Coun. Jeff Wheeldon is the chair of newly formed homelessness taskforce. /Municipality of Brighton photo
As homelessness, housing and cost-of-living crises rage on, Brighton is rallying people from all walks of life and community groups to create an action plan through a new taskforce.
At its first meeting last week, Coun. Jeff Wheeldon was elected as chair to head up the Brighton homelessness taskforce.
“We brought together people from a lot of different – I would say – caring communities around Brighton,” says Wheeldon. “There were representatives from churches, the Beacon, Supper’s Ready, the Fare Share Food Bank, and obviously, the municipality, (including) some local residents, two councillors (including Wheeldon and Coun. Hannah MacAusland), and Mayor (Brian Ostrander.)”
The group also brought in homelessness services manager Bill Smith from Northumberland County social services.
“It was great to have Bill around the table – he has a lot of experience and knowledge – and I think a big part of what the taskforce will be doing for the first little while is hearing from Bill about how homelessness services work in Northumberland County,” explains Wheeldon, while also highlighting that social services is ultimately delegated to the upper-tier at the county level in terms of official services.
However, all the other members of this taskforce – the local institutions and community non-profits – are there representing “unofficial services,” which “we all know help keep a society going and a community going.”
Wheeldon tells us more about the ultimate hope of the newly-assembled taskforce.
Simply put, the group hopes by coming together they can create more co-ordinated hyper-local outreach, tapping into what each of the organizations are best suited to tackle and making the best use of all resources.
As previously reported, unprecedented numbers have been cited in recent years as struggles around homelessness and affordable housing persist across the county – and issues prior to the COVID-19 pandemic have only exacerbated challenges.
Low vacancy rates, increasing building costs, skyrocketing home sales and rental costs – alongside soaring living costs and incomes not keeping pace – are among just a few of the factors contributing to challenges, and driving long-time residents, inclusive of seniors and working families, from their homes.
At the Northumberland County level in recent years, the centralized waitlist for rent-geared-to-income (RGI) units fluctuates, but demand has continued to increase. And while wait times depend on locations, numbers of bedrooms needed, turnover rates, and other factors, average wait times can be up to nine years in certain communities.
A Northumberland County spokesperson confirmed that as of May 6, 2025, there were 85 people on the homelessness by-name list. However, this list is solely based on the number of people known to be experiencing homelessness (more chronically) in the community and who consent to being added to the list for the purposes of co-ordinated support. (The list is updated every two weeks by the Northumberland homelessness co-ordinated response table.)
In other words, it is not indicative of those who haven’t consented or reached out for services, nor is it an all-encompassing picture of all people precariously housed – or put another way, such figures only provide a snapshot into current struggles.
Meanwhile, there were about 1,200 people on the waitlist for subsidized housing in Northumberland as of May 6.
Wheeldon tells us a taskforce is different from advisory committees, with their jobs to advise council on specific matters such as environmental sustainability or accessibility, as just two examples.
“And our goal is to have a report about how we want to best do that, that we can bring to council within 12 months …”
Wheeldon elaborates more on what he hopes this report and exercise will help accomplish.
The taskforce has brought together people willing to dedicate their time to ensuring a compassionate and humane approach to helping people experiencing homelessness, says Wheeldon, adding this also includes recently-elected vice-chair Laurie Caouette, who represents residents and has a wealth of experience working with the City of Quinte West on its community safety and well-being plan. (Northumberland County also has a similar plan.)
Wheeldon says this is about bringing more of the community together to address poverty, homelessness and community safety through areas such as economic development, networks of non-profits, and more, rather than just having issues such as poverty, homelessness and crime solely in the wheelhouses of social or police services. It’s about recognizing a wholistic approach is needed to ensure a welcoming, safe community, while also hopefully increasing some awareness, he says.
He notes it’s important for people to understand that homelessness isn’t always visible or people sleeping rough outdoors – however, that often can happen for a long time invisibly because people try to find places out of the public eye.
In part, this was also a driving factor in the creation of this taskforce. Wheeldon also claims homelessness/living rough is increasingly being criminalized.
“And that’s not a safe, healthy, welcoming, supportive approach,” adds Wheeldon. “It doesn’t accomplish much to just arrest people who are experiencing homelessness …”
The reality is there are plenty of people who are precariously housed as well – maybe they’re paying rent somewhere, but it’s unstable situation, or maybe they’re living in a place about to be condemned because it hasn’t been kept in good repair, or they’re about to be evicted and there’s no alternative they can afford, explains Wheeldon.
“And that’s certainly common enough and could affect absolutely anyone at this point. So those people, we don’t even know who they are yet until somebody is requesting social services …”
“And that gives us the opportunity as a community to be that caring community that I think we all believe that we are, and this is just an opportunity to co-ordinate the way that we do that so we can really live that out.”
(Written by: Sarah Hyatt)
