July 26, 2022, at 4:00 PM

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1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that Councillor S. Hillier disclosed a pecuniary interest in clause 5.1 of this Report, having to do with the Deferred Matters List, specifically item number 1 on the list, by indicating that his family hosts a five day event.

2.   Consent

Moved by E. Holder

Seconded by S. Hillier

That Items 2.1 to 2.5 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

2.1   1st Report of the Accessibility Community Advisory Committee

2022-06-23 ACAC Report

Moved by E. Holder

Seconded by S. Hillier

That the 1st Report of the Accessibility Community Advisory Committee, from its meeting held on June 23, 2022, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

2.2   1st Report of the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee

2022-07-07 AWCAC Report 1

Moved by E. Holder

Seconded by S. Hillier

That the 1st Report of the Animal Welfare Community Advisory Committee, from its meeting held on July 7, 2022, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

2.3   Designation of Community Emergency Management Coordinator

2022-07-26 SR Designation of Community Emergency Management Coordinator

Moved by E. Holder

Seconded by S. Hillier

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Enterprise Supports, the proposed by-law, as appended to the staff report dated July 26, 2022, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on August 2, 2022, to designate the Director, Emergency Management and Security Services as the Emergency Management Program Coordinator for The Corporation of the City of London, pursuant to subsection 10(1) of the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act. (2022-P03)

Motion Passed

2.4   Renaming of Bostwick Community Centre, YMCA and Library

2022-07-26 SR Renaming of Bostwick Community Centre YMCA and Library

Moved by E. Holder

Seconded by S. Hillier

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, the staff report, dated July 26, 2022, with respect to the Renaming of the Bostwick Community Centre, YMCA and Library, BE RECEIVED. (2022-R05B)

Motion Passed

2.5   Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care System Implementation

2022-07-26 SR Canada Wide Early Learning and Child Care System

Moved by E. Holder

Seconded by S. Hillier

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated July 26, 2022, related to the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care System Implementation:

a)    the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting, to be held on August 2, 2022, to:

i)    approve the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Funding Agreement Template, substantially in the form as appended to the above-noted by-law;

ii)    delegate the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, or written designate, the authority to execute Funding Agreements based on the above-noted Template;

iii)    delegate the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, or written designate, the authority to edit and amend the Attachments and add new Attachments to the Funding Agreement from time to time in accordance with Provincial Guidelines; and, 

iv)    the authority of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, or written designate, to act under the above-noted by-law, is subject to the following:

A)    such actions are consistent with the requirements contained in the above-noted Funding Agreement;

B)    such actions are in accordance with all applicable legislation;

C)    such actions do not require additional funding or are provided for in the City’s current budget; and,

D)    such actions do not increase in the indebtedness or liabilities of The Corporation of the City of London; and,

b)    the above-noted staff report BE RECEIVED. (2022-S07)

Motion Passed

2.6   Single Source Award Recommendation for Housing Identification Program Expansion and Portable Housing Benefits Program (SS-2022-061)

2022-07-26 SR Single Source Rec for Housing Identification Program

Moved by M. Hamou

Seconded by E. Holder

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated July 26, 2022, related to the Single Source Award Recommendation for Housing Identification Program Expansion and Portable Housing Benefits Program (SS-2022-061):

a)    the single source procurement BE APPROVED to administer the Housing Identification Program, at the estimated cost of $800,000 (excluding HST) for the period of September 1, 2022, to March 31, 2023, with the opportunity to extend for four (4) additional one (1) year terms to a maximum cost of 1,000,000, as per The Corporation of the City of London Procurement Policy Section 14.4 d) and e), to St. Leonard’s Community Services.

b)    a single source procurement BE APPROVED to administer Housing Allowances, at the estimated cost of $1,084,000 (excluding HST) for the period of September 1, 2022, to March 31, 2023, with the opportunity to extend to four (4) additional one (1) year terms as per the Corporation of the City of London Procurement Policy Section 14.4 d) and e), to St. Leonard’s Community Services.

c)    a single source procurement BE APPROVED to administer portable benefits, at the estimated cost of $720,000 (excluding HST) for the period of September 1, 2022, to March 31, 2023, with the opportunity to extend to four (4) additional one (1) year terms subject to budget approval; it being noted that the program, subject to budget business case approval, will increase each year by $720,000 to a maximum yearly budget of $3,600,000 in 2027;

d)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all administrative acts which are necessary in relation to this project; and,

e)    the approval given, herein, BE CONDITIONAL upon the Corporation entering into a Purchase of Service Agreements with St. Leonard’s Community Services.  (2022-S11)

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

2.7   Homeless Prevention Head Lease Pilot Program Update

2022-07-26 SR Homeless Prevention Head Lease Pilot Program Update

Moved by M. Hamou

Seconded by J. Helmer

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, the staff report, dated July 26, 2022, with respect to a Homeless Prevention Head Lease Pilot Program Update, BE RECEIVED. (2022-S14)

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

3.   Scheduled Items

None.

4.   Items for Direction

4.1   Fireworks in the City of London

Moved by E. Holder

Seconded by M. Hamou

That the verbal delegations and the communications, as appended to the Agenda, from B. Amendola and D. Ronson, with respect to Fireworks in the City of London, BE RECEIVED. (2022-P09)

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Additional Votes:

Moved by M. Hamou

Seconded by E. Holder

Motion to approve the delegation requests from B. Amendola and D. Ronson, with respect to Fireworks in the City of London, to be heard at this meeting.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

4.2   REQUEST FOR DELEGATION STATUS - D. Ronson - Signage Containing Graphic Images of Alleged Aborted Fetuses

2022-07-26 Sub. Signage By-law - D. Ronson

Moved by M. Hamou

Seconded by J. Helmer

The Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back to a future meeting of the Community and Protective Services Committee with respect to potential changes that could be made to the Sign By-law related to the prohibition of the display of graphic images in public; it being noted that the verbal delegation and communication, as appended to the Agenda, from D. Ronson, with respect to this matter, were received. (2022-P09)

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Additional Votes:

Moved by M. Hamou

Seconded by J. Helmer

Motion to approve the delegation request from D. Ronson, with respect to Signage Containing Graphic Images of Alleged Aborted Fetuses, to be heard at this meeting.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

4.3   Water for Dogs at the Pottersburg Dog Park

Moved by J. Helmer

Seconded by M. Hamou

That the following actions be taken with respect to the installation of a water supply for dogs at the Pottersburg Dog Park:

a)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back, in advance of the 2024-2027 multi year budget process, with respect to extending water services to parks, including dog parks in the City of London; and,

b)    the communications from Councillor M. van Holst, M. and L. Cammaert, R. Haslip and T. Lynn Gray, as appended to the Agenda and the Added Agenda, as well as the verbal delegation from R. Haslip, with respect to this matter, BE RECEIVED. (2022-R04)

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Additional Votes:

Moved by E. Holder

Seconded by S. Hillier

Motion to approve the delegation request from R. Haslip, with respect to Water for Dogs at the Pottersburg Dog Park, to be heard at this meeting.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

4.4   Councillor M. van Holst - Homelessness vs. Camping and Transitional Housing

2022-07-26 Sub. Homelessness vs Camping and Transitional Housing

Moved by E. Holder

Seconded by M. Hamou

That the communications from Councillor M. van Holst and G. Turner, as appended to the Agenda and the Added Agenda, with respect to Homelessness vs. Camping and Transitional Housing, BE RECEIVED. (2022-S14)

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Additional Votes:

Moved by M. Hamou

Seconded by J. Helmer

Motion to approve the delegation request from G. Turner, with respect to Homelessness vs Camping and Transitional Housing, to be heard at this meeting.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

4.5   Councillor M. van Holst - Neighbourhood Decision Making Business Case

2022-07-26 Sub. Neighbourhood Decision Making Business Case - M. van Holst

Moved by J. Helmer

Seconded by S. Hillier

That the communication, dated July 17, 2022, from Councillor M. van Holst, with respect to a Neighbourhood Decision Making Expansion Business Case, BE RECEIVED. (2022-F12)

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

4.6   Request for Additional Funding from Vision SoHo Alliance for the Housing Development Project at the Old Victoria Hospital Lands

Moved by E. Holder

Seconded by J. Helmer

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated July 26, 2022, related to a Request for Additional Funding from Vision SoHo Alliance for the Housing Development Project at the Old Victoria Hospital Lands:

a)    the increased conditional grant of $13,876,000 ($34,690/unit) BE APPROVED to provide up to 400 affordable housing units in the proposed development, subject to the City completing a full review of acceptable proforma financial statements, confirmation of the other sources of project financing, closing of the Purchase and Sale Agreement between Vision SoHo Alliance and the City of London for the subject lands and development of suitable Contribution Agreements between the parties; it being noted that a conditional grant of $11,200,000 ($28,000/unit) was previously approved by Council;

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to develop Contribution Agreements with Vision SoHo Alliance members to be brought forward at a future date for Council approval; and,

c)    the financing for the conditional grant, set out in the Source of Financing, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE APPROVED. (2022-S11/DO2)

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

5.1   Deferred Matters List

CPSC DEFERRED MATTERS as at July 18, 2022

That the Deferred Matters List for the Community and Protective Services Committee, as at July 18, 2022, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

Voting Record:

Moved by S. Hillier

Seconded by M. Hamou

Motion to receive the Deferred Matters List for the Community and Protective Services Committee, as at July 18, 2022, with the exception of Item Number 1.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Moved by E. Holder

Seconded by M. Hamou

Motion to receive Item Number 1 on the Deferred Matters List for the Community and Protective Services Committee, as at July 18, 2022.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

6.   Confidential

Moved by S. Hillier

Seconded by M. Hamou

That the Community and Protective Services Committee convene In Closed Session for the purpose of considering the following:

6.1.    Personal Matters/Identifiable Individual

A matter pertaining to personal matters about an identifiable individual, including municipal or local board employees, with respect to the Awarding of the 2022 Queen Elizabeth Scholarships.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

The Community and Protective Services Committee convened In Closed Session from 6:37 PM to 6:43 PM.

7.   Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 6:45 PM.

Full Transcript

Transcript provided by Lillian Skinner’s London Council Archive. Note: This is an automated speech-to-text transcript and may contain errors. Speaker names are not identified.

View full transcript (3 hours, 1 minute)

All right, it is 401. And so I will call the meeting to order. It’s the ninth meeting of the Community and Protective Services Committee. I would like to begin by acknowledging that we are gathered today on the traditional lands of the Anishnabek, the Haudenosaunee, the Leni Peiwalk, and the Adawandran peoples.

We acknowledge all the treaties that are specific to this area, the two-row Wampum Belt Treaty of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Silver Covenant Chain, the Beaver Hunting Grounds of the Haudenosaunee Nanfan Treaty of 1701, the McKee Treaty of 1790, the London Township Treaty of 1796, the Hurontract Treaty of 1827 with the Anishnabek, and the Dish with One Spoon Covenant Wampum of the Anishnabek and Haudenosaunee. This land continues to be home to diverse indigenous peoples, First Nations, Métis, and Inuit, whom we recognize as contemporary stewards of the land and vital contributors to society. We hold all that is in the natural world in our highest esteem and give honor to the wonderment of all things within creation. We bring our minds together as one to share good words, thoughts, feelings, and sincerely send them out to each other into all parts of creation.

We are grateful for the natural gifts in our world, and we encourage everyone to be faithful to the natural laws of creation. The three indigenous nations that are neighbors to London are the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation, Oneida Nation of the Thames, and the Muncie Delaware Nation, who all continue to live as sovereign nations with individual and unique languages, cultures, and customs. This land acknowledgment is a first step towards reconciliation. It is the work of all citizens to step towards decolonizing practices and bringing our awareness into action.

We encourage everyone to be informed about the traditional lands, treaties, history, and cultures of the indigenous people local to their region. I will also note that the City of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for council, standing, or advisory committee meetings, and information upon request. To make a request for any city service, please contact accessibility@london.ca, or 516-661-2489, extension 2425. To make a request specific to this meeting, please contact cpsc@london.ca.

I will now look to committee members to see if there are any disclosures of conflict. I owe to you, Councillor Hillier. Yes, I need to recuse myself and declare a conflict in 5.1 that deferred matters list. File number one, special events, policies, and procedure manual, as my family puts on events in Victoria Park.

Thank you, Councillor. Any others? Seeing none, I’ll move on to the consent items. There are seven items on the consent list.

Would anybody like to pull any of those items? Deal with them separately. Councillor Hummoo. Thank you, Chair.

Can you please pull 2.6 and 2.7? 2.6, 2.7 pulled. That leaves 2.1 through to 2.5. Not seeing anybody else wanting to pull those.

