‘More deaths coming’ as city weakens winter homeless outreach: Advocates

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Londoners are going to die in greater numbers this winter because of city council’s one-two punch that’s cutting beds and outreach at the same time, homelessness leaders warn.

“Where are people going to go? To the morgue,” community care worker Dan Oudshoorn of Sanctuary London said Thursday. “There’s a deep feeling of horror on the front line, a feeling of outrage, devastation, despair, heartbreak. We can all just start naming off people who we are quite certain will die this winter.”

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His concerns were echoed by other city leaders working with homeless people.

“More deaths are coming,” Andrea Sereda, a family physician at London InterCommunity Health Centre, warned.

The city’s existing shelter beds have been full all year, and in the past week Sereda said she’s been unable to find placements for medically fragile people.

“We’ve had several severely medically ill patients this week, all who were sleeping rough, that I had to send out into the rainy and cold evenings. I had to do this after calling every single agency that offers overnight beds in this city and being told that every single bed was full.”

There are 396 shelter beds in London and each winter since 2020, city hall and organizations have added more beds to help those living outside. City hall estimates at least 335 Londoners live without shelter, many in tent encampments.

Last winter, the winter response added a combination of 120 beds and places for people to stay warm overnight.

Council agreed earlier this year to continue funding for about 90 of those beds operated by Ark Aid Street Mission for the summer and fall.

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At a budget committee meeting Thursday, councillors agreed to provide another $947,000 to fund 60 long-term beds at Ark Aid’s Cronyn-Warner Centre. Those beds generally aren’t available for night drop-ins.

The committee also granted $205,000 from a city reserve fund to cover services currently at Ark Aid’s Dundas Street location, which includes 30 drop-in beds. But a new rule about shelter bed locations, also made recently by council, stipulates those beds can’t continue at that location past Dec. 31.

Campbell said she’s “extremely grateful” city hall has directed federal dollars to Ark Aid to keep services running until about March.

“Certainly, the only thing that could make this winter worse would be adding 90 more people to the streets of London in January,” she said.

But those 90 beds that will stay open already are taken almost every night, Campbell said.

One recent cold night, Ark Aid turned away 67 people at its overnight, drop-in Dundas Street location, she said.

Campbell has helped in each of the past winter responses and figures that, with other changes in other organizations, London has about 60 fewer night-time spaces available this winter than last.

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“Where will people go? This is the crisis we are facing,” she said. “I’m very concerned about the people who remain outside and I don’t think that the general public is going to be satisfied with what they experience this winter. People will go to the lobbies of apartment buildings, stairwells, bank ATM spaces, doorways, business areas and the hospital. I think you’re going to see those numbers really skyrocket.”

At the same time an additional winter response has been dropped, council recently rejected a proposal to add more encampment depots and signalled opposition to the two existing ones.

The two existing depots provide food, water and garbage pickup and washroom use to encampment residents.

Councillors agreed to let the two depots continue to Feb. 28, with city staff studying if the service can be turned into a mobile operation.

“I find it extremely concerning that even though we have zero available winter beds, that we are also cutting back on the very, very basic life-saving services of encampment depots,” Sereda said. “That just adds more misery to people sleeping rough. Not only do they not have a bed, they don’t have access to the very basics required to sustain human life.”

Neither the depots nor winter beds are the proper, long-term solutions to homelessness that London needs, Oudshoorn said.

“Everybody says this over and over and over; people need housing that’s safe and affordable and supports as necessary,” he said.

Even so, “it seems as though we have to fight harder and harder to receive less and less help,” Oudshoorn said.

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