Funding standoff between province and city doomed House of Hope for homeless Londoners

An announced closure at a London supportive housing project is trudging along, with no intervention from city or higher levels of government.

On May 25, House of Hope announced that it will close in November, eliminating 48 supportive housing spaces for people who had previously been experiencing unsheltered homelessness.

London Cares’ decision to wind down the program at 362 Dundas St. was made after $1.37 million of provincial funding expired.

CTV News has learned the supportive housing program was caught in the middle of a disagreement between city hall and the provincial government over which level of government should fund its continuation.

Earlier this week, Elgin-Middlesex-London M.P.P. and Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Rob Flack explained the decision not to provide additional provincial funding to extend House of Hope’s operations.

Flack described Ontario’s Homelessness Prevention Program (HPP) as unique in Canada, providing provincial dollars each year to 47 municipal service managers (including London City Hall) who then have the responsibility to distribute funding to individual programs based on locally-determined priorities.

“House of Hope is a very important project, doing very important work. We’ve provided the money for [city hall] to prioritize that,” Flack said. “So I would say, respectfully, maybe ask Kevin Dickins [Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development] or the Mayor of London why it isn’t a priority? They did [provide] some funding, fair enough, but why can’t they fund more? We don’t set those priorities, [the] local community does.”

Mayor Josh Morgan tells CTV News, “The money that the province gives us, which we are very thankful for, is fully allocated. To put more money into House of Hope, beyond what we already are would mean we’d have to defund something else.”

Morgan added that London had previously allocated $2.7 million over two years for House of Hope.

Dickins pointed to other housing and homelessness programs that city hall is already funding with municipal dollars.

“We have needs that far outpace that (HPP) resourcing,” he explained. “That’s why you see this municipal council make incredible efforts to invest municipal dollars into interventions, through rent supplements to the tune of over $1 million each year, to the micro-modular shelters.”

Flack argues that London recently received a substantial increase in its provincial HSS funding to tackle homelessness.

“We provided London, after 2023 a 63 per cent increase,” he said. “And that funding [is] $21.8 million a year, for three years, plus $21.8 million this year.”

“We appreciate it,” acknowledges the mayor. “But it’s not going up, despite the fact that the [homelessness] challenges remain and the costs of doing this work increase year to year.”

This week council approved an update from staff about city hall’s financial investment portfolio that now totals about $1.8 billion, the vast majority is comprised of operating reserve funds.

However, Morgan doesn’t consider that a source of funding that could have been used to keep House of Hope operating.

“If we do not have money in reserve funds, whether that’s the development charges reserve fund, infrastructure gap, lifecycle maintenance, then when those bills come due, we’d have to raise taxes if we hadn’t put that money away,” the mayor explains.

“What I would say as the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, whether it’s development charges (or) whether it’s supportive housing dollars, sitting in the bank is not the best place for it to be,” Flack says about the size of city hall’s financial investment portfolio. “Let’s get it (putting) shovels in the ground like projects today and we’ll get better benefits than the money sitting in the bank.”

The mayor emphasizes House of Hope originally opened with the assistance of provincial funding from the Ministry of Health—not the Homelessness Prevention Program.

“The reason there is a gap with House of Hope funding is because the health care system, through LHSC (London Health Sciences Centre) decided to fund a portion of it outside of the regular funding envelope, outside HPP. When that money goes away, it does not mean we have more money in HPP to automatically prioritize this,” he explains.

Dickins says his department continues to look for ways to make a case to the Ministry of Health about supportive housing initiatives.

“We continue to work with Ontario (Ministry of) Health behind the scenes on trying to align a business case that matches what the provincial priority is, around a healthcare-based model for supportive housing,” he adds.

Flack recognizes London is generally doing a very good job, but he remains firm about where funding for House of Hope should have come from, “It’s tough to pick these priorities. It’s not easy. And for House of Hope, if they believe that it’s important, I support them in supporting that project themselves.”