Transcript - Homeless Outreach Overhaul Approved - Comité des services communautaires

Homeless Outreach Overhaul Approved - Comité des services communautaires — le 24 février 2026

audio test. audio test two. Audio test three. audio test four Test test test. One, two, three. Good morning everyone. We're going to get started. Welcome to the community services committee for Friday, January 27th, 20. This is not the right date at all. It says 2023. We went back in time. That is a new accomplishment. Uh February 24th, 2026. That's okay. Um, we have no regrets. Uh, and I will ask the committee coordinator to call the role. Councelor Brockington. Councelor Brown here. Councelor Carr present. Councelor Hill present. Councelor Kavanaaugh present. Councelor King here. Councelor Low here. Uh concant. Councelor Trustster here. Vice Chair Bradley here. Chair Dudas presum. Thank you very much. Uh we have no declarations of interest mentioned. Uh confirmation of the minutes for November 25th, 2025. Are those minutes carried? Carries. Right. Thank you. We do have a response to inquiry on the stages of the Alexander Community Center renovation and expansion. No one has asked for that to be lifted. So is that item received? Received. Received. Item 5.1 is community funding framework midterm review. We don't have a presentation on this. I've received no motions. We do have one speaker, uh, McKenzie Blackburn. So, I'll invite McKenzie to come. And I I understand Mackenzie, you have some slides you've sent in. Okay. So, we'll cue those up. So, Mackenzie, you'll have five minutes. You'll see the timer on the side, and I'll cut you off at the end if you've continued, and we'll we'll open up to questions. Okay? So, start whenever you're ready. Thank you. All right. Good morning, chair and committee members. My name is Mackenzie Blackburn and I'm here with my partner, Anna Pales. We are students at the University of Ottawa and I'm studying environmental studies and Anna is studying environmental science and we're here today to talk about an opportunity to better connect our community that aligns with the objectives of the community funding framework report. Ottawa has incredible sustainable businesses, community gardens, and green spaces, but the information is often scattered. For the average resident or student, it can be confusing to figure out where to start or how to navigate these sources. Next slide, please. To solve these issues, we built you and Ottawa, a curated interactive web map. We map out local hidden gems from neighborhood thrift shops and repair cafes to accessible transit pathways. By categorizing these spots and adding navigation links, we've created an intuitive tool that makes exploring Ottawa sustainable and affordable or and affordable while also being easy and accessible. We recently, oh, sorry, next slide, please. We recently presented this web app to the UAT community and their feedback really validated what we're doing. Students told us that they're actively looking for a centralized way to navigate the city affordably and also access sustainable resources. We also have a great group of volunteers who have stepped up, ready to help us expand this platform and build it out so it can reach even more people. Next slide, please. The community funding framework report strongly aligns with our work. The report highlights the need to support enhanced digital platforms and to build capacity for grassroots initiatives. UN Ottawa is exactly the kind of digital tool that supports the that supports these goals by connecting residents directly to community resources. Next slide, please. We are here today because we want to align our work with the city's vision. We're hoping to explore a partnership with city staff. Specifically, we'd love your endorsement to link, if possible, our web map on city community portals, a contact to help us keep public data accurate, and guidance on how a grassroot team like ours can apply for project funding during the next intake to take this platform to the next level. Thank you so much for your time, and that ends my delegation. Thank you so much for coming in. Uh I see you have a question from Concia Plant. Hi. Yes, thank you. Um, can and I might have missed it in your presentation. What inspired you to create this platform? What was the impetus? Uh, well, Anna created this platform kind of like helping her market it a bit. Um but for her it was we had a climate cafe at our um sustainable development center which is kind of where students come together and talk about sustainable issues and um I brought up that we don't really know about sustainable resources in Ottawa like um where we can find repair cafes or how we can like upcycle our clothes stuff like that and so we kind of identified that need and then Anna was kind of she had some funding or an opportunity where she could build a project and address a community need and so she created this map and she didn't really know how she could kind of take it to the next level. So, I took a marketing class last semester and like, okay, I tried using my marketing skills to kind of take this idea to our to students who are volunteering and interested in the environment. They validated it. They said they also don't know where sustainable resour resources are and they'd like to have like more of a centralized platform. And so now we're kind of figuring out how we can take it to the next step and hopefully uh collaborate with the city on it to expand it to other community members outside of the University of Ottawa. And are you involved at all with the free store? Yes, actually. Yeah. So, I'm a volunteer and I sometimes volunteer with the free store, but I do work with the free store and and the manager of the free store as well. Okay, cool. because my office is like obsessed with the free store and we're also obsessed with all like the secondhand and consignment stores. So, if ever you want to team up on that because anyway, we have a total hate on for fast fashion. So, if ever you want to talk about that or uh help contribute to those because we have some amazing amazing consignment stores uh in war 12 that are doing amazing not not just with like high-end stuff but with affordable as well. So, happy to chat with you offline if you want and uh thanks for all this is really cool. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. Wonderful. We have another question from councelor Troster. Hi, thanks for being here. Really impressive initiative. I just wanted to offer a few other suggestions for funding. You might also want to reach out and partner with groups like Ecology Ottawa or like Environmental Center. They might have small micro grants. Also, have you heard of Awesome Ottawa? No, I have not. They give away $1,000 a month, no strings attached, to the best project idea, and it seems like you could totally make a pitch to them and that could give you some seed money. So, I'm not sure about city funding opportunities, but I think if you reached out to some of those organizations, it might give you a start. Um, and I look forward to hearing more because it sounds really cool. Thanks so much. Thank you so much. That's very helpful. Thank you, Councelor Truster, Councelor King. I just also wanted to commend you on your amazing efforts. I think that these innovative tools uh make uh services and initiatives more accessible to uh people, especially young people in the city. And so, very appreciative of that. Uh building on councelor troster uh I just attended uh frankly over the weekend a wonderful showcase of youth projects uh that uh were uh highlighted uh and uh in terms of funding uh funds were provided by the social planning council of Ottawa to uh of $5,000 each. So in a sense micro grants uh to assist uh innovative projects not unlike uh what you're you're bringing to the four as well. So uh another suggestion uh would be looking at the uh youth uh initiatives that are supported by uh the social planning council. Uh but thank you so much for the uh work that you're you're doing. It's really uh that will really make a difference in the lives of many including our youth and and we're appreciative of of hearing about it. Thank you so much chair. Thank you for your support. Thank you both for being here. Uh that it sounds so exciting. I really can't wait to see where you go with this next. So you've got a lot of good ideas and you know once again I am excited to see how this thrives and uh and is utilized by students but also members of the community. So thank you for being here McKenzie. Thank you very much. It's my pleasure. Thank you. Right. Uh seeing no we have no further delegates. Um and we have staff here to answer any questions. Does anyone have any questions for staff on this item? Nope. Seeing none, is this item carried? Car. Uh 5.2, Community Safety and Well-being Legislated Review. We do have a presentation by staff. So, I'll invite them to come up and and get themselves settled. Good morning uh committee. Um I wanted to just add a bit of context before the team launches into presentations on the next couple of reports. Um, so today's reports really do reflect an intentional the intentional collaborative work that we're undertaking community social services to strengthen community well-being, safety, and really drive towards permanent housing outcomes. When we heard about the close out to the integrated transition housing strategy at the end of 2025, it was a real um reflection of that kind of collaborative impact. So, we heard about increasing our transition transitional housing bed offer by 700 beds over the last couple of years. For the first time in five years, we have a winter strategy that has 100 available spots every single night in our system. Today's reports continue along the vein of looking for uh of us not only fulfilling our legislative requirements as you'll see in the long-term care annual report uh that reflects our compliance on our um accountability agreements. But today's uh really about systemic change and responding to community need. You heard about the community funding framework review and this funding system is it's not just a funding a transactional funding program. This is a foundational system of investment into the important social infrastructure of community nonprofit services in our community. These are the services that are contributing to community safety and well-being. You'll hear about our community safety and well-being legislative review update. And this again reflects over close to a year a year of work on behalf of staff and community partners and to to present uh an updated community safety and well-being plan that really confirms the priorities of the previous the previous plan but more flexibly introduces a two-year action planning cycle and strengthens to help us strengthen place-based communitydriven implementation of integrated community initiatives and plans such as the poverty reduction strategy. among others. And then you'll hear about today a new unsheltered homelessness outreach model, a coordinated, more integrated approach to outreach that reduces duplication, improves information sharing, and strengthens p person- centered supports across municipally funded outreach providers. And then if you look ahead to the joint committee that's coming at the end of next month with planning and housing, we're going to be presenting our tenure housing and homelessness plan refresh, which will represent 18 months of co-development and engagement with community partners and residents. And then in April, we get into action with our family homelessness strategy update and update to local priority rules, which represents important action and action steps moving us forward to addressing really important shelter pressures and housing priorities. So these reports taken together really it's for us it's a cohesive storyline one that moves us from individual programs and investments to a system focused on sustainability prevention coordinated responses and shifting from temporary solutions to more deliberate focus on long-term housing outcomes and of course we depend on other levels of government to get us there. So really for me I wanted to extend my sincere thanks to our community social services teams uh our colleagues across the city, community partners and frontline staff for their dedication and expertise that have shaped this progress uh that we are proud to present before you today. expertise. With that, I'll turn it over to Sarah Taylor and then later to Kale Brown to lead us through the presentations. Thank you, Clara. Next slide, please. Um, Security Municipal. Legislative Ox. surveillance evalu. Next slide, please. Um since the plan was initially pro approved by council in December of 2021 and the community safety well-being team, community partners and other sectors have laid a strong foundation to move the priorities forward. The plan really positions the city as a leader in moving from reactive responses to proactive community-based solutions that improve well-being and strengthen neighborhoods over time. The progress we've made so far, some of it outlined on the slides before you, demonstrate our collective commitment and momentum towards lasting positive change and impact. Some of the highlights include through the poverty reduction strategy, we've supported over 6,000 tax filings, unlocking $30 million in tax benefits through the first year of council's investment of $150,000 to increase coordination in the community. We've invested an additional $830,000 to strengthen food security agencies as it relates to mental well-being. Ankor, which launched in August of 2024, within its first year received 4,464 calls. 92.4% were resolved without police involvement. Overall, the community safety well-being plan and priorities have secured and leveraged over $40 million from all levels of government to advance the priorities. Um, as Clara mentioned, following this report, we'll be presenting another key milestone around the unsheltered homelessness outreach model to better support individuals experiencing homelessness as well as communities, all aspects of community, businesses, residents, etc. And we're continuing to work in a collective impact way with key partners across the gender-based violence sector, advancing the food security action plan, the financial literacy and empowerment work, as well as youth social development. And these are just some ways that the plan will has been and will continue to make a positive impact and change in our community. I'll now hand it over to Sarah Mullen to talk about the review cycle, the findings and proposed changes to the plan. Next slide, please, Eric. Thank you. So, now I'll walk you through the review methodology. Staff used an evidence-based approach to assess whether the priorities remain relevant and to identify emerging needs since the first plan was approved. This included a review of more than 20 community reports as well as past delegations from community services committee, the community safety well-being advisory committee and budget delegation meetings. That work informed a thematic analysis of community feedback along with an interdependency and strategic alignment review. Staff also drew on data from targeted engagement sessions and a public survey, engaging more than a thousand residents through this process. Engagement was intentional and inclusive, involving people with lived and living experience of mental health and substance use, resident and community association, business improvement areas, and community agencies from rural and suburban communities to the downtown core. Next slide, please. Through the review, we learned that the first community safety well-being plan priorities remain relevant, particularly in the areas of housing, financial security, mental health, and substance use. Safety, affordability, and equitable access to services were highlighted as ongoing challenges. Residents also highlighted the need for support in the following areas. non-emergency and proactive safety interventions. Initiatives that make services easier to navigate, encourage collaboration, and reduce duplication. Solutions that build on local strengths and involve residents in leading place-based solutions. And initiatives that ensure indigenous self-determination and explicitly include racialized, lowincome, and other equitydeserving groups in design and implementation. Next slide, please. So, let's turn to what's new and what's been strengthened through our refresh. Overall, the plan's priorities remain relevant with six priorities that will continue unchanged. Those being discrimination, marginalization, and racism, financial security, and poverty reduction, gender-based violence and violence against women, housing and homelessness, mental well-being, and youth social development. staff are recommending a shift in the renaming of the priority integrated and simpler systems to neighborhood solutions in community safety. This reflects a stronger focus on neighborhood-based solutions that recognize each community's unique needs, strengths, and context. Staff also clearly heard that system coordination is not a standalone priority, but rather a core principle that should guide how all priorities are delivered within the plan. The refresh will also introduce a 2-year action planning cycle to strengthen accountability, adaptability, and transparency. This allows this approach allows for the city to adjust actions more quickly, respond to emerging needs, and report on progress more frequently while acknowledging that community safety well-being priorities address long-term complex challenges. The new cycle also builds on the existing performance measurement framework, enabling more consistent tracking of activities, outcomes, and better use of real-time data. Next slide, please. So, the next slide um highlights some actions underway to advance the community safety well-being plan. Within housing and homelessness, staff will advance the 10-year housing and homelessness plan, including the goal of ending youth youth homelessness and will explore health and hose ho health, excuse me, and housing initiatives in partnership with Ottawa Public Health for mental health and substance use. Ottawa Public Health will continue to lead and activate the overdose prevention and response strategy. staff will align with Ottawa Public Health's anti-stigma initiatives. We will continue funding mental mental well-being projects and programs, including initiatives prioritized by indigenous partners and support community-based prevention outreach services such as Ankor and Uome. Next slide, please. Eric, thank you. uh for supports for safety and placebased solutions. Staff will advance public realm initiatives to enhance public spaces for all. Strengthen relationships between municipal services, community providers, and emergency services. Review and update the post incident neighborhood support program. align the community development framework priorities to the refresh plan and continue to fund PA placebased solutions to advance community safety and well-being. Next slide, please. In closing, our last slide just outlines a series of the initiatives and work that is underway and with council's committee and council's approval will continue as we move into 2026. So again highlighting the progress against the food security action plan coming out of the food symposium from the fall of 2025. Implementing the action plan with the gender-based violence and intimate parliament violence sector that's been under development for the past two years. Beginning the implementation of the unsheltered homelessness outreach model. aligning work with the community development framework as it relates to building this new priority around strong neighborhoods, the advancement of Ankor, the older adult plan, and continued collaboration between municipal and emergency services through communitydriven safety solutions. And later in the year, continuing to advance other work as it relates to financial empowerment and the financial security priority. um reviewing and updating pins and completing the co-design of a three-year action plan for youth social development and evaluating the evaluation framework for that. So, thank you very much for your time today. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation both of you. Um we do have a number of delegations before we go to questions to staff. So, uh and I know our delegations are present so I I know you guys will shift over. I'm going to first invite uh Thompson Tusant and we'll go Francois and I understand you you have slides as well. So we're gonna tee those up. Welcome. So you have five minutes and you can start whenever you're ready to go and when the slides are are present. Um, that's not the first slide. We're just testing it. Okay. Making sure you're awake, had enough coffee, you know. Hello and good morning. My name is Reona and I'm from Deborah D Family House in Confederation Court Community House. Hello, my name is Thomas Saint. I am the community support coordinator at B Avenue Community House. Next slide. Our work focuses on children, youth, and families living in Ottawa's priority neighborhoods, communities that often experience higher barriers related to access, safety, and opportunities. Community houses are trusted local access points where residents can receive support without navigating complex systems. By being embedded in neighborhoods, we strengthen belonging, improve social and emotional well-being, and respond early to community needs, helping families stay connected to the supports that matter the most. Investing in this work strengthens equity and builds healthier and more resilient communities. Next slide, please. Community youth and support workers are often the first trusted connection for young people and their families. They build relationships, identify needs early, and help residents navigate multiple systems of support. Their consistent pre presence allows services to be responsive, culturally relevant, and coordinated across schools, families, and community partners. In many cases, they are the key protective factor that keeps youth connected, supported, and engaged. Next slide, please. An example I would like to give uh regarding leadership and civic engagement is a lot of the youth in one of my communities they are always looking for jobs or experience and one way we do that is I provide them volunteer experiences so volunteer opportunities and not just the volunteering but we also set up one-on-one interview uh prompts to help them get ready for the real world world and interviews such as that um one thing I want to talk about is responsive support where we meet clients where they're at. And with this funding, it allows us to have programming in the evenings where we can help youth who are after school or parents who are working and they can't come during the days and they can come during the nights and it just gives more opportunities to community members. And uh yeah, next slide. Also, for our social learning programs, we try our best to find recreation programming for them. In my neighborhood at Confederation Court, one thing that's very uh large is basketball. So, we try renting out a gym and get as many youth there participating in playing basketball. And it's not just basketball. There are times if we have other youth who are interested in other sport, we do set up uh space for them as well. And that also creates time and space for them to meet other youth and build meaningful connections that last a long time as well. And the real life story I want to share is how when you build positive and trusting relationships with community members um it can really make an impact in their life. And I had one youth who was struggling in school. He needed some credits to graduate. And because of the relationship I built with him, he came to me, told me situation and I helped guide him through co-op. So, he got a co-op at our community house. Um, I mentored him and kind of gave him life skills and I took it a step further by helping him apply for school, postsecary school, which is something he did not envision for himself. And he is going to be a firefighter and uh these are the type of stories we deal with daily at our communities. Next slide, please. So connection connection is at the heart of community and safety well-being. When residents feel connected to each other, services and trusted spaces, isolation decreases and communities become safer and healthier overall. Community houses strengthen these connections by increasing access to share resources, programs, and opportunities within priority neighborhoods. This work allows residents uh this work builds trust with residents and allows meaningful collaborations across partners and ensures supports are coordinated rather than fragmented. By caring for one another and working collaboratively, we amplify impact and create sustainable outcomes that align directly with the CSWB priorities as you see here. Next slide. Sustaining the CSW fund, CSWB funding is critical because our roles in community houses are established access points that residents already trust and rely on. With continued investments, without continued investments, there is a real risk of service gaps and disruptive relationships and increased pressures on other systems as youth and families lose consistent supports. Continued continued funding protects the progress already made ensuring stability, coordination, and ongoing access to services that strengthen safety, belonging, and the overall community well-being. Thank you and you are perfectly on time. Excellent. Excellent. You do have some questions. Uh, councelor Foreers shows system. The motel basket. Um, exactly. Okay. FIA. Merci. Uh, councelor Carr. Hi. Thank you very much. Uh, thank you for being here today. Um, proud to be the counselor for, uh, Confederation Court. Um, and as well, I know you're not from those areas, but I also have Blair Court and, uh, Russell Heights Community House. So, I know how valuable uh, these place-based organizations are in the community. I actually in another life probably 15 years ago sat on the board of Blair Court Community House and so very aware of the fantastic work that gets done, very aware of of the um the needs in the community. Um I I believe that under this new framework uh that you that will actually have it will be more beneficial for the community houses in terms of having funding for a longer period of time and less time with applications. But we'll verify that certainly uh with staff during the question period. Um but I I know uh you know specifically when we heard the presentation we talked about how important that place-based um services are and I see those directly in the community all the time and so I I thank you very much for being here today. uh you do really really important work um in the communities uh you know particularly you mentioned uh youth um excellent uh really appreciate you coming out today and sharing with everyone the uh important work that you do thank you so much thank you thank you councelor car councelor Brockington thank you madam chair and uh good morning thank you very much for coming down today it's um you know I always tell people who are considering ing uh delegating before us that is absolutely worthwhile to come down. It's important for members of the committee to hear directly from people who work with um some of the most uh needy residents of our city and explain to us how particular investments have real benefit. And um I appreciate that and I appreciate you actually, you know, deciding to work and serve in these communities because we need guys like you who are passionate, who are there because you care about the people you work with every day and you can see that your efforts have results. So thank you very much for your service. Um as you said, we we see investment results. We see care and concern lift people up. We see the president presence of community houses that exist in our city, our true hubs of the communities that they serve. So my question to you is um you know what's the key takeaway you would like my colleagues uh to hear from you today? If you could summarize your presentation down to a sentence or two, what is the request or what is the takeaway you would like to leave with us? Um, in a sentence I would say just keeping this funding going like like we said before it it shows results and with this funding the results will become even bigger and the impact could not only just go from us directly to one youth but that can trickle down to others as well as they learn from us and then push that forward as well. Good. very pleased you're here today. Thank you. Thank you, councelor Councelor King. Uh thank you, chair and uh councelor Brockington stole my question. Uh so I just really and and frankly it's really impressive all the work that you're doing in the community. I really wanted to commend you for it. Uh because uh the list is extensive as you were saying, access to resources and opportunities, uh safe inclusive spaces, system navigation, uh leadership and civic engagement, uh responsive support, advocacy. year before us advocating for more resources, uh, food programs, um, you know, crisis support and most importantly in my mind, uh, mentorship, working with the youth and showing them that there are opportunities, uh, that they can take advantage of and that they can be, uh, quite successful. And so, um, you know, I think you answered, uh, councelor Brochington's question about, uh, the funding. I see the importance of it. uh having served uh also in a past life not unlike councelor Carr on the board of the RTO Rockliff Community Resource Center that ran that runs Carson's house in Carson's Grove, we see the tremendous impact of the work uh that workers in uh those houses are doing. So uh we just wanted you to know that you're seen, you're appreciated, and thank you so much for the investments uh that you're making in the community. uh and we hear you in terms of the investments that the city should be continually making in uh community houses. Thank you, chair. Thank you. Thank you, councelor. Uh councelor Trustster. Hi there. My name is Ariel. I'm the city councelor for Somerset Ward, which includes Centertown. Um and we have the Door Youth Center, which does incredible work much like you do. So valuable. My question for you is how much money how much funding do you receive from the city? And do you think it's enough? What could you do with more? Um, you know, I I this is really the foundation of community development potential for youth and also crime prevention. Um, and I know that cities that have massively invested in the kind of work that you do have seen crime rates fall, have seen graduation rates increase. So, I'm just curious to see like do you feel like you're fully fulfilling your mission? Um, you know, if you're looking for more resources, what are you looking to do with those resources? I just, you know, I'd love to hear your take on that. I think for funding wise we do best what we can with what we have but with more funding we can do other projects such as one project that Thomas and I we do uh a couple summers ago we ran a basketball tournament for at risk youth and community housing and that went really well and a lot of the response that we got back is them asking us to bring it back bring it back bring it back. Um, another one would be to kind of give them more I guess like learn learning things like for example financial literacy to have more of those type of things to come inhouse and give them more presentations about that to learn like the small aspects of life that can help them grow. Um, and for your funding question uh usually we can make a little go a long way. That's what we like to use. Um, and the opportunities if we were to get opportunities is things like job fairs in the communities because a lot of times there's opportunities and workshops outside the communities and where a lot of community members they're they're not able to go to these places and to have more opportunities within these communities would be very beneficial to the community members living there and that's more that's something that we would definitely be looking for. um and we feel like would be very beneficial for them. That's great. Well, I hope you include those proposals when you reapply for funding because they sound really great and I just want to thank you for the work you do. One more question. Do you how long have you been doing this work and do you feel you make a living wage doing it? Um for this position, I've been here almost 3 years now. Three years in April, but I've been working in community since I was about 15 16. Um, so, uh, I think it's good enough for me, but it can always be better. You can pay your own bills with the salary that you make doing this work or not. I'm still young, so my bills are not the same as everyone else's, but um, I get by. You get by. But, you know, it can always be better. You don't need a side hustle to keep uh to keep doing this work so far. Um, no, I I'll just say it can always be I I won't complain with whatever I get. I'm not meaning to put you on the spot. I just uh we hear a lot from workers who do this kind of work in the community that it's hard work. It's low paid work. So, I want to thank you for that. And I think it's really incumbent on the city to help raise the wages and the working conditions in the sector so that folks like you can stay in those jobs and keep helping people. Well, I will advocate for other workers like other position workers besides like my position. And I I think they could definitely deserve more from what they do cuz it's very hard sometimes, especially mentally and the things you deal with. And sometimes uh people feel like for the work that they do it's underappreciated. And I feel like um uh their pay should be um based off the things that they do which is there's a lot. It's hard. We had a list up there earlier so you can see all the things that we do. And um yeah I would also like to add some benefits as well. Um in this line of work a lot of our positions there's no benefits. So, I know some staff they struggle to get that and when the position is kind of laid out to them, they'll look at, you know, is there any benefits to this? Yeah. Oh, so they have no health benefits in these jobs. No extended health benefits. Okay. Okay. Well, thank you. We need to do better. So, I really appreciate uh all the work you do. Thank you so much for being here and for everything you do. Thank you. Thank you both so much. You got a wide array of questions right there. Um, thank you for being here and thank you for inspiring the next generation of leaders. You're doing a phenomenal job. Um, thank you for your presentation. Thank you. I will call up the next uh the next delegates. We have Odet Weanza and Darlene Cadet from Russell Heights Community House. So again, you have five minutes. Start whenever you're ready. And uh the slides are up. So Oh, this one. is good now. Good morning everyone. My name is Odet Away. I'm a family support worker and a food bank coordinator at Russell Heights Community House. I would like to share some of the work I have been doing to support families in my community. Recently uh I'll start with my presentation then I'll go to the slide. Uh recently I assisted a woman renew her permanent residence card which had expired several years ago. She was in abusive marriage and she had a language barrier. Her husband did not want her to renew her permanent residence card. He told her it would cost $650 uh dollars to renew it which discouraged her to apply for a renewal. Um because her status had expired. her children lost their daycare subsidies. They had to be removed from the daycare. When I spoke with her, I explained that the renewal fee was actually $50. I was able to help her applying and be able to get access to services for her family. In addition uh to this I have supported families with OSP application, housing review application, youth scholarship application for soccer, utility application and accessing winter jacket. Also um I created a space for women's in our community where it gives them the opportunity to learn about other support services and connect with their neighbors make them feel safe in their neighborhood. Okay, slide one. um who we support primarily black race uh newcomer and lowincome youth and families. Neighbors neighborhood with limit access to recreation, learning spaces and mental health support. Children and teens managing school pressure, family responsibility and emotion health needs. family who rely on for guidance, connection to opportunity and services. Um, next I'm panicking. I don't have to do this slide. Next one. So, I don't have to Okay, they told me I don't have to do this slide. Sorry, I'm panicking. This is my first day to do this thing, so you're next. Is that on? All right. Good morning, everyone. My name is Darlins Cadet and I work as a child and youth coordinator and also as a community safety well-being staff member. I'm standing here today because someone once Hold on. Someone once invested in me. It's okay. Sorry, guys. I didn't think I was going to be emotional. Worry about it. Take your time. You're getting your tissues and you've got this. Oh, thank you. All right. Can I just start over? Okay. So, my name is Darlene Decadet and I work as a child and youth coordinator and a community safety well-being staff. I'm standing here because someone once invested in me and what we're able to do today is possible through your support and the community safety well-being funding. Thank you for being here and thank you for taking the time to listen to us. Um, I don't just work in this community. I grew up here at Russell Heights Community Center. I used to live at Russell Heights and the same halls that I walk through now as a staff member or the same halls I used to used to walk through as a young person trying to figure things out. So when I speak today, I'm not speaking from statistic. I'm speaking from a live experience. During during and since the pandemic, many youth have carried the weight of isolation in heavy and quiet ways. Programs have reduced spaces have closed and space safe place to gather have become limited. Many young people, especially black, racialized newcomers and lowincome youth. These programs are not just activities. They are a lifine. I watched youth struggle with loneliness, anxiety, and uncertainty. And some were navigating school pressures, and some were navigating responsibilities at home. Many felt like they had nowhere to turn. Because of the community safety well-being funding, we were able to show up constantly, not just once, not just for just one program, but every day. One youth I supported was facing aggression. and imagining a young person and receiving a notice that you have to vacate your home in the middle of winter. Because of the fear and the instability and because we had created a relationship, she was able to reach out to me in the middle of the storm and reach out for help and together we navigated the system and get her into her home the next day. This impact of community safety well-being funding is in our community ensures that youth are not alone in this hard moment. I have also supported young people walking into job fair for the first time as me. I used to be nervous looking for jobs and looking for also doubting themsel. I stand beside them and I help them prepare and remind them of their strength. And sometimes not a lot of people reminds youth that they are strong. Our community also has experienced a lot of loss and grievance throughout the years. Through community safety and well-being funding, we were able to support families and youth during these hard times and this grievance time. Community houses are not more than buildings. They are anchor for the youth that we support and the youth that we are continuing to support. These are places where youth feel seen and family feel supported especially during this time where you would get racialized in malls and places that supposed to be safe or no longer safe. So our community is a place where they come and they spend their time and they feel seen and supported. The impact of community safely wellbeing funding is visible every day and trusted relationship and open doors and guidance through the system that can feel overwhelm and inaccessible. This work is about sustainability and about belonging. It's about equality. It's about ensuring that youth and prioritized neighborhoods have the same access and opportunity as everyone else. For me, being able to give back to the same community that helped shape me is a privilege. I am proof of what consent support can do. Through our sustaining investment, we continue to build hope, connection, and will will change in our community. Thank you so much. Sorry for I'm so sorry. I think everybody wants to run over and give you a big hug right now, but you're going to have to do with a question from some counselors. So, uh, counselor Carr, you have a question. Thank you very much for your presentation today. you did a wonderful job. There is nothing more valuable um for us as counselors to hear the lived experience of individuals such as yourself. It's far more valuable for me to hear about your experience in Russell Heights and how you're contributing to the community than it is for me to read uh sorry about the to say this but than it is for me to read a 40page report because Russell Heights is in my community. It is a very important place. I once saw uh they were referring to Russell Heights in the newspaper and they said called it a neighborhood near trainards and that just made me so angry because if you go to Russell Heights you'll see the amazing diversity. You'll see a united community um and you'll see all the hard work that's done by yourselves and uh your executive director who I see in the audience in in helping bring uh community there. So you did an excellent excellent job on your presentation, a great job in highlighting the needs in the community. Um, one thing I would uh ask you is, you know, you you talked a little bit about the work that you do in terms of youth. You talked about um some examples with uh uh women that you've helped. What what is one is there a an outstanding need in the community that you see where there could be more investment whether it be recreation uh financial support services what what do you think we need to focus on is it more supports for youth if you could just name one thing I know there's many um I think the biggest investment that our community needs right now is financial stability um a lot of our youth in neighborhoods are facing they are inside the impact of like housing issues and I think as Dempsey just recently open I think there's a space for them to do recreational I think in our community we need more of a stability more opportunity we our youth are at the age where they're looking for jobs they're looking for somewhere and I think we need to offer that to them okay that's that's excellent thank you very much and yes I'm very glad Dempsey is reopened. 