By Cecilia Nasmith/Northumberland 89.7 FM/Today’s Northumberland
Members of Northumberland County council’s Social Services Committee agreed that the report on work done in 2024 by community and social services staff was to be applauded – but they also learned that there is no reason to think the need will abate.
The report presented at their meeting Wednesday related work done in several areas by the applicable staff, starting with the Customer Service Unit. These staffers had an average of 515 in-person visits monthly, booking an average of 86 appointments for on-going social assistance per month. A highlight of the year for this department was hosting a very successful first-ever Identification and Wellness Clinic.
Early Years services saw 132 new child-care space open in Port Hope, Cobourg and Trent Hills. Visits to their programming were up by 17%, and they hosted their first-ever community-partner event, a Sugar Bush Day, which they will repeat on March 12.
In housing, Phase I of the Elgin Park redevelopment saw 20 households housed, with Phase II expected by summer. Plans for intensifying occupancy at 123 King St. E. in Colborne are afoot, and they purchased a Campbellford property for use as three transitional housing units. They are finalizing the purchase of 699 Westwood Dr. in Cobourg with plans for future affordable and attainable housing on its 14 acres. They transitioned 60 households from their wait list to geared-to-income housing and helped 315 households with rent subsidy (81 of them for the first time).
In homelessness services, they did 288 outreach visits to encampments, motels and shelters to ensure people are getting the services and support they are eligible for. They helped 77 with last-month rent to obtain housing and 71 with rental arrears to prevent homelessness. Other highlights of the year were the opening of the new homeless shelter at 310 Division St., Cobourg, and the dismantling of the Brookside encampment. They participated in program development and tenant selection for five supportive-housing units in Campbellford and will soon begin work on opening the transitional-housing units at 310 Division.
Warden Brian Ostrander noted that, while the Brookside encampment did close down, the county had nothing to do with it. Still, he said, some credit is due to county staff for work done in anticipation of its closing down.
“I want to champion this team’s job on getting the work done so that encampment could be dissolved,” Ostrander said.
“At the end of the day, it was this team that housed people and supported people so they could leave that encampment. This team provides the County of Northumberland with what I think of as what should be or what was once provided by provincial services.”
Committee chair John Logel asked if this much hard work might still be required in five years’ time, and did not get an optimistic answer from Director of Health and Human Services Glenn Dees.
“In light of what we have seen from a trend perspective and with recent changes in our economic situation with tariffs and the impact they could have on some of the broader community – particularly for those households that are paycheque-to-paycheque – those impacts are hard to break down, but they could be substantial,” Dees concluded.
Given the budget figures provided on support for social services that comes from the province versus what comes from the tax levy, Ostrander estimated that “if the province funded their responsibility the way they should, 20% of taxation would be available to us that would certain offset the effects of tariffs.”
He called these tariffs “this landslide for the economy, a concern that will affect families across Northumberland County.
“New housing and creating new opportunities for people – that just went up 25%.”
Ostrander reminded everyone how devastating the inflationary fallout from the recent COVID-19 pandemic had been, but pointed out that it only amounted to about 12%. That just doubled, he said.
“If you are not worried, you should be.”
