One year later, and the work continues. The need for affordable housing in Lincoln is the current focus for the Poverty Project at Trinity UC Beamsville.
Town of Lincoln Committee of the Whole Meeting, January 21, 2026
Affordable Housing Lincoln Delegation, Speaker: Margaret Andrewes
Committee Chair Russell, Mayor & Councillors, Fellow Community Members
I appreciate this opportunity to speak on behalf of Affordable Housing Lincoln and endorse the provisions for affordable and attainable housing in the Shape Lincoln – Official Plan Update 2026.
Affordable Housing Lincoln is a volunteer civic group focused on mobilizing political and public support for affordable housing within the Town of Lincoln. We are partnered with The Poverty Project at Trinity United Church Beamsville, which originated when one woman, Irene Romagnoli, lived as a homeless person for one week in November 2024 on the front lawn of the church. Irene’s purpose in this act was to shine a spotlight on poverty and homelessness in Lincoln.
Over the past year our community collaborative – i.e. Affordable Housing Lincoln (AHL) & The Poverty Project, has been exploring & assessing ways and means for achieving our expressed purpose of mobilizing political and public support to build on what Irene Romagnoli set out to do in in her courageous and incredibly selfless challenge to live homeless.
In being here and speaking at this meeting, we are pleased to get our voice on the public record in favour of the significant provisions referencing affordable housing that are now embedded in the Shape Lincoln – Official Plan Update 2026.
Recognizing that the Official Plan is our town’s land use planning policy framework for community building, we submit that these provisions are critical in regard to the Town’s stated Growth & Settlement Objectives:
- To provide for housing that is affordable and attainable, accessible and equitable to the community to meet the varying financial needs of existing and future residents;
- To encourage diversity in housing in an effort to accommodate the broadest range of income levels and household demographics.
In looking to the future and the implementation of the updated Official Plan, we harken back to the Lincoln Housing Needs Study Findings and Proposed Affordable Housing Targets (Report PD-16-25), approved by Committee at its meeting in July 2025. That report garnered a robust and encouraging discussion during that meeting. And we were especially heartened by the decision to endorse the target to “encourage that 10% of all new ownership housing and 30% of all new rental housing in Lincoln be affordable”.
To meet this target now included as a tool among many others in Section 3.1.4.1 of the Official Plan, we strongly advocate that the Town be proactive in not only assessing OP residential policies effecting affordable housing but also adapting relevant policies to take full advantage of every affordable housing development opportunity. And, we anxiously await the response to Mayor Easton’s direction as a consequence of the findings from the housing needs study. That is, the staff-led statement outlining various options for future affordable housing to help guide the Town’s next steps.
In closing, I assert that Affordable Housing Lincoln is dedicated to enabling Council and community to work together in the best interests of those who seek to live in Lincoln in a home that they can afford without undue hardship.
While I still have the podium, I note that arrangements are in the works for screening a significant documentary right here in Lincoln. Timing and location will be announced shortly.
“Thinking Beyond the Market: A Film About Genuinely Affordable Housing”is the documentary created by Dr. Brian Doucet, an associate professor at the University of Waterloo School of Planning, based on his extensive research.
From his perspective, housing plays two roles in our society, but it can’t succeed at both. On one hand, housing is shelter and a basic human right. On the other hand, it’s a commodity to make money and a source of wealth.
Food for thought rests with Dr Doucet’s statement… “If we think about a housing pendulum between these two, we look for policies and programs that actively shift housing away from speculation and towards a human right.”
Thank you.
Lincoln Rotary Presentation, November 2025, Irene Romagnoli, AHL
The Town of Lincoln, unlike St. Catharines, Welland, Niagara Falls and Fort Erie has a mostly hidden poverty and housing crisis. In those cities, there are encampments that are quite public, homeless people walking the downtown streets, looking for shelter, food and care.
In Lincoln, there are Seniors, single parent families and post secondary individuals who have to choose between rent and utilities, or phone plans, or clothes, or whatever else has to be skipped in order to pay rent. We have seen homeless encampments in Beamsville, tents in ravines, a small community of trucks, buses and trailers near the weigh-scale on Ontario Street, a person living in their car at the car-pool parking lot. Some have moved on, some were moved on by officials, some just found a better place to hide.
