Soon to expire municipal funding would close 120-bed homeless shelter and return people to tents
Municipal funding is running out for a temporary shelter program that serves homeless Londoners.
Ark Aid Street Mission began offering 120 overnight beds and about the same number of daytime spaces across four locations last December as the lead agency operating London’s Winter Response to Homelessness.
According to Executive Director Sarah Campbell, over 1,000 different people have accessed the services, with an average utilization rate of 115 per cent.
Thirty people have secured housing and 15 people returned to living arrangements with their families.
However, the funding to operate the winter shelter spaces is set to expire on May 31.
“It is a 100 per cent guarantee that people will be back out on the streets who have made great progress [from the] service and care,” Campbell told CTV News.
About 100 staff who were specially trained to work in the shelters will be laid off and Campbell said there is nowhere else to refer people needing basic services.
“This year it’s different. It’s different because there is nowhere for people,” she explained. “All of the services that have historically existed are not going to be existing this year without some funding.”
A man plays dominoes in a daytime drop-in space operated by Ark Aid Street Mission on May 3, 2024. (Daryl Newcombe/CTV News London)
Council has used one-time dollars left over from its other homelessness and housing programs to fund winter response beds, but The Ark said the community now needs ongoing funding for year-round basic services.
There are an estimated 2,000 Londoners experiencing homelessness, including 600 high-needs individuals.
“Six million dollars this year to deliver the services,” Campbell has calculated. “It takes away the guesswork. Are we doing something this year? What will we do? Where will we do it?”
Campbell said ramping up and winding down winter shelters each year is financially inefficient.
Hiring staff and bringing new locations up to building code standards has become an annual cost for the temporary shelter program.
She estimates a year-round service would save 25 per cent on a monthly basis.
Mayor Josh Morgan recently toured The Ark.
Morgan acknowledged that the May 31 deadline will require the agency to adjust the services it can provide, “I would anticipate that they would run a level of service within the community, and what that support or engagement with the city looks like, has not been decided yet,”
The mayor said London is nearing completion of a long-term Encampment Strategy for supporting the unhoused with basic supports.
However, he admitted the Encampment Strategy won’t be in place by May 31.
“There will be a period of time between the end of the Winter Response where services will contract and we won’t have the Encampment Strategy,” he said. “Nor will [the Encampment Strategy] be ramped up and into fruition because it still needs council approval.”
“This is going to put huge pressure in our police, on our by-law enforcement, waste management, Parks and Recreation. We will pay for it,” warned Campbell about the pending surge of people needing basic supports on June 1.
Most city councillors have recently toured Ark Aid Street Mission and its winter shelter spaces.
Tuesday’s meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee may be the last opportunity for a council committee to consider the funding request before May 31.
Campbell hopes a councillor will find a way to bring her funding request to the committee, “It is a crisis for our city and it is up to us as citizens to raise our voices for those who can’t be heard.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
![](https://www.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.6976926.1721883767!/httpImage/image.png_gen/derivatives/landscape_800/image.png)
DEVELOPING Alberta's request for federal assistance approved after fast-moving wildfire hit Jasper National Park: Trudeau
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on social media that Ottawa has approved Alberta's request for federal assistance after a fast-moving wildfire hit Jasper National Park and its townsite late Wednesday.
BREAKING Loblaw, George Weston to settle class action over bread price-fixing for $500 million
Loblaw Cos. Ltd. and its parent company George Weston Ltd. say they have agreed to pay $500-million to settle a class-action lawsuit regarding their involvement in an alleged bread price-fixing scheme.
EXCLUSIVE One address, 76 foreign currency dealers: Inside Canada's money service business 'clusters'
An IJF and CTV News investigation has found dozens of cases across Canada where multiple money services businesses (MSBs) are incorporated at the same address, sometimes without the knowledge or consent of the location's actual occupant. One money laundering expert calls it an 'abuse of the system.'
U.K. police officer suspended after video appears to show a man being kicked in head
A British police officer was suspended from all duties Thursday after a video was posted on social media that appeared to show an officer kicking and stamping on the head of a man lying on the floor of a terminal at Manchester Airport.
Barrie-Innisfil MPP 'blacked-out' and crashed car into window of child care centre
Staff at a Barrie child care centre say they are frustrated by what they call a local MPP's inadequate response after a car crashed through a window in one of the toddler rooms.
Norad intercepts Russian and Chinese bombers operating together near Alaska in apparent first
The North American Aerospace Defence Command (Norad) intercepted two Russian and two Chinese bombers flying near Alaska Wednesday in what appears to be the first time the two countries have been intercepted while operating together.
Biden explains why he ended re-election bid in Oval Office address
U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday delivered a solemn call to voters to defend the country's democracy as he laid out in an Oval Office address his decision to drop his bid for reelection and throw his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris.
Jasper mayor says alert system to be reviewed after message 'glitch'
More than 25,000 people have been displaced from Jasper National Park since wildfires started to threaten the picturesque corner of Alberta Rockies on Monday, but the mayor of its namesake municipality says not everyone received an evacuation alert when it was sent out.
Unclaimed bodies are piling up in Newfoundland. A funeral director blames the government
A funeral director in St. John's says the bodies piling up in freezers at Newfoundland and Labrador's largest hospital likely belong to people whose loved ones couldn't get enough government help to pay for a funeral.