St. Thomas shelter staying downtown, councillor’s motion to potentially relocate defeated

St. Thomas council has voted against taking the city's emergency shelter out of the downtown. CTV London’s Brent Lale explains.

In a walk around the block near Talbot Street with downtown business owner and city Coun. Earl Taylor, he pointed out some issues related to The Inn, St. Thomas’ emergency shelter.

“We’ve had to barricade our property in order to protect our property, because we’re two doors away from the emergency shelter right now,” Taylor told CTV News. “Around the corner, you’ll see people have had to put up fences, blocks that the city has installed to keep people from congregating, boarded up windows, and burned down buildings and theft from historical properties. It’s unfortunate.”

Taylor – who was appointed as a councillor in February – brought a motion to the August meeting Monday asking for staff to look for an alternative location for The Inn.

“If you look at our emergency shelter right now, it is basically landlocked,” said Taylor. “When you go out the door, you’re on to city property or on to private property. I was looking for a facility, maybe out of our downtown core so that our businesses could get back to work and do what they’re best at. A site that had some grass similar to what you and I have for our homes. Some grass area to be able to get out of this scorching sun, an area to get out of the winter’s cold and biting winds, etc. and a place to store their possessions and to feel safer.”

That motion was defeated 7-2 by council, with only Steve Peters supporting Taylor’s idea.

Taylor said that result is “extremely disappointing.”

A few councillors spoke on the topic during the meeting, many of them citing the high expense of making a new shelter with all the amenities needed and also requiring staff to spend time searching for a location.

“We’re not going to ignore the conversations we had last night (Monday) but let’s move forward and continue to improve our downtown,” said Mayor Joe Preston.

Preston said the rationale behind defeating the motion is he believes St. Thomas is further along in correcting homelessness than most communities and believes The Inn maybe “beyond the best before date” in the near future.

“We are somewhere around 100 on our by-names list,” said Preston. “Balaclava (Indwell project) under construction. I get to tour sometime shortly. That’s 78 housing units. We take 78 off a hundred, and you’re pretty good. Tiny Hope has 40 more units there which we’ll finish in the next year or year in a bit. Add 78 to 40 and you are well past. Eastwood has 85 heavily affordable units. We’re moving towards where we will need but a much smaller emergency shelter in our community today. It’s still extremely critical, but we now see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Taylor said nobody wants to reach zero per cent homelessness more than him. But disputes the mayor’s projections.

“When you see that we were at 75 [homeless] in 2021, reduced it to 56 in 2022, and now in March of 2025, we’re at 124 housefuls and 106 chronic homelessness people, and 24 per cent of the people that we do house come back into the homelessness situation. I’m an optimist, but I’m pessimistic about us being able to reach a zero per cent homelessness by the end of 2027.”

He said he was just looking for a better solution both those who use The Inn and the downtown business owners and property owners.