Major blow to London's homeless population

London, Ont. -

The City of London has made major changes when it comes to the number of beds at homeless shelters.

After community consultation, city hall made the decision to move to smaller shelters, mandating 50 beds per facility.

Several shelters including the Men's Mission on York Street, Rotholme Family Shelter on Stanley Street and the Salvation Army Centre of Hope, were all made aware of the changes Tuesday morning.

“We know this will impact our clients and staffing,” said Jon DeActis, Executive Director at the Centre of Hope. "We just have to figure out how we will work this out to help the homeless in our community."

Peter Rozeluk is the Executive Director of Mission Services of London. He says they are in the same boat as the Centre of Hope with their Men’s Shelter on York Street and the Rotholme location on Stanley Street.

“It’s hard, it’s hard, we have a lot of individuals who need emergency shelter and that is the gateway to finding permanent housing,” says Rozeluk. “This is a new process, so we’re figuring it out as we go along.”

Changes take effect April 1, 2022.