July 24, 2023, at 4:00 PM

Original link

The meeting is called to order at 4:02 PM; it being noted that Councillors P. Van Meerbergen and S. Hillier were in remote attendance; it being further noted that Councillor E. Peloza was in remote attendance at 8:13 PM.

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

None.

3.   Scheduled Items

None.

4.   Items for Direction

4.1   London’s Health and Homelessness Whole of Community System Response Proposed Hubs Implementation Plan

2023-07-24 Staff Report - London’s Health and Homelessness Whole of Community

At 4:04 PM, His Worship Mayor J. Morgan places Councillor S. Lewis in the Chair, and takes a seat at the Council board.

That the following actions be taken with respect to the London’s Health & Homelessness Whole of Community System Response Proposed Hubs Implementation Plan report dated July 24, 2023:

a)    the London’s Health & Homelessness Whole of Community System Response Proposed Hubs Implementation Plan as appended to the staff report dated July 24, 2023 as Schedule 1 BE ENDORSED;

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to undertake a competitive procurement process to select the Lead Agencies and their corresponding locations for the implementation of the first five Hubs and report back with the results and sources of financing for approval;

c)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to secure sources of financing to support the implementation of the first five Hubs including a request through the London Community Foundation for access to the Health and Homelessness Fund for Change;

d)    the staff report, dated July 25, 2023, with respect to this matter BE RECEIVED for information;

e)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to defer Community Improvement Plan loan repayments, on an interest-free basis, from August 1, 2023 to August 31, 2026, where the applicant has requested a deferral in writing; it being noted that the impact of deferring loan repayments will require an additional contribution to the Community Improvement Program Reserve Fund of up to $1.97 million subject to the number of requests for deferral, with funding to be sourced from the Operating Budget Contingency Reserve from funds set aside to offset the financial impacts of COVID-19;

f)      the Mayor & Government Relations staff be directed to undertake advocacy to work with the Government of Ontario to secure a provincial addictions rehabilitation site(s) for London;

g)      the Mayor and the Budget Chair BE APPOINTED to represent the Municipal Council at the Strategy and Accountability table, for the Whole of Community System response, with the Deputy Mayor to serve as an alternate for either, if required; and

h)      that the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to complete the following:

i.    initiate a continuous public feedback loop as part of the Communications Plan on all aspects associated with the Hubs Implementation Plan and the overall System response, both now and into the future, while also ensuring that the Get Involved portal hosts the most up to date documents and has a continuous public input option; and,

     ii.    initiate and host a series of public engagement sessions regarding the Hubs Implementation Plan;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a presentation from the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, C. Lazenby, Unity Project and S. Warren, London Intercommunity Health Centre with respect to this matter;

it being further noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received the following with respect to this matter:

  •    a communication dated July 21, 2023 from N. Thuemler, Regional Manager, Indwell;

  •    a communication dated July 21, 2023 from Deputy Mayor S. Lewis, Councillor S. Stevenson and Mayor J. Morgan;

  •    a communication dated July 21, 2023 from Councillor C. Rahman; and

  •    a communication from Mayor Morgan

  •    a verbal delegation from M. Wallace, London Development Institute; and,

  •    a verbal delegation from J. Herb.

Motion Passed

Voting Record:

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the following delegations BE APPROVED to be heard at this time:

  • M. Wallace, London Development Institute;

  • J. Herb

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

Moved by J. Morgan

Seconded by C. Rahman

That the following actions be taken with respect to the London’s Health & Homelessness Whole of Community System Response Proposed Hubs Implementation Plan report dated July 24, 2023:

a)    the London’s Health & Homelessness Whole of Community System Response Proposed Hubs Implementation Plan as appended to the staff report dated July 24, 2023 as Schedule 1 BE ENDORSED;

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to undertake a competitive procurement process to select the Lead Agencies and their corresponding locations for the implementation of the first five Hubs and report back with the results and sources of financing for approval;

c)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to secure sources of financing to support the implementation of the first five Hubs including a request through the London Community Foundation for access to the Health and Homelessness Fund for Change; and

d)    the staff report, dated July 25, 2023, with respect to this matter BE RECEIVED for information;

e)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to defer Community Improvement Plan loan repayments, on an interest-free basis, from August 1, 2023 to August 31, 2026, where the applicant has requested a deferral in writing; it being noted that the impact of deferring loan repayments will require an additional contribution to the Community Improvement Program Reserve Fund of up to $1.97 million subject to the number of requests for deferral, with funding to be sourced from the Operating Budget Contingency Reserve from funds set aside to offset the financial impacts of COVID-19;

f)      the Mayor and Government Relations staff be directed to undertake advocacy to work with the Government of Ontario to secure a provincial addictions rehabilitation site(s) for London;

g)      the Mayor and Deputy Mayor BE APPOINTED to represent the Municipal Council at the Strategy and Accountability table, for the Whole of Community System response; and

h)      that the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to complete the following:

         i.    initiate a continuous public feedback loop as part of the Communications Plan on all aspects associated with the Hubs Implementation Plan and the overall System response, both now and into the future, while also ensuring that the Get Involved portal hosts the most up to date documents and has a continuous public input option; and,

        ii.    initiate and host a series of public engagement sessions regarding the Hubs Implementation Plan;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a presentation from the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, C. Lazenby, Unity Project and S. Warren, London Intercommunity Health Centre with respect to this matter;

it being further noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received the following with respect to this matter:

  •    a communication dated July 21, 2023 from N. Thuemler, Regional Manager, Indwell;

  •    a communication dated July 21, 2023 from Deputy Mayor S. Lewis, Councillor S. Stevenson and Mayor J. Morgan;

  •    a communication dated July 21, 2023 from Councillor C. Rahman; and

  •    a communication from Mayor Morgan

  •    a verbal delegation from M. Wallace, London Development Institute; and,

  •    a verbal delegation from J. Herb.

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by S. Hillier

That pursuant to section 9.6 of the Council Procedure By-law, Mayor J. Morgan BE PERMITTED to speak longer than 5 minutes with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed

Moved by P. Van Meerbergen

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That consideration of the matter of London’s Health and Homelessness Whole of Community System Response BE REFERRED to a future special meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee which would include a public participation meeting.

Motion Failed (4 to 11)

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee recess at this time.

Motion Passed

The Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee recesses at 7:20 PM and reconvenes at 7:46 PM.

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That part g) BE AMENDED to read as follows:

“g)     the Mayor and the Budget Chair BE APPOINTED to represent the Municipal Council at the Strategy and Accountability table, for the Whole of Community System response, with the Deputy Mayor to serve as an alternate for either, if required; and”

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Moved by J. Morgan

Seconded by C. Rahman

Motion to approve part a):

That the following actions be taken with respect to the London’s Health & Homelessness Whole of Community System Response Proposed Hubs Implementation Plan report dated July 24, 2023:

a)    the London’s Health & Homelessness Whole of Community System Response Proposed Hubs Implementation Plan as appended to the staff report dated July 24, 2023 as Schedule 1 BE ENDORSED;

Motion Passed (11 to 4)

Moved by J. Morgan

Seconded by C. Rahman

Motion to approve part b):

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to undertake a competitive procurement process to select the Lead Agencies and their corresponding locations for the implementation of the first five Hubs and report back with the results and sources of financing for approval;

Motion Passed (12 to 3)

Moved by J. Morgan

Seconded by C. Rahman

Motion to approve the balance of the motion, including the amended part g),

c)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to secure sources of financing to support the implementation of the first five Hubs including a request through the London Community Foundation for access to the Health and Homelessness Fund for Change; and

d)    the staff report, dated July 25, 2023, with respect to this matter BE RECEIVED for information;

e)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to defer Community Improvement Plan loan repayments, on an interest-free basis, from August 1, 2023 to August 31, 2026, where the applicant has requested a deferral in writing; it being noted that the impact of deferring loan repayments will require an additional contribution to the Community Improvement Program Reserve Fund of up to $1.97 million subject to the number of requests for deferral, with funding to be sourced from the Operating Budget Contingency Reserve from funds set aside to offset the financial impacts of COVID-19;

f)      the Mayor & Government Relations staff be directed to undertake advocacy to work with the Government of Ontario to secure a provincial addictions rehabilitation site(s) for London;

g)      the Mayor and the Budget Chair BE APPOINTED to represent the Municipal Council at the Strategy and Accountability table, for the Whole of Community System response, with the Deputy Mayor to serve as an alternate for either, if required; and

h)      that the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to complete the following:

i.    initiate a continuous public feedback loop as part of the Communications Plan on all aspects associated with the Hubs Implementation Plan and the overall System response, both now and into the future, while also ensuring that the Get Involved portal hosts the most up to date documents and has a continuous public input option; and,

ii.    initiate and host a series of public engagement sessions regarding the Hubs Implementation Plan;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a presentation from the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, C. Lazenby, Unity Project and S. Warren, London Intercommunity Health Centre with respect to this matter;

it being further noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received the following with respect to this matter:

  •    a communication dated July 21, 2023 from N. Thuemler, Regional Manager, Indwell;

  •    a communication dated July 21, 2023 from Deputy Mayor S. Lewis, Councillor S. Stevenson and Mayor J. Morgan;

  •    a communication dated July 21, 2023 from Councillor C. Rahman; and

  •    a communication from Mayor Morgan

  •    a verbal delegation from M. Wallace, London Development Institute; and,

  •    a verbal delegation from J. Herb.

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

4.2   July Progress Update - Health and Homelessness Whole of Community System Response

2023-07-24 Staff Report - July Progress Update – Health and Homelessness

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, the following actions be taken:

a)    the July Progress Update – Health & Homelessness Whole of Community System Response Report BE RECEIVED for information;

b)    the Request for Proposal (RFP-2023-174) submitted by 2190876 Ontario Inc. - Sagecomm www.sagecomm.com 117 York St, London ON N6A 1A8, at the cost of $125,000, plus H.S.T. BE ACCEPTED;

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

d)    the approvals hereby given BE CONDITIONAL upon the Corporation entering into a formal contract or having a purchase order relating to the subject matter of this approval.

Motion Passed (12 to 1)

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

None.

6.   Confidential 

None.

7.   Adjournment

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That the meeting BE ADJOURNED.

Motion Passed

The meeting adjourned at 9:43 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 (5 hours, 49 minutes)

I’m going to call the 20th meeting of the SPPC to order. This is a special meeting. Special meeting means we have one item on the agenda and it also means there isn’t a new business or other things. Basically everything is related to the item on the agenda at a special meeting.

Let me start by making a land acknowledgement. The City of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabak, Haudenosaunee, Lene Peiwak and Adawandran. We honor and respect the history, language and culture of the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home. City of London is currently home to many First Nation Métis and Inuit today.

As representatives of the people of the City of London, we are grateful to have the opportunity to live and work in this territory. Let me further add that the City of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communications supports for meetings upon request. To make a request specific to this meeting, please contact SPPC at London.ca or 519-661-2489 extension 2425. I’ll start with disclosures of pecuniary interest and I’ll look to colleagues to see if there are any.

Okay, seeing none, we have no consent items. There’s no scheduled items. There are a couple of items for direction all related to the health and homelessness whole of community system response. One on the proposed hubs implementation plan and other the other regular progress update for July.

There’s a number of pieces of added correspondence. So, if colleagues don’t have that in front of them, pull it up and ascribe. There’s a number of added submissions, including some delegation requests. But I will also let colleagues know that on this matter, which I consider to be of pop importance to the City, I intend on participating in the debate extensively.

I intend on moving motions and because of that, I will not chair this portion of the meeting. I’m going to turn the chair over to the deputy mayor so that I can participate fully and freely in the totality of the debate on this matter. So, with that, I will turn the chair over to Deputy Mayor Lewis and we will switch spots because I intend to stay out of the chair for the remainder of the meeting. Okay, colleagues, now that I have the chair, as the Mayor indicated, we have two items for direction.

We also have two delegation requests as part of item 4.1. But before we entertain delegations or enter debate in this topic ourselves, staff do have a brief presentation to provide for us. This will include our two co-chairs. So, I’m going to turn it over to Mr.

Dickens and let him and his team offer that presentation to us. Thank you, Mr. Presenting Officer. And through you, I am pleased to introduce the collaborative hubs plan that you see today.

The process for this work began at a time in our community when it was very apparent, very public and wholly accepted that the state of the health and homelessness crisis had reached a level of concern that demanded a new way of doing things as the current way services were being delivered was not working and the system left too many high-acuity individuals without proper care. The summit process led to the creation of a system framework. The system framework led to an implementation model and that work led the community to the creation of multiple implementation tables, including one dedicated to creating a comprehensive hubs plan. The plan you have in your agenda today is a culmination of that work and a reflection of input from multiple organizations, including experts across multiple sectors.

Input from frontline staff, managers and feedback from the business community, the development community and informed by community engagement efforts that were carried out in parallel to the hubs design work. All of this has been validated by feedback collected thus far by individuals with lived and living experience. With this, Mr. Chair, I would like to introduce the hubs implementation table co-chairs who will walk council through today’s presentation.

We are joined today by Ms. Lazenby from Unity Project and Mr. Warren from London Inter-Community Health Center. Also joining today and also from London Inter-Community Health Center is Mr.

Cordes who sits as the co-chair of the strategy and accountability table as part of the system response. I will now hand it over to our presenters and share our screen. Good evening. My name is Sean Warren.

This is Chuck Lazenby and we’re the co-chairs of the hub implementation table. I just want to give you a quick run-through of the work that’s been unfolding over the last almost two months of the hub implementation table work. So why this plan and why now? So there’s no doubt that London is facing a dire health and homelessness crisis.

Too many Londoners are suffering and dying on our streets and all Londoners are experiencing the whole of community impacts of this crisis. Since 2020, nearly 200 individuals associated with homelessness services in our city have died. Approximately 2,000 community members are living unhoused at this time and about 49 percent of those are high acuity. In addition to ending the suffering and saving lives, there is potential for significant benefit for our entire community.

This is an investment in community well-being, economic development, downtown revitalization and strengthening neighborhoods and an opportunity to alleviate pressures on our health care and emergency services infrastructure. I always want to give you a rundown about the pathway to today. So as Mr. Dickens was pointing out, we’ve started the summit process back in November.

Things came together very quickly with three summits that were initiated by city staff as well as health care and emergency services partners. We then went to the system response being finalized and council endorsed the plan in March. System implementation framework was developed through March to April with the strategy and accountability table and the hub’s implementation planning started through May to now. So when we look at this infographic, this is one of the very tangible results that came from the health and homelessness summit.

Hubs were identified as a key component needed to address individuals who are the most high acuity in our community. This outlines the foundation of our work that we used in terms of the core functions to build the hub’s plan that you have in front of you. And really our journey to today has been a significant and collaborative effort in a very short period of time and most notably resulting in new collaborative relationships that did not exist nor could exist without this work before this plan started. And I think that, you know, it’s just worth noting the amount of community participation that has happened in this period of time while we are also still doing the work that we do day to day in our organizations and so the commitment to this process has been very significant.

And just to show you kind of by the numbers, you know, the significant participation that has happened in over the past few months, there have been five hub implementation table meetings and just want to bring kind of special attention to those community members in different agencies and organizations and representing a variety of stakeholders who came to those and continue to come to those meetings in order to make this hub’s plan work and pull that all together. So in that way, this is a response that’s created by the community for the community. So the system response was designed via the summer participant input. So that’s where the idea for the hubs in general came to be.

Implementation table subject matter expertise was offered by Frontline as well as senior leader expertise across the community. Community lived and living experience engagement has happened and is ongoing and will continue to be ongoing throughout this process. This is an evolutionary process and the input of folks that are looking to access these services and community members that are affected by services is important. Good practices locally and elsewhere have been considered and there’s been a lot of consultation with local specialists.

You’ll notice through the functions, there’s a medical stabilization. Bed function, that’s one where specialists had a side meeting to bring this forward and rarely verify what the standards of care were going to be. On page 15, you can see the entire definition for what the hub’s plan is. So I’m going to take you through these definitions for the hubs that will summarize kind of the work that goes on and the services and programs that the hubs will be doing.

So hubs exist to help the highest acuity individuals move safely indoors, stabilize, access supports and become sustainably housed. So this means every interaction within a hub is an active and intentional effort to enable an individual’s next step towards housing. And while hubs should have a feeling of community and a culture of participation, they are not to be operated as a traditional recreational drop-in programming. The definition of a drop-in in a hub means a staffed space that is open 24/7 where anyone can walk in the front door, access immediate basic needs and stabilization support and is a conduit to other services.

So the focus is always on enabling the next steps. Intentional physical design, internal and external will facilitate the right spaces to deliver the hub functions to high acuity populations while balancing the needs and expectations of the neighborhood surrounding the hubs. And the hub models in interdisciplinary, cross-sectoral and multi-agency, you know, collaborative model. And so what we’re looking at is the lead agencies who are, you know, the on-site permanent supports for everybody who’s accessing the services in a hub and that we have on-site rotating, on-call and referral support services utilizing all available community resources and supports in order to support participants towards those next steps.

