Rural homelessness is a small piece of the puzzle in Sarnia-Lambton — but remains a concern
Roughly 10 per cent of tracked cases of homelessness in the area are outside the border city
Historically, the overwhelming majority of people experiencing homelessness in Sarnia-Lambton are city residents.
More than 90 per cent utilize services within the border community, according to the County of Lambton's manager of homelessness prevention.
As it stands, there are approximately 300 unique individuals without permanent shelter in Sarnia-Lambton, according to Ian Hanney. The data is available as part of the county's Be Part of the Solution campaign website.
He says it's more common for rural cases to be more transient compared to people in more urban areas.
"It can be more difficult to identify potential encampment locations," he said.
According to Hanney, his team was recently notified by St. Clair Township officials of a person living unsheltered off of a county road.
In that instance, he says, they "quickly developed trust" and found them housing in an outside community of their choosing.
Hanney's team was created around three years ago. He says they've helped more than 100 people living outside to find permanent housing.
"We partner with our local member municipalities, be it their bylaw team, their parks and rec departments, to help us identify locations of potential encampments as well."
He says more often than not, people experiencing homelessness within the county are moved to indefinite housing within their home community.
"Generally speaking, housing precarity and homelessness has been increasing across Ontario. Lambton is no exception," said Hanney.
"[However] our community has done very well to stabilize our total levels of homelessness and in fact even produced a reduction of more than 50 per cent in our local youth homelessness within the past year. But rural homelessness is no exception to this general trend, and communities are certainly still in great need of of long term housing solutions."
Conservation area closure
A popular conservation area in Lambton County has taken the unusual step of closing because of vandalism and other illegal activity on the property, according to Ken Phillips.
He's with the St. Clair Region Conservation Foundation. The foundation runs Greenhill Gardens — known as a remote spot popular for graduation and wedding photos.
The carefully manicured property is at the corner of a gravel road in a rural area of St. Clair Township, north of Wallaceburg, and east of Sombra, that's primarily farm agriculture.
The foundation acquired the property from a family estate in 2022.
Phillips says over the past year there's been a "perfect storm" of events, most notably during their off-season.
"We had issues with unhoused people taking up residence on the property," he told Windsor Morning host Amy Dodge.
"We have the property being used at night for illegal legal activities such as drug dealing, that type of thing. And it's because of its location. We don't have staff there to monitor the property 24/7."
Ultimately, says Phillips, the property needs thousands of dollars in repairs the foundation cannot afford.