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When I talk to folks around town, I see some troubling signs, which are impossible to ignore: families who have called this city home for generations no longer able to afford to stay in the city they grew up in; more and more people in their 20s and 30s abandoning hope of ever owning a home; growing encampments around our city paint a picture of systemic failure that can no longer be ignored.
The figures tell an awful story.
In 2015, a family in Barrie earning the median income could afford the average home with a standard down payment.
Today, that same family would need nearly twice the household income to even have a shot.
It seems that if you don’t have significant financial support, and didn’t buy a house before the pandemic, you might be locked out of the market forever.
The Barrie Food Bank reports a 35 per cent increase in visits over the last year, while landlords across the region ‘renovict’ their tenants or sell their properties to investment firms that immediately raise rents by hundreds of dollars.
Growing up, I always learned that we should budget around 30 per cent of our income for housing expenses. Sounds reasonable. How many folks out there are spending 50 per cent or more?
These aren’t just statistics — they are symptoms of much deeper problems. Every community service that gets cut, every mental health program underfunded, every affordable housing project cancelled or scaled way down has pushed more and more of our neighbours towards crisis.
The growing epidemic of addiction, mental health, and homelessness in our city isn’t a failure of individual responsibility; it’s the obvious outcome of decades of hollowing out provinces’ social infrastructure in order to channel wealth upwards.
I can already hear the familiar rebuttals to my so-called progressive bleeding heart statements:
- “We can’t afford these programs.”
- “Government spending is out of control.”
- “We need fiscal responsibility.”
But let’s be clear about what these types of statements really mean. When the talking heads talk about fiscal restraint, they never seem to question the billions in tax cuts we hand out to global corporations and the ultra-wealthy.
Why is it when governments are forking over billions of dollars in tax cuts and sweetheart deals to billionaires and offshore corporate shareholders, nobody ever cries foul about whether we can afford it? They never ask whether it’s “fiscally responsible” to watch our social fabric unravel while corporate profits soar to historic highs.
The truth is we do have the money. It’s never been a question about resources. It’s always been a question about priorities.
Every dollar in corporate tax cuts, every subsidy to wealthy developers, every tax loophole that allows global corporations to avoid paying their fair share represents a conscious choice we make. These are dollars that could have helped strengthen our healthcare system, built affordable housing, funded mental health services, invested in research and development, or repaired and expanded our critical infrastructure.
Instead, these funds are redirected to corporate shareholders’ offshore bank accounts.
Now we face new, even more absurd threats. Incoming United States president Donald Trump openly discusses imposing crushing tariffs on Canadian goods — a move that will devastate Ontario’s manufacturing sector and the thousands of Barrie families who depend on it.
What’s more, Trump’s threats to use “economic force” to try and compel us to bend the knee to his demands or, at worse, capitulate to his obscene overtures towards annexation threaten the very foundation of our sovereignty.
Our vulnerability to these threats stems directly from decades of prioritizing corporate interests over investing in the things that make this country resilient and independent — economically, politically and socially.
The human cost of it all is staggering. In Barrie, a city known for its strong middle class and community spirit, we now have families forced to choose between rent and putting food on the table.
Our emergency shelters continuously operate beyond capacity, and mental health services have wait lists stretching months, while the wait for affordable housing stretches into years.
The opioid crisis, which has hit our community fairly hard, thrives in the cracks left by underfunded social services and dismantled support systems.
So, to those who seek our vote in the upcoming federal (and probably provincial, too) election, I would like to know a few things:
- How will you restore the social infrastructure that once made our community strong?
- How will you ensure that economic growth benefits everyone, not just the privileged few?
- When will you acknowledge that the real threat to our fiscal health isn’t spending on essential services, but the transfer of our nation’s wealth from our communities to corporate boardrooms?
Our parents built this community as a place where working families could thrive, where neighbours looked out for each other, and where no one was left behind. It’s time to reclaim that vision. We need a leader with vision because Canada deserves better.
Jacob Hodgins
Barrie
