Peterborough city council has endorsed a pilot program this fall that would see One City Peterborough hire people facing challenges with employment to clean streets in the downtown core.
At its general committee meeting on Monday night (August 24), council voted 10-1 in support of the pilot project, which would see the City of Peterborough provide $25,000 in existing waste collection and operations funding to One City.
The eight-week “Community Stewardship – Clean Streets” pilot program would focus on the blocks surrounding the Trinity Community Hub at 360 Reid Street, which One City operates as a low-barrier overnight shelter and day program with city funding, as well as the downtown area bounded by Hunter Street, Charlotte Street, Park Street, and Water Street.
Pilot program revives earlier downtown cleaning and gardening initiatives
“The program would create opportunities for individuals facing barriers to traditional employment, including people experiencing or at risk of homelessness, to contribute directly to the betterment of the neighborhoods and public spaces where they live, spend time, and connect with community,” reads a report from municipal operations commissioner Ilmar Simanovskis.
“Through visible, supervised work, participants would play an active role in creating cleaner, safer, and more welcoming shared spaces while building positive connections with residents, businesses, and community organizations.”
According to the report, the city’s investment of $25,000 will be one-time seed funding to demonstrate the effectiveness of the model. If the pilot project has positive results, city staff would work with One City to identify additional areas where the program could be used and would seek contributions from local businesses, organizations, and others as potential funding sources.
The pilot program is similar to the “Clean Team” program launched in 2018 as an initiative of the Peterborough Downtown Business Improvement Area (DBIA) in partnership with the Warming Room Community Ministries, which merged with Peterborough Reintegration Services the following year to become One City Peterborough.
The 2018 program saw 13 people with various barriers to employment hired to help clean the downtown core during the summer, along with a pair of outreach workers to reach out to vulnerable people in the area. Team members with cleaning carts swept sidewalks, picked up litter, removed old posters from lampposts, safely disposed of discarded needles, and completed other small cleaning tasks.
In 2019, the DBIA issued a new request for proposals for its downtown streetscape maintenance contract, with a request that proposals include a social enterprise component. In January, the DBIA awarded the contract to Clint’s Property Maintenance in partnership with One City Peterborough.
Along with street cleaning, the program’s aim was to help people with barriers to employment to get back into the workforce, including connecting team members with local employment agencies and potential employers.
The program later expanded in 2020 to include the “Green Team,” a DBIA-funded partnership with One City Employment and Clint’s Property Maintenance where a seasonal gardening team cared for patio planters, flower pots, and other green spaces throughout the downtown.
Neither program is currently operational due to lack of funding.
‘An investment in downtown cleanliness and low-barrier employment’
“For $25,000 from the existing waste diversion operating budget, we’re going to test this model again for eight weeks,” said Town Ward councillor Alex Bierk at Monday night’s meeting.
“Two supervised crews will work in the area surrounding Trinity and throughout a larger section of the downtown doing litter cleanup, sharps collection, beautification, public space maintenance, and identifying maintenance and safety concerns.”
Bierk added that he considers the pilot program as “an investment in downtown cleanliness and low-barrier employment.”
Councillor Keith Riel said he was concerned about duplicate funding, saying he encountered a team from One City in July that was cleaning in the neighbourhood around Trinity. City staff said that One City is responsible for cleaning around the Trinity site, but the pilot program is a formal way to begin integrating One City’s efforts into the larger community.
‘It’s a disaster from a garbage perspective. It’s gotta be cleaned up’
In his remarks, Mayor Jeff Leal said he received a call from a business owner on Charlotte Street earlier this summer and, after visiting the location, was “shocked” to see the amount of waste in the area, “including human waste,” on many of the properties in the area.
“It’s a disaster from a garbage perspective,” the mayor said. “It’s gotta be cleaned up.”
In response to a question from Gary Baldwin about the lack of cleanliness at the Trinity site, commissioner Ilmar Simanovskis noted that some of what is perceived as “garbage” is actually the belongings of people who are using Trinity because that have no place to store them.
Councillor Kevin Duguay said he originally was not going to support the program, but recalled an encounter with a young man at the Wolfe Street modular bridge housing community whose job was to do cleaning around the site. He said the program could provide meaningful employment, and also noted the improvements the city has made to waste collection by removing the fee for large item pickup. He said that, if the program is successful, it could be expanded to the area around Brock Mission.
‘Why are we paying people to clean up their own mess?’
After councillor Joy Lachica spoke in support of the program, councillor Lesley Parnell acknowledged the issues with waste in the downtown area, but raised concerns about paying One City for the pilot program.
“People that need to be acknowledged, and I have heard this very strongly out in the community, is that they are outraged at the thought of paying the people who are actually making the mess,” Parnell said.
“There is no incentive for them not to make the mess in the beginning, and I think that’s the comments out in the community. They’re saying ‘Why are we paying people to clean up their own mess? They should not make the mess in the first place.'”
Parnell’s comments were interrupted by shouting by Peterborough resident Margie Sumadh, who has spoken often at city council about housing and homelessness. Councillor and general committee chair Andrew Beamer asked Sumadh multiple times to leave the public gallery before she was escorted out.
Parnell continued in her remarks, noting that her issue is not with the pilot program itself, but with One City being involved in the program.
“This (report’s recommendation) will pass, but those people need to also be acknowledged, that they are upset and a lot of them will not come downtown because of this situation.”
Councillors voted 10-1 to endorse the report’s recommendations, with only councillor Beamer voting against it.
Items endorsed by general committee will be considered by council for final approval on Monday (August 31), when registered delegations will be heard.
Council meetings are streamed live at www.peterborough.ca.
