04/15/2026
🚨 Before We Blame the Mayor, Read This 🚨
I read the comments in Barrie’s public forums every day.
“Why isn’t Alex doing something?”
“Where is the mayor?”
“How much worse does this need to get?”
“Barrie is falling apart.”
And honestly, I understand why people are upset.
Residents are seeing public drug use, nudity, urination, defecation, aggressive behaviour, and obvious signs of addiction and mental health crisis in places where families, seniors, workers, and business owners should feel safe. Parents are worried. Seniors are worried. Business owners are frustrated. People want action, accountability, and a real plan.
As part of our Planning Ahead Series, I keep coming back to one hard but important question:
When you choose where to grow older, retire, or raise a family, how much does the community itself matter?
Barrie has built a reputation as the kind of city people can picture themselves retiring in and aging well in. That is exactly why this issue hits such a nerve. When residents no longer feel comfortable enjoying downtown, walking the waterfront, running errands, or spending time in public spaces, this stops being just a political conversation.
It becomes a quality-of-life issue.
A community confidence issue.
And for many older adults, a planning issue.
But after digging into this more deeply, I think there is one critical fact many residents still do not fully understand:
The City of Barrie does not run the homelessness system. Simcoe County does.
That distinction matters.
Simcoe County is the service manager responsible for planning, funding, and managing homelessness services and social housing programs in our area. The City of Barrie’s role is more limited: public-space enforcement, municipally owned land, advocacy, city-funded initiatives, and local tools that can support housing supply. On top of that, encampments on city land cannot simply be cleared unless adequate and accessible alternatives are actually available.
That does not mean City Hall has no role. It means many of the services residents assume the mayor controls are actually outside his direct authority.
And to be fair, the public record shows Mayor Alex Nuttall has taken this issue seriously and has used many of the levers the city does have:
🚨 Declared a State of Emergency over encampments
👮 Created a dedicated Encampment Response Team
🛏️ Helped secure and fund 40 additional overnight warming centre spaces
🤝 Added support for family reunification programs
🧹 Launched a downtown community safety and cleanup pilot
🔄 Worked with Simcoe County on a Coordinated Encampment Response Protocol
🚌 Supported the CNCC shuttle program, which Barrie says has diverted 792 people released from Central North Correctional Centre from being dropped off in Barrie
Whether you agree with every tactic or not, that is not the record of a mayor ignoring the issue. It is the record of a mayor actively using the tools his office actually has while pushing for more support from outside the city.
At the same time, the scale of the problem remains deeply concerning.
Barrie says 701 people were identified as homeless in the city as of March 30, 2026. Looking at the broader Simcoe (Barrie) community data, the number of people who experienced homelessness for at least one day in a year rose from 2,395 in 2022–23 to 3,031 in 2023–24 and then 3,446 in 2024–25.
That is why this issue feels bigger, louder, and harder to ignore: because it is.
And the data makes it clear this is not one simple failure. Simcoe County’s homelessness reporting points to chronic homelessness, mental health challenges, substance use, correctional-system overlap, housing instability, and affordability pressure all feeding the problem at once.
That is why I think this conversation needs to shift.
Residents absolutely have a right to demand safer streets, stronger action, and better outcomes. But if we want real change, we need to aim our frustration in the right direction and push for solutions at every level that actually controls part of this system.
Because Barrie is worth fighting for. 💙
We should not accept a future where families avoid public spaces, seniors feel uncomfortable in their own city, or people planning their retirement wonder whether Barrie is still the community they once believed it was.
We need more than cleanup.
We need more than outrage.
We need upstream solutions:
🏠 more supportive and affordable housing
🩺 faster access to addictions and mental health treatment
📋 better discharge planning from institutions
🤝 stronger coordination between the city and county
🏛️ real support from the province
So here are 3 questions I would genuinely love Mayor Alex Nuttall to answer:
1. What is the single biggest action Simcoe County or the Province could take right now that would make the fastest visible difference for safety and homelessness in Barrie?
2. Where do you see the biggest bottleneck right now: shelter capacity, supportive housing, addiction and mental health treatment, correctional discharge, or provincial funding?
3. What can Barrie residents do to help you secure the funding, supports, legislative changes, and system coordination needed to turn this around?
Because I truly believe many residents are ready to help.
They just need to know where to aim their voices.
Mayor Alex Nuttall, I would genuinely welcome your response.
For my readers, what do you think Barrie needs most right now: more housing, more treatment, better discharge planning, stronger county-provincial coordination, or all of the above?
Sources: See first comment. 👇