4 years was way too long to close a facility near a community that uh requires uh support. But thank you so much. You did both did an excellent job today. I'm very happy to your presentation. Thank you, Councelor Carr. Councelor Plant. Yes. Hi. Thank you so much uh for your presentation. uh we come from very different backgrounds but uh like you someone took a chance on me when I was no one and when uh you know I I also didn't have parents who had any connections or and someone took a chance on me that's how I ended up here in Ottawa and uh I I understood very viscerally that part of your story and I just want to thank you for sharing it because people don't realize how that kind of mentorship or that kind of when they see that little spark in you or that opportunity in you that what it can mean and I I just wanted to alongside our our friends back there. I wanted to invite you to come and talk to the youth in my community. I think they would very much benefit from hearing your story and your personal story. Um you know I do this a lot. There's no cameras, there's no video. It's just you know a candid conversation among um other youth leaders and I just I think your your story is very compelling and I think they should hear your I'm sorry I don't know what that is in English but um it's nice French too. Yeah. Okay. Um, interaction. uh councelor Kavanaaugh. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much for your presentation. I just wanted to assure you that um what you're doing is important and it's as important as what paramedics do, firefighters do, first responders do because you're there and I'm just blown away and we need you. We need people like you in this city. As this city grows, we need those that are um out there with the helping hand and uh in our vulnerable communities. I'm chair of Ottawa Community Housing and I have a deep concern that you know that the youth in our communities do well and they can they have a pile of talents and um I'm uh I like yourself. So believe me, you're valuable and you should be very very proud. So thank you for coming out and being so brave to face us today. we're not so horrible, but um but it it does take a lot of nerve and um and I appreciate you doing that. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you, councelor. Uh councelor King. Uh thank you, chair. And I wanted to echo those those comments of all of my colleagues. I really want to thank you for being here. Uh thank you for sharing your lived experience. It's very important that we hear it. Um, as uh councelor Carr said, you know, often we see reports and that can uh desensitize because it can be impersonal. So, it's very important to have people from the community who serve the community who come to us to tell us the real impacts of the investments that are being made uh by city council and you've done that so effectively today. The other thing I really want to thank you for because I don't think we uh talk about this as much as we should and uh you did touch on this the impact of of covid-19 of the pandemic uh the fact that as governments uh notwithstanding the fact that we had to make decisions and uh the province made decisions and all frankly uh governments made decisions uh to keep us safe in terms of public health. Uh we talked about social distancing uh which you have noted led to social isolation. Uh but uh one of the things that we don't often really talk about is the need to invest in social cohesion so that we can really improve uh the whether it's the mental health of our community um you know you're talking about economic development opportunities employment um you know the social health across the board. I think that we need to continue to think about that in committees such as uh community services here as well as uh public health uh because these have had you know this experience has had an impact across the board in our city but have especially hit our youth hard and so I think it is very important uh that you you raise that and uh once again I really do want to thank you uh because I think that your uh you know your delegation today has been highly impactful on uh myself and I know on all of my colleagues. Thank you, chair. Thank you so much, counselor. Thank you both for being here. As you can tell, it's meant a lot to all of us to to hear your experience and your thoughts on the program and and what's out there. So, appreciate you being here today. Um we do have two more speakers. Actually, we have two more together and then we have another speaker after that. Um, so I will invite Carla Thor Theor and Jade Oday from the Ottawa Coalition of Community Houses. And I believe you also have slides as well. Oh, that's no problem. We're happy to have you. Is sick, so the flu finally got hurt. Well, please thank her for not being here to expose us to the flu. I've been dodging that thing for a while. Wonderful. So, you're ready to start whenever. All right, I am ready. So, I do have a lot of slides today, so some I might just skip through. So, if I say next slide, then we're just going to skip through it. Um, so, uh, good morning. So, thank you for allowing the time to speak today. I'm here on behalf of the Coalition of Community Houses representing 16 community houses across Ottawa. Um, and I want to take a moment to express appreciation for the plan uh and the direction as well as a consulted a well- consulted refresh. Next slide, please. So, um, the three-year funding has since been extended uh, which started in in 2022. So, six um community houses were successful in receiving the funding. Um and then since then um six more community houses has have received three-year project funding um through a similar project uh model. Okay, next slide please. Um so these are some of the neighborhoods that received the original funding. So we have uh B uh A, we have Blair Court, Bratannia Woods, Confederation Court, Deborah Dyn, and Russell Heights. Some of who uh we were lucky to hear from today, which is awesome. Um and the the the next um section of project funding was to Carson's Foster Farm, Michelle Heights, Morrison Gardens, uh Pinerest Terrace, and Winthre Court. So five of those being the the PQ group. Next slide, please. So, community houses. So, I just wanted to share um this slide here. Uh it's it's a simple overview of community house locations across the city. Um just for visual purposes um for those of you who might not be familiar with where everyone is. Um just to illustrate uh how we are really citywide and have a presence uh throughout the city. Um so each community house is embedded in uh Ottawa community housing neighborhoods. Um many of them are have been longstanding um hubs in these priority communities and they do all kinds of things um for programming, food access, uh learning relationships, mentorship, um all of those things that you've heard from uh heard about already today. Next slide, please. So, this is just a overview of who we're working with um in community house neighborhoods. Uh these populations often face systemic barriers um accessing formal supports. Next slide please. So wraparound supports. So this is kind of um something that we've been hearing a lot about the past few years. Um and these are just some examples of wraparound supports that occur on a daily basis within community houses. Um it's it's probably I would say a constant thing. There's uh all types of things that are dealt with and um those who are working in community houses are able to adapt and respond to all of the different community needs that would be included in wraparound supports. Next slide, please. Um so meaningful youth engagement um is a key part of how workers create lasting impact. Um through trusted consistent relationships, youth are connected to leadership opportunities, safe spaces where they can build confidence, develop skills, and feel a stronger sense of belonging. This work strengthens connections to schools community while supporting youth to become active um contributors in their neighborhoods. Youth are not just participating, they are helping shape solutions to local challenges and bringing their lived experiences directly into conversations with DEC with decision makers. Um and a perfect example is um what what everyone saw and heard today. Next slide please. So just a quick chat about the city of Ottawa youth forum. So an example of impact is the city youth forum um and consultations. 90% of youth engaged in the consultations came from community houses and 60% of youth leaders involved were also connected through these spaces. This highlights how community embedded workers create pathways for youth who may not otherwise participate in civic processes. Through this work, youth helped inform strategic directions focused on strengthening youth spaces, improving equitable access to resources and services, and expanding mentorship and workforce opportunities. Next slide. Next slide, please. Um, systemic level work and alignment. So, we also contribute to broader systems change um by participating in citywide tables addressing these issues. Since workers are embedded in neighborhoods, they bring real time community perspectives into these conversations, helping ensure policies and practices reflect lived realities and respond to emerging needs. Next slide, please. Um, so this is just a quick overview of some statistics. I'm not going to get into it cuz I do have more slides and I'm running out of time. Um but uh please uh take a look at it uh later. Um next slide please. So I I will ask you to wrap up. I'll give you another like 20 seconds or so. Okay. 20 seconds. Okay. So talk fast. Okay. And then I'm sure there'll be some questions for every Okay. Sure. So I'm going to just skip uh to the the the end of I knew I was going to run out of time. Um so why this funding matters. So, this funding has been incredibly supportive in enabling community houses to respond to various needs in their communities. Um, this has been directly and clearly illustrated by our earlier speakers. Um, there has been significant meaningful impact as a result of this funding. Um, am I out of time? Yes. Well, we do have some questions for you, so I'm sure it's going to flush it out as it gets. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. So, your first question is from councelor Carr. Good morning neighbor. Um, thank you very much for being here today. The first thing I'll ask you is there anything in your presentation that you wanted to speak to that you weren't able to uh finish? Honestly, I think it was it was probably fairly well covered off. Um, I think this the earlier speakers really fleshed out kind of the main message that we wanted to come here and and send today and just just really emphasize the fact that um the funding has been vital and critical to um responding to community needs and um it's it's something that we we really can't live without. Okay, perfect. Yeah, thanks. and we'll clarify um the funding aspects when we have questions for staff, but really appreciate um you coming here today. Can you just remind me how many community houses the coalition represents? 16. 16. 16. Yeah. So that's all 16 in the city including like there's independent ones and Yeah. Yeah. So that's the ones under um CHRC's and the independent both. Okay. Both. Yeah. All right. Okay. Thanks very much, Carla. was being asked a question. I got to sorry uh councelor Kavanagh. Yeah, thank you chair and thank you very much for coming out and uh showing us the numbers. I really appreciate it. Um Bratannia Woods of course I'm very familiar with and um all the marvelous work that Muhammad Sofa and his team are doing there. Um and it's beyond just um basic programs. It's counseling and and uh that uh really reach out to youth and um their families. So um but food security is becoming a bigger and bigger role. it wasn't meant to be and it is a concern and I just don't know if you have any comments about that but it's really it's really hard because that's not been the mandate of the city to have community uh food banks but it's there. Mhm. Yeah. I I mean food security has been uh one of the main challenges uh especially since the beginning of the pandemic and throughout um it's it's something I want to say that we've just been adapting to and responding to. Um it's a challenge but it's something that is a need in the community. So we we we do our best to respond to it and um you know working with the food bank and and trying to to make things work. But as as far as space goes, it's definitely um been a big challenge for many community houses to kind of balance that. No, absolutely. Um I I guess I the concern I hear and it is um is about stability of funding. Um that uh we need to know, you know, not just for the next year but for multiple years m so that you can do some planning. Exactly. Is that the case? Oh, of course. Yeah. That that's that's I think the the reality across the board for all community houses as far as um you know going contract to contract for staff um for funding for the community house for for everything. um you know when when we received the three-year funding that was magical because that period of funding wasn't as common as maybe you know year to year. Um but of course 3 years isn't um you know it's it's up now and it's I don't want to say it's not enough but um definitely we would be looking for stability. We would welcome it and and love love that. Yeah. and and the workload has has grown. Now, D know I appreciate it and and of course we depend on provincial help and and sometimes federal help. So, um it makes it difficult for the municipal level, but I appreciate that we we need to keep that funding stable. Yes, of course. Thank you. Thank you, councelor. Councelor Bington. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for your delegation. It's appreciated. I'm afraid to um not intervene and jump in and let you go without holding the city accountable for the funding that uh is provided to family houses because I think we need to have that conversation today. Um can you talk to the funding that the city is providing family houses? um what are annual increases like over the last I don't expect you to recite year after year but if we talk just within the decade what are some of the the monetary or the the percentage increases that that you're seeing coming from the city so if I'm going to be completely honest this would be a question that would be probably best fielded by my colleague Beth who is not here today um but you know I'm I'm going to say of course and I I think that my response here is not going to be a shock that um it's never enough um as far as uh what's required especially with the demand um that's been you know increasing I know that we've seen stress uh everywhere throughout the city as far as uh needing services and uh community houses are no exception um you know uh luckily we have amazing people that are very passionate and and will do the work but um you know we always worry about burnout out and you know what is the breaking point uh for that because it is challenging work. It's very difficult. It takes a lot of skill. Um and you know I think it would be beneficial to to have the the financial aspect represent that as well. Okay. I appreciate that and I don't I don't mean to put you on the spot by asking um budget questions. Budgets are dry to begin with. But I think for context and for greater awareness of all committee members, it's important for us to understand what percentage of family house budgets are provided by the city and what type of increases has the city provided. When you look at all the challenges that exist and um we've just heard from uh delegates previous to you the immediate impact every dollar has in the community. Um, so perhaps that will be a follow-up for me uh after the meeting, but appreciate your delegation here today. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. I'll be happy to provide that information and follow up. Thanks so much. You counselor. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you to all the delegates. I'm now going to uh invite staff back. You're welcome to stay where you are or find seats in the middle, but I do think there's probably some questions for you. Um, do counselors have any questions? No. Oh, lots of questions. That's what I heard. So, we'll let you get settled. All right. Uh, chair, we thought there was one more delegation on record. No. Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. Yes, we do. Yes, Eric. sleeping, my friend. Kala, are you still there, madame? I'm here. I was I was just about to email Eric. So, thank you. I'm glad someone remembered. Thank you so much. Um, we saved the best for last. There you go. You're so nice to me. We're going to start the clock whenever you're ready. Thank you. All right. Thank you. So, good a good morning everybody. Um, I'm here in the morning finally. My name is Kala and I'm speaking on behalf of the RITO Initiative. Um we're working to address impact of service concentration award 12 through advocacy and policy alternatives. Uh from that perspective I wanted to just begin by acknowledging some of the positive changes in the plan. Um especially because I work so closely with Sarah and Kale on so many things. So um the first is naming community safety. I know that you've listened to us residents in Sandy Hill and Lurtown delegate on how it's not even in the plan. Well, now it is. uh and I'm thrilled and um and I think that that sort of categorization allows us to go beyond streamlining and integrating city services and it allows for the inclusion of a wider array of solutions. Uh one of those solutions is geographic equity. Um it's a significant and welcome change. It signals that safety is not just about programs. uh it is about place and that is progress to addressing the impact of service concentration and the toxic drug supply in downtown neighborhoods. Uh but the equity has to be measurable and so now I'm going to get into the more boring stuff but right now geographic adequity is named but is not operationalized. Um over the several years of course a small number of downtown corridors have absorbed disproportionate concentration of high acuity services shelters drop in supervised consumption sites prescribed alternative clinics andarmacies and other frontline supports. Uh when service cluster services cluster without distribution planning there are cumulative cumulative effects. uh emergency response demand concentrates, secondary markets concentrate, exploitation concentrates, and public disorder concentrates that affects housed residents, people with lived experience, service providers, and businesses. There is also an important intersection between gender-based violence priority and the mental health priority, particularly as it relates to substance use disorder. The impact of the toxic drug supply and service concentration is not uniform. It's different for women and 2LGP wow 2 LGBTQIA plus people uh than it is for cisgender straight men. It's different for racialized and indigenous people than it is for white people. Um when I cut services cluster in small corridors, exploitation and violence cluster as well. We often refer to the most vulnerable, but the phrase can homogenize people with substance use disorder. There are as diverse they are as diverse as wider society. If community safety is a priority then intersectional safety must be visible within it. So geographic inequity is not theoretical. It's spatial and it's measurable. As such, the CSWB framework needs to include mapping of high acuity service density by ward, integrated neighborhood level data across hyphus, shelters, ops, bylaw, and public health, thresholds that flag cumulative burden, and or an equity index that helps decision makers identify disparity before it escalates. Um, if we're serious about geographic equity, we must measure concentration and its impacts. I also want to address the downtown safety outreach partnership. Um, coordination through DSOP is a constructive step. Centralization is necessary. I understand that centralization is occurring through the unsheltered homelessness outreach plan, which is a welcome shift to a coordinated and systems level outreach response across the city. Um, but the performance framework emphasizes service user process indicators. There are no KPIs measuring impact on businesses, impact on surrounding residents, reduction in concentrated emergency response demand or neighborhood level stabilization. A DSOP and a U-HOP, I think I heard Sarah say, uh, becomes more efficient at responding but does not reduce cumulative burden in high density corridors. We will have improved process without improving equity. Community safety must apply to everyone and equity must include distribution. Another important consideration is that people should be able to access services in their home communities. Currently, people accessing transitional housing in Alta Vista still have to come downtown for services. Currently, people accessing transition or people who lose their housing in Canada have to come downtown to access shelter. That type of displacement removes people from their neighbors, their friends, their communities. Concentration in a small downtown radius is not inevitable. It is the result of planning choices. The CSWB plan is the right place to correct that. Within the two-year action cycle, this plan should include a measurable service density and cumulative impact framework, an equity index or a geographic disparity tool, integrated data reporting across departments, and KPIs that measure neighborhood stabilization, including impacts on residents and businesses. Geographic equity has now been named. The question is whether it will be measured because what we do not measure, we normalize. and what we normalize in trench. Thank you. Thank you very much. Kella, you have a question from Yeah. Thank you for Okay. Thank you for being here. Sorry about that. Um I just wanted to ask you because I know you've been super involved in this issue probably since before 2020, even before the pandemic. And I think it's safe to say that things have not improved since then. I would argue they've probably gotten a lot worse. Maybe. No, they have not improved. Sorry, you're shaking your head. Okay. No improvement. I mean, there's been improvement in systems, but not improvement on the street. So, broadly, two or three things. If you could speak to someone with a magic wand. What would be two or three things that could improve things right now, right away? Opening shelters in every ward. small shelters that are hostile based that give people an opportunity to learn how to do executive functioning um and do community level sort of and build community among themselves um would be one thing I mean if the shelters opened all day that would be great too giving some people a place to go everybody's always asking me where are they supposed to go I'm like well you know if we had actual services available all day because day programs have to cycle people in and out but somewhere like corner Stone actually lets people stay. You get a bed at Cornerstone. You get to stay at Cornerstone, right? If you have to be there, I think at 3:00 a.m. for bed checks. And if you're not there, then you lose your bed. All the other shelters, it's first come, first serve every day, as far as I know. So, like, there has to be a different way to provide these services that allow people to have access to them all day. And we also need to start addressing sort of the violence that we're seeing on the street before it escalates to things like stabbings, things like like like uh like like fist fights. Like we have to stop this. We have to stop it before it becomes sexual assault. Um, and one way to do that is to really find out if the people are unhoused or just street involved because a lot of what's happening is predators are coming in from all over the city to the downtown core in order to sell drugs or to um or traffic people and they are setting up tents and they are they're they're doing this and it it and they blend into the population that is unhoused and we don't interrogate that and we need to find a different way to deal with this because those people are housed. They're not the most vulnerable. They're not in that homogenized group. Um and we need to address that somehow. And I'm of course I'm working with OPS on that. Of course I'm working with service providers on that. They know it too. It's just a matter of um of really finding sort of the right way to do it without causing harm to people who are truly vulnerable. You always have the good answers. Thank you so much, Kella. I appreciate it. Thank you, Council Black. Thank you, Council. Thank you, Kella. Appreciate it. All right. Now, we are on to questions to staff. Answer Plant. Just don't want any feedback. Okay. Um, yeah. So, I just kind of want to further develop my question that I just posed to Callus. So, you mentioned that you had $40 million worth of grants that you've Well, I don't remember what the time frame was for that, but that you've received. And grants are fine, but those things are not sustainable and people are more likely to report super positive outcomes because they want to receive the next batch of funding. Um, and if I'm being really blunt, things are not better downtown. Families are fleeing. We have stores that are closing. We had some daycarees that have closed. So, can you explain to me the dichotomy between receiving all of these grants and things not getting better in certain parts of the city? Um, thank you for the question. So for the $40 million um that has supported funding from other levels of government. So for example, the funding for ankor um in that specific program or the funding for the unsheltered homelessness outreach model and moving that to a 247 model which we'll talk about specifically. So, you're absolutely correct that that funding has supported with a specific gap in the system um and is targeting one aspect of the complexity of what you're seeing downtown in terms of the intersectionality of um financial instability, housing affordability, mental health, the toxic drug crisis, safety kind of conflating together. And so unfortunately those programs themselves aren't enough and aren't sufficient and haven't had enough time to actually drive the systems change which you're looking for to demonstrate some of that measurable immediate impact. Um we believe that through our continued partnership and work that through things like within the unsheltered homelessness outreach model where we're looking to um ensure there's aligned governance between different programs and projects. So we're not duplicating the use of resources but working more effectively with police, paramedics, community providers that we'll be able to provide more clear data around outcome measurement um in a very visible and transparent way to the community. Um is also while also creating a structure where there's two-way dialogue where we can talk about where we are seeing improvement and where we continue to have challenges. So, I think where I'm having a lot of trouble and and I'm I'm isol Sorry guys, I'm not I'm not talking about youth here. I'm talking about adult programs. I think where I'm having a lot of trouble understanding is I hear constantly from service providers about and you guys about what the great work they are doing and and reports are written and you know, surveys are done and I the downtown is suffering. It is absolutely suffering. We had a murder at the RTO center on Tuesday. The RTO center has about $4 million of private security circulating at any given moment. And that really worries me. I want people to take our public transit. I want people to come downtown. I want people to want to live here, especially families. And so, I'm I'm hearing what you're saying. I'm I'm not really seeing the tangible difference in the community. Um I I had another email earlier this week about a family selling their home at a loss because they absolutely had to leave downtown. So, I I don't know what to tell you. I I definitely don't think things are, you know, $40 million sounds great and I'm sure it it makes for nice reporting, but it doesn't seem to be um doesn't seem to be trickling down to where we live. But if I'm wrong, please let me know. Um thank you for the feedback. Counselor will consider that as we're looking towards evaluation, towards future programming and reporting. Um, I do believe that both in the community safety well-being plan report as well as the unsheltered homelessness outreach, we do provide data that has come from community about the realities that they're experiencing and have worked to structured our programs and projects based on the feedback you just shared as well as consistent engagement that we've heard through that as we're looking to prioritize the work moving forward. Thank you, councelor Councelor Kavanagh. Thank you very much, chair. Um, and appreciate all the work that's being done and I and um it's an unending task and it's growing and our city's growing and uh so are issues. Um, so I appreciate that this is um complex. Um, one success story is the anchor program um that is um just getting rolling. Um, and I'm hoping it'll expand cuz I'm seeing the need in a place like Bayward. Um, not it's not downtown, but it has its issues. I've witnessed things firsthand um even just yesterday of the situations where um I thought this is not a police event. This is something that needs um other help. So um uh I just wanted to get a handle on when when we can see possibly are we looking forward you know doing strategies of uh planning um about next steps on anchor. Thank you for the question through the chair. So we're very fortunate that through the 2026 budget council allocated an additional $700,000 to expand Ankor this year. Um we're continuing to work with the guiding council um around the neighborhood selection as well as then understanding what's financial what's operationally viable within that budget. Um and we hope to have more information and we'll share that as soon as possible. Um, in terms of a broader expansion citywide, as also part of the 2026 budget discussions, we were given direction to come back with a business case um to council to put in place um what is required financially for ongoing expansion. And we've begun working with the chief financial officer and financial services to begin building that financial case. um which will likely be part of 2027 discussions. I I appreciate that. Um one of the programs that's been a success story in in Bayward that I've seen up close um this is for youth is the neighborhood ambassador program and um I see it it's mentioned in the report. I just wanted to get confirmation that it's that um we're going to see continuation. It's a partnership with uh uh BGC, formerly Boys and Girls Canada. Um and um we have that right in our community. Um and I just want to know if this is going to continue. Uh thank you again for the question. So, the neighborhood ambassadors program, as you mentioned, is currently funded through a three-year grant federally through Public Safety Canada called the Building Safer Communities Fund. That grant ends um in March of 2027. And unfortunately, we haven't heard from the federal government if there will be new application for call for proposals or they'll extend it. So at this point in time we are working with the agencies on the program closeout because we don't have another um a transition source internally. There will be opportunities through the community funding framework for the agencies such as PGC to apply for project funding with the city. Um and we are also working with those agencies to understand and look at opportunities for applications with other funders as well. So if uh federal government is listening right now, um please continue this program. Um it it is it is valuable. Um and um I I and we do need to see it continue. Um I don't know if we have statistical uh data to show the results, but I do believe that it's making a difference. Uh thank you. And sorry, just one correction. The funding is ending in March 2026. I said March 2027, so within the next six weeks. Actually, I was aware and um that's why I'm asking. Um because I'm worried about it and I'm and I'm going to see a difference in my community because I'm going to have youth with uh without those programs. And frankly, it's a little concerning. Um we we it it just kind of it it it wasn't a solution. It was um but it was in the right direction and um we absolutely need to continue these programs. This is so necessary. We we just have barely have enough resources for and uh places um to to have these programs. Um but um we got to we got to keep them. I think that's probably the biggest problem is the stability of funding. We've heard this from the um the uh community houses. They have to know what they're going to get so they can make plans, multi-year plans. And I certainly hear that from Bratana Woods and and the other community houses that that uh stability is super important to plan. We all need planning opportunities and um as chair of auto community housing I get an opportunity to see across the city um and I and I see the difference it makes. So um these are super super important and uh appreciate the work that's uh being done. Um food insecurity is is probably the one that's concerns me right now. Um and it's a difficult one when we don't have you know the space. Um and um we weren't designed for this. This is the the issue that I see. Um we we talk about it in the report, but what are we what can we actually do in terms of moving in the right direction? Um thank you for the question. So in terms of food and security, there are a couple of key pieces. Um, one, for the past 3 years, council has approved a an additional increase to agencies supporting food and security initiatives and direct food delivery. So, emergency food covers, food banks, a proportion of, for example, with the community houses, a portion of their programming that's going to food security. Um, so that has been above just the cola um or cost of living increase. that sustainability funded agencies receive. Um the second piece w is work that's going to look at food insecurity from a more policy lens. Um so the staff held in partnership with the pillar working group as part of the poverty reduction strategy a food symposium um in the fall of 2025 uh where a number of initiatives have been identified out of that. Um, one for example is applying a food lens to municipal policy, um, which Ottawa Public Health has taken a lead on, and we're beginning to define a plan and start to implement that work this year. Um, and the food pillar working group is finalizing um, an advocacy strategy to advocate with the province as well as the government of Canada in documenting different municipal advocacy efforts across the city. um aligned to things like Food Secure Canada, Feed Ontario, a Right to Food, uh Disability Without Poverty, and the Milan Urban Food Pack. Thank you. Um it it's it's not what, you know, we were planning to do, but um it's a direction that is just overwhelming because food is super expensive and uh um it it's a huge distraction in terms of all the other things that we're trying to do, but it's necessary. And one of the biggest uh things I hear is the lack of space to you know if you're running a food cover community houses are literally um overwhelmed um and they were never set up to do this. So it it's something we have to think about and we have to look at partners to to uh work on this. Uh anyway, I just want to end but appreciate all the work that's being done um particularly in in housing um and uh the work that's being done in terms of uh the transitional housing. The um I'm looking forward to seeing um more opportunities for families. Um but uh obviously the end goal is to get them in permanent housing and um I hope that the city will consider that the absolute priority. Thank you. Thank you, councelor. Uh, Councelor Choster, thank you so much. Uh, and once again, thank you for all of your incredible work. And to all of the community partners who are here, we really value what you do. Just for folks who might be, uh, watching at home or in a gallery who don't have the report in front of them, what is the what is the funding envelope to fund the community and safety well-being plan, the total number? Do we have a sense? Um, thank you for the question, counselor. So, when the plan was approved by council in December of 2021, that came with a complement of four permanent staff to support the plan, as well as $250,000 to support its implementation. Uh since that time staff have been working on different financial strategies uh such as applications to grants at other levels of government um as well as bringing for forward concrete actions and projects for municipal council to fund. So for example the 150,000 that has gone to support tax in income clinics last year. Um and so there's a number of project stream fundings. Um, in addition to that, the $32 million investment through the community funding framework is strongly aligned with the priorities of the community safety well-being plan as it relates to poverty reduction, food security, uh, youth, and otherwise. So, that's the funding envelope that's funding the community houses that folks came to talk about today. Uh, yes, that's correct. Okay. And how much of a increase did that funding framework receive in the 2026 budget? Um, so the sustainability funding stream within the community funding framework receives a cost of living increase that's set by council in the budget direction. So last year that was 2.5%. And that's applied and go and flowed through to those agencies. Uh the one exception was the additional increase for food security food security programming which was above that amount. Okay. Well, I'd just like to point out that the Ottawa Police received a 5% funding increase in this community safety and well-being initiative received a 2.5% increase. And we're hearing from the wonderful folks who came to committee today about how important this work is, how people are underpaid, about how staff don't have benefits, about the rate of burnout. Um, and it I value this work so much, but I I don't think that we're showing that we value it with the level of funding that we're providing. So, um, I am incredibly thankful for all the work that everyone's doing. Um, but I think what we fund shows who we are and I think we can do better. Thank you very much. Uh, councelor Carr. Thank you very much. I just have a quick uh question um to staff with respect to the funding for the community houses. We heard from a number of them today. Under the new framework, can