For quite a lot of people, having such an excellent resource as Community Care West Niagara in Beamsville and Vineland, gives many low income residents the chance to access to food without cost, allowing them to use grocery money to pay rent. They may shop at the Food Bank once a week, and that can save them up to $400 a month… making it possible to pay the rent and get just enough food to be able to go to work, to make not enough money to not pay their rent.
This is not acceptable, nor is it sustainable… for the people who are struggling and the community that is supporting them through food drives and fundraising galas. The twenty something’s of Lincoln are having to move away and may never come back. The Seniors of Lincoln who reach out for Regional assistance could end up in a building in Fort Erie, St. Cathrines, Welland or Niagara Falls.
These separations are bad for both the people and the community they are leaving. Lincoln’s retail businesses, wine and manufacturing industries need young people working for them. Finding employment elsewhere, and moving away from family and established community connections can lead to loneliness, bad decisions and life-changing mistakes. It also decreases money being spent within the community and can make it hard for businesses to find people to hire.
Seniors do not thrive when they are sent to live in an unfamiliar place without daily contact with their family, friends, medical services, churches and social groups, this can cause decline and early death.
Although the solution to poverty and this housing crises will never be a simple one-action cure, keeping a roof over the head of everyone, in the place where they will thrive, is a very good start. Making sure that people can meet their rent and all of the other basic costs that are associated with living a good, healthy, safe life is something that can be done.
Which leads us to affordable housing, or attainable housing… whatever you prefer to call it, bringing equity to the rental housing industry is just as, if not more important, than bringing more inventory of rental housing to Lincoln. For the sake of clarity, our definition of affordable housing comes from the Town of Lincoln, and is shown in the handout Affordable Housing as 30% of income is also a benchmark recognized by various levels of Government in Canada.
I would like to tell you a story, give you the chance to meet Frank, a forty-five year man, with two children. Frank is a middle-manager at a job that pays him a decent salary. His children have attended college and university and have moved on to their own lives. Frank became a widower, unexpectedly, and he is struggle a lot with grief, loneliness and despair. When he did manage to get out of bed to go to work, he didn’t do very well. He used up all of his paid sick-time and all of his vacation days sitting at home, fighting his grief and losing ground with his mental health. Eventually he lost his job, then he lost his home, and found himself on the street. Frank was fortunate enough to find assistance at a shelter, he was registered for a work program and got a minimum wage paying job, he found a small one bedroom apartment in a basement and found the grief and mental support that he needed. Frank was fortunate.
That’s not the end of Frank’s story though. You would think it would be all roses and happiness for Frank, but he know has a whole different struggle to deal with every month…. Frank’s rent, one of the lowest one bedroom rents in Beamsville is $1800. Hi is employed, in Lincoln, but not near where he lives, he is making minimum wage, $17.60 per hour, but for only 35hours a week. Frank’s gross pay is $2,640 , with a net take-home of $2,352 a month. The rent is $1800, leaving $552 for transportation and other necessaries of life, like food. The average adult spends almost $500 a month on groceries, this leaves Frank $52. The landlord insists on their tenants providing apartment insurance, that’s $25 a month for the minimum, leaving $27. Frank needs a car as daily, repeatative transit in Niagara hasn’t reached Lincoln yet. Gas and Car insurance cost $225 and he only has $27, and he has to have a cell phone to stay connected to work, family, his mental health and grief supports and to make appointments, so he finds the cheapest plan he can for cell and internet and that’s another $96 a month, meaning he is now short $294… and now he has some decisions to make.
What does Frank do… think about you in his situation… Do you get a second job and now work 50 hours a week? And how much income tax do you need to pay? After the higher rate of taxes being deducted, do you need 60 hours a week to make enough money after tax to meet all your bills and have some over for new clothes occasionally? Or some entertainment? Or perhaps start putting some savings away? What are the chances you can start an RRSP? And what is all of this doing to your mental health?
Are there less drastic and exhausting ways to find the money needed to continue living in you small one bedroom apartment and not have to move to a larger city? You know you can keep using the food bank at CCWN, and that would save you up to around $400 a month, but how long can that continue? It is so hard to every week ask the nice people at the food bank to let you take more food. What other programs are out there that can help you? Dora at CCWN can help you fill out the nightmarish myriad of forms, and you can publicly declare to bureaucrats how badly your life is going, even though you are working all of the hours you can at jobs that barely pay… and certainly aren’t paying you a living wage. In Lincoln, that wage would be $38.00 an hour… a very far distance from $17.60.
