Ward 9 city councillor Kieran McKenzie is back from a board meeting of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) in Toronto over the weekend.
McKenzie is Windsor's representative on the AMO board, and says the meeting touched on a number of issues relating to the environment, transportation, housing, homelessness, addiction and mental health challenges.
"It's a crisis across all of Ontario. It's not Windsor or Windsor-Essex, it's Ontario-wide," said McKenzie on the housing situation in the province.
Around the table, McKenzie says discussions on how the province could address housing needs surrounded mainly on funding.
He says municipalities are facing challenges of having to meet community expectation when it comes to housing demand, while also having to foot the bill for provincial programs at the same time.
"Municipalities are frankly tired of doing the province's work. We'd love to be able to invest the dollars that we have at the municipal level in the priorities that A) fall within our area and scope of responsibility, but also we'd love it if the province decided to pay for the programs that they are promising to offer the communities that they serve as well, and they're frankly not doing that to the tune of $4-billion."
McKenzie says AMO will continue to advocate as a likely early provincial election nears, and says this is a good oppourtinity for people who have ideas on how to improve program service delivery at the provincial level to come forward.
"I'll be looking forward to hearing from all of the candidates in our region about how they're going to address that challenge."
The AMO represents municipal and regional governments and advocates for the interests of its members at the provincial level, while facilitating collaboration and information sharing among Ontario's municipalities to address common challenges and promote the well-being of communities.