May 24, 2023, at 4:00 PM

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1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by J. Pribil

That Items 2.1 and 2.3 to 2.5 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

2.1   5th Report of the Animal Welfare Community Advisory Committee

2023-05-04 - AWCAC Report - 5

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by J. Pribil

That the 5th Report of the Animal Welfare Community Advisory Committee, from its meeting held on May 4, 2023, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

2.3   Housing Stability for All Plan 2022 Update

2023-05-24 - Staff Report - (2.3) - Housing Stability for All Plan 2022 Update - Full

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by J. Pribil

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, and with the concurrence of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated May 24, 2023, related to the Housing Stability for All Plan 2022 Update:

a)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to submit the Housing Stability for All Plan (HSAP) 2022 Update to the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing as the annual update to the local homeless prevention and housing plan, in accordance with the Housing Services Act, 2011 (HSA);

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to circulate this report to community and affected partners, agencies, and community groups including, but not limited to, Middlesex County, the London Homeless Coalition and on the City of London website; and,

c)    the above-noted staff report BE RECEIVED. (2023-S11)

Motion Passed

2.4   2022-2023 Winter Response Program Outcome Report

2023-05-24 - Staff Report - (2.4) - 2022-2023 Winter Response Program Outcome Report

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by J. Pribil

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, the staff report, dated May 24, 2023, with respect to the 2022-2023 Winter Response Outcome Report, BE RECEIVED. (2023-S11)

Motion Passed

2.5   SS-2023-151 - London Fire Department Single Source Bunker Gear

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by J. Pribil

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated May 24, 2023, related to the London Fire Department Single Source Purchase for Bunker Gear:

a)    in accordance with Section 14.4(g) of the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy, Fire Administration BE AUTHORIZED to enter into negotiations with Innotex Inc., 275 Rue Gouin, Richmond, Quebec, J0B 2H0, for pricing for a single source contract for one (1) year with one (1) option year for the provision of bunker gear to the London Fire Department;

b)    the approval in a), above, BE CONDITIONAL upon The Corporation of the City of London negotiating satisfactory prices, terms, conditions, and entering into a contract with Innotex Inc. to provide bunker gear to the London Fire Department;

c)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all the administrative acts that are necessary in connection with the authorization set out in parts a) and b) above; and,

d)    the funding for this procurement BE APPROVED, as set out in the Source of Financing Report, as appended to the above-noted staff report. (2023-AL4)

Motion Passed

2.2   London Fire Department - Establishing and Regulating By-law

2023-05-24 - Staff Report - (2.2) - London Fire Department – Establishing and Regulating By-Law

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by C. Rahman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated May 24, 2023, related to the London Fire Department Establishing and Regulating By-law:

a)         the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on June 6, 2023, to:

i)          approve the continuation and regulation of the London Fire Department;

ii)         repeal By-law No. F-6, being “A by-law to continue and regulate a Fire Department”; and,

b)        the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, on the recommendation of the Fire Chief, BE DELEGATED the authority to form Automatic Aid Agreements, Mutual Aid Agreements and other Fire Protection Agreements, as necessary; it being noted that a by-law to enact the delegation will be brought forward to Municipal Council for enactment. (2023-C01)

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

3.   Scheduled Items

None.

4.   Items for Direction

4.1   J. Thompson, LIFE*SPIN - Ethical AI Homelessness Tools

2023-05-24 - Submission - (4.1) - Ethical AI Homelessness Tools - Life Spin

2023-05-24 - Submission - (4.1) - Ethical AI Homelessness Tools - Western University Philosophy Students

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That the communication, dated May 15, 2023, from J. Thompson, Life*Spin, with respect to Ethical AI Homelessness Tools, BE FORWARDED to the Civic Administration for consideration; it being noted that the above-noted communication was received. (2023-S11)

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

None.

6.   Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 4:50 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 (1 hour, 6 minutes)

Hi, Jerry, can we do a soundtrack for chambers, please? Testing, testing. Very good, thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon, this is the ninth meeting of the Community Budget Services Committee. The city of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Neshnabak, Horoshone, Anamak, and Adewandran. We honor and respect the history, language, and culture, the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home. The city of London is currently home to many First Nation, Métis, and Inuit today.

As representative of the people of the city of London, we are grateful to have the opportunity to work and live in this territory. Members of committee in chambers is all committee members, being Councillor Stevenson, myself, Councillor Pribble, Raman, Ferreira, and Mayor Morgan is on his way to the Federation of Canadian municipalities. He will not be joining us today. We do wish him safe travels, and I am acting mayor as well in his absence.

