Told they would have to come up with more than $30 million over 10 years to reduce homelessness in the Highlands, County councillors told City of Kawartha Lakes housing staff, and the consultant hired to do a ‘deeply affordable and supportive housing strategy,’ the buck stopped with them.
The County politicians did not approve the strategy and related asks during their Sept. 24 meeting. They want a more detailed look at financials before any action is taken.
After the presentation by Jesse Donaldson, of HelpSeeker Technologies, deputy warden Liz Danielsen commented, “at the risk of being a bit cheeky, I would say this is a deeply unaffordable project to put forward to us, and with an extremely tight timeline given how we would lay out financing for this project.”
In her report, Donaldson said the County would have to come up with the money for an estimated 86 mixed housing units, as well as rent supplements and prevention supports.
Donaldson did stress throughout her report that the County and its four lower-tier municipalities would have to leverage federal and provincial dollars to meet project goals, as well as potential private sector partners.
She said she spent a week in the County and CKL, finding rents to be higher than she would have thought, and acknowledging an affordability crisis.
Donaldson added the cost of inaction would be high. Countywide, she estimated there would be 309 homeless in 10 years, up from 113, if the status quo remained.
She presented three possible models: inaction, stabilization or reduction, focusing on reduction. In Haliburton, it would mean lowering the homeless number to 25 by 2037, down from 143. She added the cost of homelessness is high for emergency services and supportive housing.
Coun. Murray Fearrey said it was a “big problem” requiring getting at the “root cause.
“The big governments have to step up … they have to put the interest rate down so it’s almost zero. We can’t do this. We are going to create a whole other level of poverty by putting taxation up so high that people can’t stay in their modest homes.”
Danielsen added the community needs all types of housing, not just affordable. She said she could not agree to the strategy without seeing the financial projections first, particularly for the County, and the impact on ratepayers. She added she would want to know more about things such as water and sewer capacity in Minden and Haliburton.
CAO Gary Dyke agreed that auxiliary costs for supporting infrastructure were missing from the report.
Coun. Bob Carter added while the federal and provincial governments may chip in, “there is only one taxpayer, whether it’s the feds, province, or municipality. It’s all coming out of the same pocketbook.”
He added there are already 1,400 people on the housing waitlist so this is just part of a bigger picture.
Coun. Cec Ryall said he thought it would be key to attract private sector partners, and Danielsen said they needed to look at prefabricated and tiny homes.
Council accepted the report as information only, requesting financial modeling in 2026.
