Ottawa city council voted Wednesday to deny Coun. Mathieu Fleury’s bid to stop the Salvation Army shelter to be built in Vanier.
According to Fleury, the basis of this motion is that when council originally voted on the planning application, they were not given all the necessary information.
Fleury instead believes the better use for that property would be family-oriented community housing as opposed to a homeless shelter.
“We can’t on one hand say we want to manage this issue and on the other say we want to resolve homelessness,” said Fleury. “All I’m asking for is for council to pick a position, regroup as a council and align our strategies around investment in housing,”
The motion was defeated by a vote of 11-12.
The Salvation Army has made several amendments to its plan for the shelter due to input from the community. According to staff, the shelter has reduced the planned number of beds by half, from 140 to 70.
The shelter has also added supportive housing to help accommodate families and has proposed to keep its addiction treatment centre in the ByWard Market.
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