And then we have lead agency criteria. And what we want to see when it comes to lead agencies is demonstrated experience in operating programs and services of a related nature to components of the hub. So we recognize the hub as a whole whole kind of thing is new. But certainly components of the hub that organizations do have experience in operating, that there is aligned values to the hub model, that there’s a demonstrated accountability or ability to collaborate and to be accountable to the community and to the services and the resources used, and that there’s a commitment to continuing a shared development of the model.

So one of the things we don’t want to do is leave lead agencies on their own. This is continuing to be a collaborative process as we develop the model of the hubs, recognizing that things are going to shift and change as we actually put these things into practice. So the hubs consist of 13 functions and 13 standards of care. So the vision of the hubs is consistent set of functions and standards across all locations.

This is important as the hubs will be distributed further throughout the community rather than concentrated in distinct neighborhoods. This is important because it lends to different safety planning practices that aren’t at our disposal right now. Somebody can’t come to one organization and necessarily if they’re having safety concerns, go somewhere else and know what to expect. This really brings that to the table in a way that’s new and renewed for our city.

This was developed by Summit participants across sectors, by subject matter experts at the hubs implementation table, and feedback from community members, business and development reference tables, BIA’s, neighborhood associations during the community engagement process. This also went to the strategy and accountability table for approval and for editing. Here you can see the 13 standards of care as well as the 13 functions. Some highlights are community engagement is now an expected function of the hubs.

That’s something that we heard when we’re speaking to the community is that ongoing feedback and ongoing input is important. Not only from people with lived and living experience that will be accessing these hubs but from the communities surrounding them. Also medical stabilization beds is something that came up through priority conversations around what are the needs of folks that are living outside today and how can we best wrap around them with the functions that are going to best support them. Hubs will also have a continuum of substance use supports and treatments.

So the hubs will provide a continuum of care and support for those using substances and trying to connect them with the right supports and interventions. This continuum acknowledges all evidence-based support and all evidence-based treatment options as working collaboratively to support individuals in achieving safety and improved quality of life. This continuum spans the breadth of known and to be known services and is foundational to the approach will be the values of self-determination, autonomy and choice. One of the core functions had to do with you know, coordinate intake into the hubs as well as a one number function.

These are really big pieces let alone the hubs themselves being really big piece to be able to develop in a comprehensive way in the very short timeline that we had assigned to us. And so what we’re going to start with is utilizing existing services to be doing that intake model through coordinated access. And so that during daytime hours referral and intake can be managed centrally through coordinated access via the HIFAS system, the HIFAS database. And this is something that is done with actually a few programs already and that in overnight and weekend hours that intake can occur through direct connection with the hubs and outreach teams and then processed into HIFAS.

And this also allows for diversion efforts as you know as they have been doing at coordinate access you know already. And then what came out of the implementation tables is to issue a request for a proposal for one number implementation and you know looking to establish service providers of one number type services to potentially deliver this service. We have looked at physical space specifications so given I think the urgency that we need hubs to be developed we are looking for those first three to five to be in built in pre-existing properties. So we’re not looking for new builds at this moment we’re looking for properties that we can utilize and establish hubs in and that we have kind of the details of some of those physical space specifications on page 35 to 36 in the hubs plan for review.

So priority populations was an important discussion. So with high acuity populations we were discussing that there might be some priorities that require distinct services and distinct approaches. Many of these align with the cities already established priority populations and what the group came to you were couples and families, indigenous individuals, medically complex individuals, women and female identifying folks and youth. So a hub may serve one or more of these populations in addition to the general population of high acuity individuals or serve one population exclusively depending on the unique needs of that population.

The expression of interest process for lead agencies will ask submitters to detail how they’re able to address one or more of these target populations. And specifically for these first three to five hubs, once again considering this really tight timeline, we want to make sure that they are going to fit within existing zoning. So we don’t want to be in a zoning battle at this point in time for those first three to five hubs that they should be existing, be located in existing buildings, that they should be net new beds. So we’re not looking to convert existing services at this moment in hubs that these first three to five are going to be net new beds to our system.

For the first three to five that the hubs should be located outside of Old East Village, not on Dundas Flex Street or Richmond Road, and that they should ensure that properties are well kept cleanliness and safety being prioritized and really help build that model of what proactive and ongoing community engagement, neighborhood engagement should look like for a hub. And that is in the period up to and throughout the time that they are in those neighborhoods. And then we have costing and budget. So we’re looking at a ceiling of 2.7 million per year that assumes a combination of six staff on site during daytime and evening hours and up to five staff overnight and additional capital costs of up to two million for each hub depending on what’s needed with those existing buildings for retrofitting.

And then leveraging existing services to help provide some of those services that are not within the core functions into hubs. And that’s all we have for a presentation and certainly look forward to any questions that you have from the details of the hubs plan that we provided. Thank you Ms. Lazenby and Mr.

Warren. We appreciate that. We’re going to keep you on standby as council members may have questions for you as we move into the debate tonight. And in some cases just for your information as well as for the public because we have a number of different service areas impacted unless the question is directed to a specific individual.

I will be going through Ms. Livingston to direct it to the most appropriate member of the team knowing that there could be Mr. Felberg. It could be Ms.

McNeely in planning. It could be yourselves. So there are a variety of considerations. So we will direct those the city manager and I will work to make sure that the question get to the right person.

So we’ll let you grab a seat for now. But please stay on standby for us as we may have some questions. Colleagues, we did have two requests submitted for delegations. We have a request for delegations status from Mr.

Mike Wallace and we have a request for delegation status from Mr. John Herb. So I am going to look for a motion to approve the delegations moved by Councillor Hopkins. I know this is through the chair.

I know this is a committee meeting and not a council meeting but it sort of feels like a council meeting. Nice to see so many people in the stands. And I’m just I’m just I’m just a little bit worried that we hear the same voices. And I can’t put up I can’t ask the people in the audience how many of you would have liked to have spoken tonight because that’s not the kind of question I can ask.

But I’m wondering whether we could maybe not do the delegation request tonight unless there’s really something new and different. Okay, so Councillor, I’m going to cut you off. That’s not a question. Procedurally, we can vote to receive or vote down delegations.

If you once the motion is moved and seconded, if you want to speak against delegations, you have to speak to it there. And colleagues, just before we go any further, I want to set the rules of engagement before we even get a motion on the floor tonight. First of all, to those in the gallery, of course, you are welcome to be here tonight. But we really ask that you be respectful in terms of listening to all speakers that we refrain from any booze or clause or or any displays of support or opposition to what you may hear from a delegate or from a member of council.

If we’re going to keep this as a respectful space, people need to be able to express their thoughts without feeling that those thoughts are being impugned by somebody else. Colleagues, I have my council procedures bylaw here. I’m going to be enforcing it very strictly in terms of making sure that we stay within our rules and procedures. I know that everybody feels very strongly about this issue.

They want to have a good debate tonight, but it has to remain a respectful debate. So I’m not going to allow for a lot of variance on that. I will be timing people as well. This is committee.

You can get your name back on the list, but at five minutes, I will cut you off and I will move to the next person on the speaker’s list. If we keep going around in circles on a particular matter, the council procedure bylaw does actually allow me as chair to stop recognizing individuals. And if we get into that situation where it is just a back and forth between two people and we’re just going around in circles, I will exercise that prerogative as chair. So I want us to be respectful.

I want us to have a good debate, but I want us to also follow our rules and procedures moving forward through tonight. So, Councillor Hopkins, you had moved the request for delegation. Do we have a seconder? Councillor Cuddy?

Any comments or questions on that before I ask the clerk to open the vote? Seeing none, then we’ll ask the clerk to open the vote. Councillor Van Merebergen, closing the vote. The motion’s passed 14 to 1.

Thank you, colleagues, and I will apologize. I should have indicated Councillor Hillier and Councillor Van Merebergen are with us via Zoom this afternoon. Okay, so the delegations have been approved. Delegates, you will each have five minutes to speak.

Mr. Wallace, I know you are very familiar with this process as you appear before us every other week at Planning and Environment Committee, but I am going to be strict on your five-minute time limit tonight, sir. So, if you would like to begin, the microphone is yours. Well, thank you, Mr.

Chair, Chair Lewis, and Mr. Mayor and members of Council who have supported us having public delegations who were properly registered for this meeting. The LDI has been actively involved in the discussions going forward, both at the hubs table, we have a development table, we have an opportunity to talk at the leadership table, and we are very supportive of the hubs plan that’s in front of you here tonight. We want to thank you, first of all, for the organizers for having us part of the consultation.

We are not service providers, but we are very much involved and able to assist in the location and renovation requirements for these hubs to actually come into fruition in the next number of months. So, we do thank you for that consultation, and we agree with the location criteria that has been set in this plan and the physical specifications we believe is workable at this point, and to be frank with you, we are, as our leadership is actually assisting staff and others looking for actual locations where these hubs may be located based on the criteria and the requirements in our plan about where they can and cannot be. For somebody who has been around on the political side, this is not LDI, this is me, for 25 years, both as a city councilor and as a member of parliament, we have worked on a lot of projects and policy plans over those 25 years. I will have to give credit to those on the service providers and of city staff for moving so quickly and so diligently on this project, understanding the urgency and the requirement for making London a better place to live for all of its residents, and I’ve been very impressed on how well they’ve worked together.

It’s been a learning curve for many of us who aren’t involved in the service provision side of what’s happening in London, and we do appreciate all the work that has gone into it. It’s very easy to say no. It’s very easy to find problems. It’s much more difficult to say yes, try, take leadership, it takes courage, and I appreciate what’s happening here.

I’m new to London only four years, and my family had been impressed with the commitment that has been made to try to solve the number one issue that’s facing London that will be here not for this year, but for a number of years, but we need to get started tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Wallace, and well under your five minutes this evening, I appreciate that.

Mr. Herb is next on our approved delegations status, so I’ll just give you a minute to get to the microphone there, sir. Thanks. And I’ll just let you know, I will give you a wave when you’ve got about 30 seconds to go in your five minutes, just so that you’re aware, okay?

Thanks. I appreciate that. And we’ll just make sure that your microphone is on. Hello.

Okay. Thanks. Can you hear me down there? We can hear you nice and clearly, so.

Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor and members of the City Council. Unlike Mr. Wallace, I’m not representing any organization in particular.

I’m here as an individual. Also, unlike Mr. Wallace, I’ve lived in the city my entire life, 50 years of it in the old East Village, so we’ll use that as a preface. I see a lot of good things in the proposals that are put here today, but we’ll get to the we’ll get to the good stuff first.

I think our society has an obligation to provide a minimum level of service delivery to the homeless and indigent population of London. And that does mean regular access to some facilities like laundry and showers, but this proposed strategy is far more wide ranging than that. These hubs are also going to distribute, although they are going to distribute items that will decrease incidents of health issues, poor hygiene, and that’s a benefit to the whole community as well. And I appreciate the Council also giving thought to the placement of these hubs as part of a whole community approach.

The ratepayers in this city have to be considered into any projects that are going to help the indigent people. So the placement of these hubs is going to be very meaningful. Now we’re going to get on to some of the bad things I see in this plan. And at an average of $2 million per location, I have to ask if 15 of them is absolutely necessary in the city of the size of London.

Even the first five that are proposed in the first year are probably going to be an excessive number, depending on the usage. But let’s say three to five is reasonable to start with. And it’ll give us a pretty good indicator of how well they’re going to be utilized. But let’s hold the number of locations aside.

Because we’re not discussing only the initial outlay, but the ongoing costs of $2.5 to $2.7 million per location. If this scheme comes to full fruition, that’s a minimum of $30 million per year. And costs can be expected to rise from that. So we as a city are committing to spending in the next 10 years, $300 million on this initiative.

And that means passing on to the next generation, a cost of over $1 billion in the next 30 years on this initiative. So that number should have you all pumping the brakes just a little bit. Now, how are the contingencies like broken equipment and other variable costs projected into these budgets? I can see the clientele damaging and vandalizing not only the hubs themselves, but the areas around them.

And things like people locking themselves into shower stalls for extended periods, or they decide to wash their clothes with pockets full of rocks or other debris. Machines break down with their halfway full of water and soap. What are the plan for things like that in advance? Excuse me.

What about the issues of loitering around their locations? What’s the plan for all of these inevitable occurrences? I can go on and on about these not only possible problems, but extremely probable issues. The health and safety of the neighbors of these locations has to be taken into consideration.

You only have to walk down east of Adelaide and you’ll see what the concentration of social service delivery is done to that part of town. And residents and business owners that I know, personally friends, are leaving that area daily. And there’s daily, nightly on slots of vandalism, violence, theft. What are the hub operators planning to do about litter and debris that scattered around their locations?

How do they plan to address the vandalism issues that are going to occur? Or are we just all on our own? I think, you know, the other thing I can foresee with this hub plan is, if it doesn’t work out to expectations, how will it end? If you’ve given something to somebody, how do you then take it back?

It becomes an issue of how do we get off of this ride once it’s moving? And so for on that basis, I’m going to recommend that Council treads very carefully before you approve this plan. And if I have a little bit of time left, I’d like to direct comment to the deputy city manager who seems to be running an interference plan between Council. So Mr.

Herb, I’m going to say that that is not in order. That’s acceptable. But I do thank you for your time. Thank you, sir.

Okay, colleagues, that concludes our two delegations. And we can now proceed with, sorry, first we’re going to need a motion to receive the other submissions. The clerk actually advises we can do that. We can bundle that into the final motion on a decision later tonight.

So we will just include those as receipt at the end when we reach our point. I do want to, and I’m just going to take this opportunity to address very quickly, in terms of our code of conduct and respectful workplace. And this applies to our delegations as well as to our members of Council that no member shall injure the professional or ethical reputation for the prospect or practice of an officer of an employee of the corporation. So please, as we move forward tonight, keep that in mind in terms of respectful comment to our employees, whether they be deputy city managers, visitors like Mr.

Warren and Ms. Lazenby, those voices that we were hearing from as we hopefully get some questions answered. So moving on, we have one item for direction here under 4.1, and I have the mayor first on the speakers list. So I will go to the mayor.

I’m just going to advise colleagues. I’ve also had a request from Councillor Layman to put him on the speakers list. And as others wish to speak, just put your hand up and I will add you as we go. Sure.

Thank you. I have one question. And then what I’d like to do is suggest an approach to maybe make the debate potentially hopefully efficient, but robust and let everybody vote on things the way they’d like to vote on them. So my one question that I have is for our staff through the chair.

And that is on the the RFP. So there’s a number of things that I’d like to propose tonight, but I need to know if the RFP can be structured in such a way that should we authorize it tonight and we receive feedback or through the course of the preceding months before we get the leads and the locations as a council want to make some adjustments to it, will there be flexibility built into the RFP to allow us to make some changes to the process? Ms. Livingston, did you want to start with that one?

Yes, Mr. Chair, our understanding is that we can structure the RFP to allow as much flexibility as possible when it comes time to award it, award the actual RFP. So yes, that is possible to allow flexibility if we need to make modifications. It will have to be done very clearly and carefully within our procurement policy, but we understand that there is an ability to do that.

Mayor Morgan. Okay, so based on that response, I have a suggested way that we get approached this tonight because I think there’s really two ways to go about it. One is have the staff recommendation on the floor and then make a whole bunch of amendments to it and some of us have forwarded some suggestions or circulated them. I’m willing to put all of the staff recommendations as well as all of the proposed amendments that have been circulated on the added agenda as well as the one I circulated earlier today on the floor, knowing that colleagues can add to them, separate them, vote separately on them, but allows us to start a robust discussion on basically everything from a comprehensive perspective because I think there’s a number of people looking to add some components on the floor for consideration to address some of the concerns they have.

So if with your indulgence chair, I’d be happy to read out a motion and then look for a seconder. The floor is still yours, so go ahead. Okay, so what I’m willing to do and I’m not going to reread the components of the staff report because A through D is already there and posted on the agenda. I’d like to add an E that says civic administration be authorized to defer community improvement plan loan repayments on an interest-free basis from August 1st, 2023 to August 31st, 2026, where the applicant has requested that the deferral are writing.

It being noted that the impact of deferring loan repayments will require an additional contribution to the community improvement program reserve fund of up to 1.97 million subject to the number of requests for the deferral with funding to be sourced from the operating budget contingency reserve from funds set aside to offset the financial aspects of COVID-19. I’d also like to add and that was a motion that I put on. There’s a motion or a letter from myself, the deputy mayor and Councillor Stevenson. I’d like to add that as an F, the mayor and government relations staff be directed to undertake advocacy work with the government of Ontario to secure provincial addictions rehabilitation site for London.

Then there’s a G, which is Councillor ramen’s motion on the added agenda. The mayor and deputy mayor be appointed to represent municipal council at the strategy and accountability table for the whole of community response. I’d like to add an F, which is something I circulated earlier today. The civic administration be directed to complete the following.

Initiate a continuous public feedback loop as part of the communications plan on all aspects associated with the hubs implementation plan and the overall system response, both now and in the future, will also ensuring that the get involved portal hosts the most up-to-date documents and has a continuous public input option. And two, initiate and host a series of public engagement sessions regarding the hubs implementation plan. And then I’m happy to add all of the necessary components that the clerk does to receive the delegations and that and then see if there’s a second. Councillor ramen, you’re…

Thank you. I’d like to second that. You’re seconding. Thank you for that.