you explain what will change in terms of their application process, length of the funding, that sort of stuff? What are the implications? Um, thank you for the question. So, um, currently the community houses receive funding from two streams. There's sustainability funding where the 16 community houses receive $2.7 million annually and the sustainability fund is five-year funding that supports with operational needs. Um the application for the sustainability fund will open again in 2027, giving staff time to implement the recommendations from the community funding framework midpoint review that committee uh saw before this report. The second funding streams they receive are project funding um which is what you heard more specifically about today. So the community safety well-being youth workers in those houses um so six of them are currently receiving community safety well-being fund project funding for a total of 400,000 um which ends in 2026 and there will be a new application process this year and seven receive a total of 255,000 which ends in 2027 for the project funding. Um, so staff are currently working on updating the community safety well-being fund project funding stream based on the new priorities of the plan if approved by committee and council today. Uh, one of the pieces of feedback that we heard from the community funding framework midterm review and you heard today was the importance of multi-year funding. um that one year wasn't really sufficient, that there was a requirement to have multi-year funding to collect data, demonstrate progress, um be able to evaluate programs more rigorously um to show impact not just to the city but also to other funders. The project funding streams are never were never meant to be sustainable funding. And so specific to the community houses, there would be an opportunity later this year to apply to the community safety well-being fund when that opens as well as a sustainability funding stream in early 2027 um when that funding stream opens. Yeah, thanks very much for that. I think there was some concern that maybe the um CSWB funding would not be available, but that's that's not the case, right? You can confirm that. Uh correct. Staff are just working on updating the framework to align to the new priorities and structures outlined in the report today, but that will be go out to the public in early Q2 for applications. Perfect. Thank you. And just one follow-up question from a question that councelor Kavanaaugh asked with respect to the anchor program. you mentioned um working on the expansion for the $700,000 it received in the budget and then you talked about the work that you're doing with uh the chief financial officer to look at funding long-term. What I didn't hear mention was we were previously told that there would be an evaluation of the anchor program before expansion. I thought do you have any details on that that you can share? Um we recently completed or are just finalizing the midterm evaluation for Ankor. Um and that would be available um within Q2 of this year as well. And we're collecting regular key performance indicators um that we're looking towards um publishing in a public dashboard at some point in 2026 as well. Okay, great. So that will come back to us. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you, councelor. Councelor King. Uh, thank you, chair. And before I ask some questions, I really just wanted to acknowledge the hard work of staff on uh this report and the work that they're doing on the community safety and well-being plan. Uh, as a liaison along with councelor Hill on the advisory board, uh we uh get uh extra updates in in conjunction uh with the partners who are delivering uh some of these services and providing input on some of these services. And I just have to say uh the breath and scope is very impressive. uh really pleased to see the optimization of the priorities as well as the extensive list of uh programs that I hear from uh community members uh that they want action on whether it's the genderbased uh violence three-year action plan uh which I've heard uh real interest around the finalization and launch of that of that program uh the older adults action plan uh you know just this weekend I was talking um with uh with a senior who was uh really happy with the fact that we're looking at co-designing uh this type of programming. Um also uh was speaking with youth uh this this weekend at an event uh held by the social planning council of Ottawa and uh heard uh excitement around the uh prospect of the youth social development action plan. Uh so uh these uh all these items are being wellreceived including uh financial empowerment. Uh I think we heard from delegates today and I think that the the form uh that is uh proposed uh for uh this year uh and uh the the the idea of expanding ward coverage uh for tax clinics and and benefit access is is very important. uh though there's a lot of work obviously anchor is a a major component of that in terms of ongoing implementation and service improvement and uh I did have a question around anchor uh so uh we know that the provincial funding expires in 2027 uh the report recommends expanding anchor anchor and I know that there will be uh a report uh that will come back to us around uh you know uh the the funding ing models. Uh, but I think u we're I I know I'm personally interested in a bit of a preview. So, I was just wondering u what is the contingency plan uh if uh funding is not renewed and is staff actively working on a renewal application and will committee be briefed on that on that process? Uh chair, I'll take that question. Uh thanks for that question counselor and I think what you heard Sarah say is that uh work is underway right now with community partners the existing partners um community assessments are being done um data is being reviewed and um we've committed to bring back a business case so I think the good news is that there's funding to uh March of 2027 and team is working hard as we said with financial services to bring a business case. It's it would be very speculative at this point to talk about um what the plans are before we actually do the financial analysis. I appreciate that and I appreciate the uh work that's being undertaken for geographic expansion of the program. I know um everywhere I go, in fact uh I know uh I was with some of my colleagues who are around this table at Ottawa Police uh service uh public consultation on uh the districtricting model and uh there were many social service agencies around the table and they said we need this expanded uh across the city and uh I was wondering if they had uh seen my participation uh during the budget deliberations but they hadn't actually and so I found that refreshing. I found it actually reinforced the fact that we are hearing uh from the community the need to invest in uh you know this type of mental health response. So I'm really pleased that uh staff is working uh hard to see that geographic expansion. I also had a question around uh food security and uh we know that food insecurity has risen by uh nearly 15% to an estimated uh 25.7% of Ottawa households in the last 2 years. The food security action plan will not be finalized until 2028. uh just wanted to uh have staff comment on what specific interim investments or emergency measures are in place between now and 2028 to address uh what the data indicates is a crisis level deterioration. Uh thank you for the question. With regards to food insecurity, I would point to some of the information I shared previously with councelor Kavanagh around the increase through the increased um in addition to cola through the community funding framework that council has approved uh the work we're doing with the food security action plan on applying a municipal food lens to the work. Um, I think I'd also like to mention that as it relates to food insecurity, another aspect of that is really around financial empowerment and financial security of getting individuals and families um enough money uh to afford food. And so I would like to highlight the ongoing efforts that staff are undertaking as it relates to the financial security pillar. Um so we're grateful for council's continued investment in the tax income clinic coordination. As I mentioned previously, uh, last year over 6,000 tax returns were filed and that led to $30 million in benefits that were unlocked for individuals. And at this point, with the secondyear investment and a strong infrastructure already in place, we're hoping to exceed those numbers this year um with strong community leadership in that space. Um, in addition, there's the financial security working group is working on a financial empowerment action plan. Um there's a workshop later this week with community partners to look at financial empowerment and bring together organizations across the city that are working in that space targeting older adults, youth, newcomers, um low-income families and to see how we can collaborate and collectively work together to move that forward this year and what opportunities the community safety wellbeing fund would have to support a project once identified. I appreciate the interconnectedness of all these pieces and the work that's being done especially around uh financial security. I've seen that uh to the benefit of uh communities in in Overbrook and in Forbes and in uh Carson Grove in terms of uh tax clinics as well as financial literacy sessions. And so I think that that is an important piece uh that feeds into uh the food security piece overall as well. I had one last question and it just uh revolves around uh the pins program. So the uh post incident uh neighborhood support program uh that's listed for review. Uh I'm just wondering what specific performance concerns or gaps are driving uh that review and uh what the current case load response times and outcome data for pins is. And I say that with experience uh uh with pins uh having before being elected actually working with a community association on the pilot uh project that uh created pins and having had actually participated in uh the process over the last uh couple of years in terms of major post incident uh issues in in my ward. So I was just wondering uh what are the driving factors uh for for pins and what will the KPIs be? Thank you for the question. So the review and update of pins will look at uh simplifying coordination mechanisms. Uh we don't specifically have KPIs right now associated. It will be a co-design process that we work with uh Somerset West Community Health Center who's the lead financial contractual agency for that uh program right now. Those will be developed though as we move through that process of co-design with the organization. I appreciate that update and uh just really wanted to put on record that I appreciate the work of pins in terms of having a formalized process especially when there are traumatic incidents that uh affect a community. Uh it's very important to have a process that involves city services, other social service agencies, uh other community associations uh to uh really respond to community needs in in times of crisis. So uh there's a lot of appreciation for that program and I'll be very interested in seeing uh u what the review uh garners. Uh my last uh point, I just really want to closely associate uh myself uh with the comments that councelor Troster has made and others around equalizing uh the funding uh in in terms of co-generation of public safety. Um you know um it's important that the uh police service have uh the resources that they need but it's also very important uh that uh the social service agencies and the community service uh department has the resources that they need uh to provide uh services and I think we've heard uh that clearly indicated today uh with uh the number of delegations that we had from the community houses uh the tremendous work that they need that they do uh needs to be supported uh properly by this council and uh I know there'll be people around the council table uh really looking to equalize uh that that level of funding uh to ensure uh that they can continue to deliver uh key services uh to our neighborhoods. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much, Councelor Councelor Hill. Uh thank you uh very much chair. And I do want to reinforce uh the the the comments that I've heard from uh all of my colleagues about the appreciation for the hard work that's gone into this impactful policy document. So, thank you very much for that. Um I do have a specific question. Um I note that the report doesn't directly speak to youth diversion from the perspective of extremism or counter radicalization. Would the community safety and well-being plan be where this type of program would be policy considered? uh and is this a gap that needs further reflection or are there other organizations and programs that are looking at this issue? Uh thank you very much for the question chair. So the uh council here specifically to that uh radicalization and youth radicalization wasn't an emerging issue that we found in the data review or that came out specifically through the engagement and consultation for the refresh. We do understand it's a critical and emerging issue that's connected both to the community safety well-being plan as well as the city's efforts around anti-hate um the women and gender equity strategy and the anti-racism strategy. Uh at this point in time staff are looking to better understand who are the agencies operating in this space and if there is or isn't a place for the municipality as it relates to this specific issue. Um, so it you're correct. It's not something you see in the action plan currently uh for the next two years, but within that time staff will undertake some research to better understand where it is best placed fit um and what opportunities there are to if needed bring it out through the consultations in a different way to ensure that we are capturing emerging needs were appropriate. Um we have heard about the impact um specifically around technology as it relates to youth mental health and mental health in other places. That's something that we'll continue working with Ottawa Public Health on as the plan moves forward. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councelor Hill. Councelor Barkington. Thank you, Chair. Two main points I want to make, and I want to thank councelor King for raising pins. I wasn't going to raise this, but um uh regrettably uh critical incidents do happen across the city and River Ward is no uh has not been spared uh from these matters particularly this year to the first two homicides in Riverward. And uh despite being in this position for many years, I've I've been very unclear what Pin's role is. Uh I'm always uh within 24 hours on the phone with the community health center either in the south end or in Car saying what's the plan, who's in charge, who does outreach, who's speaking to immediate communities. Uh it always looks political if I'm there within the first 24 hours. Yet I still have that care and concern that I want to connect with my residents but not be seen as, you know, an ambulance chaser in in the political world. Um but uh even in like I said the more recent examples, who's the lead? Who communicates with the community? Um people have basic questions like you know why did it happen? Who is involved? What was it about? The police provide absolutely no information. Zero. Um and what is the police's role post incident? So, if you would consider reaching out to maybe a handful of of members of council, if you're going to review sort of the PIN's mandate or or response if that's being looked at from what I heard correctly, I would be happy to share my experience. Um, so I'll I'll just park it there, but happy to see that. Uh my main comment that I wanted to make is I've got three family houses in Riverward, Ban Fledbury, Deborah Dines, and Caldwell. And I don't know what these communities would be like without the family houses that exist now. It It's scary to consider what these communities would be like without the family houses. They are the true hubs of the community. They offer every particular service that you can think of. They are people's homes and safe places and where they feel trusted and where trust is fostered. And from a fin if we just want to talk about finances, this is the best investment, the best return on investment that the city makes because the city contributes peanuts. We don't blink when we give 440 million to Landdown or 100 million for a dump or 185 million for the new ambulance base in the West End or 45 million yesterday to a hotel. All good causes. I won't debate whether or not there these are needed. Council has made these decisions or will about to make a decision in a $5.5 billion budget. And our residents who need help the most have to beg, borrow, and steal to survive. Doesn't make sense. Doesn't make sense. I can remember in my first term when the late Diane Deans chaired this committee and I was her vice chair going to Mayor Watson. You may remember this Jessica. We wanted an additional $500,000 in the budget for social service programs. And it was like we had just insulted the mayor's parents or something, you know, terrible that we would ask for such a a contribution or a net increase to the budget. And yet we approve other expenditures without blinking sometimes. So um you know when it comes to budget time again to the delegates today and delegates of the past who have come to speak about this you help reinforce uh not just how uh present day investments are spent and the impact it has and the posit that comes out of it but that this has to be maintained if not increased. There's no doubt in my mind it has to be increased. But what I'm surprised is how much of a fight there is around this table. If we're all into politics because we want to help people and help the communities we serve, why would we debate to the length that we do debate helping the most needy in our communities? I've never been able to wrap my head around that. Um so, uh to staff who dedicate their careers to community services, thank you. certainly will be supporting the motion before us, but at budget times in particular, we need to think about investing in areas that have the greatest impact on our residents. And the monies that we give, for example, to family houses are not just well spent, but well needed, and more is definitely required. So, thank you. Uh, councelor Kavanagh. Thank you, Chair. Um, the tax clinics. So, I just wanted to comment on um I appreciate that we're investing in them. I think that's huge, especially just hearing about the the, you know, new programs that the federal government's coming out with, but if people didn't fill out their tax returns, they probably would not see them. Um but I just want to know I I wanted to ask um if we're if we're investing in these tax clinic can we partner that with OC transpo with equipass and community passes because they are income tested as well and it's an opportunity when when people meet the threshold of of uh of of them because I'm finding that people don't know about them and um it's another opportunity to grow our ridership, but really it's it's it's an opportunity for people to save money that didn't know that opportunity was there. And I'm wondering if that partnership could be looked into. Chair, yes, we can we can take that back to the team to make sure there's a a cross reference or cross check. Thank you. I I have raised it um with OC transpo um and they are doing some work and um OC for example is interested as well. The community workers are are happy to work on that but it's really um if there's tax clinics you're you're right there looking at people's um income levels so you know that they qualify for those passes and um like I said I don't think a lot of people know about them. Thank you. Thank you, councelor. Uh, councelor Kr. Hi, thanks. Sorry for the question and I should know this and I'm trying to find it, but I'm just going to ask it. Uh, the community and safety well-being funding is it what percentage of it is generated from the Ottawa tax base and which come percentage comes from flow through funding from other level of government? Uh, thank you for the question council. I'll have to get back to you on the specific percentage in terms of what we're funding through projects from other levels of government versus municipal tax base. Um what is covered right now currently through the municipal