At Monday’s council meeting we received a petition from the residents of Allan’s Place desperately looking for help. The petition was originally sent to Dan Carter (Mayor of Oshawa) the president of Durham Region Non Profit Housing Corporation (DRNPHC). However, since the writers of the petition have not heard anything from Mayor Carter, the petition came to Brock council.
I moved a motion to have the petition forwarded to Durham Region council as well as request a response from Mayor Carter on behalf of the board of directors of DRNPHC explaining how their organization will make the senior residents at Allan’s Place feel safe again.
Seniors at Allan’s Place continue to be terrorized by a handful of residents moved there that are not seniors but no doubt suffer from substance abuse, mental health issues, and possibly a blatant disregard for their neighbours and the community they live in. There have been constant police calls each week to Allan’s Place and surrounding neighbourhoods affected by these troublesome residents including Cannington residents who have had trespassers on their properties and defecation on their properties in the dead of night.
Durham Region and its council appears to shrug this issue off thinking the smokescreen of it taking place under a separate corporate entity (DRNPHC) makes it none of their responsibility. DRNPHC was established by the Region and is governed by members of regional council with Mayor Carter as it’s president.
Many people including regional councillors label residents of Brock Township as NIMBYs for their concerns over housing issues being proposed but yet he advocated for private security to patrol the streets of Oshawa to move homeless individuals out of site and out of mind.
It’s apparently OK for Oshawa residents, and its council and mayor, to be concerned with problems associated with housing challenged individuals but when Brock residents complain about what is happening (or could happen in Beaverton) as a result of regional decisions we are labeled as NIMBYs or worse that we are discriminating. Hypocrisy at its worst.
The problems at Allan’s Place continue and in some cases they are getting worse. And for local government to hide behind the idea of “it’s not The Region” is disgraceful.
Seniors in Brock do not feel safe – are we OK with that?
Neighbours of Allan’s Place do not feel safe – are we OK with that?
A noticeable increase in police calls to Cannington over the last year — are we OK with that?
A year ago, seniors in Brock were asking ‘When will Allan’s Place open?’ and ‘When and how can I move my parents into Allan’s Place?’
A year later some of those same people are saying ‘How can I move my parents out of Allan’s Place?’
Allan’s Place went from something to be proud of to an embarrassment in record time. I feel the late Allan McPhail (former Mayor of Brock Township) would be ashamed to have his name on a building where seniors feel terrorized and unsafe.
If this kind of nonsense was taking place at Maple Glen (under Brock Non Profit Housing) would all of the people sitting at Brock’s council table shrug it off and say ‘It’s not The Township’ when in actuality it is The Township that “owns” Brock Non Profit just as Durham Region “owns” DRNPHC.
Let’s not play semantics with our most vulnerable residents.
If DRNPHC cannot clean up the mess they have caused in Cannington then perhaps the next motion will be asking the board of directors to resign.
Monday’s motion was passed unanimously at council.
Ward 3 Councillor Walter Schummer