Okay, colleagues. So just to move forward clearly on the process, we have a large motion with several components before us. It’s all on the floor. We can debate all of the components.

When it comes time to vote, we can call them separately. That’s absolutely acceptable. And I want to make sure that that’s okay, that everybody understands that right up front. And I will entertain any clauses that people want to pull to vote on separately, to be dealt with separately.

So just from a process perspective, how we can move forward on this, if you want to support some, but not all of the components that are before us. So we’ve got a mover and a seconder. Mayor Morgan, did you have anything further before I start down the speaker’s list? Well, I should probably add my rationale for all of those things.

Now, I know that you’re timing me at five minutes. Given I put all of that on the floor, I would probably ask for Council’s indulgence if I need an extension to let me get through just the rationale for all of that. And I’ll look to you when I run at a time. And I might ask for that because I kind of timed this part to five minutes, but not the part that I already did.

So first, let me talk about some of the things that were added. The component about supporting businesses. So there are not a lot of things that we can do to directly support businesses, given some restrictions of the act. But we are an organization that provides loans, facade improvement loans, building improvement loans.

And through the pandemic, we deferred payments on those loans to allow businesses who are struggling to make those payments to have some runway to have some cash flow to get through that period. That is the crux of the motion that I’m suggesting on deferral of those community improvement plans. There are many in all these village, there are many in downtown, there are many in Hamilton Road, there’s only a few in other parts of the city, but they’re mainly concentrated there. And those are the areas where those businesses who are starting to make payments back to the city are struggling to make ends meet, given the client of customers from both homelessness issues, legging issues from COVID, as well as some of our construction in the area.

So that’s that component. And I think that is something that we can do. It’s something that we can finance. Essentially, when the loans start to be paid back, we can restore the fund that I intend to shift the money over for.

And the only reason I’m suggesting we shift money over is so that the programs can continue. The programs continue when things are paid back into them. So if we’re going to defer the loans, we need to put a little bit of money in there to allow for new businesses to access facade improvements and building code improvements under the CIP. Second, on the motion that the letter that yourself, myself and Councillor Stevenson put in, I fundamentally believe in harm reduction.

But I also think that having access to facilities for treatment is incredibly important. And when I heard the Premier recently comment that he wanted to go ahead full steam to provide low cost, ideally opep funded treatment options across the province, I think we have an opportunity to put our hand up first and say, we have programs in our city that could be coupled with treatment in an incredibly powerful way. And before you go ahead full steam, your worship, you are at your five minutes. So I will look for a motion to extend your time.

If you moved by Councillor ramen and seconded by Councillor Hillier, we can do that by hand. All those in favour? Opposed? That motion is carried.

I will reset the clock and you can go full steam ahead. Thank you, full steam ahead. So this is an opportunity for us. Opportunities don’t come around often when the provincial government on an issue that is fully a health care issue, fully within their spirit of jurisdiction says they are going to do something.

I think we have an opportunity to go after that and try to be first. And I’ve had one conversation with the Premier about this. I told him I intended on bringing this motion before council with a couple of colleagues. And he expressed his interest and I wouldn’t say excitement.

That would probably be the wrong word. But enthusiasm about us wanting to put up our hand for something like this. Third, we have heard about a desire for council oversight. I think the work that has been done so far has been incredibly focused on the talent and expertise of many individuals.

As we enter the implementation phase, there is, as you may have seen in the media and through many discussions that the public is having, there is a lens on this where councillors can bring in expertise as people who have navigated through complex issues while trying to communicate those to the public and provide that feedback into the process in a way that helps and assists the process. So I’m supportive of council ramen’s motion to appoint a few of us, including myself, to the strategy and accountability table. I think we can add great value and insight into bringing that lens as the implementation phase occurs to the process. Fourth, and to the motion I circulated this afternoon, I think there is a path here where we can allow for a different way and a better way and a more engaging way of doing consultation with the public.

This is a plan that we know is going to change as we go. There’s going to be shifts. We’re going to get some aspects wrong. We might make small mistakes.

We’re going to have to correct. The best way to make those adjustments and corrections is to have a process where we continuously and ongoing way get feedback from the public by keeping the get involved site active, by posing questions there for the public from time to time, by having an open forum, by having all of the accurate and up-to-date documents in one place, and allowing that to come in. I also think we have the opportunity to do what we did before, and that’s go out and host some sessions with public where they can provide some feedback. That’s why I suggested that civic administration could go and do that.

All of that could be incorporated back to us in time before we make that final decision on the authorization of the RFP and the locations. As was mentioned in my question earlier, there is a way for us to do this, be genuine with the public engagement, and shift and make some changes later, while not delaying the important work. As I said, in my state of the city, delays in this aren’t measured by days, they’re measured by deaths, and so if we can find a way to get robust public engagement, well, at the same time moving forward on getting aspects of the plan step-by-step-by-step along the way, I think we can do something here that can really be a little bit different than we’ve done in the past, but also be pretty special and can actually help us make the adjustments we need to make along the way. Let me talk about the plan in its entirety.

Simply put, when it comes to improving the lives of marginalized Londoners and the community at large and airy businesses, I don’t think we will ever have a better chance to do what’s before us right now. We’ll never again have a system designed by the people who worked on this than what’s before us today. The city of London played an important role in this system, but it is not the city of London system. This belongs to the community.

It was designed by our hospitals, public health, frontline workers, people with lived or living experience, social service agencies, emergency services, outreach workers, developers, and the private sector. I thank them for their work and I’m proud to stand with them in the delivery of such a new system. Can any of us in good faith look at these individuals and all of the groups and honestly say, “I think we’ve got a better way. I think we’ve got more expertise.” And if we reject this system, who are we going to ask to design the next one, if not the people who have already contributed to it?

Now, there will always be room for revision and we’ll have to adjust what we’re doing and things will work well and others won’t and we’ll make improvements. I think the amendments that I talked about on the floor today are a prime example of how we can do that. We are doing that and that we’re going to learn by doing because we’ll learn nothing by delaying. As I said, this system is not only an investment in helping marginalized lenders experiencing homelessness.

It’s an investment in public safety, economic development, hospitals, land ambulance, downtown revitalization, and neighborhoods throughout London. We are at a unique and unprecedented moment in our city’s history. We have an opportunity to save lives and change lives and we have the opportunity to lead on this. There’s a reason why we’re not implementing plans that have been tried elsewhere.

That’s because no one else has come up with a truly viable complete solution. At the same time, no other community has come together in the way ours has and in the coming months and years, other communities could very quickly be looking at London and replicating the work here. So let’s do our part on this day. Let’s approve the amendments.

Let’s approve the implementation plan. Let’s move forward to the next step in this process and that next step is not just for the betterment of the marginalized Londoners who need the sports in their community, but truly for the whole of community and all of London. So thank you. Thank you, Mayor Morgan.

Next on the speaker’s list is Councillor Layman. Thank you, Chair. I have a number of questions more operational and don’t go to the Mayor’s motion. So I just want to get some Chair’s guidance here.

Do you want me to get into the weeds here? Do you want me to? The entire plan is on the floor right now, Councillor. So you can absolutely ask your questions whether they really relate to the presentation that we received from our presenters, whether it’s any particular clauses of the motion.

The floor is open. Okay, thank you. And I’ll ask that you remind me of the time because I have like five or six questions. I don’t think we’ll get all them in five minutes and some of them might cause compensation.

So I’d like to ask regarding our existing shelter system. What impact will these new hubs have on our existing shelter system? I’m looking from a financial point of view. Will wage rates at these hubs be in line with what the city is funding at existing shelters?

And if not, what will you do to ensure existing services are destabilized? Ms. Livingston, did you want to start with that one? Yes, through you, Mr.

Chair. It’s actually a discussion that’s going to be happening at the next strategy and accountability table, which is how do we, as we’re standing up new services, net new beds, also ensure that the rest of the system is stable and strong? We’ve heard very clearly through the summit process and at the workforce development tables, the importance of putting these new services in place, both from a frontline perspective, from a worker development perspective. But we also know it’s important that we ensure the system is stable and strong.

So it’s a very important conversation to have as we move quickly to establish a new service. We want to also be able to support the rest of the system. So that is an active and live discussion as we move forward with implementation. Councillor Layman.

Through you, Chair. Thank you. And specifically, there is concern that these services, which have their own staff, might lose those staff to our hub operation. How will we mitigate that?

Ms. Livingston. Through you, Mr. Chair, this is the benefit of operating as a system and working together as we develop this.

And it reminds me actually a lot of when we, when the province instituted JKSK and child care workers were working for school boards and in our child care system, and actually what it did was raise the quality across the system. It caused strength and both what can happen in this instance, not in the hubs, in the rest of our system. So this is some of the work that’s occurring at the workforce development table. And as we try to bring on a new service, but also ensure the rest of the system is stable.

The experience in other sectors is we can rise all boats as we do that. We need to work together it’s also different than anything we’ve done in the past. This is a collaborative approach, not a one off, one organization wins over another. It’s a system that’s being developed together.

So very, very clear conversations about that happening. Councillor Layman. Thank you. How will we measure success?

Will we expect fewer people living in encampments as hubs are created? Ms. Livingston. Yes, through you, Mr.

Chair, I think at the highest level, there’s probably three measures we could look to. Fewer people dying, fewer encampments, more people housed. However, one of the things that we know is very important with respect to this work, and I believe it’s mentioned actually in the plan is the need to undertake a comprehensive evaluation framework. And if I could just refer to my colleague for a moment about what’s exciting and underway with respect to that.

Thank you, through you, Chair. We, as part of the system implementation plan, exist the system foundations table, which is a table that will tackle many foundational components of operating this network of services. But of that includes data sharing, data collection, and evaluation. Coupled with that is a commitment from, and I’m just going to make sure I get the teller right, Center for Research on Health Equity and Social Inclusion, which is an academic arm, both through Western University and London Health Sciences Center, amongst other institutions, that has thrown their commitment behind providing evaluation and research resources for this entire system.

So starting on day one, making sure we are in fact measuring, evaluating, and researching to see the efficacy of this type of intervention, both in the short term, but also longitudinal. So those conversations will be had at our August 2nd strategy and accountability table meeting as we move that plan forward. But is it exciting to see that we have a number of different avenues that are showing a commitment to just this thing, measuring success, and being able to quantify it, validate it, and report on it. Councilor Layman, how am I doing on time?

Well, Councilor Layman should be a lesson to everybody tonight. You’ve asked your questions very concisely. Staff response time does not count against your five minutes. Only your questioning counts against your five minutes.

So you have three and a half minutes left. What service standards will be in place to ensure consistent quality and consistent practices across each of these hubs? Ms. Livingston.

Mr. Chair, the document refers to the minimum standards, but I’d actually like to refer to Ms. Lazenby in terms of talking about some of the standards and the across all the sites. Through the Chair, I think that one of the really exciting pieces around this hubs plan is the opportunity for us to have shared standards of care across the community, some of which probably need to be developed in more detail because they actually don’t exist, but some of which have some very established best practices behind them for us to be able to lean on and train our staff who are going to be working in the hubs to be able to enact those standards of care.

And so I’m just going to take a moment because I don’t know the page number. I don’t have them memorized in here because there’s a lot of content, but if you look to page 26 where you have the standards of care, this is where what we would have as an expectation for hubs as a community for those standards of care. And one of the things about the hub development and as we are working with hubs ongoing is that we are supporting those lead agencies. It’s not just lead agencies kind of going out and doing the hubs and then being left on their own that we embed community support around ensuring that these standards of care and the functions and are actually done well in each of the hubs and done with some level of equity across the hubs so that we’re not doing different standards of care between them.

Councillor Layman. Thank you. I’m just wondering what people who are using the services that the hubs will be providing. Will those be expected to work on housing plans?

Will they receive priority status within the city’s affordable housing stock? Ms. Livingston. Through you, Mr.

Chair, I’d maybe Ms. Lasenby should just sit there. I’d love for her to come back up and talk about the integrated care plan and then we can talk about the city function in terms of the weightless. Through the chair, could I just get a repeat of the question just to make sure I got?

You certainly can. I won’t even count that against Councillor Layman. Councillor Layman. Very good.

I’m asking about the accountability that people are using the services that the hub is providing, specifically on housing. Will those, will they be expected to work on housing plans with staff? And will they receive priority status within the city’s affordable housing stock? One of the foundational pieces with the standards of care for the hub is housing first.

And housing first is well established, evidence-based best practices for working with folks, especially of high acuity, to obtain and maintain housing. We have thankfully a significant level of service when it comes to housing first programs that exist in the community that we would expect hubs to work with closely, just as services do now for a connection to housing stability workers and housing stock that exists in the private market or in, for example, the supportive housing that we’re looking to establish as well as a part of this plan. And so it is a key component of case management when case managers within hubs are working with participants and that that work should start within the moment a person walks on the door. The goal for every person that is worked with within a hub is to obtain housing and be able to obtain that housing and maintain it over time.

And I think that this is also worth mentioning about, you know, the hubs are not the only component that came out of the summit to support participants who are high acuity, but also to establish more supportive housing units so that we do have the capacity within our system to provide that, you know, intensive support to some folks who require it for their housing needs. And I’m just going to go and see if I don’t know if Mr. Dickens or Mr. Felberg might want to speak to our own housing placement arrangements, but Mr.

Dickens, can I start with you? Through you, Chair, in terms of the prioritization, so as Ms. Lazenby touched on, the other component of this plan is the highly supportive housing unit. So getting upwards of 600 highly supportive housing units over the next few years, that is to target high acuity individuals that are currently unhoused.

That’s what that highly supportive piece is for. It would not be matching high acuity individuals to the traditional “affordable housing units” with low support or public housing as we heard through previous delegations of previous meetings around how that system does not work. That in itself is part of a staff review that’s ongoing, working through a number of different city lists and making sure we are properly matching individuals on that housing waiting list to the appropriate types of housing. So that review will come back at a future committee meeting, where we could make some proposed changes to that matching criteria for community housing and the like.

Thank you, Mr. Dickens. Councilor Lehman. How am I doing, Chair?

You have about two minutes left. Okay. Just to follow up on that. So at a hub, will there be people that are housed there at like an extended period of time?

For example, a month or six months? Ms. Lazenby, can I go right to you for that one? Yes.

The key component of the hubs for the transitional beds is to make someone stay as short and productive as possible, right? That we want to make sure that people are leaving the hubs. It’s transitional space as it is non-permanent space. That will rely on our access to housing first programs and housing stock, certainly.

So I couldn’t say, you know, the absolute timeline that it would be for a person to leave a hub because it would rely on other components of the system being accessed and available. But I can say that we do have quite a robust, you know, network of those services that exist in the community to support the movement of people from the hubs into housing. And certainly that the increased stock of supportive housing for those who require that that intensive support is going to assist in that movement from hubs into permanent housing. Councilor Lehman?

Following up on that, can you describe what that room would look like? So when winter response program out at Fanshawe, everyone had their own individual room and they shared a dining facility, shower, washroom facility, and recreational lounge facility. Is that kind of the model that you’re looking at for Ms. Lazenby?

Yes, actually. I mean, not with portable trailers, but certainly with having community space and people having private space as well. One of the things that I can speak to you from experience as I, you know, run the Unity project for 22 years. And we have had, you know, the experience of having community space where you have these dorms where people share them, you know, semi-private spaces and private spaces that the private spaces offers the opportunity for people to reduce their level of acuity and to stabilize faster.

But that the community spaces allow for one, I think, effective use of space, you know, that we’re going to, like, once the hubs open, that we don’t want everybody to have kind of their own kitchenette, that would take up a lot of space that we don’t have kind of available to us right now. But, yeah, it’s similar to that kind of concept. Councilor Lehman? Thank you.

I think that’s important. It’s important to point that out. That won’t be a dorm environment, like we might have at some other services. Or even, you know, a shared room.

My experience when interacting with the folks over at the winter response program is they’ve highly valued that private space for a number of things, including safety. Once safety is addressed, other things in how they’re accepting help for treatment and help for housing definitely come into place. So I’m really happy to hear that. One final question, Chair, and then I’ll stop.

I just want to talk about the hospital’s role in this. I know LHSC has been at the table. Can you explain to me what their role will be in the operation of the hubs? Will it be in management?

Or will it simply be as providing RNs to work there? Will they be involved in supervision or direction? I think we’re going to go to Ms. Livingston for that one to start.

Mr. Chair, thank you for that question. I don’t want to presuppose what our hospital partners may wish to do with respect to a competitive process for lead agencies. In terms of other roles and functions, though, that aside, we are actually having a conversation with a number of our partners, such as LIHC, family health teams, Mr.

Dickens, about how some of the more specialized services and supports in the functions are delivered through the hubs. So there’s a clear role to play, and LHSC and St. Joe’s have been at the table actively engaged in those conversations. So those are some of the functions that they’re providing.

As noted in the staff cover report, there may be opportunity, and I don’t want to single out our hospital partners. It may be with other partners in the community in terms of back office supports, those kinds of things that may help to assist hubs to operate or us to operate as a system. So what I know to be true is our hospital partners have been very generous, not only with their time, but their commitment to what we’re trying to do here together, and willingness to think differently about how their services might be provided in our community. So that’s just a couple of ways, but I don’t think I could speak to anything with respect to a competitive procurement process.

