Pleas for action and compassion were brought forward during a community forum on homelessness Tuesday night in Sarnia.
The session included updates from county representatives on actions underway to help address the lack of affordable and supportive housing, as well as from charitable organizations who help the unhoused with meals, showers and medical care.
Lambton's Social Services General Manager Valerie Colasanti told the over 200 people in attendance at the community forum, hosted by the Rotary Club of Sarnia, that affordable and supportive housing will be a big part of the solution.
"It's important for us to focus on these long-term solutions to solve this crisis," said Colasanti. "While we do need some immediate solutions, I think it's very important for you to remember there are limited funds. And if we put our funds into emergency band-aid fixes, we won't be able to come up with long-term solutions and I think we can all agree that everyone in our community deserves to have a safe, affordable place to call home."
Several residents voiced their frustrations with the situation, particularly at Rainbow Park in Sarnia, and others made pleas for humanity including Carolyn, who lives not far from the encampment.
"I want people to realize that these are people, they are somebody's child," said Carolyn. "They did not grow up and decide through their life that they wanted to live at Rainbow Park, they're there for some horrible reason."
Justine, who resides at Rainbow Park, raised concerns about the lack of public washrooms available for residents at the encampment, saying they're not animals.
"I don't see why we can put up outhouses, a couple outhouses and somewhere to shower, we're people," said Justine. "It's not as easy as people think and we are not all drug-addicts, we are not all criminals, we don't kill people. We want to help each other. That's our family out there and we're looking out for each other because a lot of people don't look out for us."
Lambton's Supervisor of Homelessness Prevention and Social Planning Ian Hanney invited those in attendance, and those watching online, to be a part of the solution through a new campaign.
"Folks are wanting to learn more, folks are wanting to do something, they want change in their community," said Hanney. "So our community, all of the social, human, service agencies, all those allied providers, everybody that's hands on exhaustively working towards the betterment of our community to solve homelessness have put their heads together to come up with a campaign known as Be Part of the Solution."
He said the first goal of the initiative is to relate to folks' basic understanding about homelessness, the second is to describe the current work that is happening.
"Of course, if individuals aren't acutely aware of what's happening around human and social services and they see the folks, the dozens now unhoused and living unsheltered and you might think, oh there's no work that's happening and just the opposite is true," said Hanney. "So we created a very simple way for folks to learn about what is happening, collaborations that are involved in homelessness, incorporating those with lived experience and programs that we have in our community from prevention, to emergency responses to long-term solutions."
Hanney said the third goal of the campaign is a call to action.
"Absolutely anybody in our community can be part of the solution," he said. "There's a role for everybody to productively be part of the solution."
Other presenters included Inn of the Good Shepherd Executive Director Myles Vanni, Jim Curran with Nightlight, Julie Harries with Ontario Health Teams Sarnia-Lambton and Crisis System Navigation Program Manager with Lambton EMS Anita Trussler.
The Rotary Club of Sarnia plans to hold more community discussions in the coming months.
You can watch Tuesday's session on the club's Facebook page.