And just for committee, I do have another event to attend this evening, hope around 5.30, but I’m sure we’ll be done there-ish. So just vice-chair Ferre is prepared to take my spot if I need to step out. The city of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for meetings upon request. To make a request specific to this meeting, please contact CPSC at London.ca or 519-661-2489, extension 2425, looking to committee members for disclosures of pecuniary interest.

Seeing none, on our consent items, we have 2.1 through to 2.5. I need to pull item 2.2 due to a slight by law wording change, looking to committee members to see if they were like anything else pulled. Seeing none, I would need a mover and a seconder to put items 2.1, 2.3, 2.4, and 2.5 on the floor, and then I’ll start my speaker’s list for questions. Moved by Councillor Stevenson, seconded by Councillor Pribble.

There is also an added staff report in regards to item 2.5. I will leave it up to committee if you would like a brief staff overview of why and how things have changed with how we’re doing some source procurement, but I will leave that to you to ask as we go through and do questions. So starting my speaker’s list on all the consent items that are on the floor. Quiet start on, it’s Thursday.

That’s what’s thrown us off, it’s Wednesday. Obviously that Monday off just completely threw me off. So it’s Wednesday and that Wednesdays are lovely too, and I will start my speaker’s list with Councillor Stevenson and then Councillor Hillier’s also joining us virtually, and any of those encounters can be recognized after committee members. Thank you and through the chair.

I have a few questions, but I’ll start with 2.3, the housing stability for all plan, the 2022 update. And I just wanted to thank staff for the report and for taking the time to explain some of it to me. I appreciated that that time I got some clarity. It’s a very expansive plan, and this report was difficult to understand.

So one of the things that I talked about was in B, it talks about posting it to the City of London website. And my concern is that it’s really not gonna make sense to the residents of London who really are maybe more interested in housing than they ever have been. They really wanna know what the city’s doing to help. And so in my communication with staff, they said that they would work with the communications team and come up with sort of an executive summary, something that would explain to people what it is we’ve been doing the value that we’ve been creating and maybe still the challenges that exist.

So staff could maybe just share what you’d like to share about that, that would be great. Thank you, and I’ll go to staff too, recognizing this conversation also come up in our strategic planning of just really telling residents straight up what it actually means to them without our political lingo in there. And I will go to Mr. Cooper.

Thank you, and through the chair, I appreciate the time to chat with the counselors and to answer questions that they had. And really, when you’re immersed in this work on a day-to-day basis, right, it becomes second-hand knowledge and appreciate we live in a world of acronyms and short forms. And so I appreciate the lens in perspective that the counselors have brought to Mr. Felberg and myself as we move forward with providing this information to the ministry as we need to, but then also working with our communications department to ensure that the messaging we’re trying to share with and wanting to share with community is accurate and digestible.

What we’re really focusing on is really more the four pillars of the response and of the action plan and focusing on how we responded to the homelessness crisis, having three or four or five key points on addressing the actions that we’ve landed there, how we’re working to create more housing stock, how we’re working to transform the service system, and how we’re working to provide more housing support. So I think if we land on those four pillars and three or four key items on the website while having a deeper dive for folks if they want to go into the report, that should suffice. Councillor Stevenson. Thank you very much.

And the other thing that caught my eye was in 2.5, it talks about transforming the service system. And it particularly says that the group has begun a lean process to review service areas and identify areas where there were opportunities for improvement to better serve lenders, and I’d love to hear more about that. Thank you and through you, Madam Chair. So this is actually very good.

This aligns really well with the whole community response where we’re looking for a single point of access for folks who are looking to find housing and get off the streets. So what we’ve actually undertaken since December, we’ve started working with the consultant to go out and do some continuous improvement work. So we’ve actually mapped all of our processes against something called the housing continuum. And our next intention for us, what we’ll be doing is we’ll be taking that information, taking those process maps, looking to optimize our organizational structure between housing stability services and municipal housing development, and then looking to develop what we need to develop in order to bring forward a multi-year budget business case.

Additionally, we’ve also got each of our respective areas within each of our housing stability and municipal housing development. They’re also working on three quick wins, quick, simple things that they can do to start building some momentum so that they can actually start to see some tangible wins and actually see some improvements to that system. Mr. Stevenson.

  • Thank you. Councilor Perble, you’re next. Just have three questions. And they’re mainly to 2.4.

And I would start in thinking again for the report about the winter response, but is there any way we could do our staff could prepare or show the chair to staff? If the staff could prepare for us a comparison, let’s say to last three years, how when we did it as our city and last year, when we did it with our community as the agencies, could we do a comparison study kind of our investment and what we received in terms of the value for the services? Would it be possible? I’ll go to staff and not sure, realizing each year has been a little bit different, how comparable we could get that data to make sure we’re comparing like things.

