Huron County Warden says the Biggest Challenges for 2023 Will Continue to be the Biggest Challenges in 2024

by Bob Montgomery

Huron County Warden Glen McNeil says housing and homelessness were the biggest challenges for the county in 2023 and they will continue to be the biggest challenges in 2024.

McNeil says counties and municipalities throughout Ontario and across the country are all dealing with those issues and he also points out some of Huron County's biggest success stories in 2023 were how the county dealt with those challenges. One of those successes is the construction of triplexes on Bennet Street in Goderich. McNeil says two of them have already been completed and they're providing six units that are now occupied by individuals who have qualified for affordable and rent-geared-to-income housing. The cost of that project was two million dollars.

McNeil says they are also in the process of building a twenty-unit apartment building on Sanders Street in Exeter that is also affordable and offers rent-geared-to-income. McNeil says the cost of that project will be 7.5 million dollars. The county was able to receive financial support for that project from both the Provincial and Federal governments. McNeil says the third project is the Gibbons Street project in Goderich and that is a forty-unit apartment building that will be affordable housing, rent-geared-to-income and supportive housing. He says the cost of that project will be 13.5 million dollars and the county will be looking to both the Federal and Provincial governments as well as private entities for financial support for that project.

McNeil also points out that Huron County has a couple of advantages that some other counties don't enjoy. The first is that Huron County does have land available for building new homes and the second is the collaboration between the county and its municipalities. In the case of the Gibbon Street apartment in Goderich, the town owned the land and they sold it to the county for one dollar so they could proceed with the project to help those who are unhoused or need assistance.

McNeil says in addressing the homelessness issue, the county has moved to a motel model for this year. It opened on the first of November and will be open until the 30th of April of 2024. He says the fifteen units are available to those in Huron County who find themselves homeless. McNeil says staff have identified the first thing they have to do to help someone who is homeless is provide a roof over their head. He says once they've removed the uncertainty of where a person is going to sleep at night, they can begin to address other issues like mental health and addiction with the help of professionals. So far they have been very successful, with the help of professionals, in moving people into more permanent housing.

McNeil says there's no doubt housing and homelessness will continue to be the major challenges in the coming year. But he says when everyone works together without caring who gets the credit, it's amazing what can be accomplished.