Councillor Layman. Thank you, Chair. Next on our speakers list is Councillor McAllister. And Ms.

Lays and me, please feel free to grab a seat there while you wait. We might leave you standing a long time, so please make yourself as comfortable as you can. Councillor McAllister. Thank you, and through the chair, I do appreciate all the hard effort that’s gone in in terms of staff or partner organizations, the private sector.

Everyone who’s come to the table, I do really appreciate, and it’s very inspiring to see the collaborative efforts that have been foot forward in this plan. I do like Councillor Layman have some operational questions that I’ll just dive into. One of the questions in reading the implementation plan that I had, and I believe this will probably be directed towards Mr. Mathers.

In terms of our current zoning, in terms of the numbers of locations that are currently zoned that would fit this plan, if you could speak to that. Well, that does indeed sound like a question for either Mr. Mathers or Ms. McNeely, but let’s start with Mr.

Mathers. Through the chief of presiding officer, I think that’s a proper terminology. So we have established and reviewed the zoning by-law for different zones that would actually be applicable for this use. So it is a fairly unique use.

However, there is a number of locations throughout the city. We don’t have the specific number at this point, but there is enough that we think that there is a good supply of locations that we’ll be able to use as a basis for identifying locations in the future. Councillor McAllister. Thank you.

And as a follow-up to that, in terms of the zoning, are these city properties or are these private in terms of the plan that’s been put forward? I know, obviously, the private sector has come to the table, but I’m curious to know in terms of the makeup of that list, if it’s a private or public land. Thank you, Mr. Mathers.

Through the chair. So for the most part, it’s private, please. That is that the bulk of all the locations are private. Councillor McAllister.

Thank you. And with that, it’s been good to hear that the private sector are coming to the table because we will obviously need that from the sounds of it in terms of zoning locations that we’re looking at currently. I’d now like to shift a little bit in terms of looking at the shared costs, because I know there’s been a lot of talk in terms of how much the plan will cost. And I do think that, obviously, the city, we are taking the lead in partnership with our agencies, but I do think it’s good to remind everyone that we will also need provincial and federal support in this plan.

And I suppose this will probably be a roundabout way of directing my questions through to the mayor in terms of the lobbying efforts, because I do think we need to acknowledge the fact that the provincial and federal representatives have been consulted, and they have been at the table. These are obviously large dollars we’re asking for, but it will require funding from other levels of government. And if the mayor could perhaps speak to his lobbying efforts so far. So I will allow, because the mayor has done that lobbying, the question to be directed through to him, just before I go there, I want to see if Ms.

Livingston or Ms. Barbone has anything that they want to share from a staff perspective on the financial piece, Ms. Livingston. Mr.

Chair, I can confirm that that’s accurate. We will need the support of other levels of government to be able to comprehensively fund what has been proposed. We have some funding through existing funding streams to be able to get us going, but we will need that funding for sure. Thank you for that, Mayor Morgan.

Yes, so I’ll try to answer the council’s question first. With respect to lobbying, obviously we’re well supported by a government relations arm of the corporation under the city manager. Often the mayor ends up being the one developing and forging relationships with provincial and federal premiers and prime ministers and cabinet ministers. And so that’s exactly what I’ve attempted to do.

I’ve gone. I’ve met with all the key individuals. We’ve met as a team. We brought many of the partners that you may have seen up in the audience.

We familiarized themselves with the council endorsed framework. We talked at a high level about possible total costs for the entire system, but we made a commitment to come back with a more refined costing and approach at the point where council has approved something detailed enough that we could engage in that. As for the response from provincial and federal ministers, I would say very positive. People are very interested in what we’re doing here and also very helpful in giving us feedback on a number of existing programs that we have the potential to apply to at the federal level, which often helps us with housing, whether that’s supportive housing or otherwise.

They have rapid housing initiative. When you look at how we use Thompson Road, that was rapid housing initiative dollars to supply supportive housing in a way that supports this particular plan. That’s the kind of model that you do. There’s municipal dollars, there’s some provincial dollars and there’s some federal dollars all coming together to create 44 spaces to support the 100 we need this year.

So that’s a good way there. Preventionally, our focus is really going to be on the operating side because there is a health care piece to this and having the operational supports to supply the health-related services in the hubs is pretty important. We have local members of a financial parliament in FLAC and Minister McNaughton who are well briefed on this and are allowing us to have active engagements with the province. But the step in the process right now is council needs to approve something more specific so that we can make more specific asks particularly on the hubs side.

I’ll say from a costing perspective, there’s the cost of the hubs and there’s the cost of supportive housing. So often that gets bulked together when people are talking about it, but we know supportive housing is very expensive. We look at examples of that in our city and in our other cities. Creating any sort of affordable housing is very expensive to do when you’re building new buildings.

So that is a bulk of the costs is that supportive housing piece. The hubs are a smaller portion, but that’s essentially what we’ve done and what we’ve carved out and the commitments we’ve made on next steps. So council needs to approve some things first. Then we can take the next steps in the lobbying efforts with more specific details on the costing of the hubs, which was what you see in this report.

Something that we can actually grapple on to and say, this is the types of services. This is what you’re getting. This is the cost. What programs can we access?

What other dollars do we have to make separate asks for? Councilor McAllister. Thank you and through you. I appreciate the mayor’s added comments.

I think that those are all important things to recognize as well. And I just want to once again thank everyone who’s been involved in this implementation plan. I know it’s been a lot of hard work to get to this point. And I really do appreciate your efforts.

I’m supportive of the plan. I’m supportive of what’s being put forward today and the additions that have been made. And I look forward to seeing this plan evolve. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor McAllister. Next on the speaker’s list is Councilor Trussow. I wasn’t ready to make my substantive comments yet and I’d rather not do that.

I did want to make a procedural inquiry and I’m wondering if I could do that without. Could I at this point ask for the CIP piece to be separated out? Because I do think that that is well, it may be an important thing to do. I don’t want to take away from the main discussion that’s in this report tonight.

So we can certainly have that called separately, Councilor. However, with the whole motion on the floor, if other Councilors wish to address it in their comments, they would be in order doing so. But we can certainly call that separately when it comes time for a vote. Okay.

So just to say, I will call it separately. And when I make my comments about this piece tonight, I want to focus my attention on this. And I will not be addressing the CIP issue until it’s called separately. And that’s.

And Councilor Ferreira. Thank you, Mr. Presiding Officer and through you. So I’m looking at the gallery here and I’m delighted to see how many people we have here.

And it shows how big of a deal and how big of a commitment we’re trying to bring to the table right now. I see really good civic stewards sitting in the gallery have good community members who concern citizens, people who are working in the space right now who are bringing this fantastic work here and even our communication strategy teams are here as well. So I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has brought the work to the table and has really dug really deep into the weeds for that. And in addition to that, I would point out staff and the city manager and your office on how much work you’ve been doing and the DCMs involved with that and the presenters who came here and Council as well.

So I’ll leave the thank yous at that and I’ll go to my question. So I, you know, reading through the document, I do see that like the big ticket item here is the locations for the hubs in the procurement process that we’re looking to approve right now. And looking at that procurement process, I do see that we have the lead agencies are going to be coming with proposals along with their corresponding locations. And I just wanted to maybe kind of ask some questions with that because I do want to know how exactly would that look just looking in the future?

Like are we have our lead agency is going to come with a location in mind because I do know that we’re adding a net number of beds. So I’m assuming these are new locations, not maybe adjacent to locations that some of the lead agencies are working out of right now. So I just want to know if we could look into how that proposal, the request for proposal in the procurement process will look when it comes to that. Ms.

Livingston. Through you, Mr. Chair, we’re still working through the specific details of exactly how it will work. But ideally, we would be seeking to have a lead for the delivery of the set of functions and get the detailed approach, who the partners are, the budget, and the location.

We are working through exactly how that will unfold. So I don’t have all of the answers for you today. But that would be what we would propose to be in a position to have come back to Council later in September, so that when you’re being asked to approve the leads, you would also know the locations. You can’t approve one without the other.

Councillor Ferrero. Thank you and through you. So I appreciate that answer. I do see that Councilman Council was talking about the zoning.

So I’m assuming that we’re going to be having these proposals come within those zoning areas. So that’s from what I know right now. So that’s why I was just wondering on that question on exactly how that will look. So just from what I understand, lead agencies will be coming with the qualifiers that we have within this report on where the hub locations should be, where they should not be.

And that’s what we’ll be guiding the location in the proposal just to confirm. Ms. Livingston. Yes, Mr.

Chair, that’s correct. Councillor. Thank you. And that’s it for now.

Thank you, Councillor Ferrero. Well, colleagues, are we ready to vote? Because I have no one else on my speaker’s list. Nobody’s been putting up their hand.

So I’ve got Councillor Stevenson, Councillor Palosa, Councillor Stevenson. Okay, thank you. I’ll start with some operational questions as well. I was wondering, we’re talking about 8,000 to 10,000 square feet per hub.

And I wondered what percentage of that square footage would be for housing versus operations and how many staff per hub? Ms. Livingston or Ms. Lazenby?

Through the chair, none of that is housing. So we have transitional beds, which would be akin to shelter beds, but it’s not supportive housing. That’s not where the supportive housing would be going. And within the budget, we have up to six staff on day and evening and up to five on overnights, as well as two management team leads, supervisors, whatever the terminology would be for the lead agency within the context of that budget.

Mr. Stevenson. Thank you. So for the square footage then for the shelter care bed area, what percentage would be for that versus operations and admin?

Ms. Lazenby? Through the chair. Mr.

Dickens. I mean, I don’t know that we know the percentage exactly about what would be, but it would be up to 35 beds is that what we’re looking at in the whole hub. Some of those being the respite beds, which are the in the moment response access to the beds and then some of them being the transitional beds, which would be, you know, reserved beds that people could use over time while they work on their housing and support plan. Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you. I was just wondering, so when the 8,000 to 10,000, you know, was derived, I’m just wondering how you came up with that number, because if it was say 35 rooms that were 10 by 10, that would be 3500, plus a few hallways and bathrooms, that kind of thing. It seems like over half of it is administration. Mr.

Dickens. Thank you. Through you, chair. No, I don’t think that would be accurate to say that over half would be for administration.

When we look at the hubs, it really is looking at creating a number of physical design elements that provide a place that is safe for people to access. So that includes sleeping quarters that are private in nature, but also through participant feedback, those who live in living experience. It’s really important that there’s space for people to lock up their personal items. We also heard this through community engagement that to be a good neighbor, you should be able to provide space indoors where people’s belongings can be kept.

So it’s not kept outside or strewn about the property. So in that floor plan, there would need to be space, as Ms. Lazen be said, for 25 to 35 beds of what that size would look like. I don’t think that is determined, but we would also be looking to create space for shared programming so that there can be a delivery of primary care, so potential clinic space, for example.

Office space that’s not strictly just for administration, but for actually delivering services, such as housing support, income support, mental health supports. We heard through experts in trying to design with this would look like that. To provide people one-to-one care, it needs to be in a space that’s, you know, just great and comfortable and respectful. So that would also play into the floor plan and the footprint of those locations, not strictly just beds versus administration.

Councilor Stevenson. Thank you. I’m just curious. If there’s a private room for each person, would they not have their belongings in their room?

I’m just wondering why there’d be another area. Mr. Dickens. Thank you, Chair.

Both hands. So as we talk about respite beds, those individuals will be coming, perhaps staying one night, leaving again, and also understanding while we will have individual private rooms, some individuals are dealing with mental health challenges, and sometimes that manifests in possessing a number of items or hoarding, perhaps, and we would help put some strategies in place where, yes, there are items that can be stored in your unit, but much like we did at Fanshawe Golf Course, we understand that that can also lead to different types of hazards. So having neutral space where people can lock their items and store their items that is not in their sleeping quarters is also beneficial. Councilor Stevenson.

Thank you. And I just wondered, you know, when I have talked to the social service agencies, each one of them have said the problem, like, how can we help as a city is to create affordable housing so that there’s places to move people through too. And this whole plan as well is that these are going to be temporary locations and the ideas that we can move people through. And so given the fact that housing is such a priority, was their consideration to doing more of a mobile unit and not having so much of these space taken up with rooms that aren’t providing shelter space for people.

Ms. Lazenby. Through the chair, I think that what we’re targeting is folks who are high acuity and sleeping rough, who are unhoused and unsheltered to get folks indoors quickly. And responding to the crisis that has been created and escalated over the past few years.

What we need to happen at the same time is to see housing stock increase. But a mobile kind of unit doesn’t allow us to actually pull those folks indoors to work on stability and reducing their level of acuity to therefore move forward with an appropriate housing and support plan. So really, when we’re looking at working with folks who are experiencing these very complex needs, we are looking at trying to reduce the complexity of their needs that we actually can take those next steps. That needs a 24/7 indoor access in order for that to happen.

Mr. Stevenson. Thank you. And when I looked at this hub plan originally, it was, you know, if we assume that all five hubs get up and running and at the maximum of 35 people, that’s 175.

And assuming we get 100 of the highly supportive, that’s 275 people out of what we had heard was 600 to say 650 high acuity. But in the report that was just presented now, it said there’s 2,000 homeless people approximately, of which 49% are high acuity. That would put us closer into the 1,000 range for high acuity. So again, if we do have 1,000 people and our best projection is being able to remove to bring indoors 275, that’s still going to leave 725 people, which is actually more than I even thought we had to start.

So given that, I’m just wondering why the emphasis, I guess, isn’t in taking us all the space that we’re creating and spending the money on infrastructure and bringing people indoors. Mr. Dickens, did you want to start with that one? Through the chair, not all individuals on the city’s by name list are unsheltered.

So while we have 2,000 individuals that are experiencing homelessness, not all of them are unsheltered. When we look at those that are unsheltered, of those assessed, we have roughly about 600 high acuity individuals. And you have another 600 that would be considered moderate acuity now, that would leave some gaps in the assessment piece. But of those that have been assessed, we’re looking at about 600, but on the by name list, you have around 49% that would be deemed high acuity.

Not all of them are unsheltered currently, however. And I’m just going to see if Ms. Lazenby has anything to add to that, you know, covered. Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you. So along that line, what has been the increase this year over last year, both in our homeless and in the high acuity? Because it does seem like our numbers are much higher than we last talked about. Mr.

Dickens or Mr. Felberg, I saw some heads looking at who was going to take that. So we’ll start with you, Mr. Dickens.

Thank you, through you, Chair. I don’t have that number right at my fingertips. I know we’ve reported on it in previous caps reports. So I would have to find that information for you.

But what we do know is that prior September of prior to the pandemic, we had less than 1,000 people experiencing homelessness in our city, and that number has grown at any given time to be pushing 2,000 individuals. So that number has more than doubled in the last two years. We’ve also seen an increase in people experiencing homelessness for the very first time. So while through our community partners and housing programs and through the municipal programs, we tend to house several hundred individuals every single year.

We still see people experiencing homelessness for the first time. Sometimes that is younger adults, but in recent cases, it’s been an increase in the number of seniors that are experiencing homelessness for the first time, and that can be attributed to a number of different social economic indicators. So in rough estimates, the numbers have doubled since September prior to the pandemic, and the level of acuity in the community has gotten more severe as well as people live longer, more chronic, unsheltered homelessness. So, Stevenson.

Thank you, and I just wondered, as you come up with this plan, what projections are you using in terms of the projected increase over the next three years, and how that relates to coming up with these numbers for the 600 highly supportive in the 10 to 15 hubs? What can we as a public anticipate? What do you see happening in terms of the numbers that are going to be remaining outdoors? And also, you know, have you looked into what is causing the increase in both the numbers and the increase in high-cuity?

Ms. Livingston. Through you, Mr. Chair, it was the 600 highly acute folks that are completely unsheltered that drove the estimate of 10 to 15 hubs and 600 highly supportive units.

One could anticipate that as we get this new system up and rolling, that as people are come inside, stabilized, and move to housing, we may not ever need the 10 to 15 because we’ll have a system that’s working and we’ll have places for people to be housed. We do anticipate needing a significant amount of highly supported housing. So this is some of getting it going and starting to see the effectiveness and moving people into housing. So that’s where those numbers of 10 to 15 came from and 600 highly supported as what we estimate based on just the sheer number of the folks we’re talking about.

And I apologize, Councillor, I forget your second part of your question. Councillor. Thank you. I was wondering what percentage projection you’re using, you know, what you project over the next few years, and also what is causing the increase and the increase in high acuity.

So both numbers and acuity. Who would like to start with that one? I believe Ms. Leisenby could speak to the increase in acuity.

Okay. Well, let’s start with Ms. Leisenby then. Through the chair, the increase is due to a lack of accessibility for affordable housing, which has been very clear over the past few years, the increase in rental costs, the decrease in vacancies, you know, that has been substantial.

People cannot access affordable housing. They cannot access affordable housing certainly without assistance, especially if they are on social assistance, whether that is OW or ODSP, whether that’s CPP, certainly we’re seeing a lot more seniors having to access shelters because they can’t actually afford housing. And so that is absolutely the fundamental foundational cause of an increase in people experiencing homelessness. The increase in acuity, I think, has to do with the longer people are unhoused, the more significant their health issues, their mental health issues, the more, you know, significant, I think substance use becomes as people are coping with having to be unhoused, having to be sleeping rough causes a lot of safety concerns and a lot of safety issues and further trauma.

