Thread by @kellyelliottmcm

🧵: I fundamentally support the work of @Forgotten519 and the advocacy piece and the work we all have to do to support all community members, including those who are unhoused. In rural communities, we struggle with homelessness and lack of housing, although it does not present 1/

https://twitter.com/needlesonnews/status/1554443038830854144

as it does in the City. The Province in its decades of work in social services has developed a “urban-centric” model in which those who require social services must go into cities to get resources. The current #ldnont-#Middlesex service manager model is the perfect example of 2/

this work. That is why when reading through threads, including previous tweets of @NeedlesOnNews, I struggle that the responsibility solely lies on #ldnont’s shoulders to fix. #Ldnont, by virtue of decades long modelling has become the victim of an entire #SWOnt issue 3/

exasperated by a global pandemic where those needing help are forced into #ldnont, and larger city centres such as #Windsor with longer wait times are seeing those in need travel to places like #ldnont with shorter wait times. Let’s add on top of this that municipal revenue 4/

tools of collecting property tax were NEVER designed to handle funding social services, education and healthcare… yet here we are. @ThamesCentre’s recent budget saw a request from a small local hospital for funding in relation to how many of our residents utilize services 5/

there, and while it is an asset to our community, I couldn’t support using property taxes to fund a hospital we don’t control because WHEN DOES IT END?!

#ldnont is the service manager in terms of social services for @CountyMiddlesex, and the fact of the matter is #ldnont 6/

does not get the funding it needs to support the needs of the City, and it sure as hell doesn’t get the funding it needs to serve the ever-changing needs of #Middlesex either - so it’s a lose-lose situation for our entire region. #Middlesex is a funding contributor to #ldnont 7/

budget for projects, but we aren’t seeing the support *IN* our communities because the need in #ldnont is greater than what any of us can afford.

When the ask is who is responsible? Either the province has to get their shit together and take charge and run social services 8/

*PROPERLY*, including properly funding it, or they need to *PROPERLY* fund #onmuni to do the work and give us funding models to do it. None of this half assed shit, because as @Forgotten519 has bluntly put it - people are dying and more lives are at risk. 9/

(Just adding - this is absolutely a domino effect - pushing people from larger centres into #ldnont forces others into smaller urban areas like #Stratford exasperating their resources. Visible homelessness in St Marys is now very apparent, something you never saw before. 10/end)