Lambton County Council has formally named addressing homelessness a key focus.
Council during its meeting Wednesday unanimously approved a motion brought forward by Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley, to make affordable housing and shelter the number one priority for the county.
"We need something from this council who are the leaders here, and I appreciate the staff work, but we are ones that are dealing with this issue and I think we should make this our number one priority," said Bradley.
Deputy Warden Brian White said as a top priority, this has significant impacts on the entire community.
"This is becoming a very normal discussion across the entire country," said White. "And this being a top priority has significant impact on economics, future economic development, as well as public safety, which I know for certain folks is their top priority."
Social Services GM Valerie Colasanti previously stated that the county has seen a 400 per cent increase in homelessness since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. She said she fully understands the urgency.
"We do have several builds right now in the hopper," said Colasanti. "Maxwell Park Place certainly has taken longer than we anticipated for a whole variety of reasons but we do hope to have occupation later this year. The Ontario Aboriginal Housing Corporation will be breaking ground later this year, again it took a little longer than we anticipated, but those are happening."
Colosanti said their existing affordable/supportive housing plan will be reviewed in the coming months.
"When we look at our housing and homeless plan right now, the objective we set, and it was low, but what we set between 2020 and 2025 was to build 75 affordable units," she said. "I think when we redo that plan, which will be later this year, we have to have a more aggressive number. And I think it should be units not builds, because you could have a number of builds that could have affordable units in them."
During Wednesday's meeting, council also approved applying to the federal Housing Accelerator Fund this summer.