tax base is as I mentioned there are four permanent staff positions. Um $250,000 to support operations. Uh the community safety well-being fund which is a $2.3 million investment specifically. Um and then as well as associated for example the community funding framework which contributes in some way towards the priorities as well but I'd be happy to back to you on a specific breakdown and the percentage of that. Okay, perfect. Thanks. Like in terms of the like funding for community houses, they have some CWS community and safety wellbeing funding. They have some project funding. They have sustainability funding. I'd be really interested in getting uh information on that funding. Uh I know it's a little bit different house to house, but what percentage is actually generated from the municipal tax base and what uh comes from other levels of government? Like no rush on it, but uh can kind of if that can be like an unofficial request. Thank you. Thank you very much, councelor Carr. I'm not seeing any further questions for staff. So, is this item carried? Carried. Carried. Wonderful. Thank you to all the delegations who came today. Thank you to staff on their work on this plan. We're now going to be moving on to item 5.3, unsheltered homelessness outreach model. We do have a presentation from staff. So, we will uh we'll set up for that. Thank you. Thank you, chair. So, we're very excited to bring forward our um revised unshelter homelessness outreach model uh to committee today. Um what I'll be walking through in the presentation is a highle overview of what the new model is going to be doing in terms of our change from our current outreach support model, how it was developed, um and kind of next steps in terms of what we can expect for implementation on the ground with our community partners. Next slide please. So, just to contextualize where the model lies within our current response, um, as you may be aware, the city developed its original unsheltered response system um, in around 2020 with community partners when we started seeing an increase of unsheltered homelessness across the city of Ottawa. Um, this was not developed in isolation. So, this all has always fallen in with our 10-year housing and homelessness plan. um and an unsheltered model that we'll be presenting today is not the entire system. Really, this system ties into our broader housing and homelessness um plan that ties in things like our uh integrated transition to housing strategy um as well as some upcoming reports about shelter inflows and outflows and how we can best support people within the housing and homelessness system. Um, we've actually made an immense amount of accomplishments to strengthen our system in our ability to deal with unsheltered homelessness um through the integrated transition to housing strategy. We've added over 700 transitional housing beds providing new options for the single shelter system um to be able to come inside. We've also added 340 scattered sites all across the city which are smallbased transitional housing sites which provide services. added 318 supportive of affordable housing beds with another 815 underway. So, I want to underscore that this unsheltered response does not take away our continued focus on long-term housing solutions, permanent housing solutions. That is the long-term solution to unsheltered homelessness. And again, our strategy we're presenting today is how do we get people better into those long-term solutions? We've also housed um with our current response since 2020 996 people. So almost a thousand people um with our housing benefits program tied into this. Um we've also resolved just last year 462 encampments without needing to use an enforcement approach and dismantle. Next slide please. Um, so we're very grateful that in 2024 as through the Ottawa Ontario deal, the city received funding through the solicitor general to expand the our current unsheltered homelessness outreach model um to move to a 247 model that looked at both peer support, health supports that are needed, increased needle pickup, and a number meet a number of other needs that we were hearing through community. Um at that time through our engagement with service providers, businesses, community associations, and individuals with livedin living experience, a number of strengths, but also gaps and challenges were identified with the current outreach structure. So, in the fall of 2024, we began working with Bloomberg Associates, um, a nonprofit philanthropic consulting firm to support us in the design strategy for an enhanced outreach service or model um, that's more coordinated and really was responding to the feedback that we were hearing um, across the board. And so they supported us with best practice research um looking at cities from San Francisco, Miami, Phoenix, Tucson, Houston. Uh staff then did additional research in partnership with them to look at Winnipeg, London, Ontario, Calgary, Toronto, and Simco County to really learn what was happening from other places and how some of those leading and best practices could be applied to our local context. In early 2025, we then began consultation and co-design across a range of sectors here locally in Ottawa. So, with frontline service providers, a number of co-design sessions with funded agencies that are currently receiving funding for outreach um municipally or otherwise. We engage with residents and businesses through online surveys and ongoing meetings and our ongoing enga regular engagement through different tables that they have established. Um we did consultations with people with lived and living experience and then had ongoing engagement with key partners such as Ottawa Police and Ottawa Public Health um who are actively working in the downtown core in this space as well. Next slide please. So in terms of what the focus is within this new model, um really this is focused on making sure that we get people into long-term housing. So, it's about addressing the needs of unsheltered homelessness by bringing them the housing supports required. This does include referrals to things like health, mental health services, addiction treatment services to ensure that they can stabilize and be able to move into the available long-term housing um we create through the 10-year housing and homelessness plan. We're also looking to enhance community engagement and stewardship of public spaces. Um when we had originally started this plan, um we saw a very low number of unsheltered homelessness. there was around 50 people that we had dealt with in 2020 and now we're up close to 550 in 2025. So, this has really been an exponential increase and with that exponential increase, we want to recognize the ongoing impact of the surrounding communities um where there's high concentrations of unsheltered homelessness. So, in this new model, we're really looking to address making sure that not only are we responsive to the clients that we serve in terms of the people we're trying to move into long-term housing, but also addressing the needs of the surrounding communities who are impacted having their public spaces taken. Um, we're also looking to align our resource allocation and performance measurement. Um, our strategy since 2020 has continued to evolve um through multiple different iterations of funding from federal, provincial, and municipal levels. Um, and that's really how we got to a point where um, the funding models were not well aligned. And with this new model, we're making to look at clear under a contract um, forward way to make sure that all of our unsheltered homelessness services are working towards those same goals, objectives, and reporting data in a comprehensive model. Um, we're also looking to make sure that we increase our outreach service coordination. So in doing making sure that we don't have many different outreach providers under many different contracts with many different sources of funding, we're looking to really amalgamate this under one comprehensive strategy. Um we're looking to strengthen alignment internally within the city of Ottawa with other city departments that support our unsheltered response like emergency services, park services, public works. And we're also looking to reduce service gaps um with when residents report issues in their community. Um, we want to help them understand one the process the city of Ottawa takes to address those issues with clients, but also how their request is going to be serviced through the community. We also want to create a reliable single point of contact for entries. Um, as it stands now, a lot of our partners directly take service requests. So, with this new model, we'll be looking to streamline things. um having the city take on the responsibility of being the one um dispatched service that will ensure that the whether it's a community need or a client need that we're making sure the appropriate services are dispatched. We're also going to be tracking in issues and enforcing uh sorry enhancing our information sharing. Um, and really around that, we want to continue to build on some of the great work we've done through our housing and homelessness plan on having public facing dashboards about the success we're having a success as a sector and with our community partners. I want to also mention that this does not include this review, an update to our indigenous outreach service provider model. that is something that is going to be remain separate and distinct and we're going to be working with them on finding um mutually agreeable integration points making sure that we continue to provide culturally sensitive services to indigenous community members from indigenous providers. Next slide please. So this slide outlines what we are going to be changing from status quo to where we will be headed. Um so a big piece of what we're doing as I'd mentioned is aligning the service providers to be one um main contract. So we're going to be issuing an RFO for outreach services that will hold the lead we'll have a lead contract holder um that will coordinate with all the outreach teams peer programs embedded health supports um with clear roles city branding performance measurements and public reporting. will also be established to ensure equitable service delivery that reflects the needs of individual communities um using a data approach and including a focus on making sure that we're able to offer bilingualism services u as well as services to people like newcomers or people with special needs addiction treatment services or health requirements. Um the services is going to continue to be a 247 support. So we're continuing to look to keep our investments at the same level. um in doing data um dispatch of our services. So again creating a data model that we can make sure that we're allocating our resources to the community needs where they're needed most as well as for the clients. Our frontline outreach services will be wearing purple vests so it will have a common branding so that anyone in the community um whether they're a client that needs support or a house resident that they're able to easily identify and understand the city's approach to supporting unsheltered homelessness. We'll also have leverage a one-time data system. So, we currently have our homelessness information individuals and family system um which will be leveraged to provide a one-stop uh data point and system that we can then use to feed those public dashboards. We're reporting on progress and also triaging um community concerns and complaints. Again, the key focus of this is the long-term solution to unsheltered homelessness is going to continue to be housing focused. So connecting residents who choose not to access available shelter spaces um directly into uh housing services programs like our housing benefits programs, rent gear to income and the housing registry. Again, the city's also going to be taking on a lead role in doing the dispatch um and coordination of these services in terms of when things come in from the public. Um so residents will be able to call 311 and press two um and be directly connected with one of our uh outreach service providers to be able to dispatch the team. So that will come through the city and then we will do it on their behalf and also track the progress on responding to that call. Um the last thing I want to mention is that we're also in order to do this um slightly moving towards uh having the community engagement team to not be a frontline outreach service provider. They will still provide a role in terms of some out frontline service delivery working with the community to develop plans address problematic areas. um but they are going to be doing that coordination work and our work in terms of the actual client outreach and services the community will through that one outreach service provider. Um the unsheltered homelessness outreach model again will align to our updated housing and homelessness plan which will come in March. Um it is a continuation of a lot of the great work that was happening through the close out of our integrated transition to housing strategy. Um, and again aligns with a lot of the work police is doing through their core strategy and the city of Ottawa strategic plan is making sure everyone has access to long-term housing. Next slide, please. So, in terms of the funding, uh, really what one of the main pretexts was to updating our unsheltered model in addition to some of the demands we've seen changed in the city, um, we received $7.6 $6 million from the Ministry of the Solicitor General as part of the Ottawa Ontario uh agreement to enhance outreach services in the downtown core. Um so year one and two of that funding was now delivered through existing service contracts and we're updating this model um to be able to in year three move to this new idea. Um and then in terms of how we're going to be funding this on an ongoing basis is making sure that our federal investments through um Health Canada crimerevention action fund, the unsheltered homelessness encampment initiative as well as provincial investments such as the economic development revitalization funding through the solicitor general and the ministry of municipal affairs and housing will continue. So we'll be working with corporate and finance services to make sure that we have a funding strategy ongoing. Um however in the next years we do have a strategy to undertake a collaborative process to reissue that RFO funding at our current funding levels um to be able to assign one service agency who will providing that frontline service in the community. So really what's going to be happening on the back end is that we're going to ensure that these multiple funding pockets are aligned under one strategy, one strategic priority, one contract that the city will oversee um and ensure there's public reporting around that. We're also going to be uh looking at renewed funding commitments from senior levels of government. Um there's been several new funding uh pockets becoming potentially available. So city staff will continue to work look at opportunities and apply for those when they are available. Um and as a last piece as this rolls out, we're going to be working closely with the indigenous community and our indigenous service providers to figure out how we can make sure that we have appropriate referral mechanisms in and out of indigenous services. Next slide please. So in terms of timing of when this is going to be implemented. So pending uh approval from committee and council, we will be moving to issue that RFO for the single agency. So we anticipate that that will be issued in Q1 2026. So we'll be moving along quite quickly on that. Um we're going to be looking to pilot the in centralized intake and dispatch throughout Q1 2026. Then implement a community engagement strategy during that same period to kind of test make sure that it's working well. um develop a republic reporting framework for Q1 2026. Again, that will be tied in with our tenure housing and homelessness plan. Um finalize the planning for the unsheltered homelessness objectives, issuing contracts um to have the plan ready in Q3 2026. So that would actually be the roll out of the new service model with the new agency. Um and then we will be issuing contract and uh implementation plan by Q4 2026. Um and that's when you're going to see people on the ground. And then really we move into monitor and evaluation similar to where we've been since 2020. This is something that's been evolving in the city and our approach needs to change with that. So we're going to continue to work with those community partners, community agencies, community uh programs um that support this work uh to be able to deliver on it, make sure that we're responsive to the changing data and update the response as needed. that this will be a much more clear framework that we can work on as a city um that is much more responsive to the needs we're seeing in 2025. I think that's our last item. Thank you. Thank you very much. Uh we do have a motion that I was hoping to have read in just to to further any discussion from councelor Plant. We'll get it up on the screen first. Be it resolved that the report recommendations be amended to add recommendation four as follow. That the community service committee recommend council for receive the memorandum dated February 20th, 2026 in which staff respond to the October 8, 2025 council direction on encampment responses attached as document one to this report. Be it further resolved that the memorandum be added to the report as document one. Merci. Thank you very much. Um so now we'll move to questions to staff. Councelor Carr. Uh, thank you very much. Uh, fantastic to hear about all the work. Very much appreciated. I know we've, uh, we've given the Clara's area a really heavy lift, I think, over the last uh, few years with all the work that's being done on community safety, well-being, and on um, transition to housing. And now this outreach coordination in addition to everything else and uh it it sounds very promising the coordination of outreach. I know it's something that uh many of us have asked about over the table in particular the downtown counselors uh councelor Plant and uh councelor Troster in terms of how this work gets coordinated. Uh I've just got a few questions on um how it could potentially work. Um it talked in in there about system level coordination as opposed to program level coordination. Is this something that you feel that we will be able to work with these individuals and actually be able to sort of incorporate them on a systems level with our you know with our hyphen system in terms of housing like what does the interface between the outreach and housing first? How is that all going to work together? Thank you for the question, chair. So, yes, this is going to be at a systems level and really what we're looking to do is create a streamlined pathway into the city's coordinated access system. So, as part of housing first, that's essentially our service prioritization system for all housing and homelessness services. Um, so through this strategy, we're going to be more directly tying in all of our frontline serving agencies into this one RFO. um that will then be have that direct access into as you mentioned hyphus being our data system um which is where our coordinated access system is housed in terms of that service prioritization. So it'll be tied back into priorities things like that getting them on the list as early as possible so that they get in line for services that are overs subscribed. Okay. Okay. And I think I read in the report that there was 141 individuals housed last year from uh in 2025. Like we don't have a tremendous amount of housing options available right now. Um but those 141 that were housed that were talked about in the report, how how were they like were they housed from the street? you're not including into a shelter, but do you include into transitional housing? Are you including into supportive housing? What sort of housing types were those 141 people? And were those just people identified by the city? Those don't include people, for example, through Salvation Army or Mission, if you could just speak to that a little bit. Thank you, chair. So, those would be clients identified through the Salvation Army as our primary outreach provider. We also have several indigenous providers who also would identify people into this system. Um, in terms of where they are housed to, most often within that 141, it would