And what we do know about addiction and about folks who have substance use issues is that it is trauma-based. And so that trauma is perpetuated by being unhoused. And so I think that those are the two major components. And I’m just going to see if anyone has some comment to add with regard to future projections that was the second part of that question.

Mr. Dickens. Thank you, Chair. And through you, in our housing stability action plan report, we had reported on previous years numbers.

So looking at just over 1,400 individuals in 2021 and sorry, in 2021 and in 2022, we had over 2,000. So really trying to base on what we’ve seen over the last five years to try and project the next five years. We also account for that in that our projected case loads for social assistance. We rely heavily on provincial data and provincial projections that come through our relevant ministries, be it on the MCCSS or MMAH, but also starting to look at some of the socioeconomic trends that become available to us, be that through CMHC and some of their income reporting and some of the housing reports that come through the federal government as well.

So a combination of local data, provincial information that’s available to us, and some of the federal housing data as well. Councillor Stevenson. Thank you. So what number are you projecting?

Is an increase over the next three years? Mr. Dickens. Through the chair, if there were no further interventions taken, and we were to continue on the path that we are with the systems that we have in place, I would assume, and I would project that the numbers would increase as they have over the last several years with different interventions.

I would project a reduction in individuals experiencing homelessness as this plan sets out to accomplish, but I don’t have a projection for you. Councillor Stevenson. Thank you. It’s just that based on the numbers that we have before us, it seems as though with the best case scenario with what we’re planning doesn’t even hold us that the numbers are still going to go up, right?

Because based on the numbers that we have here, we went from 600 to almost 1,000. We went from 1,400 to 2,000. So I’m just wondering, unless we’re only talking about 275, if we do five hubs at 35 each, and we do 100, a highly supportive housing, which I’m not sure that we’re actually going to hit those, our numbers will go up. So I’d love to hear how the numbers are going to go down.

I’d really love the details on that because that would be terrific. Ms. Livingston. Yes, thank you, Mr.

Chair. I would just like to clarify that I believe Mr. Dickens was trying to indicate that the 600 number has not changed. The 600 number is of those assessed.

This is the group that’s the highest acuity and unsheltered. That is the folks that we’re talking about. In terms of, and with the work that has been done, the belief is that this is the mechanism to reduce that number of folks who are living on the streets in encampments dying, that that shifts to people being housed. If the question is, can we confirm that by doing this, we will turn off the tap on the demand side?

I can’t say that’s true. We are not at the municipal level. I able to press many of the levers that impact some of the things that have led to homelessness, such as availability. Some of this we can, but folks that are evicted because landowners make changes to their properties.

We are not in charge of OW rates. We’re not in charge of some of the fundamental things that can contribute to people either not being able to be housed or acquiring their housing. So that’s the difficulty in terms of the demand side of it. What we can do is a much better job to be able to respond to the demand that is in front of us and the increasing escalation of acuity.

No one pre-pandemic would have assumed that we would move from 300 people to 2,000 people. No one predicted that. No city predicted that. No level of government predicted that.

We are in a position of having to respond. And we believe that this response will help to address those who are of highest acuity unsheltered in a meaningful way and create a system where we are able to, as we encounter folks, able to move them to from streets into housing. That’s what we’re proposing here. Councilor Stevenson.

Thank you. So I was going based on the presentation today. It said approximately 2,000 community members are living unhoused today with 49% of those assessed as being high acuity. So that would mean close to 1,000 high acuity.

So I think Mr. Dickens has answered that already when I’m just going to ask him to reiterate the number in terms of the 600 versus the 1,000. Thank you, Chair. And our apologies for the confusion.

We try to present data in a consistent way that makes sense. And we don’t always get it right. The 600 individuals are those that are chronically unsheltered or living unsheltered through a period of time. The larger binameless captures people that are in shelter, self-resolving homelessness, but not housed.

So couch surfing, things like that, in and out of different locations. So that is a larger number to work with. And that number of the 2,000 individuals, there’s roughly half that would be categorized as high acuity. We’re looking at the number of individuals that are typically found living unsheltered on the streets and encampments of highest acuity and our apologies for any confusion with those two numbers.

Thank you, Mr. Dickens. No apology needed. Just looking for clarification.

The binameless. Is there any estimate on the undocumented or the people who aren’t on the list? What number of people we have on our streets or maybe possibly undocumented high acuity? I’m not sure if anyone will be able to answer that because if they’re undocumented, we don’t have numbers for them, but let us see if any of our team want to offer a comment on that.

Through you, Chair, that’s correct. The community outreach organizations do a fantastic job of trying to engage with individuals that are sleeping rough and sleeping unsheltered and then encampments, and sometimes they come across new individuals. And every time they do their best to engage with those folks and collect information, sometimes individuals are not always forthcoming with their information for a number of reasons. And as we take a trauma-informed approach to this work, we’ll better understand those reasons.

But no, in terms of those that are undocumented or those that have not been captured in the point-in-time count, which is a provincial requirement that we must do as a community every single year, when we do our point-in-time count, we get a better picture of what homelessness looks like in London. But anybody outside of that, we wouldn’t be able to project it as they’re not known to us. Is there a hidden homeless? Absolutely.

That is an accepted fact across all of Ontario and Canada that exists. But I wouldn’t be able to put a number to that. And, Councillor Stevenson, just letting me let you know you got about a minute left. Okay, perfect.

Yeah. The reason I ask is I overheard somebody in a leadership position in a social service agency estimate that it could be closer to 1,200 for high acuity given the undocumented homeless. So that’s what I was asking was just a general perception. Do we feel that our by nameless captures, you feel the number that we have out there?

Or is there a thought that there is far more than we have on the by nameless? Mr. Dickens. I think to be able, sorry, through you, Chair, to be able to answer that question effectively, that would be information we would have to go and seek and understand where those assumptions are coming from.

Okay, I’ll just sort of wrap up on this question. I have many more questions, but around this section, I’ll just stop. The concern is, I mean, I’ve watched the videos that the city has put out and everything saying it’s going to get worse before it gets better. It’s much worse this year than last year.

It’s going to continue to get worse. Knowing that, that’s why I asked about the projections and where you think we’re going to end up, because I don’t want to be in a situation like by the time we build a school and we end up with 10 portables. Do we know where we’re headed? No guarantees, obviously, we don’t know, but are we building in an increase, knowing the challenges that we do have with housing?

Ms. Livingston. Mr. Chair, thank you.

I think when we were referring to, I think we were referring that this would be a difficult summer. When we talked about that things would be more challenging or worse before they got better, because we knew we would not have been able to stand up a new system by this summer. That’s what we were referencing. I think collectively we believe that by moving to stand up hubs and stand up highly supportive housing, we can start to change the reality that our community is facing and what individuals are experiencing and businesses are experiencing.

That is what we were referring to. In terms of where we should ultimately get to, that’s the estimates we’re providing at this time with the information that we have in front of us today. I do believe that as we start to establish this component of the system and have our overall system operate in a much more integrated and truly systemic way that we will have a better handle on ultimately how many we will need, whether it is the full 15 or the full 600 or we need more than the 600 of highly supportive. This is the information we have at this point in time.

It’s the best information we have to be able to develop a plan and move forward. Thank you, Ms. Livingston. So, Councilor Stevenson, I’m going to move on to the next person on the speakers list because we have used up your five minutes.

No, I’m going to move on to the through the speakers list. It is committee. People can get back on and ask additional questions as the evening goes along. Councilor Palosa.

Thank you. And thank you to all those in the gallery and our overflow room today and those are who partners in the community online and in person today. For those who don’t know, I’m recovering from a concussion. So, my questions might not be the prettiest worded ones or the most succinct.

So, to our answers, we also have the staff or our wonderful partners, feel free to answer as appropriate. So, I have about five questions for you today. In the opening presentation, you mentioned medical stabilization beds. Looking for clarification as realizing there are residents who go to the hospital for procedures and the release, but they’re homeless.

Is this bed for beds reserved for them or can I just get some clarification on the purpose of these beds and how one would access them in the situation? Ms. Livingston. Mr.

Chair, I’d like to ask Mr. Warren to come to the mic to respond. You’re in through you, Chair. Thanks for your question.

So, the medical stabilization beds are not a discharge space for folks who have completed their course of treatment within hospital. This is part of a trauma and violence informed approach knowing that institutional health care does pose a barrier to many of our folks that are high acuity living on the streets. This is a different opportunity to employ some of what we’ve learned about how to best provide medical care over the COVID pandemic through programs like Unity Project in the York Inn and the like. So, this is an opportunity for folks to receive a high level of medical care.

It’s not a discharge space. Councillor Palosa. Thank you. A follow up on that one.

Do we have any designated spots for discharge space, realizing, I know it’s not municipal dollars, but we do pay a lot of tax dollars to get people on the road to wellness and some just don’t have access to space. Mr. Warren. Through you, Chair.

Absolutely, somebody could be discharged from hospital to one of these spaces. We know that that’s a great indicator for folks not reattending hospitals, them having a safe and supportive environment to be discharged to. So, as long as they fit within the priority populations of high acuity folks that could access the hubs, that could be a possibility. Councillor Palosa.

Thank you. Looking as well, realizing the hubs are still being developed, feedback, and it’s an ongoing, growing process with our community and its needs. Wondering if the hubs are offering shower and washrooms to just the residents living in that facility or if it’s open to those throughout our community who need those spaces. My second part to that question is going to be as well, if there’s any food covered space incorporated into the space as well, realizing that it’s not all just beds and realizing out meeting with even a lot of residents throughout the community who just need that little bit extra help with food because they are living so close to the edge.

Ms. Lazenby, did you want to respond to that one? Through the chair. So, we have two components of the hubs with respect to programming that you can kind of break it down to.

One is the 24/7 front door access, which includes those drop-in kind of components that we discussed in the definitions, and then the transitional beds, which are akin to shelter beds. So, those are the two different components of a hub. And the drop-in spaces also include the respite beds that are kind of the first come-first serve. And so, that front of house being the point for stabilization and working with people on responding to basic needs so that you can move towards the next steps of what the next steps of their plan is.

It is worth pointing out that hubs need to utilize all available resources that exist in the community. And so, if a person’s issue is food security, that we would want to make sure someone is always fed, that they don’t leave the hub hungry, but that there is more appropriate resources to refer them to that actually already exist in the community. Where there are gaps, then we would want to look at the plan around that with that particular individual and how hubs can fill in those gaps or maybe it’s not appropriate. Just to remember that hubs are four folks who are of the highest security and on-house, that’s the target population, and certainly anyone would be welcome to walk into a hub and the job of staff would be to really to figure out the next step, the next service, the next support, to be able to refer that person to that is most appropriate.

Councilor Palosa. Thank you. Part of the presentation tonight also had mentioned storage, realizing some people have more treasures or if they need to go somewhere else for a bit, that’s their belongings, potentially, all that they have left period, left period. Wondering if secure bike storage is part of this plan as well, realizing this is potentially the only form of mobility that some of these residents have.

Through the chair, yes, absolutely. The thing that we’ll rely on is so what we can’t answer definitively in this moment is how much storage will be available because that will depend on the facility. It will depend on what outdoor space is actually available for cart storage, for example. We might not be able to store 20 carts at a hub and 30 bikes at a hub, so it will depend on some space issues for certain, but there is an intention there to ensure that the belongings that people have, the transportation that they rely on have secure opportunities on site.

Councilor Palosa. Thank you. This question, I believe, is more for perhaps the city manager. It was mentioned earlier that as we make progress on this issue, hopefully we start to see the impact that we want to see in our community, and we might not get to the 15 hubs.

We might be able to stop short of that. As we set up this plan of the layout, the rooms, and a secure private location for residents is part of this conversation, also including lifecycle renewal and envisioning of the space that, ideally, when some of these hubs are no longer needed, I would really hope that we get to a day that these hubs aren’t always needed for what they’re dealing with at this moment, that repurposing is part of that plan into other forms of housing or support that we can give residents. Ms. Livingston.

Through you, Mr. Chair, certainly within the development of the budget, we’re paying a lot of attention to repairs and all those kinds of things. In terms of what the future use of the space may be, I don’t believe we have considered that in the development of the budget or even what next. I don’t believe that was part of our planning.

Councillor Palosa. Thank you. Well, leave those thoughts with you as we have opportunities to build space that it can adapt to the future needs of the community. That’s it for that one.

I’m done with those questions. My next question is to either the mayor or Councillor ramen, seeing the communication within the package from Councillor ramen asking that the mayor and deputy mayor be appointed to the strategy and accountability table for the whole of community system response. Wondering if there was any consideration given to the value that the current chair of caps or the budget chair might have in that space? Well, that is a question to the mover of the motion, so I will go to Councillor ramen.

Thank you and through you. I appreciate the knowledge that you bring to the table and the experience that you have in both those roles. And should the committee look to amend my motion? Happy to hear that as well.

But the contemplation for the mayor and the deputy mayor was around their roles as recognized by council and the ability for them to speak as the voice, as well as the opportunity that perhaps the mayor or the deputy mayor may not be available both times. So if the mayor was unable to attend, the deputy mayor who would be acting mayor could attend and vice, they could kind of share that role when needed. So that was the contemplation for that. Thank you.

And you did direct it to both of them, so I will go to Mayor Morgan as well. See if he’s got anything to add to that. I don’t have much to add to that, but I’m also open to alternatives for council. I think the Councillor ramen would motion on the floor and, you know, colleagues can adjust that or amend it as they see fit.

That’s part of what the debate is about. Councillor Palosa. Good for now. Moving on.

Councillor Pribble, you are next. Thank you, Chair, to the staff. And I do have some comments first, and then I have some questions. I’ll start with, thank you for presenting this proposal to us and to the community.

This detailed report, I didn’t have a chance to consult it with the agencies, local social agencies, one-on-one. I consulted it with various municipalities brought south of the border in the US. And I just wanted to know the ones that are successful if they feel this is the right plan and if this is the right path forward. And I have to tell you that every single one, after studying this, they said it is a good plan and it is a good concept.

So again, who am I to say with my experience that I would be in disagreement with anyone who I just mentioned. So as a concept, I support it, I like it. Do I have certain questions and certain things that we should focus on? Absolutely, I do.

And these are the things that I would just like to discuss now. We do have defined services to a certain degree, but I do believe we need to, and I think it was mentioned here before that the services will be described in more detail. I do believe we need to, and I do believe if we do describe them in detail, the accountability, transparency, and consistency is going to be there. And these are just three important things.

I just want to let you know, I just want to ask you, if you do agree with it, and if the services will be described in detail, thank you. Let’s start with Ms. Livingston on that one. Yes, through you, Mr.

Chair, the expectation through the competitive procurement process is that the response would describe in detail how these functions will be provided as well as a number of other components. So, yes, that is the expectation that the response would have that level of detail. Councillor Pribble, thank you for that. And now, if we can go to page, and I think it’s page 76, and there’s a middle column that states purpose-built with common core functions.

And I just want to ask, if all these functions are covered by the budget, are included in the budget, and if there are some that are not included in the budget, who will be paying for them? Thank you, Ms. Livingston. Yes, through the chair, the budget covers a number of the basic level of functions in terms of basic services, respite beds, the transitional beds, a number of those.

The more specialized functions, such as the services that Mr. Dickens team provides from income support or access to housing, that would be brought to the hub through existing resources to each of the hubs. So, Mr. Dickens would be looking to how he delivers those functions within the existing resources.

This is the same discussion that we are embarking on this week with some of our other specialized service providers, such as primary health, our hospital partners, public health in terms of how, for these first initial hubs, how those specialized functions are delivered in through their available resources. So, they are not in addition to, they’re not paid for through the 2.7. The expectation is those that are already being delivered are going to be delivered through these hubs in a different space. Councilor Perble, thank you for the answer.

Additional question, in terms of the community partners, and I say community partners, I meet the people that donate money, volunteer, neighbors. How will they be involved in this and how will they be approached, Ms. Livingston? Through you, Mr.

Chair, I can think of a couple of ways. One, the lead organizations will have relationships with a number of partners. These are all independent organizations who have boards, who have their volunteers, so I envision that occurring through those. We also have a very generous donor with the Fund for Change, and there’s an opportunity if people wish to contribute through that avenue.

So, I think it’s both and through the specific leads and their partner organizations in terms of that, and what they do already. I perhaps Ms. Lazenby can talk a little bit about how that might work from her perspective. Ms.

Nixonby? Through the Chair, I certainly think one of the things we want to make sure is that hubs do not rely on volunteer contributions or donations. It’s very strenuous on organizations to have that reliance, and I think that what we need to do as a part of the hub work as a collective is to figure out the best way in which the community at large can become engaged in a way that it’s not going to burden independent organizations. So, I can think of, and don’t hold me to any of these ideas, but there’s some ideas about that we have a collective space in which donations can be brought to, and then distributed to the different hubs as they’re needed.

