Cobourg branded a hub for disorderly conduct as low-barrier shelter moves to larger facility

Residents, business owners and stakeholders gathered at a Cobourg town council meeting last night to discuss the ongoing concerns around a newly announced low-barrier shelter in a high-density residential and business area downtown.

The announcement will see an existing low-barrier shelter space more than double it’s occupancy and existing space at 10 Chapel Street move into a former nursing home at 310 Division Street.

Delegates included employees of the existing low-barrier shelter called Transition House, a registered charity that has seen a high turnover rate on its board of directors in recent years, and local business owners Hillary Allen and Jeff Crowley.

Allen and Crowley questioned the appropriateness of 310 Division as a massive emergency shelter and warming room considering the location is within a high-density business and residential area.

The pair put forward a motion for three partners — Transition House, the Town of Cobourg and the upper-tier municipality responsible for service delivery, Northumberland County — to develop a legally-binding agreement that governs the facilities' operational expectations.

As it stands now, there are vast and largely unaddressed concerns with the existing “low-barrier” shelter service delivered by Transition House.

Allen brought up the vacancy of the existing facility while noting the “significant housing needs of other vulnerable groups within Northumberland” and alluded to a questionable funding model between Northumberland County and Transition House regarding the new building.

There has been a “severely flawed operation of existing transition house over the last five years,” she delegated.

“Combining [warming room and low-barrier emergency shelter] services to accommodate up to 80 individuals might be good accounting for Northumberland County but will amplify existing chaos that is commonplace in our neighbourhood while downloading the associated costs onto the residents of Cobourg,” explained Allen.

Jeff Crowley further describes the magnitude of disruption occurring within the vicinity of Transition House.

“Physical assaults, theft, explicit drug use, trespassing, intimidation, dumping garbage, public urination and defecation are all behaviours that continue to be daily occurrences on our properties and at our businesses,” he says.

Crowley elaborated on an incident two weeks ago that saw two adults and a child assaulted in the church parking lot adjacent to Transition House, where a youth choir practice is conducted. “It’s the third known physical assault in six months,” he said. “The assailant was a resident of Transition House, under the supervision of the criminal justice system.”

The church adjacent to Transition House has had to issue safety notices to families attending their various services, including youth choir practice, in recent months.

This harrowing email was sent by a local church in Cobourg ON which has the unfortunate position of being located beside a gov-funded low-barrier shelter known as Transition House

Despite being heavily criticized for a severely flawed operation, Northumberland County has… pic.twitter.com/b8SooyrGIV

— Tamara Ugolini 🇨🇦 (@TamaraUgo) February 1, 2024

Crowley notes that research supports the expectation that there will be increases in this kind of behaviour within 500 meters of the shelter space. He makes it clear that not all residents are responsible for this kind of disorderly behaviour but it “certainly attracts associates of it.”

Community safety, neighbourhood cleanliness, tourism growth, resident quality of life, business development and emergency shelter delivery will not thrive with a low-barrier shelter that is chronically unstable and ignores the community that they are part of. Time and time again this type of shelter delivery has failed across our country. This is nothing modern. A truly modern shelter would have a binding agreement to allow accountability and continuity for all stakeholders.

While housing issues are controlled by Northumberland County, Allen rightfully points out the enormous strain shelter services put onto Cobourg’s
tax-payer-funded services.

Considering the enormous strain that the current shelter has put on local police, fire, by-law, garbage collection, resident quality of life, tourism, tax-payers, and local businesses, the town council has a central role in advocating on behalf of Cobourg residents to ensure partnership, financial accountability and successful operation of the emergency shelter and warming room at 310 Division Street with Northumberland County.

The pair refer to the 2023 acquisition of 1635 Dundas Street, also a former nursing home, in Whitby — a town centre approximately 40 minutes west of Cobourg — to implement a 40-bed low-barrier shelter.

A legally-binding agreement regarding operational expectations to appropriately integrate this shelter into the local community was part of the development of the shelter, which Allen calls a “modernized approach” to shelter operations in Ontario.

“Five years of chaos is enough… we have years of experience to show us what is not working. Despite the efforts of everyone involved, there has never been proper community management.”

The motion passed to implement such an agreement with the intended outcome of increasing Transition Houses’ stability as an agency, proper funding allocation, community safety and neighbourhood collaboration while addressing the complex mental health and addictions issues faced by those utilizing the service and dealing with conflicts of interest between Northumberland County and Transition House.