London gets $75K, St. Thomas $4.1M from new encampment fund

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Amid a flurry of splashy pre-provincial election announcements, there’s one landing with a relative thud in London: the city’s miniscule share of $75 million in provincial funding to get people out of encampments and into housing. Reporter Jack Moulton takes a look at why London got the short end of the stick.

WHAT IS LONDON GETTING?

Queen’s Park has begun sending out new money it announced shortly before the holidays, a total of $75.5 million provincewide with the intention of getting people out of encampments and into housing, alongside changes that would crack down on repeated trespassing and public drug use.

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The funding is being distributed to 37 municipalities and First Nations, of which London’s share is $75,000, the second lowest sum of all recipients and the lowest in Southwestern Ontario.

WHY SO LITTLE?

The new funding isn’t being distributed on a per capita or population basis, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing says.

In an emailed statement to The London Free Press, a spokesperson for Minister Paul Calandra said allocations were based on “unique local needs and conditions,” including “regions with significant numbers of encampments and/or population sizes in encampments.”

“Regional differences were considered to ensure funding distribution and adjustments were made for regions with limited shelter capacity or other constraints,” said Emma Testani, the minister’s press secretary.

WHAT’S THE GOAL?

The money is being sent to local bureaucrats who are required to report back on the number of people moved from encampments into housing, and to submit spending plans with the money.

Breaking up the $75.5 million total, $50 million is set aside to help affordable housing builds get over the finish line, and $25.5 million to expand shelter capacity.

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In the fall, Premier Doug Ford dared Ontario mayors to request the province invoke the notwithstanding clause of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in order to clear encampments, a way to bypass a court decision that bars cities from doing so unless they have suitable shelter space for people being displaced.

A group of mayors did exactly that, and while the province held off on invoking the clause, it brought in new funding of affordable housing projects and expanded shelter space explicitly tied to removing people from encampments.

CAN WE DO MUCH WITH THIS?

Sarah Campbell is the executive director of Ark Aid Street Mission, a local service and shelter provider for the city’s homeless population. She’s hoping the new money is a piece of more to come.

Though Campbell said she couldn’t speak to how municipal service managers could spend the money, in her agency’s own outreach and sheltering efforts, that kind of money could employ one worker or provide meals for two to three months. As for creating shelter, it could maybe open a handful of resting spaces, she said.

“In terms of practical, on-the-ground implementation, I don’t know that that’s meaningful,” she said. “Because $75,000 is not meaningful against the backdrop of a couple hundred Londoners” on the streets, Campbell said.

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Last week, London was forced to open an emergency warming centre to help support more than 320 homeless people still on the street during extreme cold, as shelters already operating at capacity filled emergency overflow.

WHAT WAS THE CITY’S ROLE?

Mayor Josh Morgan said only a piece of London’s application to the program was successful, adding a “small number” of beds to existing shelters. Two other requests, the recently announced tiny home village for homeless vets and a supportive housing project, didn’t score as well as other housing projects across the province, he said.

The program had a very limited window to apply, with some cities getting snubbed entirely, and given the need across Ontario, Morgan described the program as “oversubscribed.”

Though London didn’t get what it wanted from this fund, he pointed to the recently announced homelessness and addiction recovery treatment (HART) hub and the injection of $16 million for encampment response during four years from the federal government, and said the provincial election can serve as an opportunity for advocacy.

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“You can look at any individual investment and say, ‘I wish we would have got more,’ but we always have multiple irons in the fire on this sort of thing,” Morgan said. “I don’t think that advocacy in London or anywhere else across this province is going to end.”

SOUTHWESTERN ONTARIO FUNDING

(Figures from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing about allocations from a $75 million fund to build affordable housing and expand shelter spaces to get people out of encampments)

• Region of Waterloo: $5.9 million
• St. Thomas: $4.1 million
• Hamilton: $3.4 million
• Simcoe County: $3 million
• Lambton County: $2.9 million
• Norfolk County: $2.3 million
• Brantford: $865,398
• Windsor: $742,000
• Oxford County: $702,500
• Stratford: $542,473
• Chatham-Kent: $282,800
• London: $75,000

jmoulton@postmedia.com

@JackAtLFPress

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