The Municipality of Chatham-Kent is warning it needs more funding from upper levels of government to keep operating the shelter in Chatham and other homeless services or more homeless encampments will start dotting the landscape.
An information report by Employment and Social Services (ESS) coming to council Monday night said ESS services and programs are having an impact but more needs to be done to reach a point where emergency programs like the shelter in Chatham called Victoria Park Place will no longer be required.
Program Manager Josh Myers said in his report staff are currently seeing more than double the number of households needing emergency housing than in 2018/2019 when the municipality relied solely on motels for emergency housing and if the emergency shelter is to be closed, it is anticipated that homeless encampments in Chatham-Kent will grow significantly.
"Chatham-Kent has not yet experienced large encampments like those of other municipalities. It is also important to note that based on current forecasts, even with a 48-bed emergency shelter, homelessness in Chatham-Kent will grow," wrote Myers in his report. "As a result, administration will be recommending in the four-year budget that the Municipality continue to fund emergency housing services for the foreseeable future."
Myers noted the goal continues to be to house enough homeless people so that a return to a smaller model is possible, eliminating the need for a large congregate shelter, but there is no supporting evidence to suggest that this goal will be met in the near future unless higher levels of government address the lack of low-rent housing, meager social assistance rates, inadequate homeless programming funding, mental health and addiction supports, wait times, and increasing supports for those with developmental and cognitive disabilities.
Chatham-Kent received a 6.7 per cent increase from the province last year to bring total funding for the Homeless Prevention Program to $3,039,500, but while Myers said the increase is appreciated, he said it does not cover the growing need or the inflationary pressures on services and does not allow for the creation of new programming.
He said Chatham-Kent did not see the large budget increases that many other municipalities received because the municipality is not currently seeing the level of homelessness and "housing precarity" that some neighbouring communities are experiencing.
"This is no consolation for those in our community relying on these important services and in turn requires tough decisions on future shelter operations," Myers said.
Myers reported the cost of living crisis, the high inflation, and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are driving more people into homelessness and Chatham-Kent is seeing the impacts of increasing rents and frozen social assistance rates every day.
"Research in the United States confirm that homelessness rates increase when the cost of rent rises faster than social assistance incomes. Based on this research, Chatham-Kent should expect to see an increase in homelessness again this year as income at the lowest end remains unchanged while rents continue to increase," Myers said.
He noted homeless prevention programs have supported and served more than 3,000 Chatham-Kent residents, but have not kept up with the need.
Myers said there is not enough affordable housing for those who are couch surfing and staying at the Victoria Park Place emergency shelter and it's taking longer to move people back to housing, adding community members at the lowest income brackets are unable to meet their living expenses and as a result Chatham-Kent continues to see a year over year increase in costs to the prevention programs.
"What is clear, is that the absence of any shelter will increase encampments because there will be no available service for the many people who are new to homelessness, and they will have no choice but to build encampments for survival," said Myers.
Council will hear that over 700 CK households received financial assistance last year to prevent their homelessness, which without assistance would have led them to needing "expensive services" like the shelter in Chatham.
Myers said the municipality is currently spending $1.9 million from reserves to operate a 24/7 emergency housing program and Chatham-Kent is not receiving federal funding for homelessness that other communities get because it's not a “Reaching Home” community.
Council will also get an update on how many people the Chatham shelter has helped since it opened a year ago.
The report shows 54 per cent of people that accessed the shelter are homeless for the first time.
It also shows 15,479 bed nights were used; 100 households moved directly from the shelter and back into housing; 321 unique households were served at the shelter; and 35 families and 62 children received emergency housing.