Thank you, Chair, and through you. Yeah, so if there’s direction to come back with a different report looking at comparing year over year, certainly if there’s certain items that are of most interest for committee, the winter responses have been fundamentally different year over year. Try to learn from the year prior, try to use the resources that are different from the year prior, and so we could bring it back and say, here’s what we had available to us in year one and here’s what we did with it, okay. We could do that for year two, which looked completely different ‘cause we focused on a really targeted housing initiative using different city assets that we did not use in year one.

So we’re not comparing apples to apples there. And then year two to year three was community led versus city led. So I would just caution that the competitors are just gonna give you numbers. We can pull those from existing, those reports already exist.

Those are CAHPS reports that are public. So we could pull the information out of existing reports that we brought forward in the first two iterations and do that comparison. Just would look to committee if they had specifics that they wanted to see so that my team could actually hone in on something that would be of value to you other than just throwing numbers at you that really don’t tell the whole story. Councilor Perbal?

What I’m looking for is really kind of the value that we receive for the investment. And we don’t know, I know the first report from the summits we are gonna receive May, June, but I don’t know what the proposals will be at, but anyways, what I wanted to do is and compare, let’s say, if, because I don’t know what the results will be yet, I wanna see the comparison kind of, if it’s, if we did it by the, when we did the winter response to the city and visit the agency. So I would leave it unless any other council has different suggestion. I would actually leave it up to you in terms of the financial investment and in terms of the value of the services we receive for that money.

And then if we can bring it to us and then we can look at it, I don’t know where we’re possible by end of July. Mr. Dickens? Thank you, Chair.

July would probably be our earliest, yes. I don’t think next cycle would be achievable, but we could probably aim for July, would do our best. Perfect, thanks. And in the meantime, we can maybe discuss in more detail if there were certain specifics, but otherwise, if this could be by end of July to comparison study, the last four years, that would be great.

Just checking my staff, if you’re okay with that, or if we require a motion. Look to the clerk in terms of a motion for directing staff to report back with a report or not. We can certainly undertake that effort, but whichever the committee chair and clerk require, but yeah, we will come back, what we’ll do is we’ll take the data that we have already shared as part of the first two winter responses as the summary reports, and we will combine it with the report that’s on today’s agenda, and we’ll try to put it in a format where you could do the side-by-side comparison, where that is possible. Could that be something useful for that public lens on the website too, that they could see the progress, or just try not to duplicate workloads if we don’t need to.

Through the chair, the reporting out on the public website is related to the housing stability action plan and not to the winter response, so we would need to undertake what a get involved website would look like for that. Councilor Pribble, are you looking to make a motion then for staff to come back with a report, or you just find that they’ll work in information as they can? I don’t need to make a motion. I think we have clear understanding.

And then I have two more, and one is the request that, and I don’t know what we talked about again, once again that our initiatives will be made June in the fall, will be first initiatives actually in place physically, but to bridge the time, and when I had certain discussions, we were talking about the 30, 60, 90 day encampment teams, and I would like to ask if there’s any opportunity or to introduce initiatives, and when I look at kind of our model, current model, those would be probably the best ones to address the time between now and the fall. So my question is, can this team come back with certain initiatives? And besides this team, are there any other teams or our staff that could introduce certain initiatives to take us from today till the fall? Mr.

Dickens? Chair, through you, just some clarification on, is that related to the which report on the, is that related to the which response? Are you, are you referring, I’m just wondering what this is reference to, sorry? No, this actually not to the report.

There’s an initiative, there’s an initiative, because our winter response ended end of March, and we don’t have, besides the three initiatives, we introduced last month from the saving money, we don’t have any other initiatives in place to take us through to the September. So actually, I should have taken it actually under the new business or other business. So it has nothing to do with either one of the reports, but anyways, so that’s the question, if there’s any other team that can introduce any initiatives or if it’s a 30, 60, 90 day teaming camp and team. To staff, your discussion, decision, if you want to answer that now, realizing it’s kind of like one report’s left and where are we at, or we can push it to new business if you need time to, okay, go ahead then.

Through you, Chair, we’ll keep this meeting on track, so we can all reach our other obligations later tonight. So, just work this through. So we, I’m not sure what capacity to be honest, our team has right now to explore new initiatives on top of all of the work and time we’re spending to launch community hubs by this fall. That work will include standing up, housing focused implementation tables.

Next week and beyond, we’ll be looking to come back to council with an update very soon with a community engagement strategy and we’re putting almost every available resource into trying to transform the system. We’ve also made a commitment through the system response work that we’re making a collective decision-making effort and that collective decision-making means that the initiatives and temporary or otherwise are co-designed by those that are involved in the process, including those with lived experience and fundamentally those with lived experience. Those designs and those decisions, those recommendations would ultimately come to council for consideration and for direction to implement. What we are getting away from and trying our best as we’re maintaining one system and trying to build a new one is to get away from temporary random one-off investments and trying to make the best effective use of the limited resources we have.

