Thunder Bay will be proceeding with plans to construct a temporary shelter village at its proposed Hillyard site.
City council previously passed a vote selecting the Hillyard site in July, but in August considered rescinding the site following an uproar from local businesses.
Last night, the councillors voted 8-4 to rescind the new site. This was one vote short of the two-thirds majority of nine votes required to succeed. A two-thirds majority was required because council previously voted in favour of the Hillyard site.
Mayor Ken Boshcoff and councillors Albert Aiello, Trevor Giertuga, Brian Hamilton, Rajni Agarwal, Dominic Pasqualino, Michael Zussino, and Andrew Foulds voted YES to rescinding the Hillyard site.
Councillors Mark Bentz, Kristen Oliver, Kasey Etreni, and Shelby Ch’ng voted NO to rescinding the site.
Councillor Greg Johnsen was absent.
Hillyard was a flawed choice
The Hillyard site wasn’t anyone’s first choice on council – that it was flawed was about the only thing which council agreed upon unanimously in the debate.
Councillor Zussino suggested that the Hillyard site left many in the community blindsided, and believed that the public wasn’t given enough consultation relative to other, previously proposed locations.
Councillors Agarwal and Giertuga raised concerns that the economic growth of local businesses could be harmed by the shelter village.
“We need to take care of our homeless,” said Agarwal during the meeting, “but not at the expense of growth.”
Councillor Hamilton argued that the Hillyard Site was the wrong location, citing the previously withdrawn Miles Street site as a better choice.
“I always wanted to see the site that would have the best chance of success,” Hamilton said after the meeting. “Council moved in a bit of a different direction.”
Going in circles
Even councillors in support of the Hillyard site agreed it was not the perfect location. But months of proceedings and numerous scrapped plans for other sites had some councillors feeling that time was running out.
Councillor Bentz, who proposed the Hillyard site, was frank in his support of the plan: “This project dies unless we do something tonight.”
Bentz pointed out the proceedings had gone on too long, with too many cancelled sites and too much time wasted. He suggested that provincial funding was dependent on the city beginning to deliver shelter spaces.
Councillor Ch’ng referenced a stream of negative emails and complaints she had received due to the Hillyard site.
“This has gotten really ugly, but despite it all, I’m here to serve a purpose,” she said. “That purpose is to serve people, and those people are in tents. We need to get them out of tents; we need to do it yesterday.”
