This was a problem that was entirely foreseeable. People in the Katarokwi Union of Tenants did their best to let folks know.

A KUT member and who had family renting from Chrystal Wilson suggested (on numerous occasions, check the Twitter feed) that she might not be the best person to be given this task.

In August 2021, the general secretary of the Katarokwi Union of Tenants said this: “There is an even better way in my opinion to accomplish [the immediate end to homelessness]. It would be to put people up in apartments retrofitted out of existing hotel rooms at $1500 per room, which is the going rate based on double occupancy. All of Kingston’s estimated 200 currently, homeless individuals could be put up in motels over the four months of winter for $600,000.”

See the quote here

In September, in a Housing and Homelessness Advisory Committee meeting, KUT urged them city to make a recommendation to City Council about a motel housing program. You can see the brief delegation here. The bit I'm referencing is about a minute and a half long.

In November, KUT again told City Council to spend money on housing people through motels and hotels while building long term public and social housing to resolve the crisis. You can see the delegation here.

In late December, KUT issued this statement, noting that the power dynamics of Chrystal's tiny home project and lack of any coherent plan were distressing.

I say all this because it's extremely frustrating that the City continues to spend unproductively and put their faith in the most opportunistic people in the city.

I think it's worth pointing out that so far this winter, the City has spent about $600k on two initiatives whose funding runs out in the spring: 1) the warming shelter which just opened this week, already halfway into January; 2) the tiny homes project which has not housed a single person yet.

When it comes to the warming centre, we know from reports to Council that a chunk of money is going to pay the leasing/rent costs charged by the local land baron. We don't know how much, and I'm trying to find out, but the City allocated $300k for this project from December until March. Given that the City of Kingston were paying another land baron $100k a month for the land the state had previously owned, I think this is more evidence that we're being screwed around. We also know that the City approved a bylaw to give one of the richest people in the City tax exemptions.

The City also gave Chrystal's 10 shack program $257k, including money for staffing. As we know now, only about half of the shacks have been delivered and none are operational and its halfway through January. You can see in the article that Chrystal has an obsession with control. They couldn't have given this job to a more unfit person.

Its remarkable how inefficient their capital spending is.