So, my team is not contemplating launching new temporary initiatives beyond what you’ve seen through our winter response. We are looking to funnel all of our efforts and our resources through the new system response process. Thank you for that, council approval. I wish we did have something more initiatives in place between March and September when we finished our winter response.

But just going back to the staff again, I know that one team who is being active right now is regarding the team addressing the encampments. And I do think that if nothing else, if we don’t come something that’s more valuable, then at least we have to make it safer for both people in the encampments and on the street and Londoners period. So, I’m just wondering if there is an opportunity at least there to improve the conditions. Thank you.

  • Thank you, Mr. Dickens. Thank you, Chair, and through you, thank you for that part of the question that I didn’t answer. Yeah, so we’re meeting with the on a weekly basis with a collection of frontline workers aimed at improving the safety, the cleanliness of the encampments that exist.

We are not proposing any fundamental wholesale changes in terms of sizes and locations and things like that. And everyone’s working under that premise. What we are looking to do is, you know, day to day, we do this work in planning and then we come together every week to try and advance the work is find a way to be more coordinated in the outreach from frontline organizations. So, better understanding who’s going to what encampments, when, when is their duplication of services, when could there be better coordination of services, of making sure we provide basic human needs, access to clean drinking water, access to sanitation services, making sure we were taking care of that hygiene component, but also making sure we’re better coordinated with the garbage collection.

Now, to simply say, we’ve got a great plan where we think we can expand to be better coordinated on garbage collection, requires that we first talk to our parks departments who do a lot of the parks garbage cleanup and also our roads department that assists with the CIR cleanup. So, we are incrementally making, you know, alignment and some small commitments to how we can advance this work really quickly so that we can keep people safe, keep the area clean, making sure that outreach workers are using their limited resources to the best of their ability. So, that stuff is happening in real time. There’s another meeting this week to make sure we can advance a more coordinated and strategic response to the immediate pressing issues within caments.

Council approval. Thank you very much for that. And please send the next meeting update us on the progress of these initiatives, which I’m glad, very glad to hear that these things are happening right now. If you don’t mind, if you’re already going so everyone is trying to finish.

But anyways, quick question. Statement of commitment was distributed by us to various agencies. And my question is there are some of them are clear, some of them are not as clear and some of them are cautious in terms of signing them because the level of comfort with some areas. Any message for them or have they reached out to us or what’s our response in terms of if they’re not sure of signing the statement of commitment?

It’s so that they want to be part of it. They do want to be part of it. But there are certain questions. Thank you.

Mr. Dickens. Thank you, Chair. Just closing off the encampment piece.

Our team have it on our schedule to be coming before you at the June caps with a report related to the CIR program and also will be dovetailing in an update about the encampment work that is happening and any potential funding asked related to both. So that will be coming, that’s on the agenda tracker to be coming in June caps. As far as the commitment to collaborate letter, that is part of the whole of system response. That is something that we have asked organizations that are participating on the strategy and accountability table to review and sign.

So we’ve received quite a few of them back, a large number. We have some that have proposed edits and we have some that are taking it to boards for approval. That is something that is a working document and it’s working through the operational components. That staff are directly involved in with these community organizations at that table.

So the questions, the concerns, the amendments, all of that stuff is happening operationally at those tables and that table meets again next week as well. Thank you very much for the answers. No more questions, thanks. Thank you, my next speaker is Councillor Ferrera.

Thank you and through you. My questions are also to 2.3 housing stability for all 2022 updates. So it’s gonna go back to the deputy city manager for social health and development. So easy questions, I’m assuming.

Well, first I’ll start like this. Just looking at the report, it does look like there’s been great progress that’s been done already. Looking at the creating more housing stock. I see a whole bunch of things here.

Like we got 13 different new community housing providers with 611 household units and the list goes on. 42 units, affordable units. You can just go down and down the list. And knowing that that predates the health and homelessness summit right now, this is work is already in the plan.

So we have an overlap, which I know Mr. Dickens was already saying that he’s looking to integrate the two or he’s looking to work with his team to integrate the two. So I do see huge progress here, which I really like to see. My question, I guess for that section would be, and this is the easy one.

When I’m looking at Appendix A, I do see that that is from a date range from 2019 to 2024. So I just wanted to know these updates are just in 2022 alone, or are these updates from that range from 2019 to 2024? To staff. Thank you, Chair and through you.

