Homeless crisis: Changes to shelter system stalled by cash crunch in London, Ont.

City hall’s ambitious plan to revamp the homeless shelter and outreach sector has been put on the back burner because of a lack of funding.

Instead, available funding will be used to simply maintain the status quo, 302 shelter beds.

Last September, civic administration released a Request for Proposals (RFP) that set new targets, capped shelters at 50 beds, and required providers to bid against each other for a municipal contract.

The RFP was later scrapped after shelters struggled to meet the requirements, and available funding fell short of projected costs.

Council’s Community and Protective Services (CAPS) Committee heard from Mission Services of London and The Salvation Army Centre of Hope why the city’s RFP failed.

“The RFP process brought out the good, bad, and the ugly,” explained Jon DeActis, Executive Director of the Centre of Hope. “It took many hours of work and at the same time shelter organizations were put in competition with each other.”

Mission Services of London’s Peter Rozeluk was equally blunt about the funding gap between the city’s goals and the available funding, “Shelter operating costs are rising faster than the city’s costs to fund them, similar to the disparity between rents and social payments.”

Salvation Army in London, Ont., on Feb. 1, 2022. (Daryl Newcombe/CTV London)

A less ambitious proposal was presented to the committee that would maintain the status quo, 302 beds.

For 2022-2023, seven one-year contracts totaling $9.89 million for the Housing Stability Bank, Outreach, and Emergency Shelter programs plus up to four optional one-year extensions with:

•  Men’s Mission Emergency Shelter
•  Salvation Army Centre of Hope Emergency Shelter
•  Rotholme Family Emergency Shelter
•  Unity Project Emergency Shelter
•  Youth Opportunities Emergency Shelter
•  London Cares Homeless Response Services Outreach Program
•  The Salvation Army Centre of Hope Housing Stabilty Bank Program

Most of the funding flows from the provincial and federal governments through city hall, but amounts have been frozen for the past two years, so an additional $800,000 must be contributed by the municipality.

Deputy City Manager of Social and Health Development Kevin Dickins told the CAPS Committee that there will always be a need for some emergency shelter spaces in the system, but civic administration will continue to try to shift focus towards more permanent housing solutions.

“This will be a very slow, methodical process, we won’t look to turn the entire system upside down,” Dickins explains.

The committee unanimously recommended approving the shelter contracts, noting that long-term funding solutions must be sought from senior levels of government.

“It seems to me that an increase in resources, for several years while the system is transforming is needed,” Councillor Jesse Helmer told colleagues on the committee.

The emergency shelter contracts will be considered by city council on Feb. 15.