past four decades.
And now, Eastwood Housing Corporation and Doug Tarry Homes are partnering to expand the stock of affordable and safe housing in St. Thomas.
According to St. Thomas Elgin Social Services, the wait time to access social housing is anywhere from two to nine years.
Highview Hideaway, to rise at 220 Highview Drive, will ease that backlog somewhat through the addition of 82 affordable housing units.
Jon McCurry, Eastwood’s Director of Operations details the scope of Eastwood’s existing projects.
“There are 325 units across Elgin county. There are 11 properties, one of which is in Aylmer (Elkview Gardens). That is our newest acquisition.
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St. Thomas Police Service Diversity Action Plan: Building Inclusive Community Relationships
The St. Thomas Police Service yesterday (May 17) released its Diversity Action Plan. You can view the plan here STPS-Diversity-Action-Plan-2024
The launch of the plan is the “first step of our commitment to creating a more diverse and inclusive police service for our members and our community.”
According to the plan, it is to be used “in coordination with our Strategic Plan to move forward on important issues that our community and our members have identified for action.
“When we recognize diverse perspectives and opinions, we can find alternative solutions that, in turn, help to better address issues specific to our community.”
As evident in headlines over the past several years, policing in Ontario and across Canada is undergoing many changes.
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Rapid development and expansion prove Element 5 is not out of its element after locating in St. Thomas
With little in the way of fanfare, Element 5 has become a significant regional success story less than four years after constructing its $50 million plant on 40 acres of land on Dennis Road in the city’s north end.
Even more impressive is the fact the company itself has been in existence for less than a decade.
It was founded in 2015 when it purchased a small cross-laminated timber (CLT)manufacturing company in Ripon, Quebec and began production.
Its St. Thomas facility, completed in 2020, is the most highly automated, state-of-the-art mass timber plant in North America.
It can annually produce 45,000 cubic metres of CLT and 5,000 cubic metres of glulam (glued-laminated timber).
A second shift was added in 2021 and last year, expansion of the existing plant began.
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As the city readies for rapid expansion, the St. Thomas Strategic Plan is in line for a ‘refresh’
At Monday’s (Sept. 18) council meeting, members will receive an update on the city’s Strategic Plan which covers the period 2021 through this year.
The plan was originally adopted by city council in May of 2013.
The city engaged the services of Fanshawe Corporate Training Solutions in June 2019 to assist in a plan update.
At that time, the idea was to develop a short list of strategic themes for the city’s path forward.
This included a focus group of community stakeholders and a public and city staff survey which included 539 respondents and produced a list of 25 key themes.
In June of 2020 that was whittled down to the Top 10 strategic priorities.
Topping the list was infrastructure, including roads, bridges and sewers.
The Number 2 priority was emergency shelters for the homeless.
And, rounding out the Top 3 was affordable housing.
Moving forward three years, let’s look at today’s updated strategic plan.
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Project Tiny Hope: ‘More than just housing, it’s a new beginning’
The YWCA St.Thomas-Elgin has unveiled its case support for Project Tiny Hope, an affordable housing partnership with Doug Tarry Homes and Sanctuary Homes.
Under the heading, “Now more than ever, our community needs affordable housing,” comes the following statistic, “The waitlist for subsidized housing is over 1100 households translating to a 5-10 year wait.”
Their support paper goes on to stress, “The new YWCA affordable housing community is more than just housing, it’s a new beginning.”
The YWCA provides housing for youth, women and men with five independent apartment units and 42 congregate living units within St. Thomas.
Project Tiny Hope will nearly double that number.
“Safe and stable housing is the foundation of a healthy and vibrant community,” advises Lindsay Rice, YWCA executive director.
“Project Tiny Hope will revitalize 21 Kains Street in the downtown core of St. Thomas and create a thriving community where youth, adults and families live and grow for years to come.”
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“We must act like where we want to be and not where we have been” – St. Thomas Mayor Joe Preston’s expectation for the next four years of council
“It’s quite fun to be here . . . and it’s pretty exciting.”
That was Mayor Joe Preston’s giddy reaction to Monday’s (Nov. 21) swearing-in procedure for the incoming council.