So what we’ve presented is the previous year, so the 2021 and then the 2022 actuals. The housing stability action plan is a ministry legislative requirement that we have a five year housing and homelessness plan. It runs its course from 2019 to 2024. So we have brought to previous council the annual updates.

So what we have done this year is align the formatting to look more like the corporate strategic plan. So what you see is prior year actuals and then the 2022 actuals and what we’ll do in 2024s, we’ll come back and we’ll give you the 2023 actuals. Councillor Ferra. Thank you through you and thank you for that.

Okay, so my next question would be for that, for the same 2.3 report, it would be going to the individuals on the by name list. And I just wanted to get some clarification because I know the number has always been kind of moving around. From what I saw, I’m pretty sure somewhere in this agenda, pre COVID, it was said to be less than 1,000. And then at 2022 is 4,923 individuals.

And then as of now, it’s around 2,000 again. So I just wanted to know if we could just get a little bit more clarity on the list and the number and how that number has been moving around in such significant amounts. To staff. Through you, Chair, do you have a page reference on the 4,000 figure?

That would be, it would be new to us. So it would be a typo if it’s in there. It’s, and through you, it’s page 20. Now I’m looking at the, I’m still reading off of the agenda with no added to it, but this is, it was on the original agenda on page 20.

Right under 2.2 respond to the home, our respond to the homelessness crisis. Okay, just for a moment, please. Thank you, and through the chair. Appreciate the question that I’ve found where you’re referencing.

So that 4,923 number as individuals will actually appear it on the by name list. And so when we run the current by name list report, when we talk about the 2,000 or so individuals on the current by name list, those are individuals who have interacted with services within the last 90 days, as well as signed consent. So that’s how we look at that number as a by name list, as a moving evolving list. But when we look at it from a yearly perspective, there were 4,923 people who touched the by name list at some point during that entire year.

That’s there. Thank you, and through you. Okay, so that was an accurate number, but those, I guess, a significant number of those individuals, because you haven’t been in contact with them for the last 90 days, would be safe to say, have been housed, or are they still in the system somewhere? Mr.

Cooper. Thank you, and through the chair, we see housing is definitely as an outcome for individuals, as you see in the other aspects of the report. A number of individuals would likely have resolved their own homelessness in one way or another. What we look at is if somebody does not access the system, and not access any of our intake points, they then wouldn’t be kind of put on the by name list.

And so that, around 2,900 individuals, they could have lost contact with the system. They could have been housed, they could have moved, they could have been resolved their own homelessness in a number of ways. Councillor Perai? Thank you, that’s all, thank you for that.

Looking to committee to say there’s Councillor Stevenson. Thank you, and through the chair, regarding 2.4, the winter response program. Thank you to staff for the report. I did notice that there were several organizations that created the results that they were committed to, and then there were others where there were variances.

In the situations where their variances have been noted, is it possible for us to get, if I request it, the details on the budget that has been provided? Because in some of the cases, the surplus doesn’t seem to align with what I would think anyway, would be comparable to the result. So I just wondered if Council does ask, are the budget details available? Mr.

Dickens, and if they are available, or if we want them public or privately behind the scenes, Councillor? Yeah, I’m just checking to see that if I were to ask, and there’s two or three of them that I’m interested in seeing, that if I sent an email, if that information’s available. Mr. Dickens?

Thank you, Chair. So I would just preface to say that, in schedule two, we provide the budget, and then we provide the actuals. So the variance is listed there. So the variance financially is listed, versus the variance of services as well.

The contracts we would hold, would be through Edlosa, CMHA, London Cares, and the Center of Hope Yen Unity Project. So those would be the budgets that would be made available. But I would also look to see, I know this questions come up before, around from our friends and legal on what we’re producing. If it’s a budget with London Cares, that would be one thing, but I don’t know how granular we would go.

I would need advice on that. Councillor? Realizing it might need a legal aspect too. Yeah, thank you, and through the chair, I will email, and then we can find out.

As far as the three-year comparative winter response, that Councillor Pribble requested, I know personally what I would like to see is the amount of money spent each winter response, the number of beds that were made available, the number of emergency overnight beds for the cold weather alerts, and then how many were occupied, basically? I took guys just a comment to staff. Just a comment to staff. Perfect, and I saw them nodding that they heard and made notes.

Perfect, looking to see if there’s any other questions or comments from committee on all consent items with the exception of 2.2, Councillor Ferra. Thank you, and through you, for 2.5 on the added 1 in Fire Department, single source bunker gear, was there something that staff could speak to on that? You said they were gonna give a little presentation. It could have just been a brief overview of the wonderful work that they’ve done.

I will always go to staff for a chance to say what they’ve managed to do as I was quite impressed myself as a city’s budget chair. So, Ms. Smith, if you wanna take the accolades for this one? I would like, thank you through the chair.

