Homelessness in Belleville

The provincial government is primarily responsible for funding homelessness programs in Ontario. As their Service Manager, Hastings County is responsible for delivering funding and programs locally on behalf of Belleville, Quinte West and other communities.

  • Funding: The provincial government is primarily responsible for funding homelessness programs (68% of all funding in 2021, with municipalities providing 23% and federal government providing 9%), and primarily responsible for funding and delivery healthcare, including mental health (78% of all funding).
  • Delivery: The administration and organization of housing and homelessness-related services is a local responsibility, primarily through municipalities. The 47 Service Managers 2 Indigenous Program Administrators provide some services directly, but transfer the majority of provincial funding to third parties to actually deliver/provide services and supports locally.

Timeline

Hastings County omits required outcomes in Belleville’s first federal Homelessness Report

All communities receiving funding from Designated Communities stream are required to use this template in order to complete the community plan under Reaching Home.

Core outcomes tracked by Hastings County:

  • Fewer people experience homelessness overall
  • Fewer people experience homelessness for the first time
  • Fewer people return to homelessness from housing
  • Fewer Indigenous peoples experience homelessness
  • Fewer people experience chronic homelessness

2023 Q1 Built for Zero Report Card

  • 133 People are currently experiencing homelessness in Hastings County.
  • 94 People have been experiencing homelessness for six months or longer.
  • 33 People became chronically homeless.
  • 6 People got back in touch after having become inactive (not heard from in 90 days).
  • 1 Person lost their housing.
  • 9 People moved into housing
  • 19 People lost touch

Belleville calls on Ontario government to acknowledge the homelessness crisis and commit to ending it

The motion asks the province to step up with much more financial and services support saying municipalities don’t have the resources to deal with increasing numbers of people experiencing homelessness.

statement

Mayor Ellis says emergency action plan needed on homelessness

From 2006 to ’14 we basically had some couch-surfing, but really no visible homelessness. I went away for basically two terms — eight years — came back, and we have approximately 200 homeless

So it’s grown and grown and growing, and there doesn’t seem to be an end to it.

It’s basically a health crisis. It’s a social economic crisis. And I don’t see that successive governments at the provincial level … are tackling any type of thing that we can see — whether it’s poor policy decisions, or they’re just not interested in it

When I look at it, why aren’t they interested? Basically the cost, but the homeless don’t vote, and I hate to say it. But it’s a social crisis right now and we need to get out in front of it.

Mayor Neil Ellis to CBC Radio’s Ontario Morning

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