London's homeless winter response was well used but need has doubled, says city hall report

A report to London city council says the number of people living on the streets doubled this winter even as relief workers intensified their cold weather outreach program to meet the increased demand. 

The report, titled "2022-2023 Winter Response Program Outcome," is set to be received by city council on May 24. It outlines what services were used by people living on the margins of society during the city's frigid winter months, between Dec. 1, 2022, and Mar. 31, 2023. 

The program was built on the city's existing homelessness response and provided another 155 shelter spaces during the day, 143 overnight spaces and up to 56 spaces during the the coldest nights of the year. 

The report said the intensified winter relief was paid for through a one-time $5 million subsidy from the provincial government's COVID-19 response during the pandemic — raising questions about where city hall will find the money to support a larger and "more complex" population of homeless people that has effectively doubled, the report said, from under 1,000 to just over 2,000. 

Report says COVID-19 pandemic compounded inequality

"The pandemic wasn't great for anybody," said Kevin Dickins, the city's deputy manager of social health and development and the official whose department wrote the report. "Every organization has seen a large increase in people reaching out, calling in who are experiencing homelessness for the very first time."

Dickins said the city's relief agencies responded in kind, finding ways to reach more people at a time when few of them had extra capacity.

"None of this happens without these organizations at a time when they had very little, if any, capacity to even think about scaling up," he said, noting agencies found new ways to provide basic needs such as showers and laundry while seeing the majority of spaces provided by the winter relief program consistently see occupancy rates in the 1990s with few exceptions. 

"It paid dividends and we couldn't be more humbled by it." 

It wasn't all roses though, with the expansion of new relief services for the city's homeless came new conflict with neighbours, borne mostly by the impossible conditions homeless people sometimes face. 

Increasing 'desperation' on the streets has led to conflict

"What we're also noticing is the increased desperation on the street," said Anne Armstrong, executive director of London Cares homeless response services, one of the lead agencies involved in the intensified winter outreach program.

She said the pandemic has compounded inequality for those living on the street, making their situation feel impossible to deal with.

"It's harder to access a bathroom. Food security is harder," she said. "A lot more services moved more to online during the pandemic and then have stayed that way. So it just becomes increasingly more difficult for folks to get their basic needs." 

That desperation, combined with an explosive growth in the number of people living on the streets, has led to increased friction, especially in neighbourhoods that aren't used to dealing with the crisis, Armstrong said. 

A prime example this winter was the expansion of outreach services to the First Baptist Church in the city's Richmond Row commercial area.

Merchants said the move dramatically changed the face of the neighbourhood — leading to the closure of a well-known bookstore in February, and with it, tempers flaring among store owners fed up with petty crime that many blame on the arrival of homeless people, often struggling with severely mentally illness. 

"I find it linked to the level of desperation," Armstrong said. "Put yourself in their shoes. You haven't had anything to eat for two days then you're being asked to move along, you're not welcome in certain areas and it's almost like it explodes because 'you want me to go? I can't go anywhere.'"