Housing and growth were a couple of things on the mind of Andy Lennox.
The Warden of Wellington County and Mayor of Wellington North Township reflected on 2023 with CJOY and Global News.
Lennox said housing and growth were the two biggest issues on everyone’s mind.
“We are seeing some of our communities experiencing unprecedented growth,” said Lennox. “That’s putting strains on our infrastructure.”
Lennox said the County is working with the City of Guelph to bring more supportive housing to the area as it aims to deal with the problem of homelessness and mental health.
“The Bellevue (Project) youth supportive housing centre was re-opened with some upgrades, Grace Gardens supportive housing project came to completion, as well did the Silver Maple seniors affordable housing project,” said Lennox.
“Under construction… is the 65 Delhi transitional housing project.”
Another issue that was affecting communities across Ontario was the ambulance off-load delays at hospitals. The number of patients in ambulances waiting to be transferred to a hospital room decreased 2023.
“I’ve heard from communities from across the province of similar things,” Lennox said. “There are some delays at our local rural hospitals. But not as an acute of an issue that they had in the city of Guelph.”
Guelph General Hospital earlier this year announced that the average drop-off delay was 42 minutes less compared to in October of 2022 where the average delay was 4.9 hours.
Inflation was another area that has affected residents in Wellington County as well as across the province and Canada in 2023. Lennox expects to see that continue into the new year.
“I just see more strain on a lot of residents and are feeling not as confident as they did a year ago,” said Lennox. “They are feeling the pressure of inflation particularly on those staple like food, and rent certainly hasn’t been going down.”