I’d love to take the accolades, but I think I’ll turn it over in a second to acting chief Haze. This is, we’re excited about this. We worked with our procurement and supplied division, and this is the first time we’re undertaking what you would call a cooperative purchasing or a group buying opportunity. So, in 2015, when we last had a contract with the company to purchase bunker gear, which is, you can imagine, is a requirement and two sets per firefighter.

We paid about 1,700%. The market price now is just over $7,000 per set. So, that was quite an increase. So, we explored London Fire Department and Pyramid and Supply explored a group buying opportunity through Canoe, which is the Canoe Procurement Group of Canada where other municipalities join in, and we were able to purchase those sets, I think, just for over $3,000 each, and this will allow us to buy sets this year and into next year.

It’s within our budget, which is good, and then it will set us up nicely for the future, future years buying. But I’ll turn it over to Chief Haze in case I missed anything in part. Welcome, Chief Haze, and thank you for being here with us and anything you would like to add to this item. Thank you through your Madam Chair.

Just like to thank Council for the support through committee to Council for the support on this matter, and we look forward to forming this contract with NOTEC, which is our ongoing supply. So, we have consistent bunker gear throughout our whole inventory, so that’s very good. So, appreciate the opportunity. Ms.

Smith, if you want to see if there’s any potential future opportunities through this buying as well, we would love to hear those comments now. Is there more opportunities for staying within budget? Thank you, Councillor Filossa. And thank you for the plug we’ll put in, maybe in June or July, you will see another report coming forward because we need to replace on a regular basis fire vehicles.

And as you know, through our fire master plan, that we are reducing the life cycle of our fire engines from 20 years to 15 years to all of our vehicles. So, as part of the next multi-year budget process and as part of it, we’re looking into group buying over a number of years of vehicles. So, hopefully this will help and realize some savings to the municipality too. Perfect, does this committee have seen some emergency repairs and replacements recently through our reports?

Anything further, Councillor Ferriero? Thank you. No, just seeing that in the report, just seeing the amount that it increased, which, you know, we’ve seen these shocking numbers throughout the past few years, but seeing that it’s still a shocking thing to see. But to see that, I’m pretty sure I saw in the report that you were able to reduce that by 26% or something like that, that’s pretty amazing.

So, that type of outside of the box thinking is definitely appreciated. So, just a thank you for me and, I guess, the rest of the committee and council as well. Okay, looking to Councillor Stevenson. Thank you, just one last question that I forgot to ask regarding the winter response.

I did notice that there were 25 cold weather alert beds and for the four nights that we had cold weather alerts and that the occupancy was only 33% which really surprised me. And I wondered if staff had any comment around that. I’m sure it’ll be addressed in the new whole of community response, but it just seems a bit heartbreaking that we had such a low uptake on those beds during the coldest nights. To Mr.

Cooper? Thank you, and through you, Madam Chair. That was one number that were actually reached back out to that organization on to make sure it was accounted for correctly. As you know, we do use the high-fist system in our regular shelter system.

We did have to adjust our practices a little bit with the winter response this year as we had the lead agency account for that data. So, it is a data variance that we did identify and was concerning to us as well because we do here in past years and the need and the access to these bases is usually at capacity. So, it is something we’ll have to come back to you on in a future meeting or we can get back to your office with an answer to that once we’ve had a chance to reach out and chat with the organization a little further. Councilor?

Thanks, and I’m open to the committee, whether they want to hear it back at committee or it can just come to me. I’m, personally, I’m fine if it goes to you. I know that you’ll bring anything to committee. We always seem really responsible.

Okay, so we’ll just leave it that way for it’s not more formal than it needs to be. Looking for further questions or comments as it’s already been duly moved and seconded, calling the question. Opposing the vote, the motion carries four to zero. Thank you, item 2.2 was pulled.

The London Fire Department establishing a regulating by-law. I’ll go to Ms. Smith to explain why this one was pulled in the minor change we’re doing with wording. Thank you and through the chair.

So, this by-law before you today is an update of our current establishing and regulating by-law. It was last updated in 2006. So, we’re updating it now because it aligns with our new Fire Master Plan action plan. There were some changes in legislation and fire protection services that needed to be updated.

And it also provides additional clarity with what fire protection services are being provided today by the London Fire Department. As you could imagine, that was just growing over the last number of years. And in addition to that, this by-law also seeks to delegate authority to the deputy city manager of neighboring community-wide services. On the recommendation of the fire chief to update our automatic and mutual aid agreements.

