‘Still waiting’

Dear Editor:

RE: Committee endorses homelessness plan but delays vote, Sept. 17.

I don’t work in housing policy, I’m just someone who lives here, drives past the “for rent” signs, and has watched rents climb in this county faster than most of us can keep up with.

So when I saw the numbers behind “A Place to Call Home,” I had to say something. At the end of 2025, 3,582 households in Guelph and Wellington were waiting for rent-geared-to-income housing. Only 166 were housed all year. Do the math, and it would take more than 20 years to clear that list – and that’s assuming no one new ever joins it, which we know isn’t realistic. The plan itself warns that homelessness here could more than triple by 2030, from 263 people to over 1,000, if nothing changes.

That’s not an abstract policy problem to me. That’s neighbours, and possibly people I pass at the grocery store, waiting years for something as basic as a safe place to live.

I understand this plan checks a box the province requires every five years. But I don’t want my county’s housing strategy to be something we did because we had to. I want it to be something we actually believe will work. And I share the concern some Guelph councillors raised: there are no hard targets in this plan. No specific number of units, no timeline, nothing residents like me can hold council to later. It’s hard to trust a 10-year plan when we won’t even know, year to year, whether it’s succeeding.

It also bothered me to learn councillors got the full document the Friday before Labour Day weekend. A plan this important deserves more than a rushed read over a long weekend.

Council takes this up again in October. I hope they slow down, add real targets and remember that behind every number in that report is a family in Wellington County still waiting.

Margherita Tabone,
Rockwood