Summit on homelessness to establish citywide strategy in London

More than 60 local organizations, agencies, and business groups gathered in south London to collaborate on a community plan to address the escalating homelessness crisis.

The goal is to improve current practices and provide focus for future funding requests submitted to the provincial and federal governments.

“Tremendous energy and momentum in the room,” describes Scott Courtice, executive director of London InterCommunity Health Centre. “Even though things are really bad right now, we have everybody we need around the table to get to a better place.”

Participants included top executives and frontline workers in a bid to bring the widest possible perspective to the discussion.

The room included representation from local businesses, developers, agencies, government, and healthcare.

“Models that were really successful, the common thing among those is collaboration, so what we are trying to do here is build on that,” city manager Lynne Livingstone explains.

Collaboration hasn’t always been synonymous within the broad spectrum of summit participants.

In fact, a screen at the front of the room displayed the words “everyone is right…partially” when smaller group discussions began.

“There’s some huge hurdles ahead, but we are all willing to move in the same direction,” says Barbara Maly, executive director of Downtown London.

Having seen its emergency room increasingly treat Londoners experiencing homelessness, the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) committed to being part of a community-wide strategy.

“The hospital has made a decision that we will show up differently, and we will show up differently with the people that are part of a system of care, this ecosystem of care,” says LHSC’s corporate hospital administrative executive Brad Campbell.

“It’s not rocket science. There is not enough housing,” explains Courtice. “It’s the major gap. There’s not enough housing with the right levels of support for people to be successful.”

Livingston adds that another event is being scheduled to continue work on the local homelessness crisis.

“The next meeting in January is to say, if this is the system, what are our priorities?”