Bruce County’s Human Services team has received approval for its housing and homelessness spending for this fiscal year.
Director of Human Services Ian Hanney gave the report to council on Thursday, showing that the county will have a total of $2.4 million in funding available through provincial and federal funding streams.
The spending through the Canada Ontario Community Housing Investment (COCHI) pan, the Ontario Priority Housing Investment (OPHI) plan and the Homelessness Prevention Program plans were improved.
“These provincially-funded programs provide Bruce County with over $2.4 million in funding to support community housing repairs and modernization, housing affordability initiatives, homelessness prevention services, emergency shelter solutions, and housing stability supports,” said Hanney.
The report also outlined some small increases that the county was expecting, with around $43,000 more expected through the OPHI and COCHI allocation.
Despite that modest increase in funding, the County would see a decrease next year, to the tune of $69,000.
Hanney had also mentioned that although the province has offered additional funding to some communities through the HART Hub initiative, but was only available to certain communities.
He said that there could be additional funding available through the federal government.
The federal government, which also does directly supply funding to some – again, a minority of communities – has iterative increases and perhaps specific funding streams specific to rural homelessness,” Hanney explained. “Bruce County is not a community entity, a municipality that receives this funding. And the opportunity would be there for us to advocate to be added as a community entity… likely at the end of the National Housing Strategy, which is set to expire at the end of the 2027-28 fiscal year.”
Warden Luke Charbonneau voiced his support for further advocacy work for funding.
“I think we definitely need to advocate on this front and make sure that we’re receiving whatever funding is available… but even more centrally, those upper-levels of government need to come forward with more resources, whatever those resources look like,” said Charbonneau, who pointed to recent reports that the County was consistently having to provide shelter space and resources to an increased demand, with little to no additional funding.