Ottawa council’s community services committee had its first look at the city’s plan to tackle family homelessness.
The committee Tuesday received a presentation from city staff on the draft family homelessness strategy, which comes as Ottawa has seen an increase in the number of families accessing city supports in recent years.
This has lead to unbudgeted spend of $29.3 million on overflow spaces at hotel accommodations in Ottawa, according to staff.
One of the strategy’s focus areas is to prevent people from coming into the system in Ottawa from other municipalities, with staffing noting the city has been seeing inflow from places like Montreal.
Staff said they’re “working extensively across our housing partners, other municipalities within Ontario and partners in Quebec … to notify that we will be sending people back to their place of origin, as long as they have the supports in place in those systems.”
They clarified the reason for doing this was because Ottawa doesn’t have the capacity to support populations outside of its own catchment area.
Staff also emphasized that the system is a last resort, and would rather focus on getting families in need into more permanent housing solutions as quickly as possible.
Councillors wondered about additional affordable housing options for families, but city staff once again highlighted budgetary limitations.
“Currently there is no available capital funding for an increase in transitional housing, so we don’t have plans as it stands to look at purchasing or leasing another building.”
