London, Ont., city staff have proposed a change to London’s homelessness encampment strategy that would see the city provide basic needs to homeless encampments along the river.
The $414,000 proposal, entitled ‘Encampment Response,’ would roll out in three six-week phases, with the first phase targeting encampments along the Thames River.
The focus of these supply depots is to provide a “disaster relief” to the homeless encampments, according to Greg Nash, Director of Program Development & Complex Urban Health at London Intercommunity Health Centre.
Nash is also one of the co-chairs leading the efforts behind the Encampment Response.
“If it was a hurricane or flood or tornado, we would ensure that Londoners and people living in our community would have access to basic rights,” Nash explains.
“We’re taking a human rights approach to ensuring people have the things they’re entitled to.”
The basic rights the supply depots would cover are clean drinking water, fire safety, social supports, harm reduction, hygiene facilities, laundry services, and the overall safety and protection of encampment residents.
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The encampment response is in line with Canada’s national protocol for homeless encampments, which identifies certain principles to follow and specific individual human rights.
“The aim of our group is to decrease the desperation that we’re seeing within our streets by increasing individuals human rights,” Chantelle McDonald, Director of Service at London Cares and the other co-chair, explained.
“We’re aiming to keep individuals alive and reduce suffering on our streets while we wait for the Whole of Community Response.”
The proposed locations for the service depots are as follows: Ann Street Park (west of Talbot Street, south of Oxford Street), Cavendish Park (between Riverside Drive and Thames River, west of Wharncliffe Road), Watson Street Park (south of the river, east of Wellington Street) and Wellington Valley Park (between Nelson Street and the river).
According to the city staff report to the Community and Protective Services Committee, the first phase is focused on identifying and addressing immediate issues and ensuring the initial implementation goes smoothly.
Once that phase is complete, the second phase will focus on London’s urban core, launching four more depots that will utilize existing agency support locations.
Nash reiterates that the encampment strategy is a temporary measure while the supportive housing and community hubs that are part of the Whole of Community System Response are set-up.
“That’s going to take two or three years. It’s taken a long time to get here, and it’s going to take us a while to correct it. The encampment strategy is interim and temporary; we’re imagining that will last up to 24 months.”
The team plans on doing neighbourhood engagement sessions in the areas the depots will be located to try and understand what issues Londoners may have with the depots in order to mitigate them as much as possible.
“By alleviating some of that stress and suffering, our hope and plan is that it will stop some of the spill out that happens across our community and create a bit more safety for everybody.”
The proposed plan goes before city council on June 27.
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