London seems to have been caught flatfooted by this week’s bitterly cold temperatures and the demand for overnight spaces and warming centres where the homeless can find relief from the elements.
On Tuesday, a vote by city council almost led to a repeat of Monday night’s misery on London streets.
Prior to the council meeting, eight frontline agencies signed an open letter to council calling for overnight warming centres for homeless Londoners.
“It’s devastating,” explains Sarah Campbell of Ark Aid Street Mission, one of the letter’s co-signers, “Along with many colleagues in this work, we put forward an open letter that outlines just the terrible state that people are in [during] these sub-zero temperatures.”
The letter reads, “In the middle of the night our teams have no solutions except an offer of a blanket, supportive listening, and wellness checks until services resume in the morning.”
The eight agencies ask council to open an overnight warming centre with security and supports, or at least set up heavy insulated tents in a fenced area including a trailer with washrooms and support services.
Near the end of Tuesday’s council meeting, Councillor Sam Trosow asked about the city’s response to the Cold Weather Alert during the part of the agenda set aside for enquiries.
“Given the current [weather] conditions, is the provision of such services adequate?” Trosow asked.
City Manager Sandra Datars Bere explained that warming centres are operating at several Community Centres and Libraries—but they are not open overnight.
Forty-four additional overnight beds were opened Monday night, but the city manager also seemed to acknowledge the open letter that states 320 people are currently living on the streets.
“I can’t really respond to whether that’s sufficient or enough, I do know that there is information in this community that suggests that we should be providing more services,” she explained. “We’ll continue to work with those organizations to determine what supports they would like us to provide within the existing system of service they have currently.”
That’s when Trosow attempted to follow up his enquiry with a motion related to the warming centres.
According to council’s procedural by-law, Trosow first needed a two-thirds majority of council to support hearing his motion by granting “leave.”
Instead, by a vote of 7 to 7, council decided not to even hear the motion Trosow intended to bring forward for debate.
The decision effectively ended any further discussion of overnight Warming Centres and the municipal response to the Cold Weather Alert.
After the meeting, Trosow was at a loss for words about the decision, “I’m… I’m beyond… I don’t know. Ask them. You ask (the council members who voted against leave) because the motion would not have required the funding of any particular warming center. It just would have required further discussion.”
Mayor Josh Morgan explained to CTV News why he didn’t support listening to Trosow’s motion, “I’ve consistently not voted for leave when colleagues don’t give us a heads-up about what they want to bring forward. It’s very easy to send an email to say, ‘I want to bring this motion forward’.”
“I took that council vote [to mean] we’re fine. We don’t need to make any changes,” explained Trosow.
Campbell was disappointed by council’s decision not to even hear Trosow’s motion, “We went 16 people over capacity last night, giving every space we could to people and still turning folks away. It’s untenable in these temperatures. Other organizations are going above and beyond. We really need some leadership and some help to create more, in what is really life threatening temperatures.”
After the council meeting, however, city hall began working on a plan to address the Cold Weather Alert.
It was decided that at 10:00 p.m. on Tuesday a temporary emergency warming centre would open at Carling Heights Optimist Community Centre (CHOCC) to provide additional shelter capacity during the extreme cold weather because demand for beds exceeded capacity at shelter agencies.
“Teams from across the City of London are pulling up their sleeves and working with service providers to offer additional temporary shelter during this extremely difficult weather. Our focus is keeping our most vulnerable community members safe,” said Mayor Josh Morgan.
All recreational programming has been cancelled at CHOCC while these emergency measures are in place, which is currently anticipated to be until Friday at noon.
The Middlesex-London Health Unit has extended its extreme cold weather warning until Thursday with cold temperatures expected to continue until that time.
Carling Heights Optimist Community Centre is located at 656 Elizabeth Street.
The facility will offer cots, blankets, food and beverages. The City of London is working with service providers to coordinate transportation as needed to CHOCC.