So, back to finding your way out a scary situation of not having enough money to survive, lets assume you visit with Dora at CCWN, you fill out all of the forms and your name is now on a waiting list for an apartment that is geared to your income, most likely through Niagara Regional Housing. As mentioned earlier, whether you are a young adult or a single mom with children or a Senior, you will eventually be offered a place within the housing system, and that home can be anywhere in the Niagara Region. And you will be offered once, if you refuse because it means you would need to quit your job as it is too far to get to work, or moving that far away means your family can’t share in looking after your children while you are at work, or you want to stay close to the friends who are your only outside connection to the world; if you refuse, you go to the bottom of the list.
But, you may not need to worry about having to decide… In 2024, the waiting list for single adults looking for housing was 13 years and for Seniors, 8 years. A lot can happen in that time, and not all of it would be good.
Is there a better way? What would life look like if your rent was geared to your income, or was not more than 30% of your income? Rent would be $800 a month… a savings of $1000 per month. An amount that makes life livable, safe and with less worries. Less embarrassing, better mental health not needing to ask people for help, over and over again. And you can create savings, and you can think about your future.
Affordable Housing Lincoln believes that a portion of the answer to the poverty and housing crises in Lincoln resides in downtown Beamsville, on the land know as BDSS. After a lot of reasearch, speaking with other communities that have faced the same poverty and homelessness situations, sitting through many Town of Lincoln meetings, we know that adding to the rental inventory in Beamsville is very important, but the absolute must is making those homes affordable.
There are four steps to creating affordable housing and the first step is land. And this community is extremely fortunate to have the land, in the town’s inventory, and available. The next step, securing the portion that is needed to fulfill an affordable housing project will require the support of many people. And that ultimately is why we are here this morning. We are asking… if after hearing the example we gave, and after studying the information we gave you… if after that you agree that there is a poverty and housing crisis in Lincoln, we hope you can also see that having affordable housing built in downtown Beamsville, at the BDSS site, is the best action forward for the community of Lincoln.
If you can see this as we do, we ask that you help spread the message, share the story we did, share the stats as we have provided and talk to your family, friends, co-workers, faith congregation and especially your Councillors at the Town of Lincoln. Help them not be afraid of the subject of affordable housing. Assist them in understanding that in Lincoln, unlike in other major cities, increasing rental housing inventory and keeping it affordable, isn’t about addiction and homelessness, it is about very high rents, a constant increase in the cost of living and the inability to afford safe, appropriate housing for individuals and families. The point we come back to, time and time again is, this is about poverty. The quickest way to mental and physical health issues is to remove a person’s home, so the best way to fix that is not have people without homes.
Ask yourself, what kind of community do we want to be? What kind of person do you want to be. Do you want to be kind and concerned about all of the people in your community? Do you see yourself as a person who can and will speak up for people who need a little help to live a decent life with hope and success in their future?
If you have found that you want to support affordable housing at BDSS, and in light of the Municipal Election that is coming in November 2026, push to have this poverty and housing crises as a topic of great importance during all of the campaigning and debates. Show up to meetings and ask questions. Use your socials to show people the need for affordable housing and BDSS as solution. Hold the people with the power accountable for caring for the people with the quieter voices, the ones simply struggling to make it day-to-day, barely keeping their heads above water.
Thank you.
Property Project Anniversary Service, November 16, 2025, Irene Romagnoli, TUCB
Sermon
Our first reading today shares a conversation between Moses and God. Simplified, God has spent some time looking at the horrible situation of the Israelites at the hands of the Egyptians. And his decision on how he will act is to send Moses to the Pharoh of Egypt and bring god’s people out of Egypt.
Moses is not sure that this job is for him, he doesn’t think he has the skills for this very large task.
