As 2023 comes to an end, the mayor of London, Ont., reflected back on this past year’s biggest accomplishments, challenges and goals for 2024.
This year was Josh Morgan’s first full year as the mayor of London, after being elected in October 2022.
Morgan described 2023 as a “busy year” that saw the most progress on housing affordability and improving homelessness in the city.
“We made our commitment of 47,000 units to the province,” said Morgan. “We pulled together an action plan to move forward with the creation of those units. We’re the first city in all of Canada to receive Housing Accelerator Fund from the federal government.”
The mayor says the city is moving towards its goal of adding 300,000 new units.
As for homelessness, “we now not only have significant money being raised by the community, but we’re deploying that through a plan developed by the community and we’ve opened the first two hubs this year,” said Morgan.
“Within less than a 12-month period, (we’re) not only taking that plan to execution but getting it started (with) actual units created on the ground,” he continued.
Morgan says his biggest challenge this year was communicating with the public on the city’s homelessness plan.
“That’s been my biggest frustration,” he said. “I think people may not know that we have a plan for general homelessness in the city and we’re working towards that, but also a plan for the 400 to 600 people who have incredibly high needs in the city, who need wraparound service supports (and) cannot survive on their own. The cost of those different plans get all mixed up (and) people get confused and they make assumptions.”
Morgan says he and his colleagues will work towards better communication with the public in 2024 on what the city is doing and hopes to get feedback on their work.
Looking ahead into 2024 and beyond, London’s mayor says the city will need to get ahead of housing issues.
“We’re creating more permissions than we’ve ever had for housing units, but the building community is not bringing those units to fruition because of high interest rates, supply chain issues and cost of materials,” he explained. “We need to get ahead of that.”
– with files from 980 CFPL’s Devon Peacock
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