Northumberland County Council – Cobourg Drops Out of CLC Over “Legal Concerns”
By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
Cobourg will no longer be represented on the Citizens Liaison Committee established in connection with the County of Northumberland’s higher-barrier homeless shelter at 310 Division St.
Mayor Lucas Cleveland made the declaration at the February county council meeting, saying he was withdrawing the town’s representative (Director of Development Chris Challenger), who will no longer be attending the committee meetings “out of legal concerns.”
In fact, he added, “Cobourg will no longer be sending staff members to CLC meetings.”
Cleveland admitted confusion at the direction the committee has taken.
“They were originally created at the request of Cobourg council as part of a mitigating factor of opening a low-barrier shelter. They had a very specific mandate,” he complained.
Now a shift has occurred, with newsletters going out and visits being made to other communities to talk about homelessness.
“It was about 310 and about Cobourg and working as an intermediary between the two. It’s an entire policy shift, and entire mandate shift,” Cleveland insisted.
Northumberland Associate Director of Housing and Homelessness Rebecca Snelgrove recalled things differently.
“The CLC was formed, actually, through dialogue and community engagement from the county. It was part of the agreement template that the county had approached the town to work with. The town decided they didn’t want to enter into that agreement with us, if you remember and developed the (Emergency Care Establishment) bylaw instead,” Snelgrove related.
“As soon as we bought 310, staff were looking at how we could engage the community and ensure it was a success.”
Snelgrove referenced a report at the January county council meeting where the terms of reference were amended and approved by council in recognition of a key change at 310 Division St. – the decision to close the ground-floor drop-in hub that had served the community as an overnight warming room. The change, coming in July, prompted what amounted to another start for the committee as a new warming-room facility opened at 555 Courthouse Rd. in Cobourg.
“The only real change was that the proposed term should be more than a year. That was accepted by council, including the warming room at 555 on the basis that they were looking at the warming room when it was at 310,” Snelgrove said.
“Those were the changes. I haven’t see a shift on that policy. What we are seeing are a group of community members who are leading in this work and, after a year, are really getting it up and running.”
The larger outreach includes Cobourg, she added, referencing an information-and-engagement session with the town’s downtown businesses.
