Waterloo – Waterloo’s annual State of the City was delivered on May 2nd by mayor Dorthy McCabe at Wilfrid Laurier University, and was full of celebration of the current work the city is doing, and enthusiasm for the future.
The mayor focused significantly on the work the city is doing on housing, climate action, community building, infrastructure, service delivery, and affordability and she noted the interconnectedness of these topics throughout her speech.
McCabe also celebrated the youth of the city and the students of the region’s high schools, post-secondary institutions throughout the speech, saying of the “council for the day” students “Waterloo’s future looks very very bright”.
The State of the City was organised by the Rotary Club of Waterloo and raised over 15,000$ for Supportive Housing of Waterloo, an organisation which helps people who have experienced long periods homelessness with housing and other support services.
Waterloo Region Council agreed to restore a late night bus three nights a week, which will help deal with the “transit desert” that has impacted late-night GO bus riders.
The last transit bus of the night leaves the University of Waterloo Station by 12:20 am but still four more GO buses arrive after that time each night without connecting GRT services.
The motion, which passed at the meeting on Wednesday, April 25th, will restore Route 91, the late night bus service between the University of Waterloo, Laurier and Uptown Waterloo.
Grand River Transit will reintroduce Route 91 in early September and the bus will run from 12. 30am until 2am Thursday to Saturday.
In this program, two delegates who were present at the meeting describe their relief and concerns about future late night transit.
1 – City of Barrie backs down after threatening drastic measures against the homeless population
The Barrie city Council tried to push anti-homeless legislation through at a meeting this week but backed down due to the strong country-wide backlash. That backlash included presenting the legal precedent from the Superior Court case The Regional Municipality of Waterloo v. Persons Unknown and to be Ascertained, 2023, which blocked the eviction of people living at the Victoria and Weber encampment in Kitchener.
There is a clip from Rob Romanek of EngageBarrie
2 -GRT fares increasing as was decided by Regional Council in February
GRT fares are increasing on July 1, following an earlier budget decision by Regional Council who voted for the increase. The Cash fare will go up 14% to $3.75 per ride, a more expensive fare than nearly all other public transit in Ontario, including that of Toronto, Hamilton, London, and Guelph.
3 – Long standing health centres merge
Sanctuary Refugee Health Centre and Kitchener Downtown Community Health Centre have mergedand are now called Community Healthcaring Kitchener-Waterloo. There are two locations at both ends of the downtown core in Kitchener.
4 – Protest march against renoviction of more than 20 Kitchener residents from their homes
On June 19th, more than 50 people were at the protest and march to draw attention to Mississauga based investor landlord Mike Beer who has moved to renovict more than 20 Kitchener residents from their homes. Marching from the Fairway Ion station to 267 Traynor Ave, the protestors were welcomed by the neighbourhood.
There is clip from Maribel of ACORN.
This program is a part of the “Local Journalism Initiative” and is funded by the Community Radio Fund of Canada, Heritage Canada, and the CKMS Newsroom.
