Peterborough City Council will provide a grant of $150,000 from its City/County Housing Reserve to Redpath’s Right to Heal programming in planning the development of affordable housing at its current 217 Brock St. location. This will allow Redpath to work with city staff to “identify and pursue options for municipal, federal and provincial capital grant funding to support Redpath’s long-term operations and facility for the 2027 Budget process,” according to the motion ratified at a February 2nd council meeting.

This comes some months after a proposal from Redpath facilitator Peggy Shaughnessy during city budget deliberations asked for over $2.75 million in funds for both a day program (a $250k ask) and the purchase and renovation of a site to house 15 people (a $2.5 million ask). 

Last week, a notice of motion made by Monaghan Ward councillor Matt Crowley finally brought another ask from Shaughnessy before council. This week saw delegates, including Shaughnessy herself, attest to the efficacy of the Redpath model and the necessity of transitional, outpatient treatment programming.

Redpath is unlike many social service providers that receive municipal funding in Peterborough: it is a private treatment centre following a mixed-profit model, with its business Whitepath Consulting selling certifications in Shaughnessy’s Redpath treatment program and its Right to Heal charity deploying outpatient treatment programming.

This unique model has restricted Redpath's ability to access funding from senior levels of government, as it is a non-clinical and non-institutional organization, making it difficult for Redpath to be eligible for initiatives like Ontario’s HART Hub funding.

“It was a highly detailed and competitive process with only a small number of hubs funded across the province,” Shaughnessy told council. “For this application, a group of established service providers, including Fourcast, the Canadian Mental Health Association, the City and the office of MPP Dave Smith, came together to submit a proposal, as with any Ontario Health proposal.”

“The application required details—detailed information on how funding would be used and which organizations were formally involved.” 

Shaughnessy then confirmed that the grant request applies to exploring “an early stage idea” and was not an active funding proposal or partnership request. She later claimed that this project is just “a vision” that is completely separate from an affordable housing proposal, despite the motion on the prospective project pertaining to an “affordable housing project located at 271 Brock Street.”

“The discussion we are having now about possible transitional beds is part of the future vision. Those beds do not currently exist as a program, service or funded initiative, because there is no defined project, yet, there has been no basis to seek formal support or funding partnerships for that idea at the time,” Shaughnessy told council.

It is still unclear what is being proposed by Redpath and what this proposal will add to Peterborough’s affordable housing or transitional housing stock, as Shaughnessy wasn’t sure how many units the project would add.

“I would really like to say 20 units, but then I might be just BSing you,” Shaughnessy laughed. “But you know, we have to work with the City... like we don't know what the foundation of that building is. [W]e need engineers, we need the support of the City who has the expertise to say, ‘No, you're not going that high,’ or ‘Yes, you can.’”

In respect to Redpath’s relationship with the neighbourhood around Right to Heal, Northcrest Ward councillor Andrew Beamer asked Shaughnessy about the history of Redpath’s location and how the organization has worked historically with neighbours.

“I'm always very cognizant of neighbourhoods, and when we look at facilities like this—I don't think I have to get into it—but Trinity and Wolfe Street [modular homes] have not been positive for those neighbourhoods [with] high crime, low property values, vandalism,” Beamer explained. 

Shaughnessy explained that at their prior location (St. Andrew’s United Church on 441 Rubidge St.) Right to Heal had no such issues. 

“We were there for three years, so we never had a needle, an ambulance or a police officer [on site], other than [coming over for] a coffee,” Shaughnessy said. “We do not do harm reduction at the centre, and we've never had any problems whatsoever for overdoses. And… people have total respect [for] our property, or they wouldn't be invited back.”

Despite claiming to council that her program is “not against harm reduction,” Dr. Shaughnessy has publicly come out against the approach, condemning it as enabling rather than treating addiction. 

Redpath also mandates sobriety after participants enter its treatment program. Private residential addictions treatment centres are not subject to the same regulations as publicly funded non-profit treatment service providers like Fourcast, who has a service accountability agreement with the Government of Ontario to ensure it is following provincial health legislation.

Despite a near-unanimous agreement on the validity of this proposal, Ashburnham Ward councillor Keith Riel took umbrage with the means by which this commitment appeared before council.

“Right to Heal is an aftercare treatment recovery program: while traditional housing is an important component of that work, it remains fundamentally a health and social services mandate, not a municipal one,” Riel began. “These types of programs are properly funded by senior levels of government, which have both the jurisdiction and the long term funding capacity to support them.” 

Riel then alluded to the existing contributions the City makes through its established affordable housing/homeless funding streams via its social services department. 

“Those programs are designed [according] to access need, ensur[ing] fairness and the allotment of funding in a transparent and accountable way,” Riel continued. “Bypassing those processes sets a difficult precedent and undermines the integrity of an existing system.”

Most councillors were more keen to support the Redpath proposal, like Otonabee Ward councillor Lesley Parnell.

“This is funding for transitional housing, specifically the planning for transitional housing, the wraparound services that we keep going on,” Parnell told the horseshoe. “And we have done this very same thing before. The precedent has been set where we [make] a municipal contribution that shows confidence in the organization and the program, and that does leverage other grant opportunities.”

“As we've seen in other programs, significant private money will come in when that confidence is expressed.”

Parnell referred back to similar funding requests, like that of the City’s contribution to the Brock Mission’s transitional housing project and the affordable housing complex at 681 Monaghan Rd, as council supported both projects though their respective planning applications and assisted in securing capital funding.

The motion to pursue the Redpath project carried 10-1, with coun. Riel voting against it.