When we talk about things like neighborhood engagement, that perhaps we look to a model where it’s not every lead agency who has someone who’s doing the neighborhood engagement, but that we have community developers who specialize in neighborhood engagement working on behalf of all of the hubs. So, there’s a number of different ideas we can explore with the hubs as a collective to manage those pieces. We just don’t have them kind of worked out in this moment because they’re not, I think, the priority for the urgency that exists right now, but should be on our radar as we develop the hubs over time. Council approval.

Thank you. In any of these hubs, will there be an opportunity for short-term beds during the extreme cold and hot weather conditions? Are we thinking about it? And if there is a possibility, can we think about it right from the beginning?

Ms. Livingston, did you want to speak to, or Mr. Dickens, to winter or heat alert responses? Thank you, Chair, and through you, both my team here at the city and the housing stability services team, but also through the encampment table that’s been a part of this system response, have been discussing extreme weather responses, so both extreme heat and extreme cold, and looking at how that response could complement the work of the hubs.

So, this is our primary focus. We understand, however, that there will be significant weather conditions that will be alerts issued by public health, which trigger a certain response, and those types of responses will need to complement this work. As we talk about some of the respite beds, certainly as people would come in out of the cold, there would be an opportunity to access some of those respite beds as well. Council approval.

Thank you for that answer. I know there was mentions now, or throughout our text and reports, three to five hubs. I really believe that we need to target the five hubs for various reasons. First of all, if we look at last winter, we had 143 beds, so if we look at in terms of now, it wouldn’t be that much, much higher, so I really hope that we are going to go to five.

Also, the other thing is, if we go with three and one, potentially two locations for whatever reason they don’t work out, so we have other options, so we have some things still in place. So, I certainly hope that we are going to target and we are going to deliver the five hubs, but that brings me to two, I think actually there are my last two questions. Once we agree on certain locations for the hubs, I just want to make sure we will be receiving from our staff detailed budget for each location. I just want to confirm that Ms.

Livingston. Through you, Mr. Chair, part of the response through the competitive process will be a detailed budget, that’s what would come through as part of the response. Councillor Preble, perfect.

Thank you for that, and follow up on that, can we receive with each proposed location an exit strategy? Exit strategy in terms of if it doesn’t work out for whatever reason it is, so in terms of recovering our potential investments, what would be the Plan B Plan C as an exit strategy? And it’s actually would answer one of the speakers we had and I think whether I write his question. Anyways, I think they would answer his question as well.

How will it end? That was his question. But anyways, my question is this, can we receive with each location budget also exit strategy? Is Livingston, did you want to start with that one?

I’ll start, and I want to start through you, Mr. Chair, from the place that we’re trying something new, and so we will be moving forward and that’s the purpose of the evaluation framework. So that will inform the decisions on whether we should end something. If your question, excuse me, through the chair, if the question is, if we have a site not working, how do we deal with that situation, then I would refer to either Mr.

Dickens or Ms. Barbone from a contract management perspective. Ms. Barbone.

Thank you through the chairs. So through the RFP, given that it’s a procurement process, that’s not a typical request that we would ask them to lay out a strategy to, if it doesn’t proceed, what would happen? That would be something that we would do through the contract. That would be there typically with City of London contracts.

We have termination clauses that would provide a number of days and what would occur. So that would be something that’s subject to the approval of council and the awards that would be built into the contracts. I would recommend going forward if that was the will of council. And Mr.

Dickens, did you want to add something to that? Thank you, Chair and through you. As part of the lead agency work, it’s a commitment to service standards and service level expectations. And as lead organizations, each organization is accountable to those standards that they must deliver.

And as we start to stand up, which something that will look like a community of practice, a lead organization group, we want these hubs to be as successful as possible. So if through evaluation, it’s determined that hubs are not working well or there’s something that’s not working, that group of lead agencies who have all signed on a commitment to these service level standards would be working through that community of practice to remedy those issues and remedy those errors. That’s been a prevailing sentiment throughout the hubs implementation table work is that there is a place for those conversations to happen. So that, excuse me, collectively, we can make the necessary adjustments that we need to make.

Council approval, anything further? Yes. So thank you for that. I meant also from you actually went, you answered some of the questions even deeper or more than I was thinking of in terms of the operations wise, I was more thinking of also of the capital.

So let’s say the location doesn’t work in terms of the neighborhood or there are big issues in this perspective. We are investing $2 million into who knows maybe even more into this location. And then we find out if the location is not strategically good in the part of London, due to the neighborhood, due to whatever. And I would love to receive it.

And to be honest with you, it’s not really kind of any incorporation if they are growing and if they are purchasing, building new assets, the usual— So Councilor, I’m just going to stop you there because you have exceeded your five minutes. What I’m hearing from you is in terms of a recovering of capital costs or leasehold improvements. And so perhaps if we can just get staff to comment on that, just so that I can keep the speakers list going, how our leasehold improvements that we have made to a property for a hub might be covered in terms of our cost loss. Is that where you’re going?

That’s where I’m going. And let’s say if we have to close it, I would love to have the exit plan shows you, let’s say, if you have to close it, how we can recuperate the investments where we put into. By the way, please do give me the heads up because I had some other question that would have been more important if I knew that I was done. Well, you can always get your name back on the list for a second round.

So, Ms. Livingston, are you able to speak briefly to leasehold improvement costs? Mr. Chair, I’d like to clarify that the City of London will not be owning these properties.

We will be flowing funds to an organization to undertake establishing the property. Usually in our contracts, there is a set of conditions on when we may wish to claw back if delivery of the service or the property is not what we are expecting. So, that would be part of what we would do in our contract management as we work with the lead organizations. Thank you, Ms.

Livingston. And again, Councillor, sorry that I didn’t give you notice, but you can always get your name back on the list for a second round. And in the interest of fairness, I do have Mayor Morgan and Councillor Ferrer on the list for a second go-around. But I also had Councillor Ranne, Mayor Bergen, who has not had an opportunity to speak yet.

So, I’m going to go to him first. And I am colleague, just going to give every colleague an opportunity if they have not spoken to this yet. I’m not counting Councillor Trussow’s process question in terms of splitting the vote. But anybody who hasn’t spoken can get on the speaker’s list, and then we will begin a second round.

So, Councillor Ranne, Mayor Bergen, you are next. And then I have Councillor Trussow and Councillor Hopkins, then Mayor Morgan, and then Councillor Ferrer. Thank you, Chair. I’d like to start by just asking a question more on the financial side and cost of this proposal.

It wasn’t too long ago we heard numbers in the area of 240 million for capital and roughly 90 million per year in operating. I’m not seeing that kind of number being expressed in the current report. I’m just wondering how we can flush those two, but my answer is from staff, how we can flush those two different numbers. I mean, they’re both high, but they’re not the same.

So, if we could get maybe an explanation on that? Well, we can certainly do that, Councillor. I saw Ms. Livingston nodding her head yes.

So, I’m going to go to her so she can respond. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I believe that that larger number was an adding together of very preliminary estimates of what it would cost from an operating and capital perspective to establish 10 to 15 hubs and the 600 highly supported units, capital and operating.

So, I believe that’s the culmination of the larger number. What is before Council this evening is the focus only on the first three to five hubs from both an operating and capital perspective. That would be the difference between those two numbers. Councillor Van Wiebergen.

Now, the latest numbers, are they assuming any funding from other agencies or other levels of government in terms of helping to lower the cost? Ms. Livingston. Through you, Mr.

Chair, we are looking to access funding from other levels of government to and other sources, such as the Fund for Change to fund the capital for the hubs and the operating for a couple of the hubs. We, within Mr. Dickens’ existing budget lines from funding from the province, we have funding available to be able to probably stand up the first two or so hubs, but we will need funding particularly operating from another level of government to be able to achieve all five. And we would anticipate accessing the Fund for Change to be able to support the capital.

So, there is no draw on municipal dollars. These are accessing existing funding, looking to the province and looking to the Fund for Change. Councillor Van Wiebergen. My other question is, once we have some of these hubs or all of them constructed and built, and the word goes out through areas around, well, everywhere, I suppose, what is to stop others from outside of London trying to access these services in these hubs who are not from London, and will then swell up the problem within London.

And is that fair to London taxpayers? Is really the bottom line question. What is the response or the thinking of staff as to what will occur once these are up and operational? Well, we’re going to hear from Mr.

Dickens on that. Thank you, Chair, and through you. I would acknowledge and we’ve heard this through our service manager counterparts. There’s 47 consolidated municipal service managers throughout the province of Ontario that homelessness has no boundary and no border.

And so, we know there is movement between regional centres, between municipalities, and between parts of our province for a number of reasons. What we do locally is that we see some individuals try to show up in London for various reasons today. That happens. But we have a team that is dedicated on the diversion front.

And so, when we engage, whether that individual presents at shelter, whether they present at one of our city facilities, we go through a process of understanding what has brought them to London, where they’re coming from, and really trying to understand what supports they expect to receive here in London, and what supports they might have in their home communities. And our team is actively in diverting people back to better places where they may have come from. When they understand that services are not available here, or at capacity here, or maybe they were under a different impression about what might await them here in London. So, yes, that movement happens all the time.

Individuals leaving London, going to neighbouring communities. But also, as people arrive in London, we go through a process of diversion right now, and that work would continue. Councilor Van Mierbergen. Thank you for that.

I just, I just have to think, logic would dictate that if we have something as different, and as all comprehensive as what’s being proposed here, at great expense, you are going to see, and I think that’s basic what I’m hearing, you’re going to see, as staff have mentioned, movement quote unquote, into London to try and access that. And we really have no firm or real way to dissuade it or change it for that matter. But I’ll leave that there for now. My next point has to do with the nomenclature that we choose to use, the naming of the program, such as whole of community system response.

So, we call it whole of community system response, but we haven’t heard in any real meaningful way from the majority of the community. And that is basically the residents, the taxpayers of the City of London. I don’t see how we can make such a major move and not consult the taxpayers and residents of the City of London. I think it’s highly imperative that they be given access to state their views, but also, but also to learn more about what this program entails, what are its expectations, what are its goals in a more meaningful way.

I think it’s essential to not do so, I think, is wrong. And so, what I propose, and it wouldn’t take a great deal of time to slow anything down, but again, we need to hear, and they need to hear from us, the whole community. So, we can live up to the name of the program. So, I propose basically a referral for about a month to hear from the community, and again, so they can hear from us.

And my motion would be the referral, basically, for a special SPPC meeting to be held at Centennial Hall that would be open for all to attend, to ask questions and hear presentation, et cetera, for October 22nd. I think that’s not a very long period of time, and it serves a vital part of this process that has yet to be addressed. I don’t know how we can be asked as counselors to endorse something before we hear from the people that send us in a more comprehensive way. So, again, I’m moving that motion.

I think it’s very sensible and reasonable. I would move all the parts that we’ve had today, the original staff, recommendations along with the other motions, move it all to be heard at this special SPPC meeting, SPPC meeting at Centennial Hall August the 22nd. Thank you, Chair. So, Councillor, I can stay on screen, please.

You’ve moved a referral. Before I even look for a seconder, I want to check with you to be clear if you want to specify in the motion a location, because if that location is not available that day, whether the motion passes or fails, nothing can be done with that. So, do you want to specify a location, or do you only want to specify a date? I take your point.

Clearly, this is, I think this will have major interest from around the city. So, obviously, a facility like Centennial Hall is what’s contemplated. Perhaps the wording could read that at a suggested location such as, and not be so definitive, but still giving an idea of the type of facility that we’re trying to find. So, Councillor, I’m going to come back with a second question for you.

The clerk has indicated, while you were speaking, you said both August and October as potential. October was a Miss Speaker, maybe it was a technical blitz on my end. No, August the 22nd was the proposed date. I saw no other conflicting items on the City Hall calendar, but correct.

It doesn’t have to be at Centennial Hall, but… Well, and I would just remind you, Councillor, as well, that there are there are virtual options to accommodate people as well. So, a physical space while some folks may choose to attend physically, others may wish to attend virtually. So, I would just caution that if you want to specify a specific space without us guaranteeing that it’s available, and I hear you saying now that that is a suggestion, but I’m just wondering if you want to just leave it, and I’m just trying to help you here because I don’t want to get into a bunch of amendments on a motion to refer.

I’m hoping that if we’re going to have a motion to refer, we can be very clear with a date, and that you are… If you wish to suggest an alternate location, you can, but I’m just going to see if Councillor Hopkins had raised her hand here. I don’t know whether she was calling a point of order or whether she had a suggestion to help with this motion, but… I’m not calling a point of order.

I’m just trying to make a suggestion with that date. We do have the AMO conference in town. Yes, so the AMO conference is here in London on August 22nd. Okay, then just to keep this open, I’m quite prepared, quite prepared to say that a special SPPC meeting, that would be called later in August, and just leave it at that.

Okay, I’m just going to check with the clerks on something here, Councillor, please be patient for a moment. So, we were just checking something here in the policy and procedures by law. So, I just want to read this out so that everyone is aware. All meetings of Council and the Standing Committees shall be held at London City Hall 300 Deafran Avenue unless there are concerns with respect to the health and safety and/or an emergency has been declared in accordance with the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act of 1990 for which there is consent by at least two-thirds of the whole Council to hold a meeting at another location within the boundaries of the city subject to the provision of public notice of the change of venue and subject to the availability of the venue.

We cannot confirm availability of an alternate venue, and if you want to suggest an alternate venue, you are going to need two-thirds support. Otherwise, the referral would bring a meeting here. Point here, I was trying to be a constructive idea which has been done in the past such as the whole Whedon feed debate, which was done at Centennial Hall at the Standing Committee. So, there is ample precedent.

I’m not suggesting there’s not precedent, Councilor. I’m informing you that it requires, I’m informing you that it would require two-thirds majority. Understand, Chair, that’s why I’m saying we will just, the motion will be to refer to a special meeting of SPPC and leave it at that, whatever works. Okay, so there is a motion to refer the entirety of the motion that’s on the floor to a special SPPC meeting to be called, which by and act, but most importantly, which would have a public participation component to it.

Yes, that would be referred for the purposes of a public participation meeting. Yeah. Okay, bear with us for just a moment while the clerk assists with some language here, please. Okay, and Councilor Cuddy, you raised your hand to two second.

Mike, phone, please. Microphone, please. Councilor Cuddy? Sorry, Chair, and through you.

Well, yield. Councilor Stevenson. I’ll second that motion. I want to make sure that I’m capturing your intent, Councilor Van Mirbergen.

I’m going to read this out. This is the language that the clerk has ready for eScribe. The consideration of the matter of London’s health and homelessness, all of community response be referred to a future special meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee, which would include a public participation meeting. Okay, so that motion has been moved and seconded.

It is a referral, so it does take precedence. So now, we will commence debate on the referral. And I’m going to, just before we start that, I’m going to let colleagues know we have reached 627. It was, as our usual practice, my intent to take a break at 630.

Councilors, there are, there is dinner provided for you in the lounge so that you can take a bio break, get something to eat. I know some of you have been here since 9 o’clock this morning, so we will deal with the referral, and then we are going to move to take a dinner break. Councilor Trussau, you were on the list for the referral now. Yes, I was looking forward to the substance of discussion, which I was on the list next, but I guess that’ll wait till after dinner.

I really want to speak against the referral. Retorically, I would ask, how many people are going to die between now and then, especially with the heat? This is not a great idea. We are at a very good, please, please refrain from stopping.

Go ahead, Councilor. We’re at a very good point right now in this discussion, and I must say, even among people who I don’t share views on this, this has been a good discussion. And some really good questions have come up, and we’ve gotten very good, we’ve gotten some very good discussions. I don’t think we need to defer this, refer it, whatever you want to call it.

We’ve had very significant and meaningful public feedback on this. This is coming, by the way, from the person who is often the one calling for a public participation meeting. Now, if there’s any doubt about this, I really want to commend the mayor for adding his ongoing consultation clause, which I think is very important. And we’re not precluded from having additional consultations.

We need to deal with this tonight. We need to move this on to the RFP process. This is a matter of very serious urgency, and I don’t think much is going to be said at another public meeting, other than I don’t think I’ll leave it at that. I don’t think much is going to be added at another public meeting.

Please vote no on this. Thank you, Councilor Trussell, Councilor Pribble. Just under referral, and I don’t like to delay things I would like to, and as I already said, as a concept, I do support it. Having said that, I do have some questions, and which would have to be asked in camera regarding the services that will be offered at these hubs.

So we’re not talking to the main motion right now, so we’re not talking about questions. You may want to ask about that specific to the referral, please. But what I’m trying to say is that it would depend the advice I’m going to get from our Council, how you would vote on this, on this, because I do think that there are certain things that we need to clear before we move ahead. So I don’t know, procedure-wise, how it can be done, but I’m just telling you that the one that is going to come up, the answer from our legal advice could influence my answer.

That’s all I’m trying to say. Okay, I’m going to take that under advisement for the moment, and I’m going to continue on the list of people speaking on the referral itself, Councilor ramen. Thank you, and through you, Mr. Professor, I contemplated that a referral might come based on what we’re discussing today, because the easy thing to do is put a decision like this off, and the hard thing to do is to make a decision.

I will say that we have an opportunity to listen to the folks that have spoken. Within the consultation, we’ve had five community open houses that were held just recently, and we heard from 600 individuals at those open houses. If you look at the responses that were shared in the engagement report, you’ll see that there were, you know, 700 and some odd people that responded just alone to the question of the location of hubs specifically around schools. I know some people don’t do social media.