These are, we have four of these agreements and they are, we either provide and/or receive services for Middlesex County, Central Elk, and Thames Center and Middlesex Center. So often we might provide them with our tankers. As you can imagine, a lot of it is in more rural neighborhoods and they provide us with tankers if needed on the outskirts. The value of these, I believe, is only one and the chief can correct me if I’m mistaken, is the Central Elk and Automatic Aid.

And the annual value of that agreement is about $9,000 a year. And it’s related to, they support our response times in the City Lands near Belmont. So for $9,000 a year through this agreement, they help support any fire protection services needed in City Lands near Belmont, Ontario. So the revised recommendation for you is revised part B if you look at it.

Our bylaw that is attached did not include the delegated authority. So civic administration will be bringing that required bylaw to the council meeting on June six. So the bylaw before you today will establish and update our current establishing and regulating bylaw. And then we will bring in section B and an additional second bylaw to allow that delegation of authority for the mutual aids and automatic aid agreements.

So that, thank you. The updated wording isn’t an E-scribe that will just allow them to walk the new bylaw into council so we can just take care of it altogether and at once. Chief Hayes, did you wanna add anything in on this one? Nothing further to add other than our apologies for not catching that sooner.

That’s okay, you caught it before it went through council. So it’s still in time. Looking to committee members if there’s any questions or comments on item 2.2 for the bylaws. I would need a mover and a seconder then.

Moved by Councillor Stevenson, seconded by Councillor Ramen, calling the question. Opposing the vote, the motion carries five to zero. Thank you, scheduled items. We have none, items for direction.

There’s one correspondence within your package from lifespan being item 4.1. There’s no direct ask within this correspondence besides reading it, doing some research and informing ourselves. Quote, understand the issues inherent in profiling the poor. So the usual opportunities for you tonight is to receive the correspondence or receive it as there is other information in it and forward it to staff for their review, in which case they would come back with any comments or things on it.

So looking to committee for what your preference is. And there’s no delegation attached to this tonight as they did not request one. So it’s just strictly the correspondence within your package, Councillor Pribble. Questions through the chair to the staff?

Has this organization been participating in our summits, mental health and homelessness? To staff, if they’re participating in that or any other city implemented programs? Through you, Chair, at their risk of being incorrect. I’m used to that.

This organization was part of the invite list. I cannot confirm if they’ve been attending or not. But it had been invited, part of it. To my knowledge, this organization has been invited to participate.

Thank you for the answer. I would like to move it, accept this report and forward to the staff. So that would be to accept this and then forward the letter to staff to give them a chance to review it. It would need a seconder.

Councillor Stevenson, a question? Yes, just to clarify, forward to staff, do they need to report back? This is just asking, just clarifying the motion. Are we just receiving it?

Or are we asking staff to do something? We could ask staff what they would review and do with it if another report maybe is already forthcoming, that some of the answers could be done? Or the other opportunity is, would you like an answer from staff about if there’s anything coming? No.

No, for me, I put out the motions, I’ll say it. No, for me, it was for us to accept it, forward it to the staff and if there are any recommendations from the staff to come back to us. But otherwise, my question was that certainly based on what the executive director, what she wrote, I just want to make sure that they were part of the discussions or they were invited, that’s the only thing, but I think we can leave it with the staff and if there are any recommendations to bring back to us. Councilor Ferra, second?

I’m willing to second. Okay, Councilor Stevenson seconds. Councilor Ferra, I’ll start my speaker’s list with you and then I’ll rotate over to my right. Through the chair, from what I understand, I think staff has been following this already and you guys have, I know, I would assume, just staff would know what the letter is saying from Lifespin and you’ve already implemented a lot of just kind of what they’re saying or not implemented, I should say, but you’re just aware of the concerns that they have.

So for the recommendation report and file, I believe, is that what was being spoken about? Currently, we received the correspondence and staff has asked to review it and if there’s anything in there, staff will come back with something. If there’s not, it’s just done. Their option, which wasn’t moved, was just to receive and file, which would be just to take it and not ask anything of staff and it’s filed.

Okay, so I guess I’ll ask ‘cause I thought a receive and file would probably be more appropriate for it. So I just wanted to know if staff maybe could speak to just the concerns and what the city already has or what you already have that you’re implementing for the concerns that you see in the letter. Which essentially is the, already asking them then, instead of receive and report back, you’re asking for the report now on the spot, basically. Good point, thank you through you.

I just wanted to know if the concerns that they’re talking about with AI and how you can really kind of pigeonhole just the outlook of everything, if we’re already, if you could maybe just speak off the top of your head if we’re already using or aware of those concerns. Mr. Dickens. Thank you, Chair and through you.

Yes, we’re aware of the letter. I think it’s important to clarify that the AI tool is simply one tool. It’s not the tool, it does not. Identify people that should be next in line for housing, it doesn’t make funding decisions, it’s simply a tool.

