The first news story I ever wrote for BarrieToday was published Nov. 15, 2015. It was a piece on an event being put together to raise money and awareness for the housing crisis many people in our community find themselves in.
A great event, absolutely. Many celebrities, well-doers and those with deep pockets doing what they could to raise money for local organizations that were/are trying to fight homelessness.
On Aug. 23, 2018, I had a story published about a so-called ‘Tent City’ near the Barrie Food Bank on Anne Street. I spent the day in the wooded area and sat with a few people living there for about an hour, just talking and, more importantly, listening.
It was a great learning experience and I've been able to see some of them here and there around town, having coffee with one of them twice since that summer day.
This past week, I interviewed a local man who believes it was his dad who was killed in a fire earlier this month at Milligan’s Pond.
Homelessness isn't a story that's going away.
Date to date, that's six years, seven months and five days between stories.
I’m not exactly sure how many stories I have written on the city’s housing crisis, nor could I tell you how many I have written on those affected by homelessness in those 2,410 days, but it's a lot — no different than any other reporter.
At the end of this month, the hotels that have housed our community’s homeless people during the pandemic will run out of funding and open their doors, putting even more people out on the streets to find their way. They will likely try to find shelter in the woods to get some shade from the extreme heat.
There are about 75 people accounted for without shelter — and about 200 receiving shelter from the city’s helpful organizations, which are at capacity — and when the hotels empty, it will be another 175.
The numbers have risen since my first story on homelessness nearly seven years ago, so I am clearly of no help. I can write daily about the crisis, but it's not going to get people housed.
As a community, we can demand more temporary shelters all year, but temporary is just that.
On Nov. 15, 2015, I interviewed a couple of former NHLers, which put me in my glory. I was so stoked about that.
Six years ago if you would have said to me we need to build affordable housing, real affordable housing, near me or in areas I felt were beautiful and should be untouched, I would have been controlled by my ignorance to say no way. Shamefully, I would be forgetting how I grew up.
But it's worse than ever before. The last few years have made me realize I couldn’t care less about a celebrity interview on this topic. I would much rather hang out with Ash and her two adorable, well-behaved pups at Milligan’s Pond and listen to her thoughts.
Instead of photo-ops, I’d rather continue to bring coffee to Dev, alas only for him to make the same, tired joke about there being too much sugar in it. (He takes it black.)
Before someone in the comments section says “well, smart guy, what's your answer to it all?” I don’t have one except build more housing. And lots of it.
“Well, smart guy, where should we build it?”
Everywhere.
“And how do we afford it, smart guy?”
Unfortunately, I don’t make these decisions, I just write about them.
But, as soon as city council stops deferring the issue or coming up with asinine solutions, I’ll write about it.
As soon as the proper funding comes from the higher levels of government it should be coming from, I’ll share it on all the hot topic Facebook pages for debate.
Anyway you cut it, it means more housing now.
With that said, the municipal election is Oct. 24. Happy voting everyone.
Shawn Gibson is a staff reporter with BarrieToday.