I do, but I do see that there were 41,873 times that the consultation posts reviewed. That’s an astounding number. I will say 890 views of video presentations, and I could go on and on, but it’s in the report for us in front of us. But I can tell you being personally in the room during the consultation that took place at the Canada Aquatic Game Center.

It was a very in-depth conversation with the public. I had the privilege of being in the room with Ms. Livingston, who was answering questions of the public that were difficult, that were challenging, that were done in a very respectful and open way, and I look forward to that continued dialogue, and it’s the reason why it’s in this motion today, because we around this horseshoe, I believe, know that it is imperative that we hear from the community every step of the way so that we do this right. And so that’s why it’s in the motion to begin with, to continue this ongoing discussion.

But I’ll tell you where I’ve had the most impactful conversations right now on this topic, and that is at the doors with residents. And I know that’s what I’m doing this summer, and I know a lot of my colleagues are doing that as well, and I hope that you’ll consider sharing those numbers of engagements that you’ve had, so we can also include those in our engagement reports here, because I think it’s helpful. I’ve only been out a couple days in the last few weeks, but I will tell you that I’ve had a lot of conversations with folks, and some on this topic, not everyone brings this up, but I’m there at their doorstep so they can ask me the important questions that they need to, as well as my cell phone number and my email. I welcome that engagement every opportunity we can have it.

However, I will say I do not support the idea tonight of deferring this to another date so that we can have that engagement. I think it’s a both and we can do both. We don’t have to refer this in order to get feedback. That’s an ongoing process that’s included in this motion in front of you, so I ask my colleagues to consider voting against the referral, please.

Thank you. Councillor Stevenson. Thank you. It’s always fascinating how we see things differently, so I hear what my fellow Councillors are saying, and I would disagree.

I think the easy thing is to just say yes and go along and not have those interactions with the public. The details only came out a week ago. A lot of information is coming out in this question and answer period that we have here tonight, and less than 24 hours later we’re going to be making a decision. There is not time to interact with the public and for them to really digest something that is so important to them and to their communities.

We’re talking about bringing these hubs into their communities, and they care passionately about this crisis that we face. I think it’s disrespectful to have this meeting tonight, and then quickly tomorrow it’s voted in. It’s a decided matter of council, so I think the hard thing is to do is to say to the people who’ve worked on this for eight months, we get a little bit of time to digest this now. It was your choice to not allow us into the process over the last eight months.

We’ve had one week. Councillor Stevenson. I’m going to interrupt, that is impugning the reputation of staff. At any time, Council, as they have done tonight, committee could have moved a motion to direct staff to bring us in.

That did not happen. That was ultimately our choice, not staffs, so that language is not appropriate. All right, well then we as a council have chosen not to seek out that information in advance. We only received it a week ago.

We can say that we’ve had five open houses. Those were less than a week’s notice to give the public, and it was only about where the locations were. They did not know that drug use was going to be permitted inside and outside. There’s many things in here that they didn’t know about, and to say that people are dying and that we can’t take a month to talk to the public, I don’t understand how then we justified taking seven months to get to this point.

It always seems to come to council with this, you don’t have time to deal with it. It’s an emergency. But there was all of the time to go through and do all of the things that were done, and to now say there’s no time for the public is just simply the rationale doesn’t make sense. If people were dying, people have been dying for seven months.

So that’s a tragedy, and getting this right is super important. I will be supporting this motion, and I encourage my councilors to do that. We’re talking about one month. We’re not talking.

This is very, very important. We’re talking about embarking on a quarter of a billion dollar plan with a hundred million dollars a year in operating, and there’s a lot to talk about, and the public is interested. They want the details. They want to hear about it.

They want to have a chance to have their say. So I will be supporting. I thank Councillor Van Mirbergen for putting this motion forward, and I don’t know what the public wants this time. They want to have a say, and I think the hard thing to do is to give it to them, and I’m asking my fellow Councillors to do that.

Mayor Morgan, thank you. So earlier tonight I spoke about a way that we could have it both ways, because we’re not ultimately proving any locations. We’re not ultimately proving any leads for agencies. The motion that was put before in the package of motions that I presented was that we will do continuous engagement.

We’re going to provide constant feedback into the process. We’re going to look to improve the process every step in the way. This is just one step and many steps that we need to take. So having a public participation meeting, which is, by the way, only one form, one way that we do public consultation, Councillor ramen mentioned knocking on doors, the engagement meetings that we’ve had, which is in the motion tonight to have more of those, the online form, the ability to get documentation clearly, and in a later document tonight, having a robust communications plan to make sure people get information in a timely way, and they can provide accurate feedback, I think is all part of us having both ways.

There is nothing stopping us from having two parallel tracks here where we continue to engage and consult the public, and we let the RFP go out there and have people bid to it. The city manager at the very start of tonight said we have some capacity to make adjustments to that when it comes back based on public engagement. If we don’t let an RFP tonight and we do this, then we’re letting it off in September, and then we’re going to have the waiting time to have the consultation come back, and that’s what going to be October, November. So we won’t have a response this year if we take a month, but we can have it both ways, and we don’t have to argue over this.

There is a way to have robust public consultation and feed it into a process that continues to take step by step forward, and that’s not going to be the last time we want to do public consultation. There’s going to be time and time again where we’re going to want to engage, as we have to deploy all of those ways that can allow us to get feedback and continue with the process at the same time. So I’m not going to support the referral. I am going to support the public engagement in the original motion as was contemplated, and I think we can have it both ways on this one.

Thank you Mayor Morgan. I’ve got Councillor Frank, Councillor Hopkins, Councillor Hillier on the referral. So Councillor Frank, you are next. Thank you, yes, and just speaking on the referral, I want to share what I’ve been hearing, and I know that we’re all talking about the public that we’ve been speaking with.

So I’ve been hearing from residents in my ward that they want us to address homelessness. I heard this, everyone heard this when we were canvassing last year to run for the election. It was probably number one issue at the door. And on Friday, I was at a fun fair at my local church, so I thought I would ask, okay, what are people thinking?

What do you think of our hubs plan? And honestly, everyone I spoke to said, I don’t really care what you do as long as you do something different to solve this issue. The minutiae, I don’t think necessarily matters to most people when all they really want us to do is address and solve homelessness. And that means doing something different.

And I would argue that we have been consulting lenders throughout this whole process. I attended Councillor Ferrer’s town hall that he did about the encampments. And I also attended one of the five info sessions that we hosted regarding some of the hub plans. And again, it’s been reiterated, but we get emails, we get calls, we get social media messages, we go canvassing, people knock on doors.

There are so many different ways that we are collecting public engagement and doing consultations. And for anyone who doesn’t think we’ve consulted enough, perhaps they haven’t attended some of the consultations that we’ve been holding. And I encourage each ward Councillor who wants a public info session as their way of collecting community information to host their own as Councillor Ferrer did. And I’ve done one for the Thames pool.

If that is your method of collecting information from your residents, have adder. All Councillors are able to conduct the community engagement that they think works best for their community. So feel free to do it. I agree that if we wait, the delays will cause more deaths and not actually address the issue, which is what, again, the community has been saying they want us to do is to take action.

And again, to the mayor’s point, we have accounted for continued community engagement in the process. If we need to make changes, we can tweak staff. So unless we have an alternative on the floor, and I haven’t heard one, I’m going to be happily supporting the work that the community has been doing and building on. I think there’s been an incredible amount of work put into it.

So I don’t want to continue to belabor the point. Thank you. Councillor Hopkins. On the referral, I would encourage Council not to support the referral.

I go back to seven, eight months ago when we were all campaigning. I think each and every one of us heard quite a bit about homelessness and the need to do something. This is an opportunity where we can do something. I am not prepared to delay the RFP process.

Getting back to the community engagement piece. I just want to reiterate what Councillor Frank said about holding our own public participation meetings, if that is the will of the Councillor in their ward. I know the public engagement process that was already being undertaken. There was a public engagement at the Byron Community Centre.

I was unable to attend. But the feedback that I got from residents was thank you. We learned, we understand, we still have concerns. But moving forward is what we need to do.

I am not at all interested in delaying it. There is nothing to stop any one of us to continue the public conversation within their own wards. I want to thank the mayor for bringing forward that ongoing consultation and feedback that will continue. That is really, really important.

That must happen. We just do not hold a public meeting, get the loud voices at that public participation meeting in one month. And then that is it. We need to continue keeping the conversation going.

So I would encourage any Councillor that is not sure about if they are going to support the referral or not. I am just not sure why you would support the referral going forward. If you are concerned that the public has not been engaged because you have that opportunity that is available to you. So I would encourage each and every one of us to not support the referral.

Councillor Hillier. Thank you very much. Yes, to the chair, through the chair to staff with respect to the referral. If this was deferred for one month, how would it affect any plans that are in place or moving forward?

Ms. Livingston, timing impacts. Through you, Mr. Chair, best case scenario, depending on what decisions Council might make at that PPM.

Best case scenario, we would be returning to Council, probably via a special meeting at the end of October or early November with the results of an RFP. That would mean that we would be looking to likely into January and February for being able to stand up the hubs which would then mean that we would, while we are, undertaking work to talk about what additional cold weather response is required. I believe the community and Mr. Dickens’ team would recommend that if we’re not looking to standing them up to later in the winter, we would need probably a quite robust cold weather response, fairly significant, like what we’ve had in the last few years.

That takes time to plan and effort. So those would be some of the impacts that I think, again, pending what could come out of that meeting in August. Councillor Hill here. Thank you.

Yes, the cold weather response was actually my next question. I’ll be fair. I am on the fence on this one because when I’m hearing from my constituents, they were, they felt left out of the loop with the drugs on site component. So I would still like to hear a little bit more of that.

Well, that’s not germane to the referral Councillor. So you can have opportunities if the referral is defeated to ask those tonight. If they’re referral is successful, you will have to hold those for another day. Councillor McAllister is next on the referral.

Thank you and through the chair. And I want to go back a little bit in time with my comments and plot Councillor Frank for in March, putting forward the motion where we recognized that there is an untenable emergency or a community and communities across the country relating to housing and homelessness. And we acknowledged right from the get-go that this was going to be a priority, that every turn we have engaged. And I continue to reinforce with my colleagues that we have that continuous feedback loop with our constituents.

And I’ve seen that and I would encourage us to keep doing that. But I do not think delaying this will serve us any good. It pushes us farther into the winter and I think it will put people’s lives at risk. And I don’t think we should delay this any further.

The status quo is not working. We need to move forward with a plan which has gone through rigorous consultation. We’ve had a lot of involvement with our community partners, government, the city staff have put in a lot of work. And I really do think that we need to follow this through, move the plan forward.

We will continue that dialogue. But I do think that we need to push this forward this evening. So I would vote. I would recommend that we do not support this referral.

Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Stevenson, you had asked to speak again. Yes.

Thank you. You know that the minutia doesn’t matter. I think that the detail that it may matter when it’s in your neighbourhood. You know, there’s there are a lot of concerns.

I am talking to people every single day. I do have a town hall booked April, August 30th. So to think that I am not engaging. But the fact is I don’t have the information until tonight.

I have a long list of questions here. I will not have the information to really speak to the people in my ward until after tonight. And there’s going to be no time for me to do that before we vote tomorrow. And so that’s the reason.

And we talked about, you know, a lot of views on on social media. I have brought up before that the whole of community and how we say it’s going to help the residences of the residents, the communities and the business. We’re not seeing that in this hub implementation plan. And my video got 50,000 views.

People really are they do care about this. They are concerned. It is impacting them. I’m speaking from the ward that is the most impacted currently, Councillor Ferreira and I, but particularly my ward.

And so I am saying to the other Councillors, my ward knows from experience they have questions and concerns. And I don’t see why we have created a plan or a procedure that gives the the public less than 24 hours between getting all of the details tonight because this is our opportunity to ask the details. I don’t think we’ve had rigorous consultation. There were three questions that were asked that night.

We did not have all the details that we have tonight. I think we’re going to need a winter response no matter what. And it’s going to need to be a rigorous and extensive winter response if we’re really going to care for the people who are currently living outdoors. And the last thing I want to say is we endorsed a winter response for $5 million.

There was $650,000 for a women’s shelter. And I was there with a fellow Councillor today and there were three women sleeping outside of it because it’s not open on Sundays and Mondays and because of the 30 beds she was telling me that there’s only four to six usually women sleeping in there at night for various different reasons. But the thing is there is a staffing issue I believe is the problem. And so the fact that we’re going to move forward with more hubs, this all sounds great 24/7 and all the care.

I don’t see the one that we just funded operating in the manner that we all wanted. I’m assuming as well as the organization. So just to the referral please. Oh, okay.

So this is why I’m asking for the time, right? Because there are a lot of questions. If everything was just rolling along with proof of concept, we wouldn’t need the time that we need. So I’m saying that the minutia matters.

There needs to be time and that there’s things to really discuss in what’s going to come out tonight and with what’s currently happening. Thank you, Councillor. I’ve got, okay, I’ve got Councillor Raman who’s asked to speak a second time. Oh, Councillor Raman.

Thank you and through you. No, I was looking to call a point of order. We can’t, we can’t do that here. We can’t impune people’s reputations.

We can’t, we can’t, we can’t have those kinds of discussions. We need to maintain decorum and that’s all I’m asking for. Thank you. Can I please have that explained?

How I either impugned or did otherwise, I certainly was not my intention and I don’t think that I will ask, okay, order please. I’m going to ask Councillor Raman if she would like to be specific about what she felt was out of order and if Councillor Stevenson would like to retract those, then she can do that in her response. Councillor Raman. Thank you and through you.

I do think that there’s an opportunity to ask questions of organizations or ask questions of staff related to organizations. I think that’s a respectful way to get to the heart of the matter that you’re looking to but to make statements and not allow staff or others to provide answers or to perhaps look into a matter or to ask the organization itself. Perhaps other questions, I think it’s a challenge to provide information that’s second-hand and not allow others to then provide a response. That’s, and it’s difficult to be in those conversations when they are directed at one organization in particular.

I think we have to be be sensitive to that. Okay, so on the Councillor’s point of order, Councillor Stevenson, you have an opportunity to respond and then I’ll rule on the point of order. I’m sorry, I didn’t hear how I impugned. I stated firsthand fact of what I saw today.

I didn’t blame anybody. I just said something isn’t working there and I can give you many other examples if we want to. I just gave one. I don’t see how giving one fact-based example was impugned.

I think, okay, so this is my ruling from the chair, that there was speculative commentary about why an organization was closed without information from the organization itself. So I am going to uphold that that particular piece was out of order. So if the Councillor would just like to, Councillor, are you willing to retract that particular statement? Yes.

Thank you. And the point of order has been dealt with. We will continue on to the speakers list. Again, I will remind folks this is on the referral.

Councillor Cudi, you have not spoken yet, so I’m going to go to you next. And then I am going to ask Councillor Layman to take the chair briefly so that I may speak. Thank you, Chair, and through you. As one of my colleagues suggested, many of us have been knocking on doors engaging with our constituents and I’ve been doing that for the past month.

And I’m not getting the feedback that I was hoping to get on the subject. And I’m out there trying to sell the concept and it’s not going over particularly well. And I think people do need more information. We’ve had public engagement meetings and I don’t think they have had the information that they’re going to get now.

So I would ask colleagues to support the referral. It’s only a month. And I think it’s going to give everyone an opportunity to have more information and to provide food for thought. And again, we can press forward once we’ve had that.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Councillor Cudi. I’m going to ask, before I go to myself, before I hand over the chair, I do want to circle back to Councillor Pribble in consultation with the City Clerk. If you wanted to go in camera on the referral for legal advice, that would be an order only to the extent that the questions that you would be asking in camera are relevant to legal advice on the impact of the referral.

You would not be able to ask legal advice on matters on the plan as a whole, but only specific to the referral. I still would like to go, but I don’t need to go prior. And I will not be, actually, will not be supporting the referral because I’m already kind of disappointed that we are now looking into January in the January date because I really thought that our date was that we are going to be in place during the fall. So again, it’s disappointment that we are additional three months behind.

But I’m going to support it. And I do think that we need to consult certain services with our public. Having said that, I still think we can move on with this project. And as I started when I was communicating, when I had my first term to speak, I honestly don’t know from mine who else could I consult with then our community, the report, the people in terms of the project, people abroad internationally.

Everyone says it is a really good concept. My questions are finances, accountability, and services. I do think that these things, again, it’s a process. I want us to move forward.

And I will be pressing on these questions during this process next month to month after. But again, as I said last week on a different topic, I am disappointed that we are, again, behind and we are behind three months. And the statement was that we were supposed to be in place. These initiatives were going to be in place during this fall.

And that is a disappointment. I want to move on. I’m not going to support the deferral. I am, however, going to exercise.

And I’m sorry, I’m going to make sure that I quote this properly, please. So bear with me for a moment. Under our council procedure bylaw 32.2 civic administration integrity question, and it’s been alluded to that we are three months behind. And I am going to give Ms.

