Winter homelessness response plan underway as London approves $5M in funding

A partnership of multiple agencies helping those experiencing homelessness is getting $5 million from the City of London for a local winter response plan.

The plan takes effect immediately, said lead agency London Cares Homeless Response Services. 

"We're very grateful for the fast turnaround of the approval of the funding," said executive director Anne Armstrong. "And so all the various agencies - it's spread out among a number of agencies - are busy getting their implementation plan together right now."

The goal is to start opening services as soon as Dec. 1, said Armstrong. 

The collaboration includes London Cares, Unity Project, Atlohsa Family Healing Services, the Salvation Army Centre of Hope, Ark Aid Street Mission, Canadian Mental Health Association-Coffee House, Safe Space and 519 Pursuit. 

The group came together as a result of the resolution of a hunger strike drawing attention to homelessness that took place in the summer, said Armstrong, adding that it is the first time that the homelessness sector has come together in this way to work toward a broader response. 

How the funding will be used 

The $5 million will go toward opening almost 400 additional spaces for daily drop-in sheltering, including 138 overnight beds. An additional 56 spots will be available overnight during cold weather alerts. 

The spaces will spread among the partnering agencies, who are now working on negotiating their exact locations. 

"Ark Aid is going to do some drop-in spaces, Safe Space is going to do some overnight for women and non-binary people and London Cares is going to expand our resting space services," said Armstrong. 

A London Cares community hub on Queens Avenue is also expected to open its doors mid-to-late December, in addition to the winter response plan initiatives. It will host 75 people a day needing access to food, showers, laundry and bathrooms. 

Sarah Campbell, executive director of Ark Aid Street Mission, confirmed that services will continue to run out of First Baptist Church on Richmond Street now that the organization has been deemed zoning compliant. 

The mission will run 75 daytime spaces on rotation for 11 hours a day with the winter funding and use some newly constructed main floor space at its Dundas Street location as well. The mission is in conversations with other church congregations to operate other drop-in night spaces around the city. 

Community response will receive Indigenous cultural safety training and enhanced Indigenous housing-focused street outreach. 

"Based on the learnings and successes from last year's Indigenous-led winter response, this year, we are preparing for a similar, longer-term response based in land-based healing that prioritizes some of our most displaced relatives not able or willing to access traditional services," said Andrea Jibb, Atlohsa's director of community planning, in a statement. 

'We're certainly in a crisis' 

This year's winter response plan is coming together amid overlaying crises of the pandemic, an opioid poisoning crisis and a housing crisis.

London Cares has seen a 380 per cent increase in community calls for assistance so far this year. They are turning away 500 people a month from its current resting space service, which offers 10 beds, and seeing a 215 per cent increase in monthly interactions for encampments. 

"We're certainly in a crisis, that's for sure," said Armstrong. "Homelessness is a complex issue. No one agency or sector is going to solve it on their own. We all need to work together."