Northumberland County Responds to Cobourg Mayor’s Interview with Today’s Northumberland

Pete Fisher
1 hour ago
• Categories: City Hall, Editor Choice, Local

Northumberland County has responded to comments made by Cobourg Mayor Lucas Cleveland with Today’s Northumberland on January 28, 2026.

In follow-up to questions posed at the end of Today’s Northumberland’s article: Mayor Wants Criminal Activity Associated With Homelessness Gone from Cobourg – Today’s Northumberland – Your Source For What’s Happening Locally and Beyond, please note the following responses on behalf of County Warden Bob Crate.

1. Why did the County staff and council in full and complete knowledge – that our emergency shelter has been at full capacity – why are the social service experts not consider (sic) a motion about opening up a warming room that is available 24-hours?

2: Why did social services open up a warming room they knew would not be allowed to be open 24-hours a day?

Staff do not make motions. This is the specific purview of elected members of Council. Staff make recommendations – and based on the information provided, Council members deliberate and make motions – which, if adopted by a majority of Council, become direction to staff.

The location of the 2025/26 Warming Room at 555 Courthouse Road was determined based on a series of motions:

In December 2023, recognizing the significant need in our community, Council approved a motion directing staff to purchase 310 Division Street, Cobourg, to operate as a modernized homeless shelter for the community, including a 24/7 warming/cooling hub connected to wrap-around services. Between November and June 2025, 216 people accessed the warming/cooling hub 5415 times.

At the June 18, 2025, meeting of County Council, Councillor Cleveland put forward a motion that included a call for closure of this 24/7 space. Following months of public dialogue around the shelter model at 310 Division Street and service impacts, County Council voted in support of this motion, seeking to better balance support for vulnerable populations with broader community well-being.

Social Services staff immediately began urgent and broad outreach efforts to source a new location for this service before winter, with the 24/7 warming/cooling hub at 310 Division Street officially closing as of July 4, 2025. During this process, only a limited number of locations came forward, and complications with each eliminated them as prospects. As a result, the only option available to staff for setting up a warming room in the short period that remained before winter, was to offer one at either the County’s 600 William Street or 555 Courthouse Road, Cobourg office properties.

At a Special Meeting of Council on October 28, 2025, staff brought forward a report with four options for a Warming Room configuration at one of these two properties. As part of the ensuing deliberation by Council, Councillor Cleveland advanced a recommendation to establish the Warming Room at either the new or old Golden Plough Lodge (GPL) facilities. Recognizing that the new GPL would not be open in time to host this service, and there being no available space in the old home given residents currently occupying the facility, this was not a possibility for the 2025/26 service.

During further discussion around the parameters for operation of the 2025/26 Warming Room service, Councillor Cleveland noted:

Starting at minute 24:05: “I would suggest that if (County) Council is considering to keep this (service) at the County campus, that there are a few things that could really help move this in a direction of acceptability within the Town of Cobourg… I would like to follow the Durham model of a warming room… in Durham County (sic), they don’t provide warming room (services) for 180 days, they do it for about 120…Further, their warming rooms operate from 8 p.m. until 8 a.m. They are not 24-hour centers, they are simply a room to stay warm in. They are not wrap-around services, they are a room to stay warm in.

“And so, if this council decides to put a warming room on the County campus, and if this council decides to keep that to…8 p.m. until 8 a.m…I would suggest that you are going to see … a Cobourg council that would be willing to have that conversation…. But all this to say, Warden, I really do think that whatever this Council decides, this warming hub should …not operate 24 hours a day, but should be operated from 8 p.m. until 8 a.m., and staring November 15th to March 31st.”

The final motion, moved by Councillor Cleveland, included direction to staff ‘to pursue opening the winter warming centre at County headquarters, Council Chambers, 555 Courthouse Road, Cobourg, Ontario, with the following restrictions:

From November 1st to March 31st, from 8:00 p.m. until 8:00 a.m., and that staff adopt the rules used in Durham Region for operating a Warming Hub.

Staff applied to the Town of Cobourg for an ECE Licence according to this direction, and received the licence to operate on November 26, 2025. The Warming Room at 555 Courthouse Road opened on November 27, 2025.

3. Why is it that the Executive Director of Transition House has now gone on to multiple media channels including the CBC and state that he doesn’t have any intention of communicating with Cobourg By-Law as per previous orders regarding the ECE?

While the Executive Director of Transition House is not an employee of Northumberland County, we do feel it is important to use this opportunity to clarify that this reference relates to the placement of furniture within the 310 Division Street shelter – specifically the set-up of several armchairs.

The Executive Director has publicly stated that Transition House “will not be consulting Cobourg Bylaw on operational issues outside of the legislative purview” – correctly pointing out that the selection of furniture to ensure a comfortable space is within the shelter’s exclusive scope of operational authority.

