ANALYSIS: Why London has no winter homelessness plan beyond Dec. 31

Article content

City officials say they’ve got homeless Londoners living outside – more than 180 at last count – covered for the first part of winter.

But after Dec. 31, when the temperatures really begin to drop, what happens next is still up in the air.

Funding for 90 beds that have been used all this year, originally part of last year’s winter response, may or may not be extended. That’s up to city council.

Article content

London may or may not open a new homeless and addiction recovery and treatment (HART) hub that would add 60 to 100 permanent beds. That’s up to the province.

The city’s whole-of-community response system may or may not see London-developed homeless hubs with 30 or so beds each come on stream, at some point.

That’s up to city organizations and city hall.

Whatever happens, the traditional winter response to homelessness of years past – rapidly adding beds each fall that suddenly close in spring – appears to be finished.

“The demand for indoor spaces, and sheltering and permanent housing is up everywhere, all year long,” Ark Aid‘s executive director Sarah Campbell said.

But the winter responses of the past isn’t the solution anymore, she said.

“There isn’t a person in the system who would say we don’t need more spaces, but the kind of more that we need is permanently funded consistent spaces,” said Campbell, who has led winter responses for the past four years.

“We’ve been doing the expanding and subtracting of winter beds for many years and that was largely because of COVID. We need to stabilize what we’re doing and expand our services across our system,” she said.

Article content

Article content

Starting in 2020, as the number of Londoners living outside rose, city hall and organizations worked to increase the number of shelter beds and services available in winter.

That was in addition to shelters adding temporary space during cold weather alerts.

Each winter since saw a different version of a seasonal response, but that response always centred on additional shelter beds.

It appears there will be fewer beds created for a winter response this year.

Last winter, Ark Aid provided 120 winter beds in four locations, 90 beds in two locations it owned and about 40 overnight spaces in buildings owned by CMHA Thames Valley Addiction and Mental Health Services.

CMHA Thames Valley hasn’t received any requests from the city to open its locations for overnight spaces, a spokesperson said.

In any case, that agency’s overnight spaces last winter were staffed by Ark Aid, and Ark Aid is trying only to keep its 90 beds open, Campbelll said.

Article content

Asked about this year’s winter response, the city’s deputy manager Kevin Dickins pointed to Ark Aid’s request for further and more stable funding for its 90 beds.

Those beds were part of last year’s winter response. Twice this summer, Ark Aid received extensions in funding from council to keep them open until the end of the year.

The steadier funding made a huge difference to staffing and to residents, Campbell said.

“We added to the services of those spaces, such as more health care, more links to community services. We have had more than 50 people housed from our program,” she said.

Ark Aid has been able to train staff, rather than hire and let them go and rehire them as winter programs came and went, she said.

The organization is asking the city for $4.3 million annually to provide 30 beds at its 696 Dundas St. location and 60 beds at its Cronyn Warner site at 432 William St until March 2027.

Consistent funding is better than “asking for handouts every three, six, nine months,” Campbell said.

That idea of permanent funding for the shelters got lukewarm support among politicians when first floated in July, and has since drawn opposition from neighbours of the two shelters.

Article content

The proposal will be deliberated during budget discussions this fall, with final decisions to be made before Dec. 31, according to city hall.

“It helps nobody to put 90 people who are stable and supported out in the streets in December. That will not help our system in any way,” Campbell said.

Whatever happens to Ark Aid’s 90 beds, it’s still not last winter’s 120.

But there may be more permanent beds coming soon.

CMHA Thames Valley has applied for a provincial HART hub, which could provide 60 to 100 beds and a range of health care and social assistance. The province says the hubs would be operational this winter.

The province’s HART hubs are similar in many ways to the shelter/service centres envisioned in London’s health and homeless hubs and affordable housing plan.

Boosted by a $25 million private donation and created by dozens of organizations, that plan, called the whole-of-community response, has led to two hubs so far.

It’s not known when more hubs will open.

But about 100 affordable housing units with intensive supports, also part of the whole-of-community response, have opened for homeless Londoners.

Despite questions about when new beds will open – and the impact on winter demand – London’s shelters have always shown the flexibility to offer more spaces during extreme cold events, Campbell said.

City hall estimated there were 182 people living without shelter, including emergency shelters, as of Sept. 30.

Last fall, city hall estimated up to 300 people were facing a winter without shelter, though the number dropped to about 150 by January with short-term and permanent beds opening.

rrichmond@postmedia.com

Article content