THUNDER BAY — Worsening crises of homelessness and housing, addictions, and mental health dominated Thunder Bay’s recent municipal election, but while rhetoric on those issues has grown at city hall, spending on them remains a footnote in the city budget.
City councillors have touted some expanded anti-poverty and homelessness programs, and a new focus on the crisis in its lobbying efforts.
Still, city spending on those issues remains in the hundreds of thousands on a budget of close to $250 million, and has risen only slightly.
The 2023 budget city council approved last week included millions in new funding for the Thunder Bay Police Service, by contrast, highlighting how calls to defund police have faded since emerging in 2020.
It’s an approach the city’s community safety and well-being plan, approved in 2021, encourages it to move away from.
"Many communities invest a significant amount of resources into incident response, which is reactive," the plan states. "By meeting the needs of individuals before a situation escalates into a crisis, we can help prevent increased demands for more costly downstream interventions with police and other emergency response systems."
It’s long been a sensitive topic for municipal leaders, prompting defensive speeches at city hall. City staff did not respond to multiple requests for interview for this article.
It’s a subject leaders increasingly can’t avoid, however, as city councillors acknowledge homelessness and addictions now top the list of voter concerns, along with affordability.
Mercedes Labelle, a senior policy analyst with the Northern Policy Institute, said the province is broadly responsible for housing and homelessness, but municipalities play a key supporting role and can help drive solutions.
“It’s easy for us to see municipalities as the front line for this, because they’re the ones on the ground interacting with community members, which means they face tremendous pressure from their residents to solve the issues. But they are constrained by tight budgets, and [what’s needed is] an all-of-government approach.”
Still, she said municipalities clearly have a role to play and face increased demands to do so from the public.
The policy institute worked with several municipal associations to produce a report last year that highlighted the severity of the issues in the region, and called on all levels of government for increased action and coordination.
Many places in Northern Ontario have higher per capita homelessness rates than large cities in Southern Ontario, for example, or overdose rates several times the provincial average.
The report recommended the province amend the Health Protection and Promotion Act to define some regional communities as “northern service hubs,” allocating additional funding to recognize their role as places where people from outlying communities seek health and social services.
It’s a step Mayor Ken Boshcoff has called key, saying he intends to drive it home in provincial lobbying.
The report also highlighted examples where municipalities have helped support new approaches.
The town of Sioux Lookout, for example, contributed land to a supportive housing project that involved partners including the Kenora District Services Board, OPP, Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services, Nishnawbe-Gamik Friendship Centre, and Meno Ya Win Health Centre.
Those investments can create substantial savings in the long run, Labelle said, with figures indicating the Sioux Lookout project averted an estimated 564 emergency service calls annually, translating to an estimated savings of $200,000 to $300,000 for the municipality.
The report also calls to expand “mobile crisis intervention teams” that incorporate social and mental health workers into frontline emergency response.
“Police officers are ill-equipped to handle an increasing number of service calls involving individuals experiencing mental health crises, resulting in a ‘revolving door’ phenomenon ‘where police have frequent contact with the same individuals who are often unable to access long-term, appropriate care,’” the report states.
That was a point of discussion in Thunder Bay’s election, with mayoral runner-up Gary Mack proposing a “new tier of first responders” to handle non-criminal calls related to mental health, homelessness, and public intoxication.
There are some signs the city is serious about doing more.
Exhibit A is a new $1 million fund intended to help leverage funding for infrastructure like supportive housing.
The first project could be approved as soon as Monday, when council will consider an application for over $300,000 from Matawa First Nations to boost its supportive housing initiatives.
However, the city also cut its funding of the Shelter House by $100,000 this year due to cancellation of the SOS program, and pulled back on funds it provided for an emergency warming centre and the care bus during the pandemic, meaning overall spending on homelessness and addictions issues will go up only slightly.
A lack of funding nearly cancelled those programs this year before the DSSAB stepped in, an example of where advocacy group Poverty Free Thunder Bay feels the city has a role to play.
“There are some things the city absolutely needs to provide a backstop on,” said member Paul Berger. “At a certain level, there are things that have to happen so we don’t have people dying in the streets.”
In an email, the group said the province and feds must step up with more funding on addictions and homelessness. However, they also called on the city to examine steps like using infill land for affordable housing, prioritize more municipal funding for detox beds and shelter space, and intensify its advocacy.
The city endorsed a bold set of harm reduction policies last year, including decriminalizing simple drug possession and safe supply programs.
The Ontario Big City Mayors group has urged its members, including Boshcoff, to go further by “[working] with their councils to help fund the development and evaluation of evidence-based best practices like safe consumption sites.”
Coun. Brian Hamilton, who also sits on the District of Thunder Bay Social Services Administration Board (DSSAB), says residents largely should look to the province and that organization, which allocates provincial homelessness dollars, for action.
“It’s important to remember that even though it was a big debate during the election … a lot of the issues surrounding homelessness, housing, and poverty are in the realm of the DSSAB. It’s incumbent on us to provide them reliable funding, and indeed, if we wanted to really tackle homelessness we might want to consider increasing funding to the DSSAB.”
While he agrees the city has a role to play, he believes change ultimately needs to come from Queen’s Park.
“The province has to provide health care funding, addictions and mental health, and crisis beds. We really don’t have that in Thunder Bay right now. We have inadequate services for the crisis we’re in.”
Hamilton said the city has been doing some “ferocious advocacy” on that front, pointing to the recent ROMA conference.
While a large shortfall remains, Hamilton said he’s seeing some signs the province is coming to the table, along with other groups including First Nations.
“You have organizations such as Matawa and others that are providing what we at the DSSAB know we need — it’s not just housing, it’s transitional and supportive housing,” he said.
Labelle said there are indications that governments are feeling increasing pressure to step up investments and services.
“This is a very prevalent issue right now… and as we know, it’s definitely [been exacerbated] in the past few years,” she said. “With that will potentially come an increased political focus for municipalities and different levels of government, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see more initiatives develop in the years to come.”
