THUNDER BAY -- The city is hoping the province will upload costs in homelessness and mental-health programs as it re-envisages social issues as health issues.
The city's Intergovernmental Affairs Committee made a pitch to provincial ministers at this week's Ontario Good Roads Association annual conference in Toronto that the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care should be taking the lead on funding the city's homeless shelter and pay for a prospective mental health program for the Thunder Bay Police Service.
"Shelter House and the programs they provide are basically health issues and they're not municipal issues," said Intergovernmental Affairs Committee chairman and Coun. Joe Virdiramo.
"We support it because we know it's needed. However, it's not actually our issue. It's a health issue and it should be addressed by health."
Shelter House's capital and operations costs are currently funded through a number of programs but the city most directly supports the homeless shelter through the Community, Youth Cultural Funding Program.
The city is contributing $319,000 to Shelter House in 2017 for a total of $1.6 million since 2014 through that fund alone. Local taxpayers also contribute through their share of Thunder Bay District Social Services Administration Board (DSSAB) funds.
Interpreting homelessness and substance issues as health issues has its local precedents. In January, the North West Local Health Integration Network adopted the Shelter House's Managed Alcohol program, providing $185,000 in bridge funding that will end in June. By that time, LHIN executives have committed to assessing whether the network will fund the program on an ongoing basis as it does with a similar program in Kenora.
Committee vice-chairman Coun. Brian McKinnon also sits on the Thunder Bay Police Services Board. He's hoping the health ministry will prompt the North West LHIN to support the proposed Community Crisis Response Centre and Mobile Crisis Response Team, which would team up police officers with mental health workers.
Under the proposed program, Canadian Mental Health Association crisis response workers would triage mental health incidents as distinct from legal incidents and direct those experiencing mental health crises to relevant services. McKinnon anticipates the program could result in police department savings where officers are now spending as long as four hours accompanying citizens through treatment at the hospital.
McKinnon said the city is "getting a pretty good feeling now" that the North West LHIN is receptive to funding the program, as their counterparts are funding comparable programs with police services across the province.
He is concerned, however, such a program would come at the expense of other health services.
“We’ve met with the LHIN on a couple of occasions and they support it but their response is, ‘we support that, we have to give something up.’ That’s where we are right now,” McKinnon said.
“But if the province comes across and says, ‘this is really important,' the other LHINs are supporting it. I don’t know what they’ve given up. Maybe it’s time for us to have our kick at it then and let’s see what’s given up.”
Virdiramo said additional lobbying efforts targeted the Ministry of Finance, urging more money be allocated to the North West LHIN to maintain existing programs while adding new expenses.
North West LHIN CEO Laura Kokocinski expressed in a written statement that her organization has already conducted training with CMHA staff and the LHIN is in discussions over a potential pilot plan.
