kingston city council to consider homeless shelter funding
kingston city staff to seek ways to speed up the renovations of new shelter spaces, once the locations are found
1 minute read
kingston — city council is to consider giving staff the authority to spend more than $6 million to speed up a reorganization of homeless shelters.
on tuesday, the shelter at 38 cowdy st. was to expand to 63 beds to compensate for the closure of a warming centre on concession street.
but the cowdy street shelter, located in a former public school for the past two years, was always meant to be temporary and the city is looking for two sites to replace it.
“city staff have been actively looking for alternative sites/properties to relocate shelter services and target a better distribution across the overall city urban boundary recognizing that land and properties of a larger footprint are becoming scarce,” stated a report to council from lanie hurdle, the city’s chief administrative officer.
“the intent is to redistribute the shelter services to at least two separate sites/properties to reduce any impacts on surrounding neighbourhoods,” hurdle added. “city staff are still in the process of reviewing property options but recognize that any property potentially acquired or leased by the city will require some type of renovation, additional services or temporary structures.”
once located, the purchase of those two properties will be subject to council approval but city staff are seeking permission to spend the money to renovate them without going through the traditional procurement process.
advertisement
“if city staff are to be bound to these processes for the purpose of renovations, upgrades and purchases, it is anticipated that properties would not be ready to provide services until mid to late 2026, depending on the complexity and amount of work required.”
with permission to speed up the procurement process, hurdle wrote that the new shelters could be open by the end of this year.
council is to consider the proposal at its tuesday night meeting.
elferguson@postmedia.com
share story
