Solving London’s homelessness crisis has become one of the most prominent issues in the municipal election. One city council candidate is pitching the concept of an all-encompassing village with shelter, services, and supports. “Let’s get them a community that’s designed around them, specifically for them,” said Ward 3 hopeful Leroy Osbourne. His idea is for the city to develop a so-called mental health and wellness village. It’s a community with various housing streams, including micro-shelters and long-term housing with supports. They would tie-in with an onsite HART-hub a provincial abstinence based housing program. Osbourne’s village would also house an enterprise centre, thrift store, teaching kitchen and community garden. “I want a space where folks have dignity and compassion again without having the stigmatization of going through the struggles and day to day. We need buy-in from the city, from Londoners. And I say that this is a better way to make that buy-in happen,” he said. Sarah Campbell, the executive director of the Ark Aid Mission in London’s Old East Village, says she’s pleased to see homelessness being discussed in the election. “We’re in a place where I can see where these ideas come from. What we know is this, we need to be innovative as a community. We need to be cohesive as a community in order to get things done. And so, I look forward to seeing what other solutions can come,” she said. Long time housing activist and researcher Abe Oudshoorn likes the intent of the village idea, but says the model is inefficient. “It’s very difficult to do the resources to put together affordable housing and supportive housing. You need to find land. You need to find the money to build. And then you need to find the staff, the operations to keep that running. I don’t think we’ll ever see governments doing it. It’s a pretty inefficient way to do it,” said Oudshoorn. Also running for the ward 3 council seat are Peter Cuddy, Ben Durham, Harkirat Kaur, Riya Philip, and Zak Rahim.
