No Funding for "No More Tears"
Council says no to financial assistance for homeless group.
Last night council received a request for financial assistance from the community group, No More Tears.
The group shared that they are now incorporated as a non-profit and that they are going to be renting office space in the near future. The group seeked financial assistance of approximately $10,000 to help them offer their services in the community.
West Nipissing already supports a number of non-profits within the municipality. In December they approved $8,500 in 2024 for the West Nipissing Food Bank. They also approved an extra $25,000 for the Centre Communautaire de Lavinge to cover a shortfall in their current project. In the past council has helped out les filles d’Isabelle and as well as the Royal Canadian Legion among other groups in the city. Council is also still considering a $50,000 request to build pickleball court for the local non-profit club.
Councillors Anne Tessier and Fern Pellerin agreed that this was a worthy cause and council should allocate funds to help this group. Pellerin praised the group:
“I’m in favour of this. These people do incredible work. They help people find shelter.”
He indicated that council should support them in the short term while advocating to DNSSAB for more sustained funding locally.
However most other councillors disagreed. Councillor Daniel Gagne was the first to object saying “we can’t fund every not-for-profit group asking for money”.
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West Nipissing’s only voice on the DNSSAB board, Jamie Restoule was very much against any idea of funding this group since he seems to believe that they are not “filling a gap” in the community. Restoule stressed that this request is not similar to the money allocated to the food bank. He said this was more like someone “starting a second food bank”. Restoule commented that DNSSAB has the professionals to address the growing homelessness problem.
Councillor Fern Pellerin asked if we could get DNSSAB to help fund this group since we do provide over $3.5M to that board. But the mayor seemed uninterested in advocating for this. She simply brushed off any idea that council would get involved in such funding.
“They are separate board with separate processes for contracting with service providers”
DNSSAB allocated over $6 million this year to various homeless shelters and organizations. A lot of this money goes to non-profit groups. None of these are based in West Nipissing.
For now council will not be providing the $10,000 assistance No More Tears seeks and they will not be asking DNSSAB to help out either.
The West Nip Voice is a regular newsletter covering issues in West Nipissing and the surrounding area. Please consider becoming a subscriber.
As nice as it is to have luxuries built like a Million dollar arena, proposed pickle ball courts etc,
I think we should be looking at our priorities.
Homelessness??
Brown water in some our towns (Verner)
Keeping taxes low for lower income families in these troubling economic times ahead??
Just my 2 cents ✌️
It appears that the mayor and councillors, at least the 2 presented in the above videos, don't seem to know the function of the Food Bank or the purpose of the No More Tears organization. As indicated on the 'No More Tears' site the basic problem is lack of affordable housing. Whereas the Food Bank may answer, to a limited extent, immediate need for food, there is a limit to how much food anyone can have and how often they can access the system. From my understanding the community food banks are not open everyday which means that a shortage in a family's food supply spells hunger until the next date the bank is open. Any organization that takes on this role is not just some 'stop-gap' measure. These organizations are vital and important to the hungry and homeless. The councillors, and mayor, who voted against funding 'No More Tears' were very adroit in excusing their lack of concern behind 'due process.' or, Mr. Gagne's imbecilic remark that ''.....we can't fund every non-profit looking for money." But, this is NOT just another non-profit organization, is it? This is an organization that is feeding the hungry and trying to find at least temporary shelter! Mr. Gagne should understand that the situation is dire and it was created by politicians with the same attitude.
You have to wonder why it so often happens that some of the very worst people seek public office and why it is that their tenure is 100% self serving?