It’s a tool that we were exploring through the benefit of members of our ITS team and a member of Mr. Cooper’s team at the time. In 2019, at a time when service managers across Ontario were really starved of key information systems and looking at how we could be better informed to help the province be better on understanding where investments should go and be more accountable with our outcomes. The AI tool as it’s referenced in the letter is not necessarily accurate with how it’s being used at all.

Mr. Daly is on the call, he has been leading this on the ITS front in terms of all of the community input and development, all of the ethics review, going through an equity and inclusion lens. So we would not have any recommendations that go beyond just receiving this report. The way it’s been portrayed is not how it’s being used and in fact, our team has been very vocal about the missing middle and the individuals that are precariously housed in couch surfing and yes, they make up a big bulk of our population that we serve on a daily basis.

And so I would just maybe leave it at that. Sorry, Councillor Pribble. Sort of chair just to the staff and City Clerk did exactly the motion that’s appearing on our screen. It’s exactly what I meant.

Thank you. So if anyone wants to refresh, the motion is in eScribe. Next on my speaker’s list, Councillor Ferrier, were you satisfied with staff’s answer? Thank you, through you.

Yes, I was, I feel that maybe a receive and file would be more appropriate. However, some good would come out of the motion that Councillor Pribble was put out, which I’m just seeing if there’s an update here. Actually, I don’t have the update. Well, I’ll leave it up to you.

I’ll pass it back for a second. Thank you. I think either way, it’s the same thing as staff who already said they’re aware of it. Two different ways to the same.

And next to my speaker’s list was Councillor Ramen and then Councillor Stevenson. Thank you and through you. I just wanted to acknowledge some of the key facts that I thought were in this letter from Lifespin. And I wanted to perhaps give staff an opportunity if they so choose to comment on any of what they state as facts as well.

I think that there’s potential for some better understanding here. The first was that they think they believe that a tenth of the homelessness population in London is represented by the support that we’re providing right now. That I was not sure where that number may have come from. But I don’t know if it was just in there as a reference point, but didn’t know if it was actually factual.

I do acknowledge that what they’re asking for is more time spent identifying invisible homelessness as they’re calling it. And the terminology that they’re using around private shelters, I’m just wondering if that is terminology that we ourselves use. And then from that perspective, how we reflect that back, Mr. Cooper?

Thank you for that and through you, Madam Chair. So our by name list does accurately, I would suggest connect and provide an opportunity for people who are hidden homeless or marginally housed or at risk of homelessness from connecting with the system to look at opportunities for solutions to their housing challenges. We see in our by name list about one fifth, individuals living in sheltered, one fifth individuals who are currently standing shelter and about three fifths of those individuals who are marginally housed or couch surfing or what we might term hidden homeless. So as Mr.

Dickens alluded to earlier, our numbers are showing that people are connecting with our system, that we are accurately understanding the need in our community based on our by name list work. And it does allude to earlier around how we know people can resolve their own homelessness in many cases. So what we look at around the private sheltering piece, we do know of a couple private shelters in our community. Our teams are actively and routinely connecting with those organizations on ensuring that the folks who stay there and the agencies or the private individuals who operate those spaces know how to connect and how to have the people connect into our system to receive appropriate level supports.

Councilor Roman. Thank you. And just to follow up, I did note that in the letter that they’ve also mentioned and something that they’ve mentioned in previous correspondence to myself, I know as a counselor, was increased investment and repairs to existing social housing stock, as well as look at our housing standards and specifically some work around that. So I know that we’ve included some language about that in the strategic plan.

And I know that their efforts going forward and I hope to see that work as part of an update and part of our strategic plan as we move forward more and more work coming on that. I truly, I hear what they’re saying. I value the fact that they took the time to spend to communicate with us this way and hope to learn more and thank them for shedding some light on these issues. Thank you for those words.

Councilor Stevenson. Thank you. I was just gonna say the same thing. Thank you to Ms.

Thompson for the submission and encouragement to continue to participate in the whole community response so that we benefit from that. Thank you, as the items, Councilor Ferra. Thank you, I’ll just echo what was said. I appreciate the report coming in, it’s informative and the way the motion looks, I like that too.

Perfect, I have no further speakers on my list. It’s been moved and seconded, calling the question. Building the vote, the motion carries five to zero. Thank you.

I have no deferred matters, additional business. We did a little bit of additional business earlier today looking to see if there’s any more additional additional business. Seeing none, that would move us on to adjournment, looking for a motion to adjourn. Moved by Councilor Stevenson.

Seconded by Councilor Raman, a hand vote of all in favor. I’m told that passes, have a wonderful evening regardless of where your journeys may take, you may be safe.