Temporary emergency response to current encampment crisis designed to provide basic needs, alleviate suffering and reduce community impacts.
London City Council today approved new funding to support the community’s emergency response to the current encampment crisis. While a system level encampment strategy will be created as part of the Health and Homelessness Whole of Community Response, City Council approved new funding that will support community organizations in establishing immediate short-term services to provide basic needs for individuals experiencing homelessness. The services are meant to decrease additional levels of desperation experienced by those living in encampments, which have been identified by frontline workers, and to help mitigate the effect on surrounding areas, by providing garbage facilities and hygiene stations.
“Everybody agrees we are in a crisis and everybody agrees the status quo is not an option. Marginalized Londoners, at minimum, deserve basic human rights including food, water, and sanitation -- that is something I fundamentally believe,” says Mayor John Morgan. “We’re working as fast as we can to finalize our permanent Whole of Community system response, but in the meantime, we simply cannot turn a blind eye to what’s happening to members of our community right now. That is what this action is meant to address, along with providing better supports to surrounding neighbourhoods.”
Council approved $100,000 to the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) and London Cares Homeless Response Services to execute on the encampment related work. A further $225,000 from the City’s reserve funds was approved to support this phase of the encampment response.
The service that will be established as part of this temporary solution are focused on providing roughly ninety (90) minutes of on-site services, seven days a week at each service location:
- Safe and clean drinking water
- Hygiene and sanitation facilities
- Resources and support to ensure fire safety
- Waste management and garbage collection systems
- Social supports and services
- Resources to support personal safety of residents
Increased encampment services are an emergency response designed to provide basic needs to those living in tents, which will benefit those individuals and the surrounding neighbourhoods.
“This is a necessary step in our response to the health and homelessness crisis,” says Kevin Dickins, the City’s Deputy City Manager of Social Health and Development. “They are time limited services designed to serve those who are already living unsheltered in the area and are a temporary crisis solution. The community is in parallel working on a strategy for hubs, which do not currently exist in London, and which will be purpose-designed physical spaces that can provide a range of services under one roof and where every interaction is an active and intentional effort to enable an individual’s next steps toward supportive housing.”
Background
As in many other regions, the City of London is experiencing a health and homelessness crisis and the challenges in the collective ability across sectors to provide timely and appropriate supports for individuals affected by the growing impacts of this crisis. Throughout 2022, Londoners from all sectors and backgrounds said clearly that something needed to change, to save lives, to better deliver healthcare and housing for marginalized Londoners experiencing homelessness, and to address the whole of community impacts of this crisis. There are many complex factors that have led to this crisis point, not the least of which is a dramatic increase in the volume and complexity of health and housing needs and the impacts on individuals experiencing homelessness. This crisis has also had a major impact on those that provide direct service, as well as mounting economic and health impacts to the entire community.
This call for change led to a series of Health and Homelessness Summits and the development of a Whole of Community System Response. The series of three Health and Homelessness Summits were held between November 09, 2022, and January 25, 2023, aimed at creating a coordinated system response.
The Health and Homelessness Summits brought together more than 200 individual leaders from all backgrounds and areas of expertise representing more than 70 local organizations from a range of sectors including community health and social services, institutional health care, business and economic development, land and housing development, staff from various levels of government. The work of the summits was to engage, listen and co-design a people-centered, housing centric system response that could be actioned and resourced quickly to meet the growing urgency and complexity of the health and housing needs of those who are marginalized and experiencing homelessness in London.
This whole of community system response will be implemented through a co-design process with the goal to immediately implement five 24/7 hub sites and 100 units of highly supportive housing this year.
What are hubs?
Hubs exist to help the highest acuity individuals move safely indoors, stabilize, access supports and become sustainably housed. That means that every interaction is an active and intentional effort to enable an individual’s next steps toward housing. While basic needs supports exist in a hub, hubs do not exist solely to provide basic needs. They are 24/7 safe spaces that include some transitional beds and a range of services and supports that can operate as an entry way into the housing system while ensuring an individual’s health and wellness needs are attended to. The Hubs will help people find the support they need all in one place, including the right type of housing for each individual, and assist the community in making the right referrals to service for those who need support (including everyone from loved ones and caregivers to business owners), via one central number to call.
Where will the hubs be located?
No specific locations for hubs have yet been identified. A community input process is currently underway to inform the formulation of a hub strategy, and location criteria.
What is the difference between hubs and encampment service locations?
Encampment service locations are daily services that are set-up for roughly 90 minutes per day as an emergency response designed to provide basic needs to those living in tents, which will benefit those individuals and the surrounding neighbourhoods. They are time limited services designed to serve those who are already living unsheltered in the area and are a temporary crisis solution. Hubs, which do not currently exist in London, are different and will be uniquely purpose-designed physical spaces that can provide a range of services under one roof and where every interaction is an active and intentional effort to enable an individual’s next steps toward supportive housing. The hubs plan will come to Council in July.
More information on the City’s health and homelessness response is available here.