have been private market housing with housing based case management support. So, um, many folks who are matched directly from unsheltered homelessness into housing. Um, depending on their need level would be provided housing based case management matching. So essentially somebody who provides light such support in private market housing with a rent supplement or a housing benefit. Um there is uh several people I don't have the percentages on hand but I could get back to you with that that are housed into supportive housing but as we know the wait lists are quite long there. So, what we really try and do is make sure that we work with um housing providers, private market housing providers, especially when that need level isn't so high that you require supportive housing to get them paired with housing benefits, get them on the housing registry so they're eligible for that line of services. Okay, thanks very much. And actually, this came up last night at the Ottawa Police Service Board meeting in context of some of the social disorder and uh the unfortunate uh incident that happened at Street. I had some questions. Uh I will tell you that the Ottawa Police Service, the chief did say that this was going to be amazing coordination outreach and was very impressed with the work. So um my concern is so can you speak a little bit about how the situation tables are going to work in that interface, the need for them and how privacy considerations are managed. Uh thank you for the question. And so in terms of the situation table specifically, it has a framework and training and structure around how cases are brought forward for that specific reason to protect privacy. So anyone who's participating or bringing um individuals to the situation table will have gone through that training. So we understand from our conversations with Ottawa Police Services that that is a priority for them that they're looking to train and increase the number of officers trained who can bring cases forward from a broader governance perspective as it relates to this model. Um we are looking to work collaboratively across police community partners and other sectors. Um, we've done an initial analysis of what are all of the tables and working groups that exist right now that are touching on this as it relates to outreach and how can we better align them in more of a structure and model so that um, you know, the on the ground meetings at the neighborhood operation center for example every day are feeding into the situation table which can feed up to higher level strategic discussions um, at a, you know, director and comparable level. so that operations are feeding strategy and vice versa. Uh, and that's work that we've discussed with Ottawa Police and we know they and other partners are interested in streamlining. Okay. Thanks very much. And so did you only work with city funded outreach teams? Because there's a lot of volunteer outreach teams that distribute items. Was there any connection with those groups at all? Thank you, chair. So we uh convene currently and still um our unsheltered task force. So that's really a group there's two there's a core members group which is really focused with those internal city per partners core funded partners. Um but the unsheltered task force currently has I think 92 members I forget what we had in the memo. So it is quite broad um and really we see that as being one of the ongoing mechanisms to engra integrate the non-funded um agencies in the community. I will say some of the um I'll say views in terms of how we do outreach uh don't always align with some of those um I'll say charitably funded groups or people who are doing this out there. However, we do communicate regularly with them through unsheltered task force. I don't want to call it a newsletter but essentially updates and minutes um through that group on what the city's approach is. Um, and I'll just give an example like when we go do these things with the purple vest for example, they were engaged in these over a year and a half on these different engagement sessions where we talk about what's working, what's not in the gap. So they have been engaged throughout the process. They don't necessarily always align with what the city strategy is, but it's something we try and keep them informed and as well keep they keep us informed of where there might be gaps with our service system. Okay. Yeah. I wondered a little bit about that just in terms of like this this coordinated outreach that you presented seems to be really focused on sort of the housing first looking for housing and I know you know we have volunteer outreach groups uh well-meaning that distribute tents and sleeping bags and so sometimes it doesn't seem as if the um working towards the the same goals and so uh can anyone belong to the unsheltered task force that that membership is open to any like voluntary outreach group. Thanks, Chair. Yes, that's correct. Okay, perfect. All right, I think I'll leave it there for now and I might come back on. Thank you very much. Thank you, councelor. Councelor Kavanagh, thank you very much and thank you for all the work you're doing. Um, I really appreciate the streamlining of the systems. I I think that will make a difference. I think that will be um very positive and um I appreciate all the work that's going into it and the investment. Um I'm curious about the um the makeup of our homeless population. Um do we uh you know, you obviously have some data on this, but it strikes me that there's a higher percentage of women that are homeless. Maybe it's because I'm witnessing it in my ward. Um and um I'm I'm concerned and um I just wanted to know if that's the case. Uh thank you chair. I'll speak to the single shelter system because it's a little bit different on the family side. It's certainly largely largely over represented by males by a long shot. To give you a sense, we have about three uh sorry four of our permanent shelters that serve males only and about 1.5 that serve females. So it it is much over represented by men. Um I will just mention that we are seeing an increasing trend of women which is why we've been updating and kind of integrating the the new transitional housing we have and transitioning floors to be um women when we start to see that increase in demand. So it is it is a changing trend we're seeing but still largely over represented by men. Thank you. Previously we saw um you know ballooning numbers from asylum seekers and refugees. Is that no longer the case? Uh, thank you, chair. So, we see um in the single shelter uh pretty marked decline in the terms of number of asylum seekers. However, in the family shelter system, we continue to see a high degree. So, we're still around 70% um on the family shelter system and we're currently operating depending on whether it's men or women around uh 35 to 40% on the single side. Thank you. Now, I do worry um when I hear that um the shelter, you know, in my ward um is full and um this is the women's shelter, Cornerstone. Um and I wonder what happens if they're turned away and uh uh I'm just concerned about that. Um I don't know what we do in terms of diversion and um and offering beyond that, but it is very very full like bunk beds, the whole thing. Um so what happens to those that cannot what where they can't find a bed there? Thank you chair. I think this is a good opportunity to bring up um you mentioned diversion. This is something uh you've probably many of you saw the alliance to end homelessness led some work that was uh city funded. They there was a number of community partners involved in this large initiative. Um this is something we're planning to do a lot more of um really refining our approach of how we do diversion. We do fund and have for the last five plus years funded uh diversion workers within shelters. However, it's very tough to divert people if there's no housing to divert them to. Um in terms of what we've done on the shelter side of things, Cornerstone when they approach fullness, um we've actually converted one of the floors of Queen Street to be exclusively to women. So, we do up capacity based on the need we're seeing in the community. Um the other thing we've done is when we hear often in the community um very unfortunately community members are told uh a shelter is full. Um so we've actually implemented a process over this winter where people who call 311 and press two after hours are directly connected with the staff on my team um who actually calls around to the shelters to make sure that we find anyone who needs a space a space that's available. Um, so that in could include transitional housing, could include space at Shepherd's Good Hope, it could include um scattered sites. So there's a lot of different options we have on our menu. And then we also have backup options, be it hotels, that kind of thing. If there are no options within the single shelter system, I realize there's there's u some that are homeless that do not want to go to shelters and they continue to use encampments, etc. Um, and one of the reasons is, and that this comes up all the time, is they have a pet. They they have a dog usually, and this is um very difficult. I understand that. I don't know if it's widespread or not, but I I keep coming across this issue. Thank you, chair. I would certainly say um in terms of unsheltered homelessness it is one of the most frequent things that we hear from folks especially we know there's an increase in the homeless population prevalence of mental health addiction concerns and a lot of the time that pet is the the companion that's something they need um in order to support their coping mechanisms. Um unfortunately we do not have broadly um shelters that can offer services to pets. However, we do accommodate and all shelters are required to accommodate um service animals that are documented. Um and then we also do have services that we work with in the community who will foster pets through different family members who are all licensed. There's quite a rigorous process to get involved with that um to foster the pets temporarily. Um, one of the things we do look at whenever we do, I'll say build a new shelter, like for example, um, some of the things we've looked at, we do try and integrate options for pets, but one of the challenges when we're doing these types of, uh, builds or renovations, um, there's a lot of concerns around health, safety, that kind of thing with the staff. So, we try and manage that um, with the available services in the community. Thank you. I appreciate all the work. And of course, the end goal is to get everybody housed permanently and um that that's what we want. Um and but I appreciate the the work that's being done at this level. Thank you so much. Thank you, councelor. Councelor Truster, thank you so much. So, you all know I'm very excited about this model. You've all heard me say many times, I feel like I run an emergency dispatch for my email, and I'm very excited to not do that anymore. Um, we've spoken about the housing focus of these services, which is of course incredibly important, but I also want to speak a bit about the community security piece because right now you can't directly call an outreach worker. They have to just sort of stumble upon a situation. Um, or I can, you know, sometimes people email me and I end up texting outreach workers from random organizations, but of course there's very many and there's there isn't one central dispatch. So, through this new system, will an everyday resident be able to call for assistance from an outreach worker? Thank you, chair. So, that's going to be managed through this city. So, we are not going to have direct um like residents wouldn't call an outreach worker directly through this. Um it would be the city who would dispatch. Um and really the reason we want to do that is there's constant staffing changes, that kind of thing. And we want to take on the burden of managing who should I call for various issues on the city side of things. So, one of the things you're well aware of like should it be a call to anchor, should it be 211, 311? We want our city staff to take that on for residents who often get frustrated by being bounced around between city departments. But 24 hours a day, they will be able to call a dispatch that will send someone to help. That's correct. Excellent. That is huge news. Um, something else I've talked about is um the need for some sort of visible uniform, vest, color, no matter which organization somebody might work for, but if they are part of this constellation of outreach workers, is there a plan for some sort of visible presence? So, so if you see someone walking down the street, you seen someone needs who who needs assistance, you could be like, "Oh, that's my helper." And you can call them over for help. Thank you, chair. Yes, it's purple vests. I even have the color. Purple vest. I love a purple vest. Okay. Um, how will this help residents and businesses resolve day-to-day conflicts in the downtown core? So, I'll tell you about some ones that I've heard about recently, people who are very, very frustrated. And very often what they ask for is we just want more visible police presence, like just sort of walking around and being there. And police often explain that what they do is respond to calls. They can't just sort of be on hand. Um, so one example was a woman uh who was very frustrated because a a woman had set up a sleeping bag and was sleeping beside her house and she discovered that there was an encampment beside her house. Um, the one I hear about all the time is public drug use in front of schools in particular. Um, conflict too. So it might not be at the crisis level that you want to call police or anchor, but you see an argument is about to heat up. There's a bunch of people gathered on the sidewalk. Are those reasons why you could call this service to have an outreach worker dispatched to assist with that conflict? Thank you, chair. Yes, these outreach workers are kind of the first point of contact. I do want to be clear, though, they will have limits into what they can do. So, they don't have enforcement for public drug use capabilities. Really, what they're looking to do is work with the client um to help them move along, to suggest something else, to provide alternative options. Um but yes, they can be called for all of this type of thing. And one of the things that's really the strength of this model is around the coordination. So where I'll say the social services intervention doesn't work where we may need a police enforcement whether for a dismantle whether for public use drug use the other kind of things um through this god model working with police bylaw services and a more enhanced with our more linear enhanced service with our partners um we'll be able to be much more on board with things like this situation table to make sure that again where that social services intervention was not successful in providing a long-term solution that we can bring in other enforcement mechanisms if required of course as a last resort. Okay. And will there be an ex an expectation of a response time built into this model? Uh thank you counselor. So to set expectations, it isn't an emergency service. So it's not a van with flashing lights that will, you know, be coming quickly. And because it's new, it will likely take time to understand what a response time is in a service standard. And that's something that we'll monitor through the data and the key performance indicators um and can communicate back publicly in terms of expectation setting. Um but you would be looking to something more similar b to anchor not immediate you know 30 second response or otherwise. Okay. I mean anchor does have a standard though. I do believe it they try to respond within 10 minutes. Correct. We'll be happy to consult with the current outreach providers to understand their standards, what they've communicated and look at how something at least a framework can be applied as we move into implementation. Okay? Just because I think everyone's definition of emergency is different and certainly this is not send an ambulance immediately, but I don't know if someone's on your porch using drugs and shouldn't be there. You kind of want someone to come not in 4 hours, you know, maybe in 10 minutes. Um I if there are people who have set up an encampment and are using drugs in front of your child's classroom, as has happened to me two years in a row at parent teacher night at my daughter's school, you do want someone to come relatively quickly. You know, again, not sirens ablazing, but certainly not 3 hours. So I just I really want to emphasize that a service standard needs to be built into this. I know my community, cancer plants community want an expectation of a response and if they're not getting it from police and in most cases it shouldn't be a police response they need to know someone's going to come. Um the other question is how will you be simplifying the dispatch? Because my understanding is you want to program this through 311. Well I don't know about you when I call 311 even using my back door number as a counselor there can often be like a whole bunch of different choices and a long wait for downtown residents who are calling for outreach support. or will there be some sort of like expedited dispatch or way to get through to people more quickly or are you just going to have to wait on the line and go through all the options? Thank you, chair. So, again, we're looking to move our community engagement team staff towards doing some of this work. Um, we don't have in terms of like what the service timelines are and that's something we're going to have to monitor moving into it. I will just want to comment on your last u piece of information. And so one of the things we're trying to build in as part of this is that the person calling will get a response back in terms of response time essentially. So we one of the things that's very unknown and we probably all see this in our communities is there's sometimes where we may have 15 calls all within a 15minute period and then for 3 hours there's nothing. So that's where it's tough. We can set a service standard, but to Sarah's point, I think really monitoring the data, seeing like when those peak hours are. Do we need to adjust staffing around that will come as we start to roll this out under one outreach provider? Right now, because there are so many different outreach providers, we can't get that level of data and focus in on what that response would be. I have a lot of questions, so I I'll wrap up in a in a few minutes. Go to councelor Plant, come back, obviously, because this touches my neighborhood. Is the intention for this to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Thank you, chair. Yes, the service will continue to be similar to Salvation Army, a 24-hour model. Excellent. And my last question is, uh, as we know from the city auditor general's report on supportive housing and also just my day-to-day experience working in my office, it's often the person in the worst shape who's not getting housing. So, if you have someone who's repeatedly a source of conflict, uh, but who is being denied housing, who can't just be put in private market housing with a light touch support, who really needs 24-hour support, um, and there's a ton of outreach and police calls related to them. What are we doing for that person? Because frankly, that is the person who is so unwell that they're screaming on the street, so unwell that they are engaging in frightening behavior. And the longer they remain unhoused, the worse it is for them. So, will this strategy have any sort of ability to sort of prioritize or triage that kind of housing for people in the worst shape? Thank you, chair. I think for the the folks you're referring to the most unwell um part of the strategy needs to be as the support of housing audit indicated um support sites where we have the adequate level of medical support which we don't currently have for some individuals um really as part of the audit recommendations. what we are um tasked to bring in is how do we make sure that everybody who is on that supportive housing wait list has an appropriate space to go into and making sure that our resources are allocated both on the capital and operating side to meet those requirements. Um so what we're layering on right now with the social housing network who's leading this work with us in the supportive housing audit um is how do we bring in a prioritization