'We have to take care of one another': Thunder Bay councillor seeks report on approach to homelessness in city

A Thunder Bay City Councillor wants to see some options for how the city can help address homelessness and poverty in the community.

Coun. Mark Bentz is tabling a memo on Monday's meeting, which states council can be a "catalyst for good" and ramp-up its response to poverty and homelessness.

"The resolution is kind of a result of a council discussing this over the last year and a half," Bentz said Thursday in an interview with CBC News. "Some of us had been talking about maybe taking a more strategic approach."

"And, of course, the events of the past few weeks has kind of raised the concerns and empathy in the community with regards to homelessness," he said. "And I and others thought it was time to maybe bring this discussion to council."

In the memo, Bentz states he and a small group of councillors met with senior members of administration recently, to inform them about the resolution being tabled Monday, and also to ensure the councillors were fully informed in terms of the current state of homeless and poverty in the city.

Bentz said he sees homeless and poverty as a community issue, and while the city shouldn't be handling the matter on its own, there's a role for the municipality to play.

"Certainly, we don't have to be the only one at the table, nor should we," Bentz said. "But we should be at the table, leading, providing funding, to act as a catalyst for organizations in our community who do good work."

"One of the things I hear when I'm speaking with organizations, is that funding is the limiting factor here," he said. "We could do more work, and good work, if we had more funding."

"Well, the city can provide some of that and leverage some of our funding with other levels of government, with other programs to do more in the community. And that's really what I'm looking for."

The matter should be a priority for councillors, Bentz said.

"We have to take care of one another," he said. "We have to make sure we have a healthy community and this is certainly going to move in the right direction."

There have been other recent discussions of homelessness and poverty in council chambers.

At its Oct. 25 meeting, council was presented with a memo which outlined what the city is doing to support vulnerable populations. The memo was prepared by Thunder Bay Drug Strategy lead and Vulnerable Populations Chair, Cynthia Olsen, and tabled at council my City Manager Norm Gale.

The four-page memo was for information only and no resolutions were attached.

It cites a number of city initiatives around vulnerable populations, including:

• The Thunder Bay Drug Strategy.
• Community Safety and Well-Being Plan.
• Vulnerable Populations COVID-19 Planning Table.
• Severe Weather Response Plan.
• The Care Bus.
• The city's poverty-reduction and food strategies.

In addition, the memo outlines other initiatives, such as council's approval of re-zoning amendments for an area on Junot Avenue, which would allow the construction of a new transitional housing project; that project has yet to be completed.

The memo also highlights funding for community youth and cultural programming.

In an interview with CBC News on Thursday, Mayor Bill Mauro noted while the city has made efforts in terms of supporting vulnerable populations, truly addressing the issue will require further support from other levels of government, as municipalities don't have the financial capacity to do it on their own.

"Municipalities across the country are not going to be able to spend their way out of this," he said. "There's things that we can do. There's things that we are doing."

"But fundamentally and foundational is that you need transitional housing supports, and that money in that capacity has to come from the senior levels of government, from the province and or the federal government," Mauro said. "That's where the advocacy has to go, and that's the work that has to continue."

If the resolution to be tabled by Bentz on Monday is approved, administration would be required to present a report on the matter to council by Dec. 20.