Livingston a chance to respond to that directly in terms of what the timelines are that staff had committed to us previously. Through you, Mr. Chair, I would like to provide clarity that the intention was always aiming to open by December. That is what is in front of council right now.

The shift of time was in response to the question about what, if council were to hold a PPM or some sort of special meeting in August, then what impact would that have? That was the shift in time that I was referring to. I do not believe we are behind any schedule. Thank you, Ms.

Livingston. Councillor Layman, can you take the chair, please? I will. And I will go to the deputy mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Presiding Officer. I agreed to chair tonight so that the mayor could participate fully. And I promised I wouldn’t over engage myself.

However, it’s it must be a full moon because Councillor Trussau and I finally got Councillor Trussau on that we don’t need a PPM page. We are usually on opposite sides of that agreement that our debate, but tonight we are on the same side. Because colleagues, I frankly don’t know what more we would be engaging on in August. We don’t have a return from an RFP with a lead agency and a location identified.

When we have that, it’s absolutely appropriate to receive delegations at that meeting where that’s brought forward and to hear from people then on the individual locations and the lead agencies. That to me would be more consultation at that point in time and an opportunity for people to speak. I know from three years of planning and environment committee right now that what we will have at a PPM is a lot of public speculation. I suspect about where these are going to be without actually having an RFP back and a whole lot of the reasons why it shouldn’t be in their neighbourhood when there might not even be a location coming there regardless.

I too have heard from constituents on this, but you know what the message I’ve heard very clearly is, I don’t know what else to do. So I elected you, I trust you to make some decisions, give it your best shot and boy, if this doesn’t turn out, I expect you to pull the plug in turn direction because I’m going to hold you accountable if it’s a big screw up and you’ll let it keep being a big screw up. But I think the other thing we’ve heard a lot of here is that there is hope in this plan, that there’s a possibility to break the mold and do something different. And that’s hard to do and it’s, it can be scary to do, but it is not, I’ve heard people say, I’ve heard a couple people say that this is like the BRT debate.

You know, oh the plan came forward and there wasn’t enough consultation and you know, we didn’t have a chance to weigh in. Well I fundamentally reject that because one of the options that was possible in the BRT debate was just the status quo, do nothing. That was an absolute option. To me, on the homelessness file, that is not an option.

I think we all, I think everybody in this chamber tonight, whether they’re in the gallery, whether they’re members of senior administration, whether they’re members of this council, I think we all agree the status quo sucks and we got to do something about it. Well, I’m prepared to make some decisions. I’m prepared to take the next step and I don’t see the value of delaying that next step for the sake of, of filling a gallery to spend three hours listening to why, not in my neighborhood, without better answers as to what we could do. And that’s what we will get, I think, honestly.

I’ve had a lot of great email conversations with people. I’ve had a lot of great social media engagements with people. We had, and I thank everybody who’s come out here tonight so far, and I know some folks have wandered in. I know other folks have had to leave because of time constraints, and I don’t say this with any disrespect to all of you for coming tonight, I’m glad you did, but I had like three times as many people at my community engagement, along with Councilor McAllister at the East Lions Community Center.

Having those neighborhood level engagements was much more impactful for me, being able to have one-on-one engagements with my residents in Ward 2 and in Ward 1 than having people stand up for five minutes and speak at a microphone and not have engagement back and forth with us, not be able to get their questions really answered because they’ve got five minutes they speak and then they go. So I will continue, as a number of Councillors have said, doing engagement with my own residents, but I’m also ready to take the next step. I, and I have some questions about this plan. I have some concerns about it.

I don’t necessarily always agree with Ms. Lazanby on some of the things she’s brought forward in the past, but I respect the wealth of information she has and the work that’s gone into this and Mr. Warren and everybody who’s been a part of this. We can agree to disagree respectfully from time to time, but I think what we all agree on is it’s time to make a decision and take the next step forward.

So I’m ready to do that tonight. I don’t see the benefit of waiting to August. I, frankly, find a lot of people right now are just tuned out at summer vacation. I’m not sure that we’re going to get a whole lot of interest between now and some date in August when people are trying to get their kids ready for back to school, when people are doing those things.

I think we, the people around this horseshoe in particular and the people out in the community with the expertise are much more able to be effective in that community engagement if we build on those one-on-one opportunities than to fill the gallery and listen to speakers each have their five minutes from four until midnight or whatever time we ended up going to that night. So I’m not going to support the referral. I do want to continue the debate tonight. I want to hear what other people have for questions.

I want to hear what those answers are, but I think that we need a lot more time. In fact, we haven’t even had time tonight for everybody to ask all their questions. And now we’ve got a referral on the floor, which would take away the ability of every member of this council to keep asking questions tonight. So I’d rather put in the time tonight and keep asking those questions and getting those answers.

Thank you, Mr. Presiding Officer. And I’ll return the chair to you. Thank you.

I do have any other speakers on the referral? Mayor Morgan. Yes, on the referral, I want to respond to one thing because sometimes we can let a couple of comments be made and it turns into something else. One of the arguments for the referral was the idea that we are debating this tonight and it would be approved at council tomorrow.

So I want to remind colleagues that over a month ago, I sent you an email saying the reason I called the meeting for tonight, the reason I called the special meeting was to ensure that we could exclusively focus on this topic and have the devoted time. It was supposed to land at the SPPC last week, which I believe you went to 11 o’clock on. It was supposed to be with all of that stuff. The advantage, as I said in my email, of having a special meeting was it got to go on the regular agenda rather than the day before.

There was time for councilors to get it. In fact, I asked the city manager and it was delivered that colleagues, because it went to the strategy implementation table, got a copy of the document early to ensure that they were not going to be surprised because sometimes things find their way out to the media. We get it before the weekend, the staff report on the Monday, and then it becomes public. So the point was, you know, people can make the argument to say, listen, the time is compressed on the end, but we expanded it on the front to give more people time with the document.

Just like we can say, let’s have a PPM in August, and then after we have that PPM, you can criticize it and say it was during the summer. No one showed up because it was the summer. You know, there are ways to criticize every possible direction we can go, but I didn’t want to let it stand as an argument to say the purpose of me calling the meeting tonight was to give councilors the runway, because I had heard before I don’t like things at landing on the added agenda. I like to have some time with it so that I can prepare my arguments.

I tried to accommodate that. I just had to say that tonight because I’m trying to accommodate the wishes of council by making the shift. And in the 30 days since I made that decision, no one raised a concern with it until tonight. So people wanted something different.

I would have been happy to accommodate to try to make something different, but I don’t want that to become a narrative because that’s not the purpose of why I called this meeting. It was to give councilors more time on the front end of the document, to talk, to engage, to think about it and bring their arguments tonight. Thank you, Mayor Morgan. Councilor Trussow.

I believe you have the inherent authority as the chair to, at some point, especially an intermediate procedural debate like this, to say there’s been enough back and forth and you can call the question. And I would want to verify that you have that power. And if so, would you please use it? Because we’re just going back and forth.

I do. Councilor Trussow have the prerogative to deem that all the points have been made and that we are going around in circles and to call the question. I will give one opportunity if anyone has anything new to add. And then I am going to call the question.

Councilor Stevenson. Thank you. And I just want to, what I want to say is that by asking for more time, it doesn’t mean it’s not, I’m not trying to be disrespectful because there’s this sort of negative connotation that somehow it disrespects the work that has been done. And I don’t think that’s true.

I very much value all the works that’s been done. I’m asking for the time with the public. As far as what the mayor just said, yes, I also heard, though, that we were going to get the information early. We as councilors got it early, but it was a confidential document.

So it wasn’t public until Wednesday, which means that we’re not really able to discuss with the media or with with the public until Wednesday evening. And so it’s really, it really isn’t a lot of time. My understanding was that we were going to have two weeks for the information that it was going to come out with the with the agenda for last Wednesday’s SPPC, which would have given us more time. So that is the reason I didn’t complain was I thought we were going to have 10 to 14 days to talk to the public about it.

And my experience so far in council has been that we we move things that we say, Oh, there’ll be time, there’ll be time. And then we find out there isn’t time. So that’s my concern here is to really block out the time. I’m not trying to be disrespectful.

Even when I talk about the problems that we currently have at some of the with some of the projects we’re undergoing, I’m not being disrespectful to those organizations. I’m saying, hey, everyone’s doing the best we can. And it’s there’s things that aren’t working. So addressing those is really important before we commit to this 250 billion and or sorry, 250 million and the 100 million a year.

So I’m not what my problem is is this sort of this negativity on me that I’m being disrespectful. And I’m saying it isn’t disrespectful to ask questions and ask for time. Thank you, Councillor Stevenson. I am going to go to Councillor Layman who has not spoken and I am going to give him that opportunity to speak.

Thank you. And through you, chair to staff, I just want to be clear. What we’re approving right now is to go for RFPs for two to five publications. Is that correct?

The full motion is in he scribe for you, Councillor, but I will allow him is Livingston, of course, a chance to respond to that. Yes, we are seeking direction to move to the competitive procurement process for the three to five hubs, Councillor. So when that comes back to us, at that point, we will have the ability to ask further questions. In other words, we’ll have time between now and then to hear from our constituents, their concerns, both location wise, operational wise, et cetera, that we can ask at that time before voting yes or no on accepting the successful proposal.

Is that correct? So I’m giving you a little leeway here, Councillor, because that’s technically not on the referral. But I think what you’re asking is that tonight is if we move ahead tonight with a decision that it doesn’t end the opportunity to ask some more questions and bring some more feedback in. That’s correct.

And I will see if Miss Livingston can offer some comment on that. Yes, I apologize. I was just confirming some information with Miss Barboon. Yes, the answer is yes.

At that meeting, what will be brought forward is the result of the competitive procurement process. And lots of questions can be asked about that. We are seeking direction tonight to proceed with that process. Once we’re in that process, I think it would be an expectation on the part of the proponents that we would be moving forward.

So council can ask lots of questions. We have indicated it should council support the direction to proceed with engagement on this piece and that that be fed into your decision making process that we structure the RFP so that that can happen. If that happens, we will undertake to do that. So yes, you can ask questions and we can do our best to answer them.

If council chose to end an RFP, there would be considerations that you would wish to hear from both finance and legal on that. Councilor, okay. So this is a very complex issue. And I agree with what’s been raised here and the sense of urgency.

We handed staff a huge task when we got into office based on what we heard during the campaign. With complexity comes challenges both on how a solution is arrived at. There’s no blueprint for this. But during that process, we must have community support.

And I believe we must have community support if we’re going to get additional funding for other levels of government. I’m convinced, however, that given that we only receive quite a in-depth detailed proposal last week that we do have time to hear from constituents, to hear their concerns and bring them forward at the time when this comes back to us. And if they’re not answered satisfactory, then, you know, weigh in at that time. Hopefully, questions between then and now and then can be considered by people who are looking to respond to the RFP, including operational, because I think there’s some concerns that are being raised on that front.

So I’ve had some of my questions answered tonight. I’ve heard others weigh in with their questions. I’m convinced that I have time to hear from my constituents and to bring those concerns forward before I vote either way on going ahead with this. So for that reason, I will not be supporting her for all.

Thank you, Councillor Layman. I have exhausted the speaker’s list. We have had speakers speak multiple times. I am going to ask the clerk to open the vote and call the question.

Councillor Van Mierbergen, as the mover of the motion, I will give you one opportunity briefly to respond. And Councillor, you’re on mute, so you will have to unmute before we can hear your response. Very kind of you, Chair. I basically just wanted to reiterate, the fact is tonight we’re being asked a couple of things.

First, we’re being asked to endorse this whole program as a whole as an entirety. And then, of course, confirm it tomorrow at council. And then we’re also being asked to agree to undertake a competitive procurement process tonight and confirm it tomorrow. Those two things are basically solidifying our acceptance of this whole program.

And we can say things like, oh, well, maybe later down the road, you know, after I hear from some people, I might change my mind, whatever. The fact is we’re being asked tonight. And as the point has been very clearly made, we’ve only received the report within just scant days of being asked to make the whole decision. And then we’ve got information that’s dripping and driving out into the public, like the use of illegal drugs in these various hubs and the concerns with location.

And, of course, the entire cost aspect of it. So this is a huge program. Of course, we all want to help the homeless. That’s not the issue.

The issue is, how do we do it? And don’t let ourselves be boxed into something may or may not work without understanding all the facts first and making sure that the public that we serve understand with the information and that we get to hear it back from them, what their feelings are on this matter. And that hasn’t happened. It just hasn’t.

So I’m asking it as others have to please support the referral. It’s it’s not a life or death issue for this program and proceed accordingly. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councilor van Mirbergen.

Colleagues, I’m not going to entertain any more speakers. We’re calling the question. Closing the vote, the motion is lost four to 11. Thank you, colleagues.

Well, I indicated we were going to take a dinner break at 6.30. We have now engaged in 50 minutes of debate on a referral. So I am going to look for a motion for a 20-minute recess moved by Councilor Ferreira, seconded by Councilor Stevenson, by hand, all those in favor. That motion’s passed.

We will return at 7.40. All right, colleagues, I’m going to call the meeting back to order. Thank you to the folks in the gallery for your patience as we took a bit of a biobrake. I hope you had perhaps an opportunity to do the same.

I am going to resume with the referral being defeated. We are back to the main motion that is on the floor. And I am just going to advise colleagues of the speakers list that was outstanding on the main motion before the referral took precedence. So I have Councilor Trussow, Hopkins, and Raman.

Then we move on to a second round with Mayor Morgan, Councillor Ferreira, and Councillor Stevenson. So Councillor Trussow, you are going to lead us off. Now that we’re back from our break. Thank you very much.

And through the chair, I want to start by saying that this is an important milestone for this city. We’re about to do something very new. We’re about to do something very different. And I just want to congratulate everybody who’s worked on this so far.

And I really feel as if as a Councillor, I felt, oh, I wonder what’s going on. And I can’t wait to find out. And then when I found out, I was so delighted. So I just want to thank everybody that worked on this, including staff, and including our community, including our community partners.

One of the questions that comes up a lot and came up tonight is, you know, if we’re successful, people are going to flock here. What are we going to do about it? And the answer to that is, if we’re successful, people are going to be doing what we’re doing. I saw it when I went to the AMO meeting.

People are looking up to London. People are looking up to London, because people in other jurisdictions know that we are ahead of the game, that we are adopting a very humanist, rights-oriented, progressive approach. And we are breaking with a lot of the mistakes that many other jurisdictions continue to make to this, to this day. So I’m very, I’m very proud of this city.

And then when I look at some of the things in the report, this was so well thought out. When you look at the standards of care, as a lawyer, I often think about, what’s the duty of care here? The list of the standards of care was so thorough and so thoughtful. And these are going to be filled in.

These are going to be filled in as we go along. Now, one of the things I’m really worried about, and I’m not putting any motions on the floor tonight, because I just want this to, I don’t want to get in the way of what’s on the floor, but we have a very serious problem of clarity of the broader housing market in London. And the question tonight has come up. Well, aren’t new people going to be needing to populate these services that we’re providing?

And I think we will. Many, many tenants, and I use the term with quotes around it because they aren’t all on formal leases. But many tenants are in danger of joining the ranks of the homeless. No sooner are we going to reduce the acuity level of many of the people we’re trying to serve that we’re going to have a whole new group, because between one missed payment, you may be out on the street.

The rental evictions are a problem. People have spoken to the difficulties in terms of getting good code enforcement. People are already under housed, but not yet on the street yet. And I don’t want them to be there.

Now, a lot of these are problems that the province has to deal with, in terms of reforming the rent control law, in terms of instituting a living in wage, in terms of increasing the payments that people need. But there are a lot of things that this city can be doing. And as soon as we’re done with this, I’m going to be coming back with a series of proposals. We have a very dangerous vacancy rate, and the rent levels are too high.

And we have as a city the ability to continue the progressive leadership that we’ve started on this into some other areas. Now, we have to improve code enforcement to avoid rental evictions, or constructive evictions, or demolition by neglect, whatever you want to call it. And it’s all in the strategic plan. All of those issues were put in the strategic plan.

So I want to, in closing, I would like to enthusiastically, very enthusiastically endorse this report, and thank everybody that’s working on it. And I really look forward to going to AMO, because we were at AMO homeless conference a few months ago. And I’ll tell you, Kevin, he was a rock star. Is he blushing?

I mean, people were very, people were very seriously like, wow, London is really doing some new and exciting things. And I had people from all over the province say they can’t wait to come to London in August, and talk to us about the wonderful things that we’re doing here. Am I perhaps being a little overly optimistic? Maybe.

But I think at some point we have to put our skepticism aside, something I often am skeptical of the city. At some point we have to say, you know, we just might be onto something here, really, really good, and I want to give it a chance to work. So with that, I’m going to be enthusiastically supporting saving lives, alleviating suffering, and building a healthy, strong, and safe community. Our proposed hubs put implementation plan.

I love the mayor’s suggestion about making sure that this is ongoing consultation. I thought it was going to be anyway, but I think for greater certainty putting that into the motion was a brilliant idea. We’re going to go to the next step now, which is putting out the request for proposals. There’s going to be a lot of scrutiny of what’s in there.

And we have not made one decision yet. We have criteria. We have beautiful criteria. We have not made one decision yet about where the hubs are going.

So, you know, when I get calