The executive director of the London-Middlesex chapter of Neighbourhood Legal Services believes a private member’s bill looking to regulate group homes is long overdue.
The death of David MacPherson, 72, in a fatal fire in London in late 2014 pushed the city to join other municipalities in introducing a bylaw on group homes in 2016 — but the province as a whole has no such legislation.
“When the fire happened a few years ago when Mr. MacPherson was killed, I started looking in to try to find out sort of what are the laws that regulate these kinds of places, and I was surprised to find that there really weren’t any,” Jeff Schlemmer of Neighbourhood Legal Services London-Middlesex told AM980.
“I don’t know why it’s taken this long for someone to get around to doing that. You would think that those same standards should apply across the province.”
Schlemmer added that London’s bylaw would serve as a good template for provincial legislation.
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“It requires things like 24/7 attendance of a worker on site, a qualified social worker on site. Sets standards for nutrition, for example, minimum standards for nutrition. Requires, basically, that the city can come in and do inspections on a regular basis and generally, as you would expect, requires that building and fire code requirements be kept up to date.”
The bill was introduced Wednesday by New Democrat MPP for Welland, Cindy Forster. It would provide a framework for the operation of group homes and set minimum standards across Ontario, ensuring standardized care.
While he applauded Forster’s bill, Schlemmer added that more will need to be done to help these tenants, who often have some kind of mental illness, developmental disability, or behaviour disorder that makes it impractical for them to care for themselves.
“If we bring in these standards, that’s great, but most of those folks are on Ontario disability benefits which provide for shelter component, which pays their rent, and a basic needs allowance, which pays for their food, but there’s no component in there for care.”
Forster’s bill is expected to be debated on Thursday.
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