City council has finalized the first three locations and operators for London, Ont.’s, homeless hubs plan.
In a special meeting on Thursday, council gave the green light to proposals from the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Thames Valley (9-5), Atlohsa Family Healing Services (11-3) and Youth Opportunities Unlimited (YOU) (10-4).
The decision followed a majority vote by the strategic priorities and policy committee last week to approve all three locations.
“This is a milestone moment for our community and a testament to our unwavering dedication to addressing the health and homelessness crisis,” said Mayor Josh Morgan.
“This crisis is experienced by literally every community big and small across North America. When it comes to our challenges, London is not different, and we’re not remarkable. However, we must be remarkable, and we must be different in terms of our approach and our outcomes.
“I believe that’s exactly what’s happening right now.”
The first hub, managed by Atlosa, will be located at 550 Wellington Rd., near Parkwood Hospital, in providing “wrap-around services” for 10 respite beds and 18 transitional rooms.
Geared towards assisting youth in need, the YOU hub will be situated on two sites with the first at 800 Commissioners Rd. E., near Victoria Hospital. The site will offer services for six respite beds and nine transitional rooms. The second site is designed to provide accessible primary care and will open at Joan’s Place downtown once completed.
“YOU anticipates helping up to 60 youth annually, leaning on a wide range of services including shelter, life skills development, and a gamut of housing supports based on the individual needs of each participant,” city staff wrote in a statement.
Lastly, CMHA Thames Valley’s hub is focused on serving women and female-identifying individuals. The multi-site hub is planning to provide services for 10 respite beds at its first location at 556 Dundas St. by December.
Pending rezoning, a second site will provide an additional 20 transition rooms and will be located at the Lighthouse Inn, at 705 Fanshawe Park Rd. W., a controversial location that has sparked a lot of concerns from the community.
All three hub locations are set to provide 73 beds by mid-2024, according to city staff.
The hubs will primarily be funded by $10.4 million from the province, which has already been allocated to the city under the Homelessness Prevention Program, over two years.
City staff also said that a request will be made to the Fund for Change in the amount of $4.9 million to open as well as an additional $5.2 million to operate the hubs over the two years.
“The Hubs will deliver transformative wrap-around services that will help the most marginalized unsheltered individuals get inside, stay inside, and move towards stable housing,” said Kevin Dickins, deputy city manager of social and health development.
“There are 600 of those individuals in our city. The hubs will save lives, and, ultimately, address the more widespread community effects of this crisis.”
The approval marks the next step in the implementation of the Health and Homelessness Whole of Community Response that has been underway since November 2022, which was created by more than 200 people from about 70 organizations across the region.
At the hubs, 24-7 services will be available to those experiencing homelessness, with the goal of giving someone a bed while transitioning to more permanent housing. Future hubs will focus on the other priority groups of couples and medically complex individuals.
“This is about helping the most marginalized in our community,” Morgan said. “The way that people have come together, I don’t think I’ve ever seen in this community before.”
Deputy Mayor Shawn Lewis echoed similar sentiments on Thursday, commenting on the youth and women’s support to soon be provided by YOU and CMHA’s hubs.
Ward 12 Coun. Elizabeth Peloza also expressed her support towards the implementation of the three hubs, referencing her own personal experience with homelessness.
“I’ve also experienced homelessness as a child so I come with a different lens to this conversation,” she said, speaking to the public gallery present at Thursday’s meeting. “You probably would have been afraid of me back in the day living without a home on the back of a pickup truck and a camper.”
Her remakes followed a series of letters and emails containing input from community members, particularly those from neighbours expressing their concerns with the Lighthouse Inn hub location.
But some councillors also expressed opposition towards the proposed hub locations., including Coun. Corrine Rahman who reiterated her concerns with the controversial Lighthouse Inn hub.
“I believe we don’t have all the information in order to assess the intended consequences associated with this location,” she said. “The need for conversation with the community and the issues around the criteria, I know that that that those haven’t been fully fleshed out.”
The Ward 7 councillor read a letter from one of her constituents, saying that the approval of the Fanshawe Park Rd. location would result in residents being kicked out of the Inn and the closure of nearby small businesses.
In seeking more information, Ward 4 Coun. Susan Stevenson also tabled a motion to defer the vote of all four hubs until November.
“The truth can withhold scrutiny so let’s look at it, talk about it, and let’s all agree to move forward in 2024.”
But Ward 6 Coun. Sam Trosow argued against the referral, calling it a “slap in the face” towards the work city staff has already completed.
“Since the beginning of 2020, more than 200 unhoused Londoners have died,” he stressed. “That frames the exigency to move forward with this. Nothing’s going to change if we just delay this, our problems are not going to go away.”
“I don’t need more time to deliberate this as I think we have been deliberating on it for months already,” added Ward 11 Coun. Skylar Franke. “Nothing will be perfect, but these hubs are incredibly comprehensive and well thought out.”
The motion to defer the decision was denied by a vote of 10 – 4.
Going back to Morgan, he added that “there are many things that we can go through and say we could do differently, but ultimately what we have today is a chance to open spaces this year, and more in the spring.
“We have come together as a community to change people’s lives for the better,” he said.
Though the Lighthouse Inn location and the YOU hub on the Victoria Campus at LHSC are not set to open until May 2024, the YOU location on Richmond Street, the hub operated by Atlhosa on the campus of Parkwood Hospital, and the CMHA hub located on Dundas St. are scheduled to open this December.
As outlined in the city’s homelessness response plan, 12 more hubs, as well as 600 support housing units, are still set to be implemented, with the goal of opening the first 100 units and three to five hubs by the end of 2023.
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