And I can sympathize with Moses. In February of last year, when the idea of sleeping on the church’s lawn in a tent came to me, I had just attended a learning session in Vineland with Start Me Up Niagara from St. Catharines. Coming out of that session, I said to my friend, what if I was to sleep on the front lawn of the church? Would people understand then that there is a homeless and poverty problem in Lincoln? The horrible situation that seniors, families and young people were facing in Lincoln wasn’t being dealt with by governments, and some of the problems could be said to have been at the hand of government. And the horrible situation of poverty and homelessness going unresolved in Lincoln wasn’t going to get better unless someone did something about it.
I am far from being Moses, but I had the same thoughts as he had at the burning bush, when I realized that this was something that had to be done, and it was me that was going to do it. The feeling that filled my chest, and my mind and caused goosebumps and shivers, and took over my mind anytime i let my it wander. And the feeling settled into a warm glow of strength and energy when I went home one day and said to my amazingly patient and supportive husband Armand, there’s a problem in Lincoln with poverty and Homelessness that nobody sees, so I want to sleep on the front lawn of the church and shine a spotlight on the problem. And Armand being Armand said, OK. And without a pause said, you have to do it right, you have to make sure you honour the people who are suffering, and not make a spectacle out of this.
And that support was amazing and it was wonderful, but honestly, there was a voice in the back of my head that said, darn, he didn’t say no.
And every step of the way over the period of the eight months leading up to this bold and scary act, no one said no. Not my boss when I said I needed the time off. Not GPS when I asked them to support me in this explicit and scary act. Not Council when they were told – in confidence – what I was going to do. They simply offered support, asked about my safety and said yes. And when I asked Carole at community care for facts to help support what I was doing, she didn’t say it was a crazy idea, she offered all the support of CCWN. So like Moses, I did what I did, because it had to be done.
The spotlight that Her home is a tent shone on poverty and homelessness in Lincoln, was very bright, and very strong and it caused online conversation, news stories; and visits from politicians and the citizens of Lincoln. It also caused problems and situations that I had not considered, and when each situation arose, I had to decide if I was going to solve it myself or was i going to accept help, and as i passed the halfway mark in the week, i had to accept help, and it was pointed out to me that if I was living in an encampment, other people there would help me. And just as God gave Moses the words he needed to tell the Pharaohs of Egypt and the Israelites, Reverend Jane, the many members of this congregation, along with the Sam Oosterhoof question group, and some members of the community, all of these people gave me the help I needed so that i could finish what i had started, with a strong, bold, cared for head and heart.
My experience, although it mimicked the way of life for someone who was homeless, had safety nets and the knowledge that I was going home. I didn’t have the stress leading up to losing my home, the stress of trying to pay bills, pay rent, manage my health and if necessary, mental health. During the week, I finally accepted help. But there were times when I wanted to give in to the need to medicate my anxiety – which i can do in my regular day to day life, but refused to do during that week. I was alone and although people reached out to check on me, I truly felt the solitude in ways that were unlike what I love about being alone in nature. I could clearly see how easy it would be to find ways to bury the fear, loneliness and misery in alcohol or drugs if they were at hand. It was obvious after the fact how damaging this was to a person’s mental health. I knew all along, that when it ended, it was to go to my home, my bed, my husband. It wasn’t to a shelter, or a hotel, or a shared space in a different city, far from family, friends, my doctor and any support that I had found. . I returned to my home and the luxury of a full days sleep, and over time, many visits to my psychotherapist – who when told what I did was speechless for the first time – ever.
I have found a way to use the energy and passion from the memory of my magnificent feelings as energy for the continued work that needs to be done. It is the best way to honour the call that create the massive feelings that lead to the work that was started.
The journey isn’t finished, in fact, it has only just begun and at times I can’t see where it will end. However, the journey now has people walking beside me as we push to resolve the poverty and homeless situation for our community. This group began as an unorganized group of five very caring people who brought individual visions and experience. We have attended countless Council and Housing Select Committee meetings at Town Hall. We have read millions of words and hundreds of articles on what affordable housing is; we have listened to presentation of successful affordable housing builds and left with light hearts, and we have read newspaper articles on how impossible it is to provide affordable housing for everyone.
