Why London has no winter homelessness plan beyond 31 December

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City officials say they have homeless Londoners living outside (more than 180 at last count) covered for the early part of winter.

But after December 31, when temperatures really start to drop, what happens next is still up in the air.

Funding for 90 beds that have been used throughout this year, which was originally part of last year’s winter response, may or may not be extended. That depends on the city council.

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London may or may not open a new Homelessness and Addiction Treatment and Recovery (HART) center that would add 60 to 100 permanent beds. This depends on the province.

The city’s community-wide response system may or may not see London’s developed homeless centers of around thirty beds each become operational at some point.

This depends on the municipal organizations and the City Council.

Whatever happens, the traditional winter response to homelessness of years past — quickly adding beds each fall that suddenly close in the spring — appears to be over.

“Demand for indoor spaces, shelter and permanent housing is increasing everywhere, all year round,” said Ark Aid Executive Director Sarah Campbell.

But the wintry responses of the past are no longer the answer, he said.

“There’s not one person in the system that says we don’t need more spaces, but the kind of thing we need more of is consistent, permanently funded spaces,” said Campbell, who has led Winter Response for the past four years.

“We’ve been doing the expansion and the rest of the winter beds for many years and that was largely because of COVID. We need to stabilize what we’re doing and expand our services in our system,” he said .

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From 2020, as the number of Londoners living outside increased, the council and organizations worked to increase the number of beds and services available in winter.

This was in addition to shelters that added temporary space during cold weather alerts.

Since then, each winter has seen a different version of a seasonal response, but that response has always focused on additional shelter beds.

It looks like fewer beds will be created this year for a winter response.

Last winter, Ark Aid provided 120 winter beds across four sites, 90 beds across two sites on its property and around 40 overnight spaces in buildings owned by CMHA Thames Valley Addiction and Mental Health Services.

CMHA Thames Valley has not received any requests from the city to open its locations for late-night spaces, a spokesman said.

In any case, that agency’s overnight spaces last winter were staffed by Ark Aid, and Ark Aid is just trying to keep its 90 beds open, Campbelll said.

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Asked about this year’s winter response, Deputy City Manager Kevin Dickins pointed to Ark Aid’s request for steadier and more stable funding for its 90 beds.

These beds were part of the response to last year’s winter. Twice this summer, Ark Aid received funding extensions from the council to keep them open until the end of the year.

More consistent funding made a big difference to staff and residents, Campbell said.

“We have added to the services of these spaces, such as more health care, more links to community services. We have had over 50 people stay from our program,” he said.

Ark Aid has been able to train staff, rather than hiring and letting them go and rehiring as winter programs came and went, he said.

The organization is asking the city for $4.3 million annually to provide 30 beds at its 696 Dundas St. location. and 60 beds at its Cronyn Warner site at 432 William St by March 2027.

Consistent funding is better than “asking for brochures every three, six or nine months,” Campbell said.

This idea of ​​permanent funding for the shelters got lukewarm support among politicians when it was first introduced in July, and has since drawn opposition from residents of the two shelters.

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The proposal will be deliberated during the budget debates this autumn, and the final decisions will be made before December 31, according to the City Council.

“It doesn’t help anyone to put 90 stable and supported people on the street in December. This is not going to help our system in any way,” Campbell said.

Whatever happens with Ark Aid’s 90 beds, it’s still not the 120 of last winter.

But soon there will be more permanent beds.

CMHA Thames Valley has applied for a provincial HART centre, which could provide 60 to 100 beds and a range of health and social care. The province says the centers would be operational this winter.

The province’s HART centers are similar in many ways to the shelter/services planned for London’s homeless and health centers and the affordable housing scheme.

Driven by a $25 million private donation and created by dozens of organizations, this plan, called a community-wide response, has so far resulted in two centers.

It is not known when more centers will open.

But around 100 units of intensively supported affordable housing, also part of the community-wide response, have opened up for homeless Londoners.

Despite questions about when new beds will open and the impact on winter demand, London shelters have always shown the flexibility to offer more spaces during extreme cold events, Campbell said.

The City Council estimates that as of September 30, there were 182 people living without shelter, including emergency shelters.

Last autumn, the council estimated that up to 300 people faced a winter without shelter, although the number dropped to around 150 in January with the opening of permanent and short-term beds.

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