CBC KW Questions

Questions

The top issues that people mentioned were:

• Cost of living and affordability.

• Encampments and homelessness.

• And the climate and environment.

Hi Carmen,

Thank you for reaching out.

I actually see a strong connection between all three of these issues.

The cost of living is increasing everywhere — food, housing, insurance, utilities, transportation, property taxes. For someone on a lower income or a fixed income, there is less and less room left when something goes wrong. We need to be talking not only about affordability, but about how we prevent people from slipping from struggling into crisis.

One of the experiences that has shaped how I think about this is my work with Grassroots Response to the Ukrainian Crisis.

The people we were supporting had fled a war and arrived here trying to rebuild their lives in a country where they often didn't understand the systems, didn't have family nearby, and didn't have the social networks many of us take for granted.

What I learned was how enormous the impact of personalized community support can be.

Sometimes what changed someone's situation was help finding housing. But sometimes it was someone helping them understand a document, driving them somewhere, introducing them to an employer, helping with childminding, finding furniture, shovelling snow, or simply being the person they could call when they didn't know what to do next.

Those things sound small until you don't have them.

Grassroots started with citizens simply trying to help. We connected with the Region of Waterloo, the Kitchener-Waterloo Multicultural Centre and other organizations, and those relationships gave us knowledge, confidence and connections that allowed us to grow.

We have since helped more than 1,900 people directly with housing, and thousands more through food, household items and social supports. Some people came to us from the shelter system, while many others could easily have become homeless without timely help. I received a housing award in 2025 for this work, and a number of the hosts and landlords who worked through our program have also been recognized for what they have done. We are now working with a charity and exploring how parts of the model could be adapted elsewhere in Canada.

That experience is something I would bring with me to the Mayor's office and Regional Council.

Homelessness is not one problem with one cause. People arrive there for many different reasons. By the time someone is living in an encampment or shelter, many opportunities to intervene may already have been missed.