Councillors balk at adding more homeless encampment depots

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London’s program to provide people who live in homeless encampments with food, water, garbage cleanup and portable washrooms is on shaky ground, after city councillors floated a lifeline until the end of February.

Councillors ultimately voted 10-5 at a meeting Tuesday of city council’s strategic priorities and policy committee to endorse letting depots as they exist continue to Feb. 28, beyond the current funding deadline of Dec. 31, with future funding to be determined, as city staff look at turning the service into a mobile operation.

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“We have to deal with the alleviation of human suffering, we can’t turn our back on it because its an inconvenient discussion,” Ward 6 Coun. Sam Trosow said.

Councillors Steve Lehman, Paul Van Meerbergen, Susan Stevenson, Shawn Lewis and Steven Hillier opposed the move, while all others were in support.

London’s service depots that provide basic needs to those living outside operate at a fixed location in Watson Park east of Wellington Road and south of the Thames River and a mobile location at Evergreen park, west of Wharncliffe Road South and south of the Thames.

The depots are funded by a surplus in a city program providing housing and housing supports.

Politicians asked city staff to come back with proposed new locations for service depots throughout the city because the existing service depots are concentrated inn the core.

Staff came back with nearly two dozen options still largely focused in the city’s east.

Based on 50- and 100-metre setbacks set by council, staff identified 14 and nine sites respectively where depots could be located. Within the 50-metre setback, 12 of the 14 sites were in wards 1, 2, 3, 4, and 14.

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Councillors initially voted 10-5 to take no action and let the existing depots close, citing concerns from residents and the focusing of social services in London’s east. 

“I need to really express the anger quite frankly that is coming out of my ward,” Ward 1 Coun. Hadleigh McAlister said. “The concentration that we saw in this report is quite frankly unacceptable . . . to the east more generally.”

Councillors Trosow, David Ferreira, Anna Hopkins, Corrine Rahman, and Skylar Franke voted against, while all others voted in favour.

Franke said the prospect of leaving people living outside without food, water, and washroom use in the middle of winter concerned her, prompting her to suggest less static services.

“I can appreciate the issues that are occurring . . . due to the service depots,” she said. “I cannot sit by and not provide water and food to people who have literally no alternative because we don’t have enough shelter beds.”

However, politicians argued that money directed toward homelessness should be directed to overnight shelter spaces to get encampment residents inside, rather than meeting their needs outside.

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City staff confirmed London has 306 shelter spaces that are consistently full, not including the 90 beds run by Ark Aid Street Mission for which the agency is seeking funding, and that of last count, 335 people were still living outside.

They also pointed out some agencies provide food to vulnerable people already.

“We are not going to help everyone, we are trying to do so many things at once,” Lewis said. “I would rather take the funding that we have, and devote it to things like the Ark’s beds at Cronyn-Warner” (a shelter at 432 William St. with 60 beds).

Echoing comments made during discussions of the city’s encampment strategy, of which service depots were a piece, Ferreira said the city was continuing to stray from expert advice.

“People are asking me why are things getting worse, because we’re making it worse,” he said. “We’re politically charged on those last-minute decisions, and we have put ourself in this situation.”

City staff warned that they would have to review guidelines for recently announced federal funding in order to fund depots beyond December, and that a mobile depot would likely lack washroom services.

The changes will still need to be approved at the next city council meeting on Nov. 26.

jmoulton@postmedia.com 

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