It was also the occasion of his inaugural speech to open the very first meeting – albeit ceremonial in nature – of this new council.
Preston prefaced his remarks to council, staff and the residents of St. Thomas by praising all of the individuals who put forth their names for office.
“To all of the other candidates who ran in this race, and it was as pleasant and good a group as I have ever been associated with . . . I’d take that whole group and we could do great things with it but this is the group that has been elected.”
Preston continued, “So could we please ask those candidates, put your heart into St. Thomas still and help us make St. Thomas a better place and come to us if you need help. We’ll certainly be there to help you do it.
“To our St. Thomas team, to the hundreds of employees and directors that this community has that over this last term of council and now, going forward, will continue to do the hard work that a great staff in a city does.”
He then paid tribute to the two members who did not seek re-election.
“I wanted to say thank you again to Joan Rymal and Mark Burgess who decided at the end of the last council not to re-enter the race and stay with us.
“The work that they did in the last four years – or most of four years, Mr. Burgess joined us part way through – was equal to the task.
“And also, since that last first day of council, we had sitting in these chairs Mark Tinlin and Linda Stevenson, two other great members of parliament but, not through their choice, did leave. They passed on during the last council and I miss them both, dearly.
Both were great advisors to me in my first term and so thank you Mark and thank you, Linda.”
Preston then delved into the nitty-gritty of the path he would like to see council head in over the next four years.
A council he praised as his “dream team.”
He elaborated, “I asked what could we get that would be the best to move St. Thomas forward in the way we were doing so and what else we can do.
“Look, this is as good as it gets from a council. We will have a hard time messing this up, folks, so let’s work together to make it work.”
“As the fastest-growing city in southwestern Ontario, we must act like where we want to be and not where we have been. This means this council must fulfill our destiny and achieve smart growth in the city with the assets available to it.”
Preston went out on a limb with an ambitious objective. He committed the new council to hitting a target of 500 housing units built each year over the four terms of this council.
“And, it doesn’t mean all single-family housing. Five hundred units include supportive housing as the previous council has done and is doing under the new council.
Preston added, “Together, we will continue to build a thriving, safe and compassionate city for all residents.”
He has great expectations not only for himself but the new council over its four-year term.
“As the fastest-growing city in southwestern Ontario, we must act like where we want to be and not where we have been.
“This means this council must fulfill our destiny and achieve smart growth in the city with the assets available to it.
“I look forward to this team taking the assets of our city to a great new level.
“That they looked ahead, they saw the future and they went there. They looked forward and no one was left behind.”
Preston noted council must focus on exceptional and smart growth, supportive and market rent housing and jobs.
“With our large land acquisition (the 800 acres east of Highbury Avenue) in order to grow great new jobs in our community, we’ve got to prove to anybody who will come to start a new business in St. Thomas that we have the employment base they will need to do those jobs.
“So let’s work together on that.”
Preston closed by stressing council must look forward while leaving no one in the city behind.
“That they looked ahead, they saw the future and they went there. They looked forward and no one was left behind.
“And they looked forward to finding the best ways to grow using all of the partners that we have in the city and we will help lead, but we need lots more partners in our city and certainly the other levels of government.”
HOW ARE WE TRENDING?
Up until the start of fall, little attention had been paid for quite some time to the COVID dashboard, updated weekly on the Southwestern Public Health website.
That has changed with the triple threat of the flu, RSV (Respiratory syncytial virus) and COVID which is taxing the resources of hospitals across the province.
Just this week, the Children’s Hospital at London Health Sciences Centre announced it has made the difficult decision to reduce surgeries as it reports daily visits to its emergency department are 80 per cent higher than usual and its inpatient beds are well over capacity.
The move will allow teams to prioritize urgent, time-sensitive surgeries and help manage patients admitted to critical care and in-patient units.
And on Wednesday of this week (Nov. 23), the health unit launched an enhanced COVID-19 dashboard (see photo) which not only showcases raw data but also assesses the risk to the community associated with that data.
According to epidemiologist Kerry Bastian, since the original dashboard launched, almost 290,000 people have visited the site.
Bastian points out, “We don’t recall a time in our history that there was such an interest in the intricacies of the data that drives public health decision-making.”
