By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
Despite the high profile of the encampment at the former Brookside Youth Centre, Northumberland County Associate Director of Housing and Homelessness Rebecca Carman told Northumberland County council’s Social Services Committee meeting yesterday that they meet their homeless clients wherever in the county that they may be.
Carman spoke of partnerships with health and other agencies throughout the county that work to find solutions.
Cobourg Mayor Lucas Cleveland – not a member of the committee but allowed to join in discussions – had recently demanded at a county council meeting that other communities provide some shelter solutions as opposed to dumping it all on Cobourg, pointing to the year-old encampment at the former Brookside Youth Centre.
And at a subsequent Cobourg council meeting, a notice of motion was put forth for the town to put a cap on shelter approvals granted under its Emergency Care Establishment Bylaw until such time as additional shelters begin operating in other lower-tier Northumberland municipalities.
Noting that half the encampment member are life-long Cobourg residents and 75% have lived in Cobourg at least four years, Cramahe Mayor Mandy Martin – also not a committee member – would argue that the county’s social-service department is fulfilling its mandate of meeting them where while they are at Brookside.
Warden Brian Ostrander (who serves on the committee with Deputy Warden Olena Hankivsky and Committee Chair John Logel) acknowledged that the problem goes beyond Cobourg’s borders and, once the prospective homeless shelter in Cobourg at 310 Division St. is open, thought it might be good to consider a feasibility study to look at potential shelter services elsewhere in the county.
“We have seen the impact here in Cobourg,” Ostrander said.
“We are all concerned about the impact here in Cobourg. We don’t want people living in storefronts, we don’t want people living in condominium lobbies any more. We want to make sure we are being accountable about how we provide social services across the county.”
Ostrander made such a motion, which passed, along with an amendment by Hankivsky that the study include an accounting of all the costs Cobourg had undertaken in response to the Brookside encampment, “especially $200,000 in additional policing costs.”