So I’ll look for a mover and seconder for items 2.1 through to 2.5, moved by the mayor, seconded by Councillor Hillier. Any discussion on those matters? Councillor Hummoo, go ahead. Thank you.

I wanted to thank staff for this great report. And I had a couple of questions about the program. Through you, Ms. Chair, who are the organizations we’ll be working with, seven were mentioned in the report.

Sorry. Sorry, Councillor. Yes. We’re dealing with 2.1 through to 2.5.

I’m so sorry. Oh, that’s OK. We’ll come back to you on that. Do you have any comments or questions on the items that are on the consent that have not been pulled?

Seeing any? So I will call the vote on those items. Opposing the vote, the motion carries 6 to 0. Councillor Hummoo for item 2.6, the single source award recommendation for housing identification program, expansion, and portable housing benefits program.

Thank you. I guess I was a little bit too excited there. So back to 2.6 through you, Ms. Chair.

Who are the organizations that we will be working with? There were seven mentioned in the report. Is that for you, Mr. Dickens?

Yes, it is. Go ahead. Thank you. And through you, Chair, I appreciate the question.

I do have Mr. Cooper with me on this meeting today. And he’s happy to answer any further questions. But I can tell you off the top, the organizations that are engaged or are part of this are the street level women at risk, project home, youth opportunities unlimited, CMHA, Thames Valley, addictions, mental health.

Let me make sure I get their new name right. London Cares, Roth home, and at Losa. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other questions, Councillor? Sure, yes. Will this program that will be funded, is this a new program or does one currently exist? Mr.

Dickens? Thank you. I will pass this over to Mr. Cooper who can explain this program for the committee.

So through you, Chair, I will pass it to him. Thank you. OK, I’m not sure which Cooper. Oh, Mr.

Craig Cooper, go ahead. Thank you. And through the chair, I know it’s a bit confusing when I have a brother from another mother in Patrick Cooper. But I’m happy to answer the question asked.

So this current program in a small format is being administered by St. Leonard’s through project home. They currently administer our housing identification program, which is our rent supplement payment program and land with liaison program for our moderate and low support needs individuals and programs. So that’s our rapid housing program and our housing stability program.

So those are that agency supports, a number of agencies through those two programs. What we’ll be looking to do is bring this role or this function into the role and the purview of St. Leonard’s so that we can reduce administrative burden for those seven programs that all currently have existing housing finders, work through the landlord tenant issues as they currently sit, administer rent supplement payments, and work through some of the administration items that we’d like to bring under St. Leonard’s to reduce that burden.

So those organizations who support higher needs individuals can really focus on the case management aspect of their responsibilities. Thank you, Mr. Cooper. And follow up, Councillor, go ahead.

Yes, thank you, Chair. And through you, I wanted to thank you for that. I just wanted to know, will all the organizations be involved in this program? Or will it just be St.

Leonard’s that’ll take it on? I just want to know if there’s any sort of cooperation between everybody. Mr. Cooper, go ahead.

Yes, thank you and through the chair. I appreciate the question. So our sector works very closely together. There’s a lot of cooperation and collaboration already within our system.

This is really just looking to formalize that contractual obligation of contractual agreement with that organization. So all of our programs support are supported and work through a coordinated access system. So all referrals for individuals to those support programs, when vacancies are identified, are through the coordinated access system. All the programs work very closely together.

So we have programs that support Indigenous individuals, programs that support families, programs that support women fleeing violence, and programs that support individuals, part of our other community priority populations. So St. Leonard’s will be sort of the administrator of this program and working with all of those other programs, the seven that are mentioned in this report. But in addition to that, the number of programs that support individuals through a rapid housing program and our rent stability program.

We’re trying to sort of centralize so we have a consistent application of what a landlord liaison role would be around housing, finders, finding housing so that all of these programs are competing with each others for the same unit. We’re trying to reduce that administration. We know there’s other sectors and other areas that are also looking for units. And the competition, as we know, is quite fierce.

So this is intended to help reduce that burden for those organizations so they can focus on the case management, focus on supporting the individual into their housing stability journey, and let the payment of the rent, the viewing of the unit to ensure that it meets sort of minimum standards and to manage any sort of guest management or any kind of landlord liaison type issues are administered by that specific program so that the other programs can support the individual. Absolutely. Thank you so much for that, Mr. Cooper, that’s great.

I just know that there is a lot of staffing issues right now. So any kind of programs that can bring people together to be administered by one person, I know that takes a lot of burden off. So I appreciate the program and I wanna thank staff for this. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Any other comments or questions on this item? Councilor Humber, go ahead. Thank you.

And that’s for the chair. I think for Mr. Cooper, mightn’t see some of the advantages of kind of shift to this kind of a model. How is the change been received by the agencies who are currently receiving the funding and having to manage these various programs ‘cause they’re all smaller in scale and distributed to multiple different organizations right now.

Do they see this as a good change and in terms of the rollout how quickly do you think this will all be happening? Mr. Cooper. Thank you and through the chair.

I appreciate the question. We’ve been having ongoing discussions with organizations for the last 10 to 12 months, maybe even a bit longer with certain specific organizations. We recognize change is challenging and change is very difficult for a number of organizations as we start to work through the continuation of the need of our pandemic and the challenges that organizations are having at retaining staff and burnout and whatnot. So what the report is really focusing on is the transition.

And so we’re looking at a two year transition if it takes out long to try and work and align all of these resources into a singular organization. We recognize that’s gonna look different for every organization. So we’ve hope we’ve built in enough buffer to address any challenges or significant concerns that the agencies might feel as we kind of work through what the reality of some program changes might be for those organizations. We look at the street level loan at risk program.

That is a program that we aren’t looking at changing the housing finder role. Roth home family support program. That is another program. We’re not currently looking at changing the housing finder role because we know those programs support the specific populations and have a very unique dynamic in supporting those individuals that are experiencing homelessness.

So any changes to those programs will happen through the end of the transition. But organizations where we’re serving a similar population or serving, you know, having some administrative challenges with staff turnover. We’re hoping to onboard as quickly as we can. At LOSA is going to be our first program that we do transition.

They have recently started a housing first program with in the last year. We do need to get some supplements out the door to them to ensure that individuals who are identifying as indigenous are receiving similar housing supports as the administrative side of housing supports as some of the other programs. So that was the purpose of why we brought this report forward today so that we can ensure that we’re meeting the demands of our community. Council.

Okay, thank you. And we could imagine what it might look like for somebody who’s trying to access supports and get connected in with housing. Say their first point of contact is one of these agencies that is currently delivering the affordable benefits or housing allowance or something. How would I look for the person who’s looking to be signed up for portable benefits or is trying to find housing from their perspective?

How would things be different? Mr. Cooper. Thank you and appreciate the question.

So typically, as I mentioned previously are any referrals to these programs for our coordinated access system. So an individual have already connected with the city through to do an intake to ensure we have all of their the proper information that they might need to sign a lease. We would then refer to an organization based on their vacancy and the sort of right fit for the community priority for that program. Realistically, an individual deals with a specific support agency.

So that agency that is supporting them will continue on to support that individual and referrals will continue to be with those specific organizations. It’s really more the behind the scenes, the payment of the rents, the administration and working with the landlord, the ensuring that the units that are being brought into our system are safe, that they need minimum standards. If it licenses part of that requirement, then we deal with that. If there’s other challenges, we work through those with that organization to ensure that the units that are being brought on are safe.

The individual can then focus with the agency to complete their housing support plan, which will include items such as affordability, where the individual wants to live, how they can connect into support services, whether those be natural supports for family and friends or supports through a cross-sector response for those individuals. So that’s where really a lot of the workers seem right now takes a lot of time. And the case workers really need to focus on building those relationships, working with organizations and individuals who have high acuity, high support needs, versus sort of the administration of rent payments or trying to go out and find and compete with another organization for a unit. Thanks very much.

Any other, oh, Councilor Hillier, go ahead. Yes, thank you. This was a 19-month pilot program with 20 individuals and we had 16 house, we represented 80% success rate, correct? And I’m sorry, I’m just going a little bit further on this.

And it required a significant level of administrative support. Now, I’m just wondering, it says, recommending a second year pilot of 25 units. And I’m wondering, we’ve already had a pilot of 20 units. Should we be increasing that to maybe 50?

Are you on the right report? Councilor, I’m not sure, are you on the right report? We’re talking about a single source award awarding the coordinating and administrative services to St. Leonard’s.

I think you might be talking about the next one, which is 2.7. Sorry, I’m reading my head lease. It’s a Friday or something in all of our minds, that’s okay, don’t worry about it, Councilor. Are there any other questions about 2.6?

Can I get a mover and a seconder? Moved by Councilor Hamou, seconded by the Mayor. I’ll ask one more time. If there are any other comments or questions, I just want to say from the chair before we vote that I too am really happy to see this coming forward.

If we can coordinate the administrative tasks and have a central sort of system for those and allow the caseworkers from the individual organizations to continue with that direct contact and direct support to the clients that they serve, I think that can give us the efficiencies without taking away that human aspect of all of this. So I also am very grateful to staff for bringing this forward. And if there’s nothing else, I’ll call the vote. Closing the vote, the motion carries six to zero.

So next up is 2.7, the homeless prevention head lease pilot program update. And I’m going to go to Councilor Hamou who pulled that. Thank you very much, Chair. Again, I wanted to thank staff for this report.

And I have a couple of questions about the landlords and the landlords that participate, how are they recruited and are more landlords would they participate if asked? I just want to know what, how this works. Mr. Dickens, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair, and through you, I will start the response to these questions. And again, I have Mr. Craig Cooper with us from his department who oversaw they had these pilot, but the landlords were recruited to participate in this pilot on the outset through an expression of interest out to the broad community. Committee may remember we had some very slow uptake originally.

So we did move to a bit of a social media campaign and reach out thanks to our support staff at the city of London. And then we circled back with some new interested parties and new interested landlords. So we were able to onboard those that had demonstrated an expression of interest to participate. Landlords just building on that who identified that they had a unit were then vetted to make sure that the affordability of the units aligned with what the pilot project would be able to afford.

We want to maximize the amount of dollars available to us in terms of the number of units we could secure in this pilot. We also want to make sure that the units being presented were safe, appropriate, the size that was required was made available for those that are participating in the pilot program. And ultimately to make sure that the landlord was willing to sign a lease agreement with the city. Of course, if you were to expand, if I have a feeling that question might be coming, if you were to expand the pilot program to more landlords, there are some limitations to this.

One potentially could be whether there’s an uptake from more landlords to provide more units. We would hope that there would be. But also the administrative requirements, the staffing side of things to be able to do that. Building on that, the more landlords you add to this program, pilot or otherwise, you start to then draw down on your available funds for any subsidies that would be required, any supplements, any damages that occur during the pilot program.

So as part of this, the city was making available funds for any damages that were caused to the landlord’s units, as well as any of the administrative oversight costs. So the more landlords you add, the more supplements you’re going to need to make those units affordable, should there be any damages to them, you would be also paying for those over the number of units that you have, as well as the more you add, the more administrative power you need to oversee them. So hopefully that answered the councilor’s question. If not, Craig and I would be happy to try again.

And anything further? Yeah, thanks. So is the, I guess the limitation to expand this program would be it’s not the lack of landlords, but the lack of people to administer the program. Is that what I’m hearing, Mr.

Dickens? So it’s both, for sure. But yes, the administrative power that it took to oversee this pilot was fairly consuming. That’s why we’re recommending, there are other agencies in the community that have actually been doing some head lease programming as well.

And they’ve been quite good at it as well. Sorry to repeat myself. But those community organizations that have been administering a head lease program, we would be looking to do a request for proposals to seek a lead agency to oversee the expansion of a head lease pilot. So that the city can still provide the supplements, it still provides some of the financial resourcing, but those that already built the administrative capabilities would be able to oversee the program from here.

Councillor Homan? That’s it for the landlord questions. I wanted to talk about participants. Did you wanna answer that now?

Or did, so actually I’ll just ask it. How long are, like, how long do we track participants of these programs? Is there anything beyond a year, Mr. Dickens?

Thank you and through you, Chair. The answer is yes, longer than a year, but I’m gonna actually pass it over to Craig who can speak more detail to it. Mr. Coop.

Thank you and through the chair, I appreciate the question being asked. The original pilot had run for just over 18 months, so we do have information and data for those individuals. As the pilot went down, as mentioned, 16 of those individuals were able to sign their own leases. We will continue because they are connected with support agencies to ensure and work with that individual to maintain their housing stability.

Generally, once somebody stabilizes to a point where they no longer need the support agency’s services, they would then be exited from the program. And in many cases, unless we’re providing a provincial supplement, we would cease to sort of track that individual, but we would know that should they access any other of our resources through any of our other programs and our tracking of individuals for a HIFAS database and how individuals sort of navigate the homeless sector services system. We would be able to then support an individual in their additional needs. But for the program specifically, it’s as long as they’re connected to an organization to support them in their housing stability, that’s as long as we’ll be involved in supporting that individual.

