Renovated county-owned home for the homeless sits vacant

More than $1 million spent on a home that’s been empty for more than a year

Renovated, ready, but empty, 152 Cockburn St.

For the past year and a half, neighbours have been wondering when someone would move into the two-storey home across Cockburn Street from the World’s Finest Chocolate store.

Last week one of them asked me if I could find out. Well, I have an answer and it is maybe by the end of the year, but maybe not.  “No timeline has been identified,” the owner says.

The home was purchased in 2021 by Northumberland County for $575,000, using provincial grants provided under the Social Services Relief Fund that was set up to help Ontario’s most vulnerable during COVID-19.

The county said it would add the home to the facilities owned by the Northumberland County Housing Corp. and planned “to engage a community agency to deliver supportive housing” for five homeless people from the area, a county spokesperson said in an email.

Over the next two years the house was extensively renovated to make it accessible and suitable for its new purpose. A new front entrance was built, an extensive deck and ramp was added on the side. Inside, the kitchen and bathrooms were redone. Judging from the sign still on the lawn, the roof got some new shingles. By the end of the work a year ago, $500,000 had been spent on renovations.

The neighbour who contacted me said he was puzzled last summer as the house sat empty with the air conditioning running. He’s still puzzled and it’s still empty.

It seems the stumbling block that is keeping the building empty is the plan to find a community agency that will deliver programming and operate the site at its expense. “This service provider will manage operating expenses,” the county email to me said.

In the county’s 2023 budget documents, it said staff had “developed operational budgets” for the home and had begun discussions with a community agency to provide supportive housing services at this location.

“The county continues to engage in discussion with community agencies to determine the most appropriate service model for this location,” its recent email said. “No timeline has been identified to complete this work, however, the team here is striving to finalize arrangements prior to the end of 2024 to meet urgent local need.”

But last year a county report was more explicit about which agency it expected to operate the home.

“Construction concluded in Spring 2023 and a partnership between the county, the NCHC (Northumberland County Housing Corp.) and the Canadian Mental Health Association, Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge (CMHA-HKPR) will see this property used as shared supportive housing for five individuals in our community experiencing homelessness,” the report said.

Northumberland County Housing Corp. “will lease the property to CMHA which will use this property to support affordable accommodations necessary to grow existing program capacity.”

But that clearly didn’t happen.

“CMHA was unable to proceed with the initiative so the county is continuing discussions with alternate agencies about delivery of supportive housing at this location,” the county said today.

Last fall as the weather turned freezing, many mornings while walking my dog along the core wall I chatted with a homeless man who was living under the bridge in a growing collection of tents and tarps. His need was certainly urgent. I didn’t know then to tell him about the vacant building just a five-minute walk up the hill. Luckily, before November he found someone who would share a room in an apartment. I believe they shared operating expenses.