‘Manufacturing of a crisis’: London councillor baffled by motion going to CPSC Monday

CTV London’s Brent Lale spoke with Coun. David Ferreira regarding his opinions on a motion to reallocate London Cares funds.

London’s downtown city Coun. David Ferreira was “stunned” to learn of a motion going to the Community and Protective Services Committee (CPSC) Monday.

“This motion is basically going to turn London’s homelessness crisis into a homelessness wasteland,” Ferreira told CTV News. “As far as I’m concerned, this is going to be the manufacturing of a crisis.”

Four London city councillors are proposing changes to get those ‘living rough’ indoors, and sooner.

“You don’t want to see anybody spending any length of time outside in this weather,” said Coun. Susan Stevenson, who signed the motion with councillors Jerry Pribil, Steve Lehman, and Deputy Mayor Shawn Lewis.

The four are calling for $1,896,768 in funding for contractor London Cares to be reallocated.

She said rather than having outreach workers deal directly with those on the street, councillors want to use the money to expand services at the community hub, 602 Queens Ave., from five to seven days per week with longer hours.

It would give people access to their basic needs, access to indoors space, washrooms, showers, and laundry, which everyone agrees is needed, both in this extreme cold and in any extreme heat situation in the summer,” Stevenson explained.

Ferreira sounded off to CTV about a proposal to remove the outreach program.

“That outreach is pretty much the first line of defense, the first point of contact that all Londoners have to provide any services that we need for our encampments and for people who are out on the street,” said Ferreira.

“They have hundreds of contacts a day. Taking that away means we have no outreach. Which means that when you make a call, no one’s going to answer. Moving that money into a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week model at 602 Queens (Ave.) doesn’t make sense because they don’t have the capacity for housing there. They’re not even zoned for housing there. They provide daily services and support and I’m just kind of lost for words on what the intent is?”

Ferreira believes this motion is a “setup to defund London Cares” because, “If they don’t meet the agreements with the Good Neighbour Clause they can be defunded and setting it up in a way that you see this motion doing, that will basically set it up for failure.”

Executive Director of London Cares Chris Moss sat speechless when learning of this motion going to CPSC.

“It seems like the entire agency is sort of on the block, so to speak, around our funding,” said a concerned Moss. “We need 24/7 spaces, and we’ve been advocating for that for almost a couple of years at 602 Queen’s (Ave.). It’s great to know that they want to fund that and get that going but the sad part is that they want to take that money from the outreach department. To me it creates a system wide burden that’s going to happen.”

She said the charity’s outreach team receives thousands of calls per month from people.

“From Byron, Hyde Park, from White Oaks, like every area of the city,” added Moss. “Our teams respond to wellness calls to overdose response to system navigation and people new to homelessness.”

She described getting a call from a 90-year-old woman last week saying she was new to homelessness.

“If she didn’t have that phone number to call, I don’t know who she would call. It’s really concerning to know that they want to pull that the system,” said Moss.

Moss believes removing the outreach program would put an additional strain on London police and would see more people need the emergency room in hospital.

Councillors call for Changes to Project Home program

The motion also calls for changes to the Project Home program, which costs $989,431 per year.

The councillors want to use the funding to bring high-acuity individuals into public housing units, such as 122 Baseline Rd. W.

“So, let’s focus on the people coming out of the HART-Hub, and the Quinton Warner House, and make sure they get housing, that there isn’t a gap in service,” said Stevenson.

Ferreira believes removing the funding for the London Cares stability program will “directly put people on the street.”

“That’s for people who are highly acute,” said Ferreira. “That’s for people who are housed right now and that stability services funding basically pays caseworkers that people require, which is the wraparound support portion of people who are housed. The way the city stipulates it right now is if you don’t have a case worker, you’re not eligible for rent subsidies or top ups or anything like that. People on OW (Ontario Works) and ODSP (Ontario Disability Support Program), there’s a huge gap between that income and how much the rent costs. If they don’t have a case worker, most likely they’re not going to be able to pay their rent within the first two months. The numbers that you’re going to see of people affected within the first couple months is in the hundreds.”

Moss says the housing stability team has about 90 people who are currently housed, including their veteran portfolio, “We would end up with all of the housed veterans that we have - we were the first city to reach zero veterans in our community - all of that would be sort of undone. It wouldn’t take long for people, once they don’t have the supports, to start to become disabled and possibly come back to the street again. Both are really terrible consequences that we would have to deal with as a community.”

The motion also directs Civic Administration to issue one-year contracts with an option to renew for an additional year and requires them to provide quarterly reports submitted by all service providers to CPSC committee.

“It is important that we do what we can within the scope of our municipal capacity and resources to help address this crisis,” the motion reads. “For now, that includes a willingness to make changes to what is currently provided. Changes that could improve the lives of those experiencing homelessness, impacted nearby neighbours and respond to the many Londoners who want a change to the current approach to this crisis.”

While Moss hopes this is a misunderstanding as to what London Cares actually provides to the community, Ferreira believes this motion is politically motivated.

“I’m just wondering what what’s the intent?” said Ferreira.

“This motion was brought last minute and they’re going to argue about process and people can’t speak to it. I fear that we’re not going to have the appropriate debate on this one because it’s kind of getting steamrolled through the political motivations here. What’s at top of mind for the writers of this letter who are trying to bring this through. It’s not in the best interest of the city. if we don’t stand up and say something now and stop this before you see this get traction and actually get approved. There’s no way that I’m going to allow any of these councillors to point the finger at someone else because they created this.”

-With files from CTV London’s Bryan Bicknell