Councilor? Thank you, Chair, that’s all for me. Thank you. Councilor Hillier, do you have questions?

Go ahead. Well, he pretty much read my wine for the first one, so that’s pretty much good. (laughs) I’m just wondering, do we track the percentages of people accessing our services from other communities? Like when people apply, do we actually understand, know what those numbers are?

Either Mr. Dickens or Mr. Cooper? Mr.

Cooper? Thank you, and through the Chair, I appreciate the question. So our system really focuses on a prevention and diversion process when a new individual to experiencing homelessness from London or a surrounding community, perhaps, as they want to maybe come to London. We do a standard triage with that individual or those individuals to ensure that we understand their needs, to ensure that they are wanting to move to London and come to this community for a specific purpose or a specific need.

Generally, we are able to divert people back to their home communities with some connections to support services there or tertiary or natural supports with family. We never send an individual back to community without a plan in place. The percentages wise, they’re very small. At this point, I would suggest that for our coordinated access, homeless prevention-specific services, the number is less than 2%.

I would argue we can get a specific number should the Council wish it at a later date. But from that perspective, it is very small. When we look at about 1,800 individuals or 1,850 individuals experiencing homelessness in the city of London. For our social housing programs or the community housing weightless programs, individuals who are eligible can apply across from across the province, actually across the world, around the world.

So there might be a little bit higher of a percentage there. I don’t have the exact percentage of individuals outside of our community applying for our community housing. But I can have that for the Councilor at a later date if you should like. The 1% it doesn’t meant for the percentage accessing from outside of London.

That would be very interesting to know. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Are there any other questions?

I have a quick question about the future steps of procuring an external organization. Oh, sorry. I’ll go to you first, Councillor Van Halston. I’m sorry, Mr.

Chair, I did have you written down. Go ahead, have your mute button on, Councillor. Thank you. My first question, I see that the report says two people were returned to homelessness.

And I was wondering the reason for that. Was it because there were two units that went offline and we just didn’t have room for them? Or was that for another reason? Mr.

Cooper, go ahead. Yes, thank you, and I appreciate the question. Thank you, Madam Chair. The individuals were not able to sign leases on their own.

And given the program was what the pilot of the program was winding down, we did need individuals who could maintain the signing of a lease to continue on into the program. So two individuals were not able to do that. We’re not able to have a secure source of income. And we’re not able, unfortunately, to continue on in the program.

Councillor? Oh, thank you very much. So I think you’re suggesting that it’s because the lack of a source of income, are there other reasons why someone would not be able to sign a lease? Mr.

Cooper? Through you, Madam Chair, I appreciate the question. There’s a number of reasons why individuals choose not to engage or are not able to sign leases for these services. These two specific individuals were just unwilling and unable to sign a lease.

I can’t get in any more detail beyond that at this point, just to know that we did try, the goal of the program was to facilitate individuals to secure and maintain their own housing once they had the period of stability, which happened in this case. It’s just two individuals were not able to make that transition. And we did have to connect back with our homeless or shelter providing services. Councillor?

Yes, thank you. I was really there just looking for the generalities. Mr. Dickens described some problems with damages, or at least he said, in our program, we offer to repair the damages.

Can you tell us, asking staff through the chair, of course, what kind of damages we might have seen in the pilot? Mr. Cooper? Thank you.

And through the chair, I appreciate the question. I don’t have a direct, detailed accounting of all the damages, but we do know that there were a number of damages to a variety of units, holes in walls, doors, door damages, front main front door damages, damages to various items in the bathroom, sinks, and tubs, and toilets, things like that. Damages to floors, carpeting, those are the kind of the standard things that we saw. Councillor?

Thank you. I was looking at the split of the bedrooms. It looks like 14 bachelors, a one-bedroom, a two-bedroom, a three-bedroom, so just gauging the numbers there. Were there two families in this program?

Mr. Cooper. Thank you, and through the chair. I believe there were at least two families in the program.

I can look into that a little further. Should we want a better breakdown? I knew at the time at the starting of the pilot program, our biggest needs in our communities were for singles. Since the program has the pilot program, we do are seeing an increased need in our community for families in three- and four-bedroom type units.

So any work we do to procure additional services will include a broader range of units to address two, three, four-bedroom needs of families and couples. Councillor? Thank you, Madam Chair. One of the things that really excited me about the program was that five of the tenants secured permanent housing in the location they were at, and seems to me this is an opportunity because I know that tenants, our landlords are often wary of taking on a new tenant.

It’s difficult to remove someone. It’s hard to know if they’re going to be a good tenant or not. And here we have a program where the city more or less takes on the risk of those first months where you have an opportunity to see how good the fit is with a particular tenant. So it seems to me, if this could be expanded, we might be able to house more people.

For those landlords who are willing to— are open to someone who doesn’t have a stellar record of rental and want to help, but are a little uncertain. So perhaps I could have a staff just comment on that. Maybe that’s actually a different type of program or an extension of this. But how could something like that work?

And is that seen as worthwhile? Would you confirm what my hypothesis there, perhaps? Mr. Cooper.

Thank you. And through the chair, I’ll let him to answer the councilor’s question. I think the work that we undertook to procure the landlords and the administrative oversight of a number of their programs did lead to a number of positive outcomes. A number of landlords have indicated should the program continue or a different form of the program continue.

They are interested in continuing to provide units. We have built some good relationships there. I think what the idea of today’s report really is to focus on— so the city’s taken a pilot. We’ve done our due diligence and done our work there and have these outcomes.

We know certain community programs are already running headless programs. There’s a number of community agencies that they’re doing smaller headless programs. Gives them this opportunity to review and see if it’s better operated and better administered through a community agency and community organization versus the city. And I think a future report will address a few of the fundamental questions or any items you had identified there, Councillor.

But at this point, we’re looking for that direction to connect with our community agencies to see who are willing and able to do this program and then do a comparative analysis to see where a future longer term program might be better positioned. Councillor. OK, and my final comment, Madam Chair, is that I appreciate the process we’re going through here. We’ve done a pilot.

We’ve learned some important things and tweaked it well enough that we can turn it over to another agency. So there’s the value of doing a pilot for us in terms of moving things ahead for those looking for homes. So thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to ask questions and comments.

Thank you, Councillor. Are there any other questions or comments for this item? I do have a question. So under the next steps, which is in the report under key issues and considerations, and Mr.

Dickens, you spoke about this at some point, issuing an RFP to have an external organization administer this program. So knowing that this is coming back in a future report, and perhaps you don’t know yet and you’re still working on it, but how much of it will be determined by the city as part of the RFP? So this is the exact program that we want to be administered. Or will it be somewhat open-ended as part of the RFP where the potential providers pitching to staff their ideas for how they would run the program?

Not for you, yes, Mr. Cooper? Thank you, and through Madam Chair, I appreciate the question. I think I don’t have all the answers to that question.

I think a lot of what you have indicated is, we haven’t got a lot of good learnings from the program. We have some positives and some negatives that we know from the program. There’s different damages. Why did certain individuals weren’t successful versus others?

And we know, I guess I mentioned previously, another number of programs are already doing this in the city and has seemed to have a fairly successful rate that we hear anecdotally. And so I think part of the RFP will be when we define what the city’s procuring will be a bit of both of what you just indicated. It will set a set parameter around the specific outcomes we’re looking to, but I think we then need to remain as open as we can through that procurement process and working with our purchasing colleagues to ensure that we’re still supporting the intent of the purchasing policy and making sure that it’s a fair and transparent process. So don’t know if that really answers your question.

It is a consideration we, my team and I are sort of bouncing around and rec, as we still may need to do a bit more consultation before we release the formal parameters of the RFP, but we do want to ensure that we’re not restricting anybody from applying for the RFP and that we are going to be comparing apples to apples if we do a comparison of the two programs at a future date. No, that’s a good answer. Thank you, Mr. Cooper.

Of the 11, so the 18 people that stayed in London at the end of the program, 11 were permanently housed. How dependent, how much of that success would you attribute to the support programs that were also in place? So it was more than just the financial side and the city taking on the risk for the landlord, but also there were those support programs in place. Did they play a key role in ensuring the permanent housing of these individuals?

Thank you and Madam Chair and you appreciate the question. Individuals with high acuity needs, need supports. We heard that through our most recent housing stability action plan, we know people need help finding but also maintaining housing. And so it was a key contributor to those successes that there were individuals connected to housing support programs that completed housing assessments, worked with the individuals, worked as a sector.

And as a community, we had regular group meetings with those agencies that were participating in the program to work together, to address any concerns, challenges, find opportunities. And I think the program would not have been as I believe it’s successful, as successful as it was without those organizations and those agencies willing to come together during the pandemic to really support individuals with high, high support and acuity needs. The only improvement we would look to make on this is that multi-sectorial response and working with other sectors beyond housing, mental health, addiction, trauma, to ensure that individuals are prioritized appropriately for those sectors or reconnected back to those sectors so that they can have a multi-sectorial approach to ensure that their housing stability is maintained. Thank you, Mr.

Coven, before you go. On that same line in the future, RFP, I’m assuming that those supports would be a ability to continue to coordinate those supports since it is so key. That will be a key part of the RFP going forward. Yes, through you, Madam Chair, I appreciate that question.

It will be. We do need our sectors to collaborate, not only just within our housing stability system, but also with our mental health and addictions sectors, with our health sector, providers, development services, agencies that support people with trauma. We recognize that individuals experiencing homelessness run that gamut. Everybody has their own specific need.

And so I think it’s very key for those organizations to be able to come together and those supports to be available in the moment to support those individuals to that successful housing stability. Thank you very much. And thank you for this report. I think this one combined with the previous report and every report that comes to this committee, we’re not getting the same reports over and over again.

We’re not getting the same ideas over and over again. It’s a testament to the work that city staff are doing. This is a horrible and complex problem. Nobody should be living on the streets if they would prefer to live in stable and secure and safe housing, which the majority of people do want.

So I do want to thank city staff again for continuing whether it’s the housing for all strategy, whether it’s the head lease pilot program that they are now looking to expand, whether it’s the single source report that we just had, whether it is the program, many of the programs that city staff have done in the past, including the street level women at risk program, anybody that doesn’t know about that program should look into it, it is amazing as well. So there is a lot of work going on. None of this work could happen without the collaboration and cooperation and good work going on in the community, working directly with city staff, the London Homelessness Coalition, the all of sorts of the good agencies that do really good work here in London. And I know how connected city staff are with those agencies, again, like YOU, Thames Valley, the ones that have been listed today, and there are others as well.

So thank you to all of those agencies for continuing to do the work and continuing instead of pointing fingers and laying blame for the problem that no, that people aren’t doing enough, continuing to get your, roll your sleeves up, get your hands dirty, get in there and do the work that needs to be done because it is a grave and serious problem in the city of London. We all know, we all see the impacts of homelessness and lack of housing in the city of London and I just do appreciate the work that is being done knowing that there is so much more to do. I’m gonna end my comments there and look, one last time to see if there are any other comments or questions. I will also look for a mover and a seconder for this item.

Moved by Councillor Hamou and seconded by somebody, I’m assuming, seconded by Councillor Halmer, thank you. And I will call the question on that. Closing the vote, the motion carries, six to zero. So we have two, we’re at 4.1.

We have two requests for delegation by two individuals regarding fireworks in the city of London, sorry. One is Ms. Amandola and the other is Ms. Ronson.

I will look to committee to see if the committee would like to hear these delegations today and if that is the case, I would ask for a motion for both requests together. So we can do one vote for the request for delegation status. And I see Councillor Hamou is willing to move those delegation requests to hear the delegations today. Do I have a second for that?

Seconded by the mayor, thank you. So I will call the question. Closing the vote, the motion carries, six to zero. I will go in the order of the agenda, which gives us Becca Amandola first and I see you on the screen, Ms.

Amandola. The rules are fairly simple, as long as you’re respectful, you have five minutes to address the committee and you can start whenever you’re ready. Okay, thank you very much. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can. I needed to check my work computer has been done lately. So good day, I’m here to address the lack of action on calls I made to this committee in May of 2021 to educate the public on the harms of fireworks. I recognize the committee has changed over, but I just wanted to make that point, as well as to discuss important failings that need to be addressed regarding the research methods used and the information provided within the city’s current survey regarding the fireworks by law.