The Executive Director has stated that he is in communication with Cobourg By-law regarding all matters that do fall under the ECE By-law, and he will continue with this.

4. Why was there an inability by (Northumberland County) upper tier regional government with more than three times the staff of Cobourg and a budget of $200 million annually where it appeared no one was able to understand the difference of a building’s occupancy load and a license for that building?

At the January 21, 2026, meeting of County Council, staff clarified, to Council’s satisfaction, that ‘Occupancy’ is one of the documents required to be submitted as part of the Town of Cobourg’s ECE Licence By-law Application, which deals with the number of people anticipated to occupy shelter beds at 310 Division Street at any given time.

County staff submitted a full and complete application for an ECE Licence renewal for 310 Division Street on October 8, 2025, meeting all Town of Cobourg specifications including the submission of an updated occupancy overview for the facility, and was awarded a renewed ECE Licence on October 30, 2025, effective November 8, 2025.

It is reasonable to infer that, with the Town of Cobourg doing their due diligence in reviewing this application and subsequently awarding a licence, they concur with County Council’s view that County staff submitted a complete, accurate, and satisfactory application.

At the January 21 meeting, Council directed staff to work with the Town of Cobourg to reconcile the understanding of occupancy and licensing, to allow for change in the shelter’s occupancy threshold from 35 up to 46 beds based on occupancy trends.

 

A statement was also issued by Northumberland County Warden Bob Crate and Acting CAO Glenn Dees

Every day, well over 6,000 people in Northumberland County access social assistance – people from all walks of life, ranging in age from infant to senior citizen. This is a conservative figure, based only on individuals accessing income support. The actual number – were we to include subsidized housing, rent supplements, child care supplements, food banks, and other forms of assistance – is certainly much higher.

With sharp increases in the cost of necessities like food, housing, and heat over the last few years, more people than ever before are facing housing insecurity – and more people are tipping into homelessness.

New data shows that 85,000 Ontarians were homeless in 2025 – an 8 per cent increase over 2024. We’re seeing this rise reflected right here in Northumberland, with a growing number of people accessing housing and homelessness services. Currently, about 50% of people accessing shelter services at 310 Division Street are senior citizens. This is but one measure of the significant and legitimate need in our community.

At Northumberland County, we have a group of incredibly dedicated, compassionate staff members working in our Social Services Department; individuals who keep coming back each morning, despite the sometimes-crushing nature of their work, to push the heavy rock of need just a little further uphill by the end of each day.

· They help struggling parents access child care fee subsidies so they can continue to work and feed their families.

· They help seniors whose spouses have suddenly passed away, apply for income benefits so they can survive independently.

· They help women fleeing domestic violence access housing supports.

· They help people living in their cars access homeless shelter services.

· And yes, they help people – young and old – who are suffering from addiction, access what limited recovery services might be available to them.

This is also a community rooted in strong volunteerism. Faith groups, charities, service clubs, and neighborhoods regularly come together to coordinate supports for people less fortunate. When the word ‘advocate’ is used, let us remember our many neighbours who are giving their time to hold community dinners, deliver bagged lunches, host food drives, shuttle people to shower services, and set up knitting circles for donations of mitts and hats to those living in the cold.

These services our staff and community groups provide are lifesaving – now more than ever.

That is why we feel compelled to address statements made in the media this week about social services in our community. To reduce the work of our staff – and all social service work – to the enablement of criminal activity, and call for widespread ‘investigations’; to infer that people accessing social services are all criminals; to make such statements in an open forum, from the seat of the highest office of local government – this is not only irresponsible. It is reprehensible. And it is dangerous.

It is dangerous because it deters people from seeking the help they desperately need, fearing stigma, judgment, or being labeled as criminals. It puts those who do access services at risk of being targeted in the community. And it places an unsustainable burden on our social services professionals and community volunteers, who already carry immense emotional weight. When their work is publicly attacked and mischaracterized, we risk losing skilled, compassionate people doing some of the hardest—and most necessary—work in our county. Which only further imperils those struggling in our community who need help.

We can and we must continue to have difficult conversations about addiction, homelessness, and community safety. But we must also recognize that while these issues intersect, they are not one and the same. Leadership means carefully navigating the differences.

Municipalities are being stretched to the limit as we take the lead in addressing what has become a national crisis. This moment calls for thoughtful, responsible dialogue that at once advances community safety priorities, while recognizing the dignity of those in need, and supporting the people working to help them. Dialogue that brings communities together. Rhetoric and blame undermine our collective ability to deliver effective, compassionate responses – and they do not get us any closer to meaningful solutions.