to deal with those most in need andor making sure like each supportive housing building takes one of those individuals. So really, we're having a key focus on equity of how do we get those people off the list that have been on there for a long time as part of that strategy. Thank you so much. And many of them might be so disenfranchised that they're not on a list at all. And I I guess my concern is how do we make sure that we still get that person priority if they're still in the worst shape because, you know, as you know, you need to keep your hus paperwork update or you need to keep your weight list paper work updated every year, but the longer you're on the street, the more disenfranchised you are, the less likely you are to actually even be in the system anymore. Anyway, thank you so much. I'll go to councelor Blunt for now. Thank you, councelor. Councelor Blunt. Yes. Hi. Um I think I I think it's two questions I have. I'm going to read a portion of the report and then I'm going to ask my question. So, one of the recommendations is implement a public reporting to convey information about responses to community challenges downtown. A public reporting framework will develop to establish a process for making routine reports on activity and performance and communicating progress to the public through accessible dashboards and other transparent reporting tools. And then further down, you say this improved outreach model will play a meaningful role in the revitalization of the byword market by supporting city broader broader goals of creating welcoming, accessible, and people oriented public spaces. As the Byron market undergoes major public realm enhancements, stronger outreach services will help ensure that these spaces are comfortable and safe for everyone who uses them. This includes working collaboratively with the Byron Market District Authority to align efforts. Um, so if I'm un if I'm reading all of this correctly, there is no recommendation to uh speed up dismantles in especially in the downtown core where we are you're still sticking with the 5-day framework. Correct? In your chair. Yes, that's correct. So the situation we see often is where someone is in an encampment and then they know the 5 days are coming up. So they move their encampment 10 meters. So it's considered a new encampment and then that encampment can stay for 30 sometimes 30 days plus. There's no recommendation to deal with that. Correct. Thank you chair. So what we're really looking to do is identify early through this strategy in terms of where those encampments are and make sure that we have a quicker start I'll say to that process. Um as we' indicated in the attached memo what you read in um it is very expensive to do the dismantle process and we've kind of indicated uh the rough costing with the various internal city departments involved in doing a dismantle if we were to even move to a 10 dismantles per week model. And again, just to give context, as per the memo, um at any given time, we typically have about 50 encampments across the city. So even with an additional five plus million dollar investment, um we're still not going to be meeting a 5-day turnaround for dismantle. And the reason we chose to do that strategy through the research through the requirements we have through the superior court to provide outreach services first um is really around moving from a location whether it be 10 meters or to a different part park in the same part of another neighborhood. Um the long-term solution is really housing and what you kind of saw from this one of the strengths we have is that we did 85% of our dismantles um through voluntary dismantles and that works by building a relationship with the client and convincing them to move along. Now I I won't say with a 10 meter dismantle in my opinion that's not appropriate. We expect them to move far away from where they were. Um sometimes we do see in extreme cases a block to block but that's really where we do want to again when the social services intervention has not worked. We would inter work with police partners that kind of thing to be more formalized on the enforcement approach with a certain area if that comes up. And that's the strength of this model is we're being a lot more intentional of those partnerships. Okay. And then my second question is uh in the example that councelor Trustster gave where someone is doing openly doing drugs on your front porch um it's great that we have now an outreach model but legislatively those outreach workers cannot tell that person to move or force them to move in any way shape or form. Correct. Thank you chair. They can tell them to move. They can't force them to move. Okay. Um, and then so then I'm a little I'm I'm just a little concerned that this will and and don't me wrong, it's great that we are aligning everything. It's great that we will, you know, have more better reporting tools. I actually think that's very good. I'm just at a loss as to how this will improve the situation downtown, which you guys even cited something like 65% of residents do not feel safe going out at night. Uh 41% says the neighborhood has not improved. I'm just I'm kind of trying to wrap my head around how that will change and if you could comment I would appreciate it. Thank you chair. So I I want to be clear we're not bringing this as staff saying this will solve all of the problems. I think what we've heard around the table is that there's systemic issues to solve dealing with the mental health addiction crisis. What this will I think do a vast improvement for is when residents put in their service requests. We've heard time and time again that they feel it goes into a black hole. whether it be through 311 online reporting or calling 311 is they never hear anything. It's been weeks and weeks. That's what we're trying to eliminate is what is the city's approach helping people understand that the process we need to go through for the various reasons we've described in this port to do it. Um it also again having those closer linkages and more intentional approach with groups like the Ottawa Police Services for the enforcement side, the situation table as um Sarah had mentioned is really going to help us um sus out who are those 10 very high needs individuals causing the most problems and coming up with an individual service plan for those individuals. So I think uh especially in your word counselor um we do see some repeat offenders we'll call it individuals that are causing these issues in these more tight partnerships on the city side but also having one outreach service provider will help us know okay well it it's Joe that my team has seen over and over and over again when there's nine partners it may be nine partners interacting with Joe so we don't have that rich data to say who are these individuals causing the most problems so that we can come up with an enhanced service plan for Okay, thank you. Sir Truster, thank you. I apologize, but uh lots of questions because this is so important to my uh to my neighborhood. Um without asking for a comprehensive list, do you have a rough estimate of how many organizations and outreach workers this this change will affect? You said, I mean, we got dozens of organizations that touch the street in downtown Ottawa. Do we have a sense of sort of like what this workforce is going to look like? like how many people are going to be out there and available to help at any given time. Thank you, chair. No, that has that will be determined through the RFO with the service providers. One of the things important to note is that it'll be similar service levels to what we have now as we're looking to maintain a similar service investment. So um right now we currently have at any given time there's three Salvation Army vans as well as the storm van which is an indigenous uh service provider as well as Wabano also provides some outreach services. So currently there's seven different organizations typically they work at minimum in pairs. So to give you a sense again I'm very much ballparking based on the cont there's also center 507 there's therset west community health center there's the centertown community health center. So, I mean, it just I I would hope we're looping all of those groups in. Um, your databased approach, will that lead to these outreach workers um when they're not responding to a call walking kind of a regular beat in the neighborhood in areas where we know there's a challenge? Like one of the major issues in my ward and probably in counselor plants is school start and school end times, right? Like how do we keep school zones safe? How do we how do we protect the neighborhood and make it okay for kids to walk home for from school? Like, is there is there a potential based on the data and what we know and then what we start hearing to have these folks around certain areas at certain times of the day? Thank you, chair. So, yes, I think the big part of this data model is going to help is we're going to be able to identify hotspots. We're going to see where residents are reporting, what street corners, what times of day that these reports are coming in. And that's going to help us really know like where do they need to be walking around. I want to be clear that as an outreach worker, just because you're not dealing with a client, you're still going around looking for a client if you're not immediately dealing with one. Um but again, the data and reporting and even um this year we moved to the 31 online reporting system that does geo tags. So this is going to be a further enhancement to that to really start heat mapping of like where do we need the focus most and we intend this to be a data informed strategy like as we move through as we do those service plans with clients and communities around hotspot issues. That's great. Um so from the report it says the governance of the coordinated outreach model will operate under a shared governance structure between the community and social services department and key components of the ops's core initiatives. I've definitely had some residents and outreach workers flag concerns about that. So could you speak about what degree the ops will be involved in the governance of this model? Um what legislative requirements are there? I mean similar to anchor I'm assuming the first line response would not be police. Correct. Uh thank you for the question chair. So as it relates to the governance, the shared governance or coordinated governance is really an opportunity to coordinate across institutions, sectors, groups that are working in this space to more effectively and efficiently align resources. So it would be similar to ankor. We're not looking for a police response, but more collaboration between, for example, Ottawa public, Ottawa police, and outreach to identify hotspots. When is outreach going through? when are police going through to have more of that on the ground coordination um and then also to be aligning as I mentioned for example with other tables such as the situation table of how clients and individuals are being brought forward but also bringing that up to a higher level so how strategically um or those who are doing the systems planning reviewing hotspotting data to understand how we're deploying resources across the city so it isn't about the day-to-day enforcement or not enforcement it's really an attempt to align our systems um to the most effective use of municipal resources across all of those institutions and also really the right type of response. So what types of services expertise are needed for individuals and working collaboratively to get that sort of response to them. So this fictional Joe that we're talking about, right? Like if police are being called to him repeatedly, if outreach workers are, you know, finding him in multiple different locations encamping himself or using public drugs or using drugs in public, my assumption is that situation table would try to find a tailor made solution and if necessary give him priority when it comes to supportive housing when it's available. Yes, that is the idea. Yeah, just really one more question. Um I I'm just a I'm a little bit worried about the impact to existing programs and staff. Um I know for example at Somerset West we recently funded their peer outreach program which has been enormously successful in Chinatown and these are folks with lived and living experiences who might not be a typical hire for like a city-based program but they do that on the ground work that's really valuable. Um I'm just wondering will there be a plan to continue these period outreach programs and incorporate them into the model? Is there a way to retain that valuable involvement of people with lived experience? Uh thank you for the question chair. So yes, there's an intention through the model to have a peer support and peer relationship component within it. Um research demonstrates the effectiveness of that. As you mentioned, Somerset West has seen a lot of success through that. um it provides training pathways to employment um and a success story for a number of individuals as a pathway to care. So we do see it as a critical component of the program. Um while there will be one lead agency who will have the hold the contract with the city. Uh we are open to subcontracting that would be managed collectively through that to have more localized approaches but that would be up to agencies to come together for that purpose. Okay. Okay, I just want to emphasize how important that is because that microl local knowledge is really really important and you know also just to reassure the people who work as frontline workers on the front line that their jobs are not at risk that we value their work that we're just trying to make it easier to do their jobs and easier to help people in the community. So anyway, I want to thank city staff because I've been begging for something like this for three years and I really look forward to the day where we can just call 311 to get the help that we need or 211 or 911. Um, and I'll just say we'll have to do a lot of education in the community about who to call, but luckily it'll be three numbers and not 25 numbers. So, thank you so much for all your work on this. Thank you, councelor Councelor King. Uh, thank you, Chair. And I also appreciate the uh rationalization of the uh approach in terms of having a lead uh provider uh as as enumerated under uh this uh this report. But I'm just wondering how will the city ensure that smaller community-based organizations with uh deep neighborhood roots but limited administrative capacity are not uh systematically disadvantaged by the RFO procurement process. Thank you for the question chair. Um one of the things we're looking to do with this RFO is it's not going to be city staff going into a closed room and developing. It's something we want to work with those community partners similar to what I know Somerset West is a rather large organization but there is an immense amount of groups out there doing really important work that we don't have the local knowledge for. So when we go to design this RFO it will be done with that community facing approach of we are not the service delivery experts as a city and we're really going to need their feedback to make sure that it's responsive to what's going to be effective in the community. I appreciate that and I think that's responsive to uh some of the concerns that I've heard from uh smaller organizations who do wonderful outreach work and just want to ensure that they are part of that continuing ecosystem despite the the change to the structure. I think that the change is very uh logical like I said uh but ensuring that we retain space uh for those smaller organizations is key. Thank you chair. Thank you councelor. Uh, seeing no further questions, uh, we do have the amending motion before us. Is the amendment carried? Carried. Carried. And is the report carried as amended? Carried. Carried. Thank you to staff for all your hard work on this. Appreciate it. We're now moving on to 5.4, long-term care accountability agreement with Ontario Health. And we do not have any presentations or any motions, but I understand councelor Kavanagh would like to to say a word. Thank you, Chair. Um, yes, I've been working on the the committee um with long-term care, and I just want to give a shout out to the the changes that they have made for uh for person centered care at all four of our long-term care uh facilities. And a special thank you to to Dean Le who recently retired so he's not probably able to listen because he's probably enjoying his retirement but um he showed a lot of leadership and um we've we've done a lot of good work as a city um in making um the the uh residents in these facilities um have a better have a better life um and have a home. So I just wanted to say thank you to all those who were working on that team. Thank you. That's excellent. I'm sure uh he his entire team is listening because I know Clara had a bit of a heads up to let them tune in. So, thank you for that. Okay. So, is that uh is that item carried? Carried. 6.1 status update. Uh inquiries and motions for the period ending February 6, 2026. Is that item received? Wonderful. We have no in camera items and I'm not aware of any notices of motion. We do have a few inquiries. So 9.1 I'd invite vice chair uh Bradley to to read your inquiry in madame. And I think we're just getting it on the screen. Thanks so much. And I'm moving this uh on behalf of councelor Gower. Um, so some children's play structures adjacent adjacent to off leash recreation areas are protected by a fence while many are not. How does the city decide where to install protective fencing adjacent to off leash areas? And two, what considerations, financial or otherwise, would prevent Ottawa from adding fencing around all play structures adjacent to off leash areas? Thank you very much, vice chair. Uh 9.2, Two, we have a inquiry from councelor Carr. Okay. In light of the city's interest in purchasing the former hotel located at 377 Oconor, which would be used as transitional housing for families, could staff please provide the following information. One, how many families are presently in the city of Ottawa family shelter system, including both designated family shelter spaces and overflow spaces? Two, what is the average family size currently accessing the family shelter system? Three, what is the average length of stay for a family in the family shelter system? Four, what is the longest stay presently recorded for a family in the system? Five, including the Corkstown family transitional housing, how many active ser providers, for example, with motel? Number six, what supports and services are provided to families residing in the family shelter system? For example, meals, transit services, etc. Seven, which languages are services available in for residents in the family shelter system? Eight. Over the past 12 months, how many families have exited the family shelter system for the following reasons? One, secured a rent geared to income unit. Two, accepted another housing benefit, for example, Cobb, or three, other, please specify the reasons if possible. Thank you, councelor Carr. Uh, the next inquiry is also yours. Insurance for invasive species removal. Yeah, just to clarify, yeah, it's about insurance to be honest, but community groups who undertake community gardening initiatives under the city of Ottawa's community gardens program receive coverage under the community partnership insurance program even if they are not a registered community association. However, community groups who remove invasive plants from green spaces under a stewardship agreement from forestry do not. Both programs promote biodiversity, native plant gardening and stewardship of city lands. Could staff, city staff, please report back on why one program is eligible and the other is not and provide information on what would be necessary in order to have these groups removing invasive plants under a stewardship agreement be eligible. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councelor Carr. Uh we have no other business. Um our next meeting is the uh special joint meeting of the planning and housing committee and the community services committee. That's on Tuesday, March 24th. And then followed by that, we'll have our regular community services committee meeting on Tuesday, April 28th. Are we adjourned? We're adjourned. Thank you everyone.

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