Windsor's city council agreed to temporarily shore up lost funding for the Community Homelessness Prevention Initiative Monday night.
After a lengthy debate council voted 7-4 in favour of "bridging" $564,000 in funding recently cut by the Ontario PC's. That funding represents only a fraction of the more than $11-million supplied to emergency shelters, housing support programs, and programs like Keep the Heat for those having trouble paying for their utility bills.
City administration says the shortfall in the budget is always there — with the anticipation of provincial funding that simply isn't coming this year.
Victoria Manor Supportive Living's Leigh Vachon is one of several delegates that pled with council to step up. The Executive Director is glad council voted in favour of the move, but she knows it won't be the last time the debate surfaces.
"Happy is an interesting word, given what is actually happening in our community in a broader sense with what we are actually looking at," she says. "I don't like it and I don't like that we had to go through this, but at the end of the day, no child should try to do homework in the dark, no parent should lose their child because they can't afford to pay their bills, and we shouldn't be turning 21 people on to the streets."
Vachon tells AM800 News five of the home's 21 beds would have been cut — making a bad situation worse.
"At the end of the day we're getting $55 per day to support really ill people and that's completely insufficient. If we'd have lost this revenue with the five beds, we're projecting in two years, if things stay consistent, that we're potentially going to be in a bankruptcy situation anyways," added Vachon.
She says the home is the last stop before the streets for people who need more than just a roof over their heads.
"Right now most of our population is mentally ill with a lot of physical health issues," she says. "We kind of exist between the cracks and collect everybody who's fallen through some other system that can't live independently."
Ward 1 Councillor Fred Francis says the services are needed, but voted against the additional funding from the city.
"It potentially sends a signal to them [the province] that, hey, if there's further downloading the municipal council might step up and absorb it so it might not be that bad — lets test our boundaries a little. That's certainly not a signal we want to send,” says Francis, who would have preferred council gather support from municipalities to lobby against budget cuts."