Facing new challenges, city wants public input to shape its new housing and homeless plan

The city of London is asking for public input as officials begin to shape a plan that will guide the city's response to homelessness and housing for the next five years. 

This week an online survey to gather public feedback was posted on the city's website. 

There's also an online toolkit, intended to spark community conversations and return more feedback to the city.

There are also five community consultation sessions, one a week starting May 4. The sessions held at the Western Fair District's Carousel Room are theme-based and will feature a keynote speaker. A complete schedule is here. 

Sandara Datars Bere is the city's manager of housing, social services and Dearness Home. 

She sees a number of new themes that have emerged, or grown in importance, since the city last re-tooled its homeless and housing plan back in 2013. Much of it has to do with a city that is growing, and a stock of affordable housing that hasn't kept up with the need. 

"Housing supply, housing affordability those are going to be the focuses that we're going to hear from stakeholders," she said. "We're going to hear that there are not enough units and that people can't afford them. These sessions will be about what advice should be be given to deal with that." 

The key themes expected to shape the discussion include:

• Tightening housing supply - The vacancy rate in London-Middlesex for available rental units was 2.1 per cent in 2018. Rental housing at the lower end of the scale is simply becoming harder to find. 
   
• Not enough community housing - 4,780 people are currently on the wait list for community housing as of 2018. Also, only 18 per cent of people on the wait list for community housing in 2018 were housed. Datars Bere admits many on the list won't wind up in public housing, which offers rent geared to income. She says the city needs to look at other ways to manage the growing need that has those wait lists swelling. 
   
• Clients difficult to house and shelter - Datars Bere said there's a discussion underway among service providers about how best to help clients prone to shouting, confronting people and other erratic behaviour due to drug use or mental illness. "Some of their behaviours don't lend well to them being in the shelter system," she said. London has 320 emergency shelter beds available each night in adult and family emergency shelters, but Datars Bere said there's a need to provide a place for people to be during the day. 
   
• Outdoor encampments - The city has opted to extend its compassion-based approach to deal with people sleeping rough in outdoor encampments, but it costs staff resources. A decision made last month to move away from the "move along now" approach will cost the city $1.24 million, and that only extends the program to the end of the year. The camps aren't just downtown, but have also popped up along the Thames Valley Parkway and in Gibbons Park in north London. 

Information gathered during the input sessions will be compiled into a draft plan that should take shape by the end of summer. After that, it will go to council for approval. 

Creating a draft plan is a requirement from both the federal and provincial governments, because each contributes to London's housing programs. 

You can read more about the discussions and public sessions here.