I have emailed all members meant to do this last night, just at it at the beginning of the committee, with the research that I have compiled with fellow activists, Diana Rodson, who was also here, as well as others who are participating in our group called Londoners for Quiet Fireworks. Please refer to that information as you listen to what I have to say. First, I need to share my incredible disappointment regarding the council’s decision to host a fireworks show for candidate. Rather than considering some of the alternatives that were exercised this year, such as the laser drone show down in Waterloo, or the laser show done right here in the Hyde Park area by the Hyde Park Business Improvement Association.

In May 2021, I shared information with this committee regarding the impacts of traditional fireworks on the environment and animals near the Thames River. I explained the fallout of toxins from the discharge of fireworks has been accumulating in the Thames River and flowing downstream to feed into the poorly functioning on the night of water treatment plant for many years. Yet despite these research-based explanations, the council spent $19,000 on a public show that inflicted these exact harms. I don’t know how much more blatant you could be about disregarding the drafted climate emergency action plan than with that decision.

How can we expect the average Londoner to respect anything done in the name of this climate emergency if the city is failing to do something as simple as look for less harmful alternatives to toxic fireworks? In response to the 2021 delegation, my first proposal for a full ban on all forms of fireworks sales and shows in the London area, I was promised an extensive education plan for the following fireworks season. But when that plan came to fruition, they focused completely on educating Londoners about the fireworks bylaw while ignoring my call to inform the public about the harms of traditional fireworks. When commenting on my 2021 delegation, one committee member argued that a ban would only be subverted by people driving outside the city to buy fireworks.

But this very same rebuttal was offered in resistance to the cosmetic pesticide ban that was successfully implemented in London and thus has massively reduced the toxins going into our soils every year. My ask is to ban fireworks on the very same front and implementing a ban would provide legal recourse to hold those accountable who have the money and privilege to drive outside of the city to get fireworks. As for the online survey entitled fireworks bylaw Pw11 review, within the survey, Londoners are asked if they would, if they know about the fireworks bylaw. But at no point are they asked whether they know about the environmental or human harms caused by fireworks.

Furthermore, there is only one question that directly asks if people are concerned about the harms caused. But if they aren’t told that there are harms existing, why should they have any reason for concern? Therefore, the survey on a whole seriously lacks credible data collection standards because it fails to provide adequate information to ensure participants are able to provide informed replies. By not sharing the evidence demonstrating harms of fireworks shows within the survey, participants are not provided enough information to accurately respond to the question about whether they have concerns with fireworks.

Even just adding the question about whether people are aware of any harm caused by fireworks could reflect whether the data collected is based on educated replies or simply anecdotal whims of what people like or dislike. It is a bad data collection method to expect accurate results on what Londoners want when participants aren’t provided with all of the relevant information required to provide an informed reply. You’re asking people if they like the prey sparkles, fireworks make in the sky without telling them that those sparkles are toxic. There’s not a good research method by any means.

And finally, in my last, I wanted to mention that the last question within the survey is misleading and does not allow participants to clearly reply in support of a full ban. This suggests that the survey is biased in favor of fireworks. Firework shows continuing in the future. 30 seconds.

So in conclusion, I’ve come before the committee this afternoon on behalf of Londoners for Fireworks to ask for the committee’s review that the committee review the survey titled Fireworks By-Love P11 review for bias, review it for bias and add information into the survey relating to the environmental and human harms mentioned in my research that I shared in email so that people can provide informed replies. Thank you very much. Perfect timing too, thank you so much. We’ll go now to Ms.

Ronson. Are you there Ms. Ronson? There you are.

Okay, there you are, thank you. Welcome, welcome to the committee. You have five minutes and whenever you’re ready. Thank you, good afternoon Chair Cassidy and committee members.

Thank you for permitting me to speak on the topic of fireworks today. Ms. Amondola and I are speaking on behalf of Londoners for Fireworks, a small grassroots organization with close to 100 members who are committed to seeing stronger regulations around the sale and detonation of fireworks. We understand and are grateful that the city will be reviewing its current fireworks by-law and holding a public participation meeting in the beginning of 2023.

We’re also grateful that city staff have already begun engaging Londoners via their survey and titled your thoughts on fireworks. In order for public engagement on fireworks to proceed without bias and for the city to do an informed review of the current by-law, we believe that a few items need to be addressed. First, we believe that the current public survey, your thoughts on fireworks needs to be reviewed for bias. Question nine asks if residents support a ban on fireworks.

This question is very black and white. The groups all types of fireworks together, including consumer and professional fireworks and does not allow people to support a ban that would distinguish between types of permitted and restricted fireworks. There is also no collection of demographic information. For example, it may be important to know how many people who self-identify as living with a disability are negatively impacted by fireworks.

By collecting demographic information, we may come to find that traditional fireworks have a negative impact on a large proportion of those living with PTSD or sensory disorders. Second, at their overview of the current fireworks by-law should be informed by research into what other cities around the world have done to regulate the sale and detonation of fireworks. As you know from the research detailed in the PDF that Ms. Emendall is submitted for the agenda, there are many places around the world and have implemented either partial or full bans on fireworks.

Some of the bans concern consumer fireworks. Some address both consumer and professional fireworks shows, while some only address the specific types of fireworks, for example, wood stick sparklers and other novelty type of fireworks such as cylindrical and cone fountains and ground spinners. Some places in Canada and the US have also implemented temporary firework bans on concerns over the potential to spark wildfires. With the current climate emergency and climate experts stating that extreme heat waves will be a part of the new normal for many parts of the world, we know that this will be a pressing issue for London and the engineers.

If city staff is going to reveal its parent fireworks by-law in 2023, it only makes sense to start researching some of the existing by-laws and find out how these municipalities, states and countries have been able to enforce fireworks bans. While researching existing bans, it would be helpful if city staff were also to begin research of alternative forms of light displays, such as drone and laser light shows. In conclusion, I come before the committee this afternoon on behalf of Londoners for quiet fireworks to ask that the committee undertake the following. Number one, direct city staff to examine the bias in the city’s your thoughts on fireworks survey and make the necessary revisions.

Number two, direct city staff to research alternative forms of light displays to traditional fireworks, for example, drones, laser and quiet fireworks. And number three, direct city staff to research existing bans on fireworks and how similar bans could be enacted and enforced in London. The timeline for these directives would be early 2023 before the anticipated public participation meeting. Thank you for your time and consideration of these requests.

Thank you very much, Ms. Ronson. Thank you to both of you for appearing before us today. I’m going to go to Ms.

Cheryl Smith to see if you’d like to make some comments. Thank you and through the chair, as mentioned, we are in the process of our current community engagement and rolling out our survey. We started this the beginning of July and it will continue until September 30th. At the same time, we are engaging in a municipal scan and we’re looking at what other cities are doing.

For example, do they allow fireworks and when? Have they banned fireworks? Do they allow alternatives such as laser, light show, silent fireworks? They’re looking at how they enforce it.

If they have a ban or they don’t, we’re looking at permitting and we’re also looking at the impact of fireworks. So as was mentioned previously, we’ll be coming to council in early 2023 with the results of the community engagement, with the results of our municipal scan and looking at best and promising practices around fireworks bylaws. And with that, we will bring a proposed bylaw to council. At such time, residents will be able to participate in a public participation meeting.

We’re hoping to have a revised bylaw in place prior to May 2023. Thank you for answering any questions. Thank you, Ms. Smith.

I’ll go to a committee to see if there are questions. I have a question. So as part of the request from the two delegates, one was examining alternatives. You mentioned that you are looking, you are doing an environmental scan of other cities and looking at what they are doing.

Does that, you mentioned some of the alternatives out there. So does that, your examination of what’s going on in other cities, does that include looking into possible alternatives to fireworks? Through the chair, yes, it does. And then their final request was about examining bias.

Is there any opportunity to tweak any of the questions that are in our survey understanding that it’s been going on for about almost a month so far? Is there any thought of adding, changing, tweaking any of the questions in the existing survey? So through the chair, when I checked in yesterday, we have close to 2000 responses to our survey, and that’s just not even a month in. We have just gone out.

We are out of public events, neighborhood events, promoting our survey, summer camps, day camps, libraries are promoting it. So this would be a big process and undertaking to go back when we’ve already received over 2000 results in our survey. And part of the survey in the community engagement is just one aspect of the total review we will be doing on the bylaw. So what you’re saying then is the report that will come back will be in some manner formed from the responses to the survey, but there is a lot of other stuff going into it in your own staff’s research that will form the final report.

Is that what you’re saying? Through the chair, that is correct. That will inform the proposed bylaw, which will then be open to a public participation meeting where residents will have a second time to provide their input on the proposed bylaw. Thank you, Ms.

Smith. Mr. Mayor, you had your hand up. I did, Chair, but you asked the right question when I was at, I was concerned about the issues around a bias survey, and I thought it would be important as staff, sometimes they don’t get the opportunity to respond very directly, so you covered it well.

Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Any other comments, questions?

So I will say to the delegates again, I do appreciate you coming here. I do appreciate hearing your point of view. I do also know that city staff are in a conversation that I had offline. They are actually very grateful for the research that accompanied Ms.

Amandola’s submission. So this is good information, and city staff truly are looking to have the most information available when they come back with the possible draft bylaw and the report to council. And again, in that public participation meeting, will be an opportunity for any member of the public to come forward, and again, have those five minutes in person online, depends how things will be in early 2023. Hopefully we will be back to normal by then, but you never know.

So with that, I look to committee to see how we do need a motion to receive the delegations. And that’s moved by the mayor and seconded by Councillor Hamu, and thirded by Councillor Hillier. So I’ll call the vote on that. Thank you very much.

Closing the vote, the motion carries six to zero. Okay, 4.2 is Ms. Ronson is back before us with another request for a delegation. And this is concerning the bylaw containing, about signs containing graphic images.

This is about signs and rather than the flyers that we handled before. So again, I look to committee regarding how you want to approach this delegation request. It’s moved by Councillor Hamu that we hear the delegation. Do I have a seconder?

I’ll second that motion. Sorry if that you, Councillor Sully, Councillor Helmer. Okay, I don’t need to second it. Councillor Helmer’s going to second that.

I’m going to call the question. Closing the vote, the motion carries six to zero. I’m going to go back to you Ms. Ronson.

Go ahead, you have five minutes. Good afternoon, Chair Cassidy and committee members. This afternoon, I come before you to request that you ask city staff to be directed to assess and report back to the committee with options to regulate, with options to prohibit and regulate the display of graphic imagery in the public realm. This committee was a huge asset in seeing that stronger regulations were implemented against flyers containing graphic images.

And it’s time to do the same with similar signs displayed in public. The city has already, the city already has proof of the demonstrable harm created by the display and distribution of graphic images of alleged aborted fetuses. This proof came in the form of a petition that was submitted to city halls and by over 4,000 London and area residents, countless letters and emails, phone calls to city councillors and a public participation meeting on November 2nd of 2021. The next step is to research what options there are to prohibit and regulate the display of graphic imagery in the public realm so that a draft bylaw may be prepared.

The city of Calgary passed a bylaw amendment on October 5th, 2020 that limits signs of advocacy messaging to just five inches by three and a half inches. If those signs are displayed within 150 meters of any Calgary school, the minimum penalty is $500 and the specified penalty is $1,000. Of course, in London, one of the main issues of signs with graphic images of alleged aborted fetuses is that they are often displayed outside of places like schools and healthcare facilities where they target vulnerable populations and captive audiences. The city already has a public nuisance bylaw pH 18, September 14th, 2021 that states 4.1 item two, no person shall in public unnecessarily interfere with another person’s use and enjoyment of the public place by using abusive or insulting language as a personal executive.

There could easily be an add-on to the signage bylaw that prohibits signs that are abusive or demeaning to people based on gender. For example, women and other people who have obtained or are considering obtaining an abortion. This point is especially relevant because of the impact that these signs have on women engages concerns over other charter protective values such as gender equality. We know that the right to free speech does not extend to forcing oneself on a captive audience.

The anti-choisers display in these signs purposely attempt to distract passing motorists by standing on congested street corners very close to the road. In some instances, we have seen these protesters blocking traffic signs. This is a huge safety issue not only for motorists but for pedestrians as well. Some cities have bylaws regulating temporary signs but sign content is rarely considered.

Cities should add a citation to the Canadian code of advertising standards such that the content of any temporary sign must not contravene any law or the advertising code. Since 2009, each court decisions have supported the use of the code by local governments including a Supreme Court decision. Citations of the code in local government bylaws and policies can become one part of a city’s decision to prohibit unacceptable signage along with the balancing of the charter of rights and city objectives. Since the graphic signage interferes with fundamental rights to privacy, gender equality and bodily autonomy, a city can justifiably narrow the right to freedom of expression to protect these other rights.

So why bring this up now when activities by the CCBR have been rather quietly? Because they will never stop. The CCBR and other like-minded organizations have been buoyed by recent changes to abortion laws in the US. They will soon be targeting Canadians harder than ever.