This now very organized group of six people… Dr Karl Stobbe, Margaret Andrewes, Anthony P van Engellen, Bob Grohl, Rev Jane Capstick and myself, Collectively called Affordable Housing Lincoln work knowing that another Trinity United Church Beamsville group has carved some of the same paths. The Lincoln Association for Affordable Housing was a vibrant social activism group founded in 2010 that worked hard to educate the community to the need of affordable housing, and was very successful in this work, as the 2011 Beamsville Community Development Plan had the need for affordable housing written into it. Members of that group are still a part of the Outreach and Social Justice Working Group…Rosemary Addison, Judy and John Bowman and Katharine Anderson. The new group, Affordable Housing Lincoln has picked up the baton and continues the work because we agree with the scripture… Come, you will receive good things from my Father. Inherit the kingdom that was prepared for you before the world began.
Just as I have had the support of my husband, my family and my church and its history of social activism around me, moving anything forward with affordable housing, and helping people who are dealing with poverty and decisions about whether to eat or pay the rent, well that’s going to take a lot of people, a community in fact. The question is who wants to be part of that community, who wants to be caring, who wants to be kind, and who wants to be loud and bold is supporting the required activism for building what is needed in Lincoln.
Kindness, caring, and love are shown when we share food, clothes, shelter.
Kindness and caring are shown with explicit intent, when we step up and speak for quieter voices.
Kindness and caring are boldly stated with energy and passion when we act as a community standing up tall and acting on our words.
We act boldly when we follow our calling, when we let social activism into our lives, when we let the goosebumps tell us it is right and true to do.
We amplify that boldness when we attend public meetings and state what is right and what is needed.
We celebrate bold social activism when we exercise our civil right to vote, based on our beliefs and our passions.
We boldly act in the image of Jesus when we live out his message in our lives through our actions.
We support boldly when we participate in public Panel Discussions about Affordable Housing, like the one happening Tuesday, December 2nd at the Fleming Centre, sponsored by Trinity Beamsville and Affordable housing lincoln.
I am not sure I will ever feel the magnificent feels that came with my call back in February. I hope that I feel that again when I finally see affordable housing being built on the BDSS lands in downtown Beamsville.
I know I am talking to a group of very kind, caring and loving people and that you do that boldly and explicitly. I ask that you share that passion, that energy and that love with your neighbours, and show your support – publicly and boldly – with your actions in the future as the need to act arises in many ways.
And then the ruler will answer them, ‘The truth is, every time you did this for the least of my sisters or brothers, you did it for me.’
Presentation to Town of Lincoln Council, Dr. Karl Stobbe
- I spent 20 years as a family physician at the Beamsville Medical Centre and West Lincoln Memorial Hospital, caring for people in our community.
- I spent the next 15 years in leadership roles with McMaster University, all focused on improving the physician supply for Niagara.
- For the past 6 years I’ve been working with REACH Niagara, focused on providing healthcare for homeless and marginalized people across Niagara Region.
- I’ve cared for people in homeless shelters, encampments, day programs, and food banks. I’ve treated their physical and mental health problems, as well as addictions. I do this work with a committed group of family doctors and specialists.
- I see people dying at a young age. The average life expectancy of homeless people in Hamilton is 43 years. I don’t think it’s much different here.
- I see the number of homeless people increasing, even as those in shelters are housed surprisingly quickly. The number of newly homeless people is rising, the number of homeless shelters is increasing, and the number of people sleeping outdoors is also increasing.
- I see homeless people from the Town of Lincoln, in shelters and encampments in St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, and Welland. They can’t get to their doctor, can’t visit their friends/family. They’ve lost their social safety net.
- The reason people are becoming homeless is being unable to afford rent due to low income.
- Affordable housing prevents homelessness.
- I believe we should be doing all we can to reduce the number of people living in unaffordable housing, so they can continue to live and work in our community and do not become homeless.
- The housing needs study prepared by ToL staff details the size of the need, and a description of targets. Low, medium, and high. Only the high target will reduce the need.
- I urge this council to adopt the high target, and further, to direct that a strategy and plan be created so we can all see how to move this forward.
- If we want to keep people housed in Lincoln, they need to be able to afford housing. If we do not, tents will appear, encampments will grow, and we will face an expensive task similar to other Niagara communities.
- In summary: homelessness is caused by a lack of affordable housing. It leads to early death, by as much as 30 years, and homelessness is expensive.
- The solution to homelessness is affordable housing. As councillors in Lincoln, you have the power to choose housing over homelessness. Make the choice that will save lives, and save money.