News & Press Releases

Community members add their ideas to Council Workshop on Guelph's Housing Crisis

Jul 10, 2023

Guelph, Monday July 10, 2023: Guelph’s community housing coalition has submitted a detailed letter in advance of the July 11 Council Orientation and Education Workshop.

The letter outlines two key positions. The first is a set of questions that the community and Council may have about the recently published presentation deck to support the July 11 Council Orientation and Education Workshop. The second position is a detailed set of ideas and recommendations for the content of any plan of action moving forward.

The coalition continues to believe that the City of Guelph - and Council in particular - are uniquely positioned to take on the political leadership required to help make Guelph a leader on addressing the housing crisis.  Highlights from the letter include:

  1. A call to build and communicate a clear plan of action that would achieve 18,000 new housing units by 2031 with an identified percentage of those new units being “affordable”; and a priority in addressing the immediate and longer-term challenges of homelessness in the city.
  2. A call to put a point person in place with the authority, responsibility, and accountability for making progress on the plan of action.
  3. A call to build an engagement and shared advocacy agenda to support implementation of the action plan in recognition that the City does not have control over many of the policy and financial levers required to make progress on the housing crisis.
  4. Our continued commitment to collaborate on the development of the plan and its implementation starting with detailed recommendations on all the elements of the housing crisis in Guelph.        

“I’m looking forward to getting up-to-speed on how we can create and implement a plan of action that the community can have confidence in; now and into the future.”
 – Shakiba Shayani, President & CEO, Guelph Chamber of Commerce               

“As community leaders it is critical that we are involved and have confidence in the plan to move forward together - and equally as important, to have data that tells us how well we are doing in achieving our shared goals.”
– Melissa Kwiatkowski, CEO, Guelph Community Health Centre