By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
Cobourg Mayor Lucas Cleveland called upon his fellow county councillors at Wednesday’s Northumberland County meeting to take some of Cobourg’s homeless citizens into their own communities.
Cleveland added this item to the agenda as a social-services enquiry, claiming to be asking questions that the populace of Cobourg have been asking him, warning of unspecified grass-roots actions that will be taken otherwise which no one will like.
“If we don’t come up with a solution, the solution that the people of Cobourg are going to come up with is one that is not a good choice,” he said.
The remarks came as rumours fly about the sale of the former Brookside Youth Centre, which the province has put up for sale. The province did not authorize the town to act when the encampment began moving on to the grounds last fall.
Cleveland’s remarks followed a quieter beginning to his enquiries that elicited the information that people are already transitioning out of the Brookside encampment into shelter situations, rehab programs, family settings and even permanent housing. Chief Administrative Officer Jennifer Moore said there had been four taken into shelter and three who acquired housing in the last two weeks alone.
Then there are the ones who refuse housing and shelter options, Cleveland noted.
“We live in a free country and, if people refuse service or just don’t want to be housed, we cannot force them to do so,” Warden Brian Ostrander said.
Cleveland offered his prediction that these people will disperse themselves into the town’s subdivisions and parks, “until your level of government is ready to start talking about actual solutions.”
This leaves Cobourg residents to deal “with the individuals that are technically the responsibility of this level of government.
“If we don’t have a plan for when this encampment closes, then the plan will be to allow these people to disperse among the people of Cobourg, which is leading to a grass-roots movement in Cobourg that no one in this council is going to like.”
“We can’t create a plan to institutionalize people,” Ostrander said.
“You know that, we all know that. Only one group can institutionalize anyone, and that’s the courts at the end of the day – or medical officers who could do that if there is that functional need.”
“I don’t know what my counterpart is expecting of council unless we maybe we have a room where we can get them up and put them inside and put a lock on the door,” Trent Hills Mayor Bob Crate said.
“We are offering as many services as we can to try to help these people. If they refuse help, we don’t have that solution.”
Cleveland then shared his own solution.
“Stop centralizing services in Cobourg – that’s the solution. It’s real simple Stop centralizing all social services on one community,” he said.
“It’s inappropriate. It’s unfair. It’s unequal.
“That’s the solution. This level needs to come to the aid of Cobourg, say, ‘We are willing to accept them,” he urged.
“Let’s make it more fair and equitable. When the mayor from the largest municipality in the region comes here, let’s stop calling him arrogant and ignorant.
“This level of government is not servicing that group of people effectively or appropriately. I cannot say that any other or clearer way.”
Ostrander outlined plans in his Brighton community to build affordable residences for low-income earners – which Cleveland dismissed, sharing his own tales of cleaning up human feces from the premises of his downtown business and removing crack pipes from a public bathroom.
“You don’t know what you are talking about,” he said.
“Watch your tone,” Ostrander warned tersely.
“People are being attacked in the streets in the middle of the day, people who voted for you,,,” Cleveland continued.
“Excuse me!” Cramahe Mayor Mandy Martin interjected.
“You do not know what the rest of us are facing.”
“I agree,” Ostrander said, calling for a motion to accept Cleveland’s presentation for information purposes.
