The Acting Mayor of Goderich believes the most critical concerns in the town right now are housing and health care, with housing being perhaps the most urgent.
Myles Murdock said they've already taken steps to build more housing in the area, but he says municipalities aren't getting the level of support from the upper tiers of government.
“It's forcing the municipalities to take a more active role in developing or creating housing and obviously we need different types of housing, not just for seniors, but also for young families. So we need an assortment,” said Murdock
Murdock also pointed out there's been a lot of discussion around affordable housing versus attainable housing and he explains, attainable is more geared to income while affordable is eighty per cent of the market rate.
“In any case, we need a little bit of both and I think the way to achieve that is we have to either come up with an investment fund that the municipality works with developers and builders to build the type of housing that we need,” he said.
He says the environment and economic development would be secondary to housing and health care, but adds housing is also a huge factor in economic development and a lot of employers in the town are suffering right now because they can't attract employees if there's no place for them to live.
Murdock is running against Goderich councillor Matt Hoy for mayor.