Belleville Council continues to emphasize the importance of community agencies in the city's mission to protect its most vulnerable citizens - and those outside the region.
 
A number of councillors challenged Coun. Kelly McCaw at council's meeting Monday night, after she touched on a Belleville Police report on calls for service from those who are homeless in the downtown area and at places such as the Grace Inn Shelter and Bridge St. United Church drop-in centre.

The report indicated out of 425 calls for service registered between December 1, 2020, and August 31, 2021, 132 of them were regarding the Grace Inn and 40 pertained to Bridge St. United.

However, McCaw noted a report that had come to the Hastings County Community and Human Services Committee in September indicated 31-per cent were "non-residents" of the Hastings County region, with some lining the streets of Church and Bridge Sts.

This, she said, is causing complaints from residents who have to see piles of debris, dirty syringes and needles lying in the street.

"We know that out-of-town municipalities are delivering people to our region," she said.

"I'm aware of other police services driving people and dropping them off right here in Belleville. It's a whole lot easier to bring somebody here in hopes they can access services or housing through Grace Inn, rather than dealing with the problem in their municipalities."

She emphasized the funding Grace Inn receives from the city should be used on local residents first.

“We should be getting a place for our own people before any other community and some of these people coming here are from across Canada," McCaw asserted.

"To me, it isn’t fair and I think it’s something that needs to be brought out into the open, identified, and dealt with.”

She noted there have been frightening incidents earlier this year where a couple of merchants were threatened with a knife after confronting transients from the Greater Toronto Area who were vandalizing their property, and an individual who died on the former Hotel Quinte property after refusing to cooperate with rules in place at Grace Inn.

"This is something that's been ongoing for a long time," McCaw commented, noting she has heard these statistics through her involvement with the BPS Board.

"The City of Belleville used to do the same thing prior to Grace Inn, so this is not a new thing."

During the meeting, some councillors were vocally critical of McCaw's assertions, with Coun. Garnet Thompson stated he would be "deadset" against leaving people who need assistance in the cold just because they don't live in the area.
 
"As a city, we must try to protect people of all communities," he stated. "We need to deal with them. How we deal with them, I don't know, but we cannot say 'sorry folks, there's no room for you."
 
Coun. Tyler Allsopp pointed out that the definition of homelessness is people who don't have a fixed residence anywhere.
 
"It looks to me, that 31-per cent of residents outside the area would amount to 118 people," he explained.
 
"Do we think the amount of calls for service, particularly for criminal activity, would go down if we left those 118 people on the streets? My suggestion would be, we probably wouldn't see those statistics go down, and in fact, we would probably have a greater problem."
 
He and Coun. Sean Kelly both observed that some people who are homeless are not suffering from drug or alcohol addiction, but are struggling with mental wellness and to find affordable housing.
 
Coun. Paul Carr suggested mobile mental health services units could be funded to go directly to the homeless for on-demand support.
 
In his comments, Panciuk noted the city is doing its part to help, like many municipalities dealing with the same issues, but permanent solutions will have to come from senior levels of government, as municipalities don't have the jurisdiction.
 
He said he believes the provincial government should take a long, hard look at its policies so people can get the proper help they need, mentally, physically and economically.
 
Currently, more than $14 million a year is provided to Hastings County, with $7.4 million of that going to help the disadvantaged in local communities, the mayor noted.
 
Unfortunately, not all of that money gets spent, Panciuk said, because some people refuse the help.
 
"What do you do about that? It's very difficult, especially when police and hospitals don't have any ability to help them," he said.
 
"They're just catching them and then releasing them back out to the community. So, we have a cycle of people that are that are caught in a system that's not helping them."
 
The Belleville Downtown District Improvement Association had hired a specialist in mental health and addictions as part of the Welcoming Streets pilot project established earlier this year to try and mitigate some of these issues.
 
At this point, the initiative appears to be successful, with calls for service to the downtown area decreasing "significantly" since it was established and the paid duty officer was hired.
 
However, Panciuk stated the city still gets complaints from property owners and residents.
 
Grace Inn, under the management of executive director Rob Crisp and board chair Jodie Jenkins, has operated 21 shelter beds at its facility on 315 Church St. since 2019.
 
Council is expected to receive a homelessness report from Steve Van de Hoef of Bridge St. United at its next council meeting.