homelessness Archives — Lindsay Advocate

City’s 10-year homeless plan aims for nearly 1,300 housing units

Published on March 7, 2021 in Social Issues by William McGinn

The City’s new 10-year homelessness plan, set to be complete by 2029, seeks to build as many as 1,280 new housing units for those with below-average income in Kawartha Lakes and 750 for the County of Haliburton.

It’s a goal that Michelle Corley, program supervisor at Housing Help for Kawartha Lakes and one of the 14 committee members who formed the plan, said was slowed down from the pandemic but still underway.

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Women’s Resources to sell Amy’s Next Step Housing building in Fenelon Falls

Published on January 29, 2021 in Social Issues by Lindsay Advocate

City of Kawartha Lakes/Haliburton more than double homelessness housing goal

The Board of Directors of Women’s Resources of Kawartha Lakes and the Kawartha Lakes–Haliburton (KLH) Housing Corporation are excited to announce their agreement for KLH Housing Corporation to acquire Amy’s Next Step Housing at 11 West Street South, Fenelon Falls. Keep Reading

Private hotel rooms for homeless shelter clients make it difficult to ‘move people along’

Published on January 12, 2021 in Social Issues by Roderick Benns

Some of the people who find themselves homeless — and at the doors of A Place Called Home in Lindsay — are not wanting to move along quite as fast these days.

Given the shortage of available affordable housing, the new place they secure with APCH’s help is often just a room at a boarding house. Now, though, with APCH working primarily out of the Knight’s Inn in Lindsay, each person is assigned their own hotel room – a level of privacy that many don’t want to give up, according to executive director David Tilley.

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A Place Called Home moves towards housing continuum model

Published on December 18, 2020 in Community/Social Issues by Jessica Topfer

A Place Called Home (APCH) is at a critical turning point.

Their 19-bed homeless shelter was already at 100 per cent capacity when the first wave of COVID-19 necessitated they move their clients into motel rooms.

Now the number of individuals in their care hovers around 50 people.

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Housing at 68 Lindsay Street deemed “a success”

Published on December 18, 2020 in Municipal/Social Issues by Kirk Winter

New housing complex should be for rehab, not ‘condoning drugs’: Woman’s petition

There’s simply no doubt that the geared-to-income housing at 68 Lindsay Street has been a success, according to a recent report made to council.

Hope Lee, CEO of Kawartha Lakes Haliburton Housing, reported that their newest building at the corner of Lindsay and Queen Streets has been a success by any commonly used metrics.

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City to receive $1.75 million in ‘social services relief fund’ from province

Published on October 27, 2020 in Community/Provincial by Lindsay Advocate

MPP Laurie Scott has announced that Kawartha Lakes will receive $1,750,249 as part of Phase 2 of the social services relief fund to expand and renovate A Place Called Home in Lindsay. The renovation includes building a new 19-bed shelter along with five new affordable housing units, one four-bedroom house and four one-bedroom apartments.

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Pandemic shows true picture of homelessness in Kawartha Lakes

Published on September 10, 2020 in Community by Denis Grignon

On the surface, it would seem that the pandemic created a surge in homelessness in Kawartha Lakes. Indeed, A Place Called Home did see its client base increase three-fold since COVID, says its interim executive director, David Tilley.

As reported in The Advocate earlier this week safety protocols at the start of the pandemic lead to the closure of the agency’s 19-bed shelter. This meant relocating those residents – and any new, additional ones – into local motels. Since then, the agency is consistently providing rooms for between 45 and 55 individuals.

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Homeless shelter needs re-imagining, says city manager

Published on September 7, 2020 in Municipal by Kirk Winter

Hope Lee, manager of human services–housing, shared a report with council laying out in stark terms the homelessness crisis in Kawartha Lakes, and how it has been affected by the pandemic.

She also shared how a re-imagination of A Place Called Home, the area’s only homeless shelter, might positively impact the number of beds available for those who have nowhere to go.

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A Place Called Home: 25 years of fighting for justice for people who are homeless

Published on March 16, 2020 in Community/Social Issues by Zita Devan

It was a chance meeting on a Monday in 1985 that would alter my life path for good. The meeting was with a young man with curly blond hair who, in many ways, looked very much like one of my own teenage sons. I was working at Fleming College at the time, coordinating a government program to help youth who had left high school and lacked job experience.

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More children than adults at A Place Called Home this Christmas

Published on December 3, 2019 in Community/Social Issues by Roderick Benns

The sound of children’s voices during the holidays typically conjures feelings of warmth and sentimentality – unless, of course, those voices are in a homeless shelter.

It’s a jarring mental image but one that A Place Called Home in Lindsay is being forced to contemplate.

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