WELLINGTON COUNTY – A Wellington County councillor is calling on council to find the money to progress a large seniors’ housing project approved two years ago.
At a Thursday Wellington County council meeting, social services chair David Anderson gave an update on the housing units the social services department was involved in building all of which are in Guelph. Included was the St. Joseph’s Silver Maples project at 395 Edinburgh Rd. which has 65 affordable seniors’ units.
In response to this, Coun. Mary Lloyd brought up the lack of affordable seniors’ housing in Wellington County which she hears about regularly.
“It’s not uncommon for myself to be approached on a weekly basis by seniors who are now going to be facing a homelessness situation because the rents have risen to such astronomical levels,” Lloyd said.
She figured a new 65-unit affordable seniors’ housing in any Wellington County community would be filled and they would be shocked at how fast that would happen.
There is a Wellington County council approved plan to address this in some way, she added.
In October 2020, the previous term of council endorsed the Continuum of Care project which is a $135 million plan for a county-led senior’s housing with 254-units of retirement living, market rentals, attainable rentals, life lease apartments and semi-detached houses.
This was planned to be built at the Wellington Place campus near the Wellington Terrace and Groves hospital.
Council at the time did not approve building but directed in an 11-4 vote for staff, the warden and the information, heritage and seniors committee chair to lobby the government for funding on this plan. For the project to be revenue-neutral, the county would need $36.6 million in government funding. Without the funding, the project doesn’t move forward and it hasn’t.
“I’m calling now on our council to really look at those things and whether it’s partnerships between across the board departments within our council, social services and through information, heritage and seniors and through finance to find the money to make this project come to fruition,” Lloyd said.
“The pressure is there, we’ve been doing excellent work on our housing for our youth and those that are vulnerable in society. Now it’s time for us to look at seniors. We need to be able to provide them some opportunities within this county. It’s time.”
No further direction to staff was given at this meeting.
After the meeting, CAO Scott Wilson confirmed the county is still looking for grants and funding on the project and nothing has changed about it.
“Until council says we’re not pursuing it anymore, we’ll continue to work,” Wilson said.
In a phone call after the meeting, Lloyd said they met with the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs last summer but they'll be back in front of them again because they didn't get a satisfactory answer.
She's a bit more optimistic now there could be funding with the recently announced $4 billion federal Housing Accelerator Fund.
"This is something that could fall into that," Lloyd said. "It's so many units and it's specifically directed at a segment of the population, which is seniors, which is one that's under serviced right now."
She repeated she regularly hears seniors want to downsize but have nowhere to do so in Wellington County.
The next step is to see what staff does with her comments and she thinks they heard her loud and clear.
Beyond lobbying, Lloyd wants the committees to get together to consider other options.
"Is there a way that we could do it ourselves? Are there other types of partnerships out there that may look at, you know, opening the door a little bit?" Lloyd said. "How can we make it happen and make it happen in a timely manner?"
