Candidates For Mayor on Homelessness
Candidate Responses Appear in the Order They Were ReceivedAndrii Zvorygin
Thanks for sending this. Your Do X → receive Y idea helped me make the progression begin at the first warning of housing loss.
I have updated the platform so that each voluntary step opens a concrete option. Someone concerned about losing their home can call 211, receive prevention help, consent to coordinated information sharing where applicable, have their income and housing needs assessed, and enter the appropriate housing pathway. A household able to sustain approximately $750 per month could join the Affordable Rural Communities founding co-operative process and potentially preserve stable housing before shelter or crisis becomes necessary.
I also added a proposed implementation pathway for an initial ARC project: organize interested households, form a non-profit co-operative, seek recoverable County financing, begin property and dwelling work in spring 2027, and target winter-ready occupancy by autumn 2027. Monthly co-operative fees would repay the financing, while lower housing costs could help residents save toward owning or upgrading their homes.
Contingency Management now appears as one specific tool that shelter, supportive-housing and recovery providers could use within that wider action-to-outcome system.
https://helpos.ca/mayor/housing-homelessness-recovery
https://helpos.ca/mayor/affordable-rural-communities
I appreciate you bringing this forward. It made the overall pathway much clearer and more practical.
Richard Thomas
The Downtown River District should be a place where businesses can succeed, residents can feel secure, visitors want to return, and vulnerable people can get meaningful help. Those goals are not contradictory.Owen Sound already has substantial resources devoted to homelessness, mental health and addiction. The challenge is to make those services work together, create genuine exits from street homelessness and addiction, and manage the impact of disorder on the surrounding Downtown River District.
In Vancouver, housing first met with reasonable success in keeping chronically homeless people in stable housing for longer periods. However, it had little impact on addictions. The experiment was also hampered by a chronic affordable/low-cost housing, similar to what we face here. In our area, housing is a social service provided by Grey County, not the City of Owen Sound. While the county has done an excellent job with housing and community outreach in problem areas, I think it’s time for more advocacy on behalf of the city with the county, provincial and federal governments. Both of the solutions you have suggested are long term, and require participation from multiple levels of government. I believe the downtown River District needs immediate attention. Our community has responded to the ongoing crisis of addiction and homelessness with compassion for those affected. But compassion cannot come at the expense of the safety, livelihoods and quality of life of residents and businesses in the Downtown River District. There has to be balance.
As Mayor, I will seek a council mandate to bring together the agencies and organizations addressing homelessness, addiction and social services to ensure they take greater accountability for the broader impact of their programs. Providing a service cannot be the end of that responsibility. Where a program contributes to significant litter, disorder or other identifiable costs in the surrounding neighbourhood, I believe the organization should participate in solving the problem rather than leaving taxpayers and nearby businesses to bear the entire burden.
I will also propose a municipal licensing and regulatory framework for emergency shelters and organizations operating facilities that provide services to people experiencing homelessness and addiction. Operators will be required to meet clear standards for health, safety, staffing, security and neighbourhood management and to renew their licence annually. Standards could include appropriate staff-to-client ratios, security requirements, property maintenance and procedures for responding to problems occurring around their facilities. I believe we should find a way to help fund Safe ‘n Sounds Neighbourhood Response Team, which reported providing 2000 direct supports to individuals on the streets during a pilot that ran from November 1, 2025 until the end of March 2026
As Mayor, my objective is not to abandon compassion. It is to restore balance.
I will use the lawful tools available to the city, work with service providers, Police, Grey County and community organizations, and insist on measurable results in restoring safety and confidence in the Downtown River District.
(How will you pay for it?) It will be a combination of all of the above suggestions, though I do believe we can find a way within the existing city financial structure.
(What specific actions did you take?) In 2015, I convinced council to adopt a development charge holiday to increase housing supply within the city; in the following three years housing starts more than doubled. Council also continued to work with Owen Sound Municipal non-profit housing; carried forward development charge exemptions for non-profit housing; brought forward official plan policies permitting a range of housing densities, and passed zoning to allow for additional rental units on residential properties.
In 2020, council adopted the Community Safety and Well-Being Plan, and the same year created a hotspot neighbourhood initiative combining targeted police activity and overnight by-law enforcement to deal with a party house that was disrupting an entire residential neighbourhood.
In 2021, the city participated in the Hanover-Owen Sound Task Force, which looked at housing, poverty, mental health and addictions in the two biggest communities in Grey County.
In 2022 council endorsed Grey County’s Housing Action Plan, and supported the Association of Municipalities of Ontario’s “An Integrated Approach to Mental Health and Addictions” submission to the province.