Jeff Green | Jul 28, 2021


Lou McBride is a long-time worker with people who are homeless, or at risk of becoming so, having worked in the Salvation Army Kingston Community and Family Services Office for over ten years. Last fall, she became part of the Salvation Army team that set up an office in Verona at 6697 Road 38 to assist Frontenac County residents who are facing housing challenges.

Since the Verona office which opened in the Fall of 2020, the staff have been making community outreach a priority, even with COVID restrictions, through community engagement and referrals from agencies such as Southern Frontenac Community Services, Rural Frontenac Community Services and Addictions and Mental Health KFLA.

The housing program provides coordinated intake, prevention and diversion, housing first, rapid rehousing case management, and are able to access a homelessness prevention fund to help keep people who are at risk of losing their home for financial reasons.

In recent months, however, the impact of a very hot housing market has created a new class of people who are facing housing challenges; long term renters whose homes are being sold as single-family dwellings by their landlords.

“What we are seeing now, in the last few months due to the rising prices of houses, is that houses are being sold and tenants are being evicted. A lot of these people have been living in the same place for a long time, ten years or more, and in some cases the rent has not gone up consistently in that time. There is nothing available anywhere in that price range when that happens, even if they move to Kingston which people do not want to do, nor should they have to,” said McBride, in a telephone interview late last week.

McBride participated in a Zoom inter-agency meeting last week to discuss community issues around the housing crisis.

One of the first things Lou talked about was that renters need to know their rights and landlords need to know their rights and responsibilities, in these trying times. An example of this would be when property owners are selling their rental property, the property must be sold before the owner can issue a notice to terminate residency.  As a tenant who receives this type of notice, it would be beneficial to contact the Legal Clinic to find out what your rights are.

McBride refers clients in South Frontenac to the Kingston Community Legal clinic and in Central and North Frontenac to the Legal Clinic, which is based in Perth.

At the inter-agency meeting, Susan Irwin, a long serving lawyer with the Legal Clinic,  said that Linda Tranter, the lawyer who specialises in housing issues at the clinic, has been run off her feet. One step that the clinic is going to take is to prepare material for publication that outlines the rights and obligations of both tenants and landlords. (The Frontenac News has offered to publish an article or series of articles when they are ready.)

The bottom line, however, is that there are people who have lost or are losing their housing, and there is very little available to replace that housing, and whatever is available is priced well beyond their capacity to pay.

“The standard definition of affordability has nothing to do with the reality that we see out here,” said Lou McBride. “Any housing that costs over 30% of a person’s monthly income is not considered affordable housing. That takes households on fixed incomes such OW [Ontario Works], ODSP [Ontario Disability Support Program] and seniors living on Canada Pension and Old Age Security, right out of the picture. Unfortunately, households are forced to pay upwards to 50 or 60 per cent of their monthly income on housing, because there are no other options.  If they are living on $1,500 a month and an apartment is available for $1,100, they have to take it because these are the standard rental costs today.”

“This is not just a local issue”, Lou McBride said. “It is the same all across the province, and across the country, as well.”

In 2014, when the homelessness prevention initiative in Kingston and Frontenac County was being launched, questions were raised by Frontenac County politicians, about whether there even is a problem of homelessness or precarious housing in Frontenac County.

In response to the above comments, Lou McBride added, “It is easier to identify who is homeless in cities because there are shelters and people can also be found sleeping in certain parts of town, “but in rural areas it is hidden. People couch surf, and they live in unheated cabins away from sight.” 

In the rural housing office staff are currently managing a client list of 8 homeless and 20 at risk households, “and we’re only seeing a small portion of what is out there because we are not that well known yet, and many people are reluctant to seek help as well.”

The problem exists in all communities in the county. 

“Our office in Verona is well located, next to the Service Ontario office on Main Street, but we serve all of Frontenac County and will meet with people who are unable to travel to our office, of course, transportation is also a big issue. In the past few weeks, I have met with people in Northbrook, Cloyne, Plevna, Sharbot Lake, and Sydenham to assist with housing needs.” Even still, the biggest issue by far is the lack of housing, affordable or otherwise which has reached a crisis point in Frontenac County, especially with no shelter, transitional housing and limited social housing. On top of this, the recent fire at McMullen Manor in Verona has compounded this problem.

“When you see a single mother living in a trailer, how will they manage when the cold weather comes, their situation will likely get more serious during the winter.

“People who needed housing or utility help before COVID were able manage because of the COVID financial support they could access. Now that those support programs have ended, some of households will run into housing difficulty. We are seeing an uptick in requests for housing, utility or fuel arrears.

The conversation included discussions around a shelter or transitional housing in Frontenac County.

During the Zoom inter-agency meeting, a couple of the people at the meeting who work out of Kingston and are familiar with shelters, pointed out that in order for a shelter to be sustainable over the medium or long term, operating funds are necessary.

Kim Hockey, from the United Way of Kingston, a participant in the Zoom inter-agency meeting, said “I have seen community groups come together to start up shelters that ended up closing because they did not have the funding in place to run them. They require a lot of support. That is something that should be kept in mind.”

Ellen Mortfield, who manages the South Frontenac Food Bank for Southern Frontenac Community Services, said that she has very recently begun to look into a program called Homeshare.

The program, which is tailored to the communities that have taken it on, approaches seniors who find themselves over-housed because they are living alone, or as a couple, in family homes that are otherwise empty, to offer up space to younger people, sometimes university students, in exchange for payment or even housekeeping, or other kinds of support.

“It might tie in with the aging at home strategy, which is so important, with providing housing for people who are losing their rental homes because they have been sold,” said Mortfield.

If you or someone you know is homeless or at risk of losing their housing through arrears or disconnection of utilities please contact The Salvation Army Frontenac County Rural Housing Services at 613 507-6868.

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