“. . . individuals and health system partners such as long-term care homes and hospitals to more easily interpret their personal risk or the risk of those they care for and act accordingly.”
The updated dashboard highlights four indicators: confirmed cases, per cent positivity, new hospitalizations and active outbreaks.
And then, an indication of whether those domains are trending upward or down. And the risk assessment is labelled as low, moderate, high or very high.
So what does the provision of this enhanced date mean?
Bastian notes it will allow “individuals and health system partners such as long-term care homes and hospitals to more easily interpret their personal risk or the risk of those they care for and act accordingly.”
The new dashboard is updated every Tuesday and can be found at https://www.swpublichealth.ca/en/reports-and-statistics/covid-19-dashboard.aspx
For the week ending Nov. 19, the overall COVID-19 risk level was high, but compared to the previous week it is trending downward.
A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF DISCRIMINATION
In February of this year, city council received a report that unpacked the experiences of discrimination in St. Thomas and Elgin county.
It contained the results of a survey undertaken by the St.Thomas-Elgin Local Immigration Partnership (STELIP).
The report noted, “Discrimination is happening in locations that are managed by the City of St. Thomas and this reality needs to be addressed.”
Secondly, the document stated, “With no immigrants, visible minorities, nor Indigenous People represented on the City of St. Thomas Council, this report can help all of us better understand how these groups are experiencing life in our community.”
You can read a copy of that report at https://www.stthomas.ca/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=18316516 beginning at page 40 of the agenda.
STELIP is undertaking a second discrimination survey in partnership with Western University’s Network for Social and Economic Trends.
To complete the survey, 30 volunteers are sought who will be interviewed about experiences of discrimination that immigrants and racialized people (often called visible minorities) may have faced in the community.
” . . . is if someone feels they have been discriminated against, that is important information for us to know.”
We talked this week with Fiona Murray, community coordinator with STELIP about the undertaking.
She explained the interview with survey participants is conducted via Zoom in the language of their choice and should take anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes.
Participants will receive a $30 gift card as compensation for their time.
The hope is to answer the question, what does discrimination look like?
Murray said, “Specifically, we are looking for people who experienced discrimination in any area in the last three years in a public place.”
That could include a job setting, any public space or a situation involving the police.
“We are not an organization that makes policy recommendations per se. But hopefully it will be a tool people in the community can use.”
The bottom line, adds Murray “is if someone feels they have been discriminated against, that is important information for us to know.”
As was the case with the initial survey, the findings will be made public on STELIP’s website.
Once posted Murray advised, “in the case of the city or the police, if they want to take that data we have made public and then use that to inform their policies or decisions, that is our hope.
“Obviously, that is not something we are particularly controlling, but hopefully by making this information available that really can (occur).”
Murray stressed the final report – as was the case with the initial survey – will not make recommendations.
“We are not an organization that makes policy recommendations per se.
“But hopefully it will be a tool people in the community can use.”
To find out more or to participate in the survey visit https://stelip.ca/projects/experiences-of-discrimination-survey-st-thomas-and-elgin/#qualitativesurvey
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COMING UP
The first regular meeting of the new city council will be 5 p.m. on Dec. 5.
Immediately following – projected to be around – 5:30 p.m., council begins preliminary deliberations on the 2023 municipal budget.
Questions and comments may be emailed to City Scope
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And a reminder, I can be heard weekday afternoons as news anchor and reporter on 94.1 myFM in St. Thomas. As always, your comments and input are appreciated.
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For Devon Church, what St. Thomas municipal council needs is a candidate with ‘lived experience’
As he campaigns for a seat on city council, Devon Church confidently proclaims when elected, not if.
Specifically, “When elected, I will be accountable, dedicated and propel council towards innovation and positive change.”
Church is a registered nurse at Southwestern Public Health who bemoans the lack of lived experience on the present council.
Church feels members of council “were mostly folks from a higher income level trying to figure out what to do with folks from lower incomes.”
Every candidate points to the need for solutions to issues plaguing the downtown core.
Church offers alternatives.
“I believe we need a downtown drop-in space that is accessible to all, that includes food and beds.”
But it is not the existing emergency shelter known as The Inn.
