Oxford County is charging forward with a new Homelessness Support Centre at the former YMCA building on Dundas Street in Woodstock. “Every time we delay this, we condemn someone else to another winter in the cold, another summer of pushing the shopping cart around with their belongings, another business coming to open in the morning and having someone asleep in their doorway,” exclaimed Warden Marcus Ryan. In a vote of 9-1 Wednesday, Oxford County Council defeated a motion by Woodstock Councillor Deb Tait to put a pause on the centre at the Y building and find and alternate location. Tait says she believes the Y building would better serve as transitional housing for those leaving the province’s abstinence-based HART Hub program. “So, our whole mission of this was to help the homeless. So, what’s happening, they’re coming out of the HART hub, nowhere to go, falling back into addiction, back into homelessness,” said Tait, speaking to CTV News after the council session. Council also received a staff report outlining public input to date on the Homelessness Support Centre. Councillors further agreed to consider input into planning from a Y Neighbourhood Committee, along with the greater community. Chief among concerns for both businesses and residents is security on and around the site, said Y Neighbourhood Committee representative Lee Ann VanWees in a delegation to council. “The long-term economic survival of our local businesses, and the daily safety of our families cannot depend on a reactive ‘wait and see’ approach. Public trust is fragile. And once a neighbourhood fractures, it takes decades to rebuild,” said VanWees. “What it means is our staff will specifically meet with that group, and other groups in the community. But they were going to do that anyway, that’s part of the engagement plan,” explained Warden Ryan. The Homelessness Support Centre is set to open in the fall of 2028.
