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New Housing First Policy Approved

Thursday, 10 September 2015 07:13

Only 50% of people who need social housing gain access to the services - Oxford County hopes to find solutions.

Oxford County has approved a new Housing First Policy that supports affordable housing development in the County.

With the new policy the County will redevelop or reinvest proceeds from sales of surplus County owned property to meet the growing demand for housing. Warden David Mayberry tells Heart FM the policy indicates that we do have a problem with social housing in the County and this is the first step towards addressing it. 

"We know in Oxford that right now we are only 50 percent of the way to the number of social housing units that we actually need and I don't think anyone on council thinks that is an acceptable number. We have been trying to encourage the Provincial and Federal Governments to up their share and this is one way to free up assets that the county currently doesn't need to go towards social housing. We do know that if we don't provide good social housing for folks who need it that the most vulnerable tend to end up using other resources and we would probably be further ahead to provide the social housing in the first place."  

While recognizing the need to ensure that affordable housing is distributed throughout Oxford County, the Housing First Policy provides the framework to coordinate the efforts and expertise of Public Works, Human Services, Planning and Finance to determine if County-owned properties are, or are not, suitable for residential development. The Housing First Policy outlines how County departments will assess the suitability of surplus County-owned property for residential development and then determine what action to take in regard to the disposal of the property.  

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