The city of Toronto has already asked city staff and solicitor to look into options to prohibit unregulated display of graphic imagery in the public realm. They are looking to us, London, to draft their own bylaw regarding the distribution of graphic imagery to private residences. We’re almost at five minutes. Thank you.

We started this fight two years ago and it’s not over yet. We’ve only accomplished one of the two goals that we have set out to achieve. As a member of the ARCC and the local post-choice community, I kindly ask that this committee direct city staff to at least begin researching possible ways to enact a bylaw that will meaningfully protect both local residents and visitors from being traumatized by these depictions of alleged aborted fetuses. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you. So I’m wondering if we have any city staff here that can comment. There you are, Mr. Kokoros, go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And through you, just some very high level comments at this point, our current signed bylaw, as is the case with most signed bylaws, is intending to regulate the size, the location. In some cases, the number of signs, but not to regulate signed content. In addition to that, municipalities, there’s the issue of municipalities not to infringe on the rights of individuals to freedom of expression as well.

But I don’t intend to get into a lot of detail at this point in time. I guess what I can say is that if committee wishes and directs civic administration to review and report back, we’d be happy to do so. Thank you, Mr. Kokoros.

Any comments or discussion from committee members? Councillor Haimou. Thank you for the speech today. Ms.

Ronson, it was really well thought out, while planned and well, very well articulated. I just wanted, I was just on the website for the CCBR, and I just looked at kind of what they have on there. And if you go to their website, you can see the types of things that they’re about and what they like to put on banners and whatnot. So I would love for our staff to actually review things and report back and see if there is a place for banning these types of images in public.

And for me, it’s more an issue about my kids and having to constantly tell them to look away from these images. And so I think it behooves us to kind of reach some type of, I don’t know if we want to do an all out ban, but anyway, just let’s figure out a review. I’m trying to figure it out in my head, but let’s do a review for staff, thank you. Thank you, Councillor Haimou.

Any other discussion from committee? Councillor Haimou. Thank you, I appreciate the delegation and the comments from Councillor Haimou. I wonder how this direction would interact with some of the provincial laws here in Ontario around safe access to abortion services and prohibiting harassment of service providers, both at the place of work and also at the residences, which we do have in Ontario as of 2017 and wherever correctly.

So I thought maybe I’d ask through the chair to the delegation and just how you think regulation of the content of signs would interact with those safe access prohibitions that already exist around trying to dissuade people from accessing services and the kind of bubble zone ideas that already exist at the rental level. Ms. Ronson, if you’re still online here, I wonder if you could answer Councillor Haimou’s question or if you have a thought on that. Good afternoon, Councillor Haimou.

I’m sorry, could I ask you to repeat the question you’re asking about how city bylaws would go against what provincial rules are already in place? Is that what you’re asking? I’ll just try and be more clear. So I just wondered what the interaction of these things, right?

So we already have provincial rules around prohibiting certain kinds of activities around abortion services providers at the place of work and also at the residences, which I think would capture a lot of what we’re talking about here. But obviously signs in other locations would not be covered by those safe access laws. So I wonder is the main problem we’re experiencing in the city of London around those abortion services providers, natural physical locations, whether providing those services or are we seeing it elsewhere in the city? I just wanted to see how you think those things are going to interact and whether we’ve already got part of the problem addressed at the provincial level.

So in regards to the, in regards to the safe bubble act, as far as I’m aware that bubble extends only to the, so for instance, RHSD, that bubble extends to the point of public property. If I’m correct, I would have to check that out with Ms. Arthur from the ARCC. So the protesters get around that by standing just outside of the fenced area on public property with those signs.

And also when they were here, kind of in full force a couple of years ago, it wasn’t just outside of LHSD, we had them popping up on street corners, for instance, I believe. Warren Cliff and commissioners was one corner, they targeted specific busy intersections, Wonderland’s Wonderland and there was, they targeted busy intersections. So some of the provincial guidelines that are in place would not have any impact on those other places that they target in full force. They were out with the large billboard style signs that they can attach to rebar and tap into the ground and they’d stay for a couple of hours or until we could get a team out there to counter protest and get the signs covered up.

So to answer your question, I don’t believe the existing provincial regulations regarding bubble zones would have any impact on a decision to regulate the signage that’s the city picnic, if that answers your question. Councillor, anything further? Thank you, yeah, I’m happy to support the direction to have staff look at it. I do think as was the case with the previous issue, this is a tricky one to navigate, but I think having staff take a look at it and see what might be possible.

Unfortunately, I do see that there can be harms in our hours inflicted in this particular way of putting up billboards in front of people’s faces while they’re driving around and walking on the street and I walk on the sidewalk. Fortunately, it’s less common than the previous problems we were dealing with. And I think in some ways, less invasive, but still an issue. So I’m happy to support the direction to have staff look back and we can come up with a good targeted, effective, reasonable approach.

So there is a motion in eScribe if people wanna look at it. We might have to refresh your screen and I’ll go to you, Mr. Mayor. Now I’m just reading the recommendation put forward and perhaps my questions for you to staff, is that sufficiently clear?

I mean, I think we were very clear. I recall Councillor Hilliard came up with a recommended approach that ultimately was endorsed by Council after staff took it back. Is this too broad or does it need to be just a little more prescriptive to give staff the information they need to proceed accordingly? Mr.

Kocoros, I’m not sure if you can see the motion. Mr. Kocoros, I’ll read it. The civic administration be directed to report back to a future meeting of the community and protective services committee with respect to potential changes that could be made to the signed by-law related to the prohibition of the display of graphic images in public.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Mr. Mayor, for the question. My only hesitation on this is, we’d have to look into what is a graphic image.

And at this point, I don’t have a lot of detail, a lot of information. I don’t know if we should possibly narrow that down and provide a little bit of more clarification on that direction. I’m just concerned that graphic image has a very broad context. And Chair, I would agree with Mr.

Kocoros. And I’m not sure then now if how we would, I think we’re all trying to get to the right place, but in a way that’s practical and makes sense. So I’m looking at this and thinking, is there some wording we might use, if that’s what we need to do, if we need to give staff direction or can we just provide, have them provide us with an undertaking? I’m not certain at this point.

I’m very taken with where Councilor Humber wants to go with this, but I agree with Mr. Kocoros that it’s, until you settle down on your definition of terms, this could be very, this could be very awkward. So Mr. Kocoros, since it is a report back, I wonder if staff could use the bylaw that we passed regarding the flyers as sort of a jumping off point.

There is a, we do talk about aborted fetuses in that bylaw and there is a definition, I believe, in that bylaw. So having that as background, would that be enough to start your review and report back? Or do you need this direction to be more specific? Thank you, Madam Chair and through you, without having seen the actual wording at this point in time, what I can offer is that we will certainly entertain to look at it and see if we can draw a parallel using similar references or definitions or whatnot.

Okay, thank you. Any other comments, questions? Not seeing any. There is a motion on the floor.

It’s been moved by Councilor Humber and seconded by Councilor Helmer. And if there is no further discussion. Yeah, just- Mr. Mayor, go ahead.

I apologize. It may well be that staff do come back to this chair and say that this is just too broad a definition to get our heads around in which case, we may then be compelled to tighten this up, but I’ll support this with the understanding that I won’t be too tough on staff. If in fact, they come back and say, can you be more prescriptive? That’s all, thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I’ll call the question then. Opposing the vote, the motion carries, six to zero.

So thank you again to Ms. Ronson for appearing before this committee on this matter. I’m sure you understood, but just to make sure that anybody that’s watching understands, committee has voted to refer this back to city staff and to report back at a future meeting with respect to potential changes to the signed by-law in the manner that you portrayed and laid out in your delegation, in your submission. So staff will come back to us with some thoughts, some recommendations, some ideas, and City Council will then add a later date, a vote on this in a more fulsome way.

This does still have to go to City Council, and this will just be the recommendation from this committee to City Council. So item 4.4, which is, we are on 4.3. This is a submission from Councilor Van Holst, and then there’s also a request for delegation for this item as well, but I will go to you first. Councilor Van Holst, if you would like to introduce your submission.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And so I agreed to bring forth a request from the community for a dog watering station at the Pottersburg dog park, and noting that a number of surrounding communities have provided a similar thing. So that dogs have access to water on a hot day, and I think their request is pretty clear there. So maybe I would invite the committee to listen to delegation, and one of the gentlemen speaks on behalf of many, many, many participants of that great city amenity.

I guess I’d also note that right across from the drive, is there’s actually a shared drive for the Pottersburg dog park and our Pottersburg water treatment plant. So there would be fairly close some water source that we could tap into. Thank you, Councilor. Okay, so we do have a request for delegation from a Mr.

Haslip, and I will go to committee first to see if they would like to hear this delegation today. And that is moved by the mayor that we hear the delegation seconded by Councilor Hillier. I’ll call the vote on that. Closing the vote, the motion carries six to zero.

Okay, so I will go to you, Mr. Haslip. If you would like to address the committee, you will have five minutes to do so, and I will start the timer as soon as you begin. I would like to first of all say thank you to the committee.

Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Okay, beautiful. I’m having a problem pulling up my video, but I have been a resident of East London for all of my life and all late a minute.

That’s kind of funny. Anyway, I’ve been a resident of East London for all my life. I’ve been attending this dog park through two wives and probably 30 years and who knows how many dogs. We’re a community here.

And I don’t know if you don’t have a dog or if you’re not a dog owner, you won’t get it. And that’s cool, I get it. I go to this park pretty much every day because that’s part of what I need to do to keep my three dogs sane and cool and good canine citizens. It’s good for them to socialize with other dogs.

It’s good for the humans to socialize with other humans and other dogs. As I said, I’ve been going to this park for a long time and any time that I get together with anyone in the park and we start talking about, you know, this place is really a gold mine. It’s a diamond in the rough and it’s probably East London’s best kept secret. Where else can you go and walk around for 45 minutes an hour, an hour and a half in nature without, well, you still hear the sirens off in the distance.

They’re always, they’re not gonna go away. But it’s just the best place for the community, this dog owning community to get together. And most recently, I have dealt with people that will drive across town to our dog park. I’ve talked to people from Westmount.

I’ve talked to people from the deep North and Masonville that come to our park. The biggest part of it is we have the real estate. The dogs can get out, they can go and run and run and run. And at the end of the day, a good dog is a tired dog.

So I just like to stand up for the people that anytime I have a conversation, we go down here and it’s like, well, yeah, the corporation of the city of London, it’s all that, but how come we don’t have water at the dog park? It’s kind of a common thing. The other thing that I would like to bring to the attention of you folks is, this is huge mental health for people. Just to be able to come out for an hour and let your dog run and just be in nature, be quiet and just run and be with your best friend is huge.

It’s just amazing. I know that when I go to the dog park, I go there a lot of times, I run a couple of different businesses in town and I go there to relieve stress. And a lot of people are the same way. You know, like, I don’t know why something as simple as water to the dog park can’t be done.

I know that there are huge issues that you folks are dealing with. I get that, that’s unquestionable. But this, I’ve been, as I say, attending that park for probably 30 years and I represent a group of at least 300 people and we’re all of the same mind. Most recently, we’ve been approved for the neighborhood improvement.

I think it was $4,000 or $5,000 for some agility stuff. Well, you know what folks, we don’t need agility stuff, we need water. And I have also been talking with people and saying, “Well, you know, why should my tax dollars go “to provide water at the dog park?” Yeah, okay, I’m somewhat in the construction industry and I’ve talked to some people in my business in the excavation business and they say, “Yeah, you’re looking at probably 20 or 30 K.” Okay, great. If that’s too much of an ask for the city of London, ‘cause I get it, the dogs, who cares, right?

If that’s too much of an ask, why could we not do what has been done in Stratford, which is just drill a hole, find the water, attach a pump, there’s the water. It’s not, it’s gonna be non-potable water, but it’s fine for the dogs. They can drink it safe and it’s fine and it’s okay. I would like to know why we can’t do this at the biggest dog park and the best dog park in town.

And I’ve noticed that over the last, especially for you. 20 seconds left. There are a lot of people that are attending this park and sometimes you cannot get parking. So it’s a popular place and I think it’s a reasonable ask.

Thank you very much for hearing the old folks. Thank you so much, Mr. Haslop. I’m going to now go to Michael, Mr.

Chancellor Vanholst, if you wanted to make a comment. I was gonna go to city staff, but go ahead. Thank you, Madam Chair and you’re welcome to go to staff. I did, they did start working on a quote or a price at the end, starting the end of June.

I’m afraid it wasn’t prepared by the time I submitted this. So maybe they can provide some ideas on how we could provide some water to our thirsty canines after they get through their agility course on the hot summer days. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor.

So we’ll go to you, Ms. Smith, to see if you would like to provide any, oh, sorry, Ms. Share, I forgot. Ms.

