Not only an urban issue, homelessness is spreading to small towns and rural districts.
Robert Corriveau, the mayor of Papineau-Cameron Township, knows there are homeless people struggling within his region, as well as neighbouring Mattawa. Corriveau has been mayor for over three decades, and he’s never seen such issues before.
He said, “We have a growing number of homeless people in the community, and that didn’t exist years ago.”
Recently, Corriveau and the township council passed a motion asking the government to amend the Ontario Building Code to make it easier and cheaper to build within the province. The motion also called for the province to offer ready-to-go housing plans available for a decent price. All aimed to streamline the process.
See: Demand grows to put homeless into houses
Speaking to BayToday, the township’s CAO Jason McMartin, mentioned the motion was getting a lot of support from other municipalities.
The township’s motion isn’t asking for subsidized housing, or for the government to build transitional homes. It calls for a revised building code that would allow for cheaper builds and make it easier for people to put trailers on their land, or build a home using less-conventional materials.
The mayor said, “What we’re trying to do is stimulate the government into moving forward with some kind of action plan to help the lower income people so that they don’t turn into homeless people.”
He continued, “There’s a lot of people on the streets, out they’re almost freezing to death, and some of them probably are, and it’s only going to get worse.”
Corriveau noted that most new homes built in Ontario today are out of reach for most working people. He said, “They’re developing housing, but they’re all $700,000 or $800,000 homes. Who’s going to afford them?”
Most can’t, he added. Corriveau noted there are multiple reasons for our housing situation, but the main issue is the recent influx of immigrants. He emphasized, “You don’t bring in millions of people when you don’t have housing for them, because what do you think that’s going to do?”
“The cart was put before the horse,” Corriveau said, and the country wasn’t ready for the massive population growth that occurred under Trudeau’s reign.
The township’s motion is meant to get the provincial wheels turning to allow more building options that will help the working class stay housed or offer more realistic solutions – like living in a trailer on one’s land – without having to cut through layers of municipal and provincial red tape.
Corriveau said, “The building code is very, very strict and restrictive. It has to be revisited and there have to be amendments in certain areas to make things more affordable.”
The mayor added that’s he’s not an expert in eradicating homelessness in the province, but he knew he had to do something to help keep the ball rolling.
He said, “It all comes down to the provincial government stimulating this, and they’re sitting back, and nobody seems to have a solution to the homelessness situation, and it has to start somewhere.”
David Briggs is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of BayToday, a publication of Village Media. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
