CANDIDATE STATEMENT
Spencer Stinson
Ward 2 council candidate
Stinson proposes public housing waitlist and housing-stability measures, six-month public reporting and an annual review of still-to-be-defined delivery goals.
Common question
What specific municipal service result would you work to have Chatham-Kent report publicly each quarter, and how would you connect that result to municipal budget decisions?
The question was sent to participating candidates on August 28, 2026 after voluntary CK Signals polls identified budget-to-results reporting as a recurring accountability concern. Those polls were non-scientific participant signals; they did not measure public opinion, voter intention, candidate support or the likely election result.
CANDIDATE STATEMENT
The text is attributed to the candidate. It is neither a CK Signals conclusion nor a verified fact merely because it was submitted.
This speaks exactly to the foundation of my campaign. If we don't start measuring the performance and setting goals of more services then how can we determine if certain initiatives are a success or failure? In my professional life I'm held accountable at every turn both financially and technically when working on projects. This allows me to adjust course and be agile if things aren't going well, or double-down if we are making positive progress. When it comes to budget-to-results, the Housing Action Plan released in May 2026 needs true short term goals assigned to it.
Baseline
I cannot find any baseline in the report to which the project housing numbers we need to build in the future was based on. While the plan calls out tracking the numbers — What are our goals? I promise that I would call on administration to provide a targeted outlook and build rate for the housing identified in this study. This means looking at the different waitlists and types of housing that have been built and we have a shortage of, and setting some annual goals for the different types of housing we need. This should be reviewed annually to see where the needle is moving and if certain types of housing build rates need to be adjusted.
Measurable target
This does not have to be complicated. As stated in the Chatham-Kent Strategic Action Plan, the waitlist for RGI is estimated at 6–10 years, so let's set some targets on if we'd like to see the wait time reduced or at least stabilized. Let do this by reporting out:
- the change in waitlists across people moving from homelessness into housing, and did they stay there
- the number of people awaiting affordable housing and geared-to-income units, and how that list changed
Again we need to establish what our goals are and not just be tracking data for the sake of tracking data. If you can't make actionable decisions on the data being tracked, then it's just noise.
Reporting deadline
A simple brief with the high-level status of the above measurables should be presented to council and the public every 6 months. An annual progress report determining whether we are hitting our goals, which have yet to be defined, should also be provided.
Responsible department
I believe this would fall to Chatham-Kent Housing Services to report out, but would require collaboration across other departments as well such as Engineering and Infrastructure Services.
The progress of this long term action plan should be communicated out through reports to council and accompanying documents should be readily available to the public if desired for further review.
Verification boundary
The response came from the candidate-confirmed campaign email in the directory. At Stinson’s request, CK Signals links the municipal Strategic Housing Action Plan as a separate public record. Its appended 2025 Housing Needs Assessment reports average RGI wait times of 6–10 years depending on unit size and location. His six-month and annual schedule is presented as submitted even though the invitation asked about quarterly reporting.
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