Share, welcome to our committee. We don’t get to see you that often here. So I’m glad to see you. If you have any comments, I’m sure there is a possibility that there will be questions for you as well, but if you just wanted to give us some comments.

Absolutely, thank you, Madam Chair. In terms of the cost estimate, the delegation is quite correct. We are thinking it’s about a minimum of $20,000 to service this particular location with three-season potable water. As soon as we provide a drinking facility, it needs to be potable because of the potential for human use as well.

Signs, unfortunately, don’t remove that requirement for us and a well would require a permit to take water from the province, which is a challenging and sort of lengthy process. And fundamentally, I think staff understand and accept that there’s interest in these sorts of projects, but we do have five dog parts throughout the city and each of those would be in the range of a minimum of $20,000, several of them probably somewhat more depending on the location of the nearest service, and that work is currently not funded. So there are a few options that could be considered, it could be referred to a future multi-year budget, it could be referred to a future neighborhood decision-making process, or of course, council could make the direction for staff to proceed with just Pottersburg, and we would reduce spends on other park amenity improvements elsewhere in the city this year. Thank you, Ms.

Chair. I’m gonna go to committee to see if committee members have questions or comments on this. Councilor Van Holst, your hand is up again. I’ll let you— - Yes, Madam Chair, I was just gonna suggest that the other funding sources are community investment reserve fund, and that could cover it quite nicely and easily if the committee wanted to go forward, thank you.

Thank you. So based on something that is in your submission, Councilor Van Holst, I do have a question for Ms. Chair, it states in the Councilor’s submission that this wasn’t eligible for neighborhood decision-making. I wonder if you could comment on why this would not have been eligible for neighborhood decision-making.

Madam Chair, that one I actually will refer, sorry, Madam Chair, I’ll refer that one to Ms. Smith. She certainly knows the ins and outs of Indian press as well. Thank you, go ahead, Ms.

Smith. Through the Chair, I don’t believe it’s not eligible for neighborhood decision-making. As you know, neighborhood decision-making projects come from residents, and there were residents in Southeast London that did put forward a request for the Pottersburg Dog Park for a number of items. And at the end of the day, through the votes, we were able to do a few of those items and working with the residents were just confirming, but I believe their request was, it might have been for agility, but where the funds are going to, I believe, are signage that was asked for, and trees for additional shade.

So those were the priorities at that time asked for by the residents for their dog park. So it would be eligible if a resident, a group of residents wanted to put together a formal proposal to be part of neighborhood decision-making, it would be required to be voted on by the community and all of that, but it is eligible as a potential project, is that correct? Yes, so through the process, residents come up with the ideas. Those ideas are then gone through with the feasibility study, so staff at that time, including staff from Ms.

Share’s area, Parks and Forestry would review those items to make sure they’re feasible. There is a $30,000 maximum for each project, so this project would fit at least under the threshold for the requirements on the financial end, and then again, it would go out to vote, if successful through feasibility for residents to vote on. Thank you, Ms. Smith.

I’m gonna go to committee to see how you would like to proceed with this. As the Chair, I cannot make any motions. I am in your hands. Councilor Helmer.

Thank you, I appreciate the delegation, and I think what we’re getting at here is not really just an issue in this particular dog park, but in many parks throughout the city. There isn’t really a lot of access to water for either humans or dogs in a lot of the parks, and go especially over the last couple of years as the park facilities have been really heavily used. The three season or even longer periods of access into publicly available free water that people can drink and that animals could drink is increasingly seen as something that should be provided in parks. And I know we have a lot of parks, like I think it’s over 400 parks.

We’ve got a few like this much smaller number of dog parks, but I can see the need for and the case for bringing water services into lots of parks, including the dog parks. I am a little wary about adding it to one dog park and not the others. I think it could affect how people are using the dog parks and you could have an influx all of a sudden of people who are coming across town to get to the one that’s got water. I don’t think it’s a huge concern, but it could potentially change how the park is being used and maybe in a negative way when they get really busy compared to some of the other ones.

So I think we’re going to deploy it. We might want to do them all at the same time. If they’re all in the neighborhood of $30,000 or $30,000, like it would take, that’s manageable. I also think that the need for people to access water is actually quite significant, depending on which parts of the city is what we’re talking about.

And I would be very interested in seeing an overall report come forward about where is water available now? What would it cost to make it available in which locations? And I think that’s something that we could deal with through the multi-year budget process, because that’s obviously a much bigger undertaking that would cost a lot more money. So I’m open to the sort of dog park issue, but I see it as a part of a broader issue that I think we need to deal with kind of comprehensively.

So I think at this point, I would receive the communication. I’m glad to hear that it’s something that’s eligible for neighborhood decision making, because it could be dealt with through that process for sure. I’d also like to have some kind of language which refer it to staff for consideration of extending water services to parks, including dog parks in the city of London, and that we have a report come forward about that in advance of the multi-year budget, because then I think if we have a report from staff about what’s involved, then at that point, we could direct a business case for the multi-year budget. I think there’s still time to do that.

So if that’s possible, if staff think that’s within the wrong possibility in terms of the timeline, I’d like to see that something about the dog parks, but then also about water services, generally at two parks, and unfortunately I haven’t written any of that up. So hopefully the clerks are listening to what I was saying, and their support for that idea. Thank you, Councilor Halmer. So to Ms.

Chair, what Councilor Halmer is proposing is referral back to staff for consideration of extending water services to parks in general, including dog parks. Did you want to comment? Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I’m just gonna a little slow to connect at home today. Step it up, no concern about getting that report back to Council next year, which we provided in advance of the 2024 to 2027 multi-year budget deliberations. And that’s, thank you so much. So that would be that referral and for our clerk here, we would also have to receive Councilor Van Hal’s submission.

We’d also have to receive the delegation and the two other communications that are on the agenda. Is that correct in that? We could do an omnibus motion there. And that is seconded by Councilor Hummer.

Sorry, who moved that chair? Councilor Halmer. Oh, I thought you said he seconded it. Madam Chair, that’s 24 to 2027 multi-year budget.

Is that correct? Madam Chair, that would be, Madam Chair, that would be my understanding from the Council’s description of the motion. To get it ready for the amendment process, I think would be very challenging. This is a large undertaking as a Councilor noted based on the number of parks throughout the city.

Thank you, Ms. Chair. So that is our motion on the floor. We’ll let the clerk finish typing it and it will be posted in a second.

So Councilor Hummer, if you wanted to take a peek before we go ahead. Looks good to me. There is no other comment on this item. I’m going to call the vote.

So I’m calling the vote. Opposing the vote, the motion carries, six to zero. Councilor van, a submission for you. This one is homelessness versus camping and transitional housing.

You would like to go ahead and then we also have a delegation request. Thank you, Madam Chair. So at our last council meeting, the staff invited me to bring forward a motion to your committee regarding transitional housing. And I’d point out that previously we had decided against going forward with a pilot on these kinds of things.

Specifically at that time, it was Conestoga Hutts. However, it’s interesting that the community has taken that on themselves and we’re starting to see these forms of temporary mobile transitional housing peer. And I think it might be worthwhile for us to again, go ahead with a pilot on that for the purposes of learning for London as well as other communities. Now, my own thoughts on this or that the situation of homelessness is complicated with different demographics struggling.

And I think if we can tease that apart and look at solutions for particular individuals that share common challenges, we might benefit not only our own community but others as well. And I would say because we are seeing people come here from other communities because those communities or individuals believe that London has a better answer than there, we really want to come up with things that any community can implement for themselves in these situations. And I see that’s going to be important because it looks like things are going to again, get worse on homelessness as a challenge. And it’s often a result of the economics of the community.

And I know that I was reading that the 10 wealthiest people in the world during the last couple of years have doubled their wealth. That means there’s going to be less for others as it rolls out. And so we’ll see some more challenging challenges there. So I think there’s much we can learn.

I made a couple of suggestions. One was to do a pot of the temporary mobile houses like the Conestoga ones or the ones that Andy had built. The other suggestion was a campground for those people that are mobile and have vehicles and can get to a place where we can provide amenities like that. Of course, funding is an issue and I had an interesting conversation with one of our developers.

I note that we’re attempting to take on homelessness if through our efforts towards affordable housing. And we’ve actually looking at solutions that are going to work for the next 50 years. So it is interesting that I think in last term we had where we decided that we would take on or eliminate poverty in one generation. Now we’re really preparing for a number of generations forward.

But I think we’re in a position where we could make an arrangement in terms of those funds that we’re going to be dedicated to affordable housing decades from now and come up with an upfront kind of fund that we might be able to negotiate with those developers that are providing affordable housing and take on some more immediate challenges which are the people that are homeless. And here’s, these were a couple of ways that I thought we might be able to learn, have a positive impact. My last suggestion was that we do provide some guidance and expectations for those people that would want to provide such a shelter to people just so they know and understand. 30 seconds, Councilor.

Thank you. How the city might interact with them and the people that are hoping to help. So given that, I do hope that the committee will accept the delegation from a gentleman who’s built one of these and lived in it. And I think he’s got some important things to share that would be helpful.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor, right on the nose. Okay, so we do have a delegation request for Mr. G Turner and I’ll look to a committee to see how you’d like to handle this.

Councilor Hamou is moving that we receive the delegation. I need a second, seconded by Councilor Helmer and I’m gonna call the vote. Closing the vote, the motion carries, six to zero. Okay, Mr.

Turner, you will have five minutes to address the committee and I’ll start my timer as soon as you start talking. Thank you for having me. I was asked to share my experience today, living in a Conestoga Hut micro shelter. It’s actually located in a parking lot here, Dundas and Elizabeth Street.

I’ve been here now for 52 days. I built this prototype. It’s a little different from what you have seen in past requests. So this one’s built more structurally sound than the older ones.

I’ve funded this hut for about $3,157 through multiple private individuals and organizations that are supporting the vision and looking for these to be moved forward in one way, shape or form. Since living in this hut, I’m right in the eye of the storm here and I’ve had no disturbances whatsoever and I’ve had an almost universal interest and request on where can people find these? How can they get into one, what they can do to make these things more available for people that need them? There was a young lady came by the other day.

She was brought here from an outside municipality and she was really looking forward to continuing her sobriety. Unfortunately, I had to turn her away because there were no options available for her and 48 hours or so later, she was pulled out of the Thames River. These are things that we could easily take care of if we find a place for people to be and where they can be safe and maintain their sobriety. And I’m hoping that you guys can move forward at the pilot project on this type of situation where people like me can have their homes safe and sound and not worry about where they’re gonna wake up tomorrow.

Thank you for your time. Thank you very much, Mr. Turner. So I’m gonna go to Mr.

Dickens to see if you would like to make some comments or Cooper Dickens, go ahead. Hi, thank you and through you, Chair. We appreciate the emotion now that’s been brought forward. I’m happy to entertain any questions that committee might have about the motion that’s before us to pilot this.

Certainly we are seeing some of these conistoga huts or sleep cabins start to appear throughout the community. There are a couple in the old East Village area behind some of the construction fencing located behind one of the organizations there. If there are questions around any of the permissions or any of the logistics, I am joined by members of both the building department and the planning team. If those questions are outside of my wheelhouse.

So, but I may turn over to you, Chair, unless there’s a specific question. Thank you, Mr. Dickens. Do we have questions from committee?

I do have a question about how the Ontario building code fits in with these structures, number one. And also, I believe that there was during COVID, there may have been some temporary exemptions to the rules. Are those exemptions still in place? And if you could just answer those questions.

Thanks, Mr. Kakaros. Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d be happy to answer the questions.

If I could start with your last one first. That is indeed true. Ontario Regulation 141/20 was put in place to allow temporary health or residential buildings amid the COVID pandemic. I need to advise committee that that particular regulation has been revoked.

It was revoked on April the 27th of this year. So that is no longer in effect. In terms of the building code provisions at a very high level, the building code addresses buildings and defines them as any structure that has a wall, a roof or a floor or parts thereof, exceeding 10 square meters, which is approximately 108 square feet. Buildings are also considered those that are less than 10 square meters or approximately 108 square feet that also contain plumbing.

In this particular instance, we’ve not been provided with any dimensions on the Conestoga Hut to see if they actually fall outside the scope of the Ontario building code. So hopefully that answers the questions, Madam Chair. Yep, thank you. Go on to committee, Mr.

Mayor, and then Councillor Halmer. Thanks very much. So I’ve never been a fan of the Conestoga Hut, quite frankly, because I think ability to stack and do that sort of thing I’m challenged by that. But I’m mindful of some of the discussion that we have had with the federal minister of housing with respect to some of the things that he supports where it would involve federal funding.

