Bring back the poverty reduction plan and fund it

On February 23, 2026, Council voted down a motion to endorse the Implementation Plan for Poverty Reduction in principle, on a 5–4 vote. Councillor Durnford was among the four in support; Councillor Leatherdale was among the five opposed. The plan, developed by the Poverty Reduction Working Group with the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit and Lakehead University — and drawing on the work of community partners including the United Way Simcoe Muskoka and Catulpa Community Support Services — currently has no formal Council endorsement and no funded implementation.

I think that vote was the wrong decision. The plan is not perfect — no implementation plan ever is — but the underlying analysis is sound, and the community organizations that supported it have decades of direct experience with the residents it is designed to help. Voting it down without a substantive alternative is a way of saying the problem is not the Council's problem. That is not a defensible position for a municipal government.

I would do two things this term. First: bring the Implementation Plan for Poverty Reduction back to Council and vote to endorse it in principle, alongside any amendments that respond to the substantive concerns raised in the February debate. Second: fund implementation at the level the staff costing identified, with a multi-year ramp tied to the evaluation framework in the plan itself. The dollars come from a combination of a small dedicated levy line and closer coordination with the County of Simcoe — which, as the Consolidated Municipal Service Manager, administers provincial homelessness funding on Orillia's behalf — to push for that funding to be fully drawn down and directed into the city.

I want to address the fairness argument I have heard against this directly. The argument goes: why should homeowners pay more property tax to fund services for people who do not own homes? My answer is that poverty has costs that the City already pays — in emergency-services calls, in downtown business pressures, in the chronic strain on the limited shelter system. The question is whether those costs are paid reactively, after a crisis, or proactively, through services that prevent crises. The reactive approach is more expensive, not less, but the costs are diffused so they are easy to miss in a budget line.

I want to be candid about what this position commits me to. It commits me to bringing the plan back, voting to endorse, and proposing a funded implementation. It does not commit me to every line item in the existing draft being correct; the evaluation framework in the plan is genuine and items that do not work would not be renewed. The point is to put real Council intent and real money behind the work the community has already done — not to relitigate whether there is a problem to solve.