And it doesn’t strike me that tiny homes and I could be challenged properly, but I didn’t think tiny homes were the qualifier there again, because of some of the challenges associated with trying to be able to go up. So when we talk about intensity, I don’t think you get that level of intensity as you might would say a modular, a potential modular home, or as we know now today, the things we have proved relative to high rises and the like. So I’m not, I’m not sure I’m there yet unless I knew the kind of supports we would be able to get from the federal government with regard to this, because we’ve said time and again, colleagues that we can’t do it alone. And so at this point, I’m not sure that I’m there to recommend proceeding with further studies on this, but I’m gonna chew on that a little bit more, picture.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I’m just gonna, before I go to you, Councillor Halmer, I’m just gonna clarify how we’re doing this, because Councillor Vanholst has made two submissions, a separate one about urban camping. So we’ll deal with this first, then we’ll go to Councillor Vanholst about his second submission, and then we’ll vote overall.

So to you, Councillor Halmer. Thank you. You have my question through the chair to Mr. Dickens is what role do you think these mobile, very small transitional kind of housing units could play?

I certainly see, and we heard it today from Mr. Schern, but we’re working for some people in terms of providing a shelter that they’re looking for. Obviously, it’s not a whole unit with plumbing and all the kind of stuff that you might expect in an apartment unit, but it’s certainly better than a tent or something that’s got a lot less protection. We did talk about this while back when Councillor Lewis and Councillor Vanholst brought up the Conestoga Huts earlier, and I remember what the response was from staff at the time, but we’ve learned a lot, I think, over the deployment of the mobile shelter spaces, some of the things we’ve done that were a bit unconventional over the last couple of years in particular.

Do we think there’s a space for these kinds of units, potentially on private property? They’re small enough to me that they’re outside the building code definition of a building, the footprint of them is pretty tiny, but they pack a lot in in these small spaces. So if they’re going to be hosted on private property, for example, what would be the process for making that easier rather than more difficult, for example? Because I could see the city playing kind of enabling role, potentially, rather than directly providing this kind of thing, potentially there are landowners out there who want to make their land available for this kind of use.

And I just wonder what role staff see for this kind of, as I’ve done, also, it’s called the transitional housing. I’m not sure I would go that far, but this kind of shelter. Mr. Dickens.

Thank you, Chair, and through you, I appreciate the question. And I think part of the answer is lies in what we come back with, if we’re directly to come back with something. But to your point, I do not see the city leading this initiative. Certainly, if there’s a role the city would play, it may be enabling or supporting.

We could certainly look to do an expression of interest or call out to organizations, for example, that may have services or access to amenities, such as plumbing and heat and things like that, that individuals staying in these shelters would be able to access on a regular basis, be it formal organizations or private landowners. We could certainly see if there’s an uptake there. We did talk about the temporary shelters we did activate over the last two winters. Those were very much sleeping quarters.

They worked for a couple of reasons. One, they had around-the-clock support, and they had access to all the indoor amenities that this type of shelter would not provide. So the city, I don’t think we would be in the position to be leading, building, supplying, but could be facilitating some capacity, perhaps, because they seem to fill a niche role. They wouldn’t consider them housing, but as we talk about a different form of a tent or temporary shelter, then certainly they would probably fit that.

But as I’ve been talking, I see my colleague, Mr. Picorros, is looking to weigh in as well, so maybe I’ll stop here. Councillor Halmer. Happy to hear from Mr.

Picorros. Yep, sorry, Mr. Picorros. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Let me lower my hand first. Okay, here we go. I did wanna say that it would be an omission if I did not advise committee that despite the fact that if these structures do not fall under the jurisdiction of the Ontario Building Code, they still need to be in compliance with the requirements of our zoning by-law. And I also wanted to let you know that Ontario Regulation 141 that I spoke to earlier about exempted one from erecting a temporary health or residential facility from the requirement to obtain a building permit.

In other words, we had no jurisdiction, but we had to conduct at least one inspection in the beginning to make sure there was nothing unsafe and then make conduct monthly inspections after that. So if I could, I wanna circle back and just want this not to be lost that even though the Ontario Building Code may have no jurisdiction, the installation and placement of these structures still must comply with the our zoning by-law. Thank you, Mr. Picorros.

Mr. Councillor Halmer. Yeah, I appreciate the answers. I’m gonna think about how the best handle the communication.

Certainly I’m happy to receive it. Maybe between now and the council figure out how I want to, what I would support, I guess, in terms of the direction, but happy to hear from other colleagues about what they, thank you, we’ve heard from Mr. Kerner and Councillor Reynolds. Thank you, Councillor Halmer.

Councillor Halmer. Thank you, Chair. I’m too struggling with this one a little bit. I like, the one thing that I like about it is it’s a cheap build, it’s quick to do and it’s quick to take down.

But what I’m not convinced about at this point is they’re not mobile and they’re not stackable. And I think right now, what we should be looking for are stackable and mobile units because needs are gonna change and places are gonna change where homeless people are going to be, where it’s going to be needed, these mobile and stackable units. So I just, I don’t know if I want to put the time and effort into a staff report about this yet. So again, I’m gonna listen to any more comments and try to make a decision for this one as well.

So Council will probably be when I decide as well. Thank you. Okay, so I have a question for Mr. Dickens, especially because we just heard earlier in the meeting, when we were talking about the Head Lease Pilot Program, either for Mr.

Dickens or for Mr. Cooper, I guess, we heard how important support programs were in the success of that pilot program. Is there capacity to add something like this, to add, say, an area, however it comes about, whether it’s an outside agency, to build, create, and place these huts somewhere. How, is there capacity either at the city staff or in the system itself to support an added, basically, shelter in the city?

Thank you, Chair, for that question. Right now, there would not be city staff capacity to report back an entirely fashion on a pilot project like this. We have, through the Housing Stability Action Plan and other strategic plans, put a lot of effort into ongoing initiatives, still working on many initiatives, and always trying to get better at those initiatives. But right now, I have no staff capacity.

The work that we have been doing over the last couple of years has taken quite a toll on the city staff and the housing services team. And as we directly work and feel the impacts of what’s happening in our community, our plates are quite full. To be honest, we could report back on a proposal about how to engage different sectors to explore these in terms of where, with what amenities. But it’s been made known to us as well through community advocates very recently that the service provider network of frontline staff are quite exhausted and quite burnt out themselves.

So beyond any city capacity constraints, I think I can say with good confidence that the community themselves are feeling quite stretched. And I don’t know what supports would look like. I would need to go and ask the community directly what they would be able to provide. Now, not every individual that may find themselves in a self-funded or self-built cabin or hut would require the same level of services and supports, but they would probably need access to certain indoor amenities and things like that, which maybe could be arranged.

And I really value the work that Mr. Turner has done and presented and is staying on site in all these village for the past 52 days. Mr. Turner is a great example.

There will be others that will meet certain levels of support. And I don’t know what the community is capable of providing it this time. Okay, thank you, Mr. Dickens.

So, Councillor Van Halst, did you wish to speak again? You’re muted, you’re muted, Councillor. Thank you, I would say a few more things. I do hold a vision of us having a spectrum of transitional housing so that there’s a number of things that would be appropriate for people.

I would like it if at any point we can take someone who’s simply trying to survive and offer them a step up. And a step up that is not only better for them, but better for the community. I think we definitely want to be, we want London to be a place where we help people in a way that makes the city seem better instead of helping them in a way that seems like the city is getting worse. And of course, what we absolutely don’t want is to simply take rule books and walk around and prevent people from helping themselves and prevent other people from helping.

So we want to look at the ways to, as it was said by our staff and Councillor Hamer, enable these solutions and look at some of the creativity and it’s going to take, these kinds of things take some experimentation. And like I said, if we can direct it to particular types of challenges, that’s where we might learn the most. So those are my comments on the Conestoga Hut for the other mobile shelters, if you like. And happy to speak about a campground for a little bit if the team permits.

Yep, I’m just going to check and see if the committee would like if anybody on the committee or I’m not sure if they are even, we don’t even have any visitors today. If anyone on the committee would like to ask any further questions or make any further comments on this particular submission, Councillor Hillier, go ahead. Yes, just a question for staff. For what I’m hearing is staff is seriously overworked in this area.

And if we, just say we received 12 of these huts, would we even have the staff to manage them? I think what Mr. Dickens had previously said is that they would look to see if outside an outside agency would do this because staff do not have the capacity. But if Mr.

Dickens wants to add to that. Thank you, Chair, I think you’ve covered it. But yes, we would look to see, I think we would have to determine a process by which people could get connected to supports, what those supports are, who’s providing them, did they even have the capacity, where are they located? And then what, if anything, do we do if people choose not to connect into supports, what happens?

And we refer to these as our committee has referred to the most transitional housing. So I think we would need to look at that. Is there a transition plan or is it just a different form of housing that is meant to be more permanent? And we would have to rely on other staff, not our own staff for this as well.

That’s correct. Thank you very much. Okay, if there’s, is there any other comments or questions on this submission? Councillor, Mr.

Mayor, sorry, Mr. Mayor, go ahead. Whichever title you’d like, Chair. So are we looking to deal with this particular issue right now and then we hear the second, I just need some order to this, please, Chair.

So it’s one item together on the agenda, 4.4. So my plan was to, if one’s questions are exhausted, move to the next letter. That’s also part of this agenda item. Yeah, it’s not just the questions that are exhausted, but that’s fine, thank you, Chair.

Thank you, and I feel what you’re feeling, Mr. Mayor. Okay, so I’m not seeing any further discussion on this particular submission. So I’ll go back to Councillor Van Holst to talk about his next submission, which is titled Camping.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We do have a community of people who are living out of their cars and I’ve had communications with some of them over the past year. I know that some, I understand, will are working, they work, and they will go to a place in the city and where it’s possible to set up a tent, set that up in the evening and sleep, and then pack it up in the morning and then go on their way. So they’re mobile and they’re camping.

And one obvious solution to make things a little better is to provide a campground. Now, the advantage of us for going ahead with some of these strategies is that we get to decide where it is and that I see a possibility of having a campground. And I say this, we definitely don’t want a tent city because the staff has described the problems that happened with that. But here there may be an opportunity for a campground.

We could charge for it. It’d be a small amount, even it was $10 a night. I bet there may be people who would find that a better solution. And we could have it at the outer edges of the city where those people who are mobile can get there.

That might prevent it from becoming overrun. However, again, we can decide who’s eligible for it. And I think that would solve a problem for a few months out of the year. In terms of the winter, I’m someone who’s done a lot of winter camping.

I remember being on a glacier as well and finding that very, very comfortable. But I’d note that some campgrounds, I think the primary has yurts, which are you can rent. And they’re a little structure, I think a little bigger than a Conestoga hut, but people could have those. There are people, I know, that have purchased motor homes for themselves.

And that’s now where they live and they find a place for them. So this could be a place like that. But what it would do is stabilize those, that demographic of individuals. And so this might be something worth trying as well.

And as I said before, if we could make that work in London, obviously there’s campgrounds all over Ontario. So if we were able to help a certain portion of our homeless people in this way, other communities could do the same thing. And the advantage then to us is that the members of those communities wouldn’t be seeking London. So there’s another possibility.

And I did describe a method where we might look into funding it. But I put that as a possible pilot on the table as well. And so there we go. So I offer that as to the committee.

These are just my suggestions. It’s up to the committee to make their emotions or our decisions, I realize that. Thank you, Councillor. I wonder if there are any comments or questions from the committee on that?

Or if there’s any comment that you would like to make, Mr. Dickens? Thank you, Chair. And thank you for the opportunity to make the comment.

I would just share with committee that it would be incredibly difficult to determine differing demographics of those that would participate in a campground type program. Essentially what it would be is a sanctioned encampment of those that do or do not have vehicles and those that do or do not have tents and make their way there. And I will share with committee that over the last couple of years, the city of London through our Coordinated and Foreign Response Program has supported some sanction encampments. And we have been present with a number of supported encampments.

And one example of the established encampment or a sanctioned encampment, which I guess would have the feel of a camping scenario is Queens Park that was operating during the height of the pandemic in the early goings. The Queens Park example was one where we did have some older gentlemen that had been long-term campers, very self-sufficient, did everything in their ability to sort of isolate and stick to themselves at the park. Unfortunately, what happens is that other people take notice that the city permits this encampment to exist and support agencies come on site and provide a range of clothing and food and water all the way through to even tents. And what happens in our experience at Queens Park is that individuals vacated the apartments they were living in to go to the encampment for a number of reasons.

And this site at Queens Park grew large in numbers. We saw people arrive not for very good reasons and bad things started to occur. We eventually had to move to 24/7 security as there were occurrences of trafficking of both women and of drugs. And there was a increase in violence when people stopped by to collect on those drug debts, knowing people had not moved along because they were permitted to be there.

Is that every encampment? No, of course not. Is it every individual, not a chance. But that’s why we don’t disperse every encampment or disperse every individual.

We take a very compassionate approach to how we support individuals, whether they be sleeping in a car or whether they be in an encampment somewhere. But this example of what’s being proposed would look very similar to what we experienced at Queens Park. And it is not dissimilar to what we experienced on Bathurst when we brought in amenities such as hygiene stations and port-a-potties and food trucks and water distribution vehicles, on-site supports. We ran into many of the exact same issues and managing who you would like to be there versus who is there are two very different things.

And so that is the commentary I would provide based on our experience and how we try to support individuals where they’re at. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dickens.

Any comment or questions from committee? Mr. Mayor. So I wonder just to bring this to some conclusion.

First, I have to say to Councillor Hanholz, thank you. I mean, you have certainly generated a lot of thoughts and give us all opportunities to do the same. I listened very carefully to what Mr. Dickens has said.

And I have to tell you, currently we’re dealing with some very serious issues as I think members of council and the public know with regard to concerns regarding homelessness and the like. So while we can say that any steps are good steps, that’s not necessarily true if we only do this in part measure and don’t do it well. And I think we have an obligation, if we’re going to start a process, to do a thoughtfully do it well and to care. And none of that’s an issue with the intent behind this.

And I’m grateful as well for the guests who came. And he provided us with some commentary as well. That was very interesting. And I appreciate it as insight.

A lot of issues come with this. And I won’t repeat what Mr. Dickens has said. Not the least of which are issues around hygiene.

Heck, we just talked about how do we get water for a dog in a park. And now we’re talking about facilities like this, where quite frankly, I think the challenges are significantly greater and the risks are huge. So I don’t know if it’s appropriate if there’s something on the table where I could move to receive this information and take no action at this time. And I say this with the deepest of respect to my colleagues put this, these ideas for it.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, thank you. So we do need to receive the two submissions from Councilor Van Holst. And we do have to receive the delegation from Mr.

Turner. Thank you also. Moved by the mayor and a seconded by Councillor Hamou. And I’ll call the vote on that.

Is that those just move? Mr. Mayor, you had also mentioned take no action. Is that included in there or is it just?

Yes, yes, it was, Chair. Well, then, Madam Chair, Councilor, thank you. So, Madam Chair, we’ve had a good discussion and I’ll certainly take that to heart and see if there’s some other direction that that might be taken other than this. What I would appreciate is that the committee simply receive it.

And then, rather than say, no direction, that will give me an opportunity. Perhaps or perhaps not to move something at Council that wouldn’t be contrary to what the committee has decided. So it just provides an opening where we wouldn’t have to vote down what the committee has suggested in order to consider something else. So that’s what I would, that’s what I would request.

And, you know, I just say that in terms of the, I’d like to think a little more about the campground. I spent so many months of my youth and young adulthood in campgrounds. And they work well in some instances. I wonder if we can’t make that work.

I’m not sure how to do that in this instance, but I’d like to put some more thoughts on that and to these things. So that would be my request is simply received this. I may have nothing else to add at Council, but I may. Okay, I’m not sure.

Chair, in the interest of bringing this to absolute conclusion, please, I’m prepared to withdraw the part of it, take no action. Okay. But let’s be, let’s, let’s, let’s deal with this and have it done. Okay, thank you, Mr.

Mayor. I was just about to say I, I cannot tell a mover or a seconder what they are moving or seconding, but thank you for that. I would, before I call the vote, just suggest strongly, strongly suggest to Councillor Vanholst that he consult with staff in the housing division. They, they know the lay of the land.

They work with the people that are on the ground doing the support of services. They know what’s going on out there. And I strongly urge the Councillor, if he is going to suggest something at Council to spend a lot of time with City staff, if possible, to, to make sure all of your ducks are in a row. And with that, I’m going to call the vote.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ll try to have this one be, by be brief, sir, if it seems like I’ve spanned your committee in my communications, but my, my goal here is just to make sure that we’ve got a business case that comes forward and the next update for an expanded neighborhood decision making. I think it would be helpful for us to make a change next year so that in the coming multi-year budget, we’ve got, we’ve got a few more data points to, to make, make our decisions on going forward. My, my suggestion and the, the amounts and the, the source of funding, of course, could be changed and that here, here at your committee or, or during the debates at, at the budget, at the budget update, but suggesting that we expand, expand this to $100,000 per ward and, and there’s a funding source.

Tweak our, our surplus policy so that the first 1.4 million comes off the top of that and is essentially returned to the, the community because that’s often what’s requested. They say, well, you have a surplus, why not give it back to us? And, and this is a way of doing that. The extra amounts will allow for bigger projects to happen or really more neighborhoods to get something.

So you’ve seen that there’s always been a lot of great ideas that were passed at neighborhood decision-making and many that didn’t have funding. And so for the, the smaller, the smaller communities who often don’t have the votes to get their project through, I think we would see, we would see them be able to get something to, I think, to be able to watch your neighborhood improve a little bit every year is great and gratifying. And this is a way to do that. So that’s, that’s why I brought this forward to the committee.

It was suggested that this would be the place to, to do that. So there, I, I offer that there. I’m requesting that we send a, we ask staff to make sure that there’s a business case for this that we can, we can consider. Thank you, Councillor.

Councillor Hillier. Well first of all, I do agree with the direction the council is going with this. I just don’t agree with the timing on it. We’re going into the election right now and we’re looking to increase this to 100,000.

It looks very nice going into the election cycle. So I personally feel we should be looking at this with the next council. That’s actually 100,000 per ward, Councillor Hillier. Okay, see Councillor Helmer’s hand up next.

Yeah, I’m going to move that we received the new location from Councillor Hill. So I’m actually on board with the scaling up. They were a decision-making, but I think more on the order of, I should probably double the funding for it before we start increasing it by five and a half times what it is now. I think it has been pretty successful.

Although I’m open to, you know, creating more areas, I actually am pretty reluctant to have a board we’re based allocation. I think having the regional approach has provided administrative simplicity, you know, it’s a little bit easier to administer a little bit more flexibility in the program and has actually proven to be pretty good in targeting various areas of the city over the many years that the program’s been running now. So I think scaling up the funding is needed and I’m open to that discussion. But I think the next step I would take at least would be going from 250,000 hours a year to 500 and not only up to 1.4 million.

And I will say the idea of financing it through the surplus policy, I don’t agree with at all. And I think if something is going to be an ongoing permanent program, needs ongoing permanent funding, and that needs to be through property taxes for a program like this, and then we’re going to have to scale something else back, or we’re going to have increased taxes to pay for it, and surpluses, although they have been the feature of our councils in the past few years, they are not guaranteed. And certainly we couldn’t be guaranteed to have a million dollar surplus every year, let alone be able to use it for anything else like reducing debt, or increasing infrastructure gap capital reserve funds, or putting money aside in the community investment reserve fund, which is what happens. And now, so, you know, I’m not in favor of that nothing of financing.

So at this point, I’m willing to receive it. You know, if Councilor Randhol thinks that doubling it is something you’d be on board with, perhaps we could do so many different council, I would say in terms of the timing, business cases, and all the amendments coming into the 2023 budget, and the timeline for that for staff and agencies and boards and commissions, basically August of this year, and it’s end of July. So I think we’re kind of out of time realistically to have new business cases coming up for 2023 budget. This one is one where I think that Councilor Hillier is probably on track with the timing that probably needs to be later.

Thank you, Councillor. So it’s moved that we’ve received a submission moved by Councillor Helmer, seconded by Councillor Hillier. Any other comments? I do agree with Councillor Helmer’s comments and Councillor Hillier’s, but I also did want to say to Councillor Randholst, very active committee session today from you, but I do agree with your thoughts on the neighbourhood decision-making that it is a great program, I think, and I do think it is worthy of increased investment, but I do agree that we’re a little late, I think, for the 2023 budget, and yeah, that was a really big number that you were proposing, so thank you for all of your submissions today, and I’m going to call the vote on this one.

Opposing the vote, the motion carries 60. All right, 4.6 is a request for additional funding from Vision Soho Alliance for the Housing Development Project at the Old Victoria Hospital Lands, and am I going to use Barboon on that one? Certainly, and you are. Go ahead, Councillor Cooper will also be able to speak as a joint report.

Sorry, I missed that last part that you said. Mr. Patrick Cooper will also be able to assist as it’s a joint report. Okay, Mr.

Cooper. Thank you, Madam Chair, and through the chair, representing this report to request additional funding from the roadmap to help facilitate the building of affordable units that would be in support of the Housing Stability Action Plan and also the roadmap. The process and the approach by the Soho Alliance, which makes up five different groups, creating seven different projects at the Old Possible Lands and across the street, is a unique process and an approach. Typically, we have one group applying, but in this case, it’s five groups.

The current bylaws don’t really provide that type of thought or flexibility, so we are looking at finding some flexibilities for the groups without making amendments or changes to the bylaws such that we would be instead, and in lieu, pulling money from the roadmap that’s been set aside. This will still fall under the $45,000 per unit that’s contemplated in the roadmap, so we’re not going about that threshold, but again, it would be in support of the roadmap. And prior to any funds flowing to the group, it would be noted that acceptable performance from the groups, from each group, would be acceptable to the city, would have to be submitted. Those performers would then serve as a basis for development contribution agreements.

Contribution agreements don’t just speak of the financial aspect, but also on the performance or delivery, including legal aspects of the of the project and of the funds and how they’re tied to, including reporting. And the contribution agreements also would be tying the service standards to the to the goals and outcomes identified in the roadmap, but also importantly through the housing stability action plan, and that would be including with the coordinate access list. So a lot of those components would be then built in the contribution agreement be built and be from the performers, which would serve as the foundation. Great.

Thank you, Mr. Cooper. Are there any questions about this report? Comments?

There is a recommendation, a three-part recommendation that the the increased conditional grant of $13,876,000 be approved, that civic administration be directed to develop a contribution agreement with Vision SoHo Alliance members, and the financing for the conditional grant be approved as set out in the source of financing. Do I move or move by the mayor? Seconded by Councillor Helmer. Mr.

Mayor, did you want to comment? On this particular issue, yes, I do thank you, Chair. Council has strongly gotten behind this project over, oh, since its inception, I think what struck us were the unique partnerships that have been developed. And at so many levels, this makes sense in terms of providing affordable housing, ensuring that buildings that, quite frankly, were empty.

And in various states of repair, many will be salvaged. But what we’ve done is I think we’ve given dignity of the neighborhood. And I think that I appreciate what Mr. Cooper said in terms of having an acceptable performance on hand so that they can do the ultimate due diligence.

So I thank staff for that as well. And I’m quite pleased to move this forward on that pretty level. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Any other comments? I’m seeing none. It’s been moved and seconded, so I will call the vote. Closing the vote, the motion carries six to zero.

Okay, that, I believe, covers our public agenda. We have one confidential item on our agenda. Mr. Mayor, do you have your hand up?

Well, you do have your hand up. Do you meant, did you mean to have your hand? I did not. I did not mean a chair.

I was just kidding. We do. We’re just kidding. That was a good joke.

We do have one final item, actually. I was kidding. The deferred matters list. And I believe we have a conflict on the deferred matters list.

If councilor if you’d like to you already declared it, that’s good. So I’m going to pull item one, I believe, off of the deferred matters list so we can vote on that separately. And why don’t we do item one first? Don’t move chair.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Moving item one from the deferred matters list, seconded by councilor Humber can call the vote on that. Item one from the deferred matters list.

Closing the vote, the motion carries five to zero with one. That leaves us with the remainder of the deferred matters list. I need a mover and a seconder. Moved by councilor Hillier.

Seconded by councilor Humber. I’ll call the vote. Councilor Humber. Thank you.

Closing the vote, the motion carries six to zero. That does take us to the confidential agenda. There is one matter. It is a personal matter slash identifiable individual.

A matter pertaining to personal matters about an identifiable individual, including municipal or local board employees with respect to the awarding of the 2022 Queen Elizabeth scholarships. I need a motion to go in camera. Moved by councilor Hillier. Seconded by councilor Humber.

We can do a hand vote on that. All those in favor? No, I’m sorry we cannot do a hand vote on that. I will call.

I will call the vote. Closing the vote, the motion carries six to zero. Recording in progress. All right, we are back.

Look to councilor Hymu to report it. Thank you. Chair, a matter pertaining to, sorry, we made some progress on the item in camera. Thank you for doing that, councilor Hymu.

And I should have gone to councilor Humber as the vice chair, but I’m totally, I’m very tired today and I apologize. So with that, I just need a motion to adjourn. Moved by councilor Hymu. Seconded by councilor Hillier.

We can do this one by a show of hands, right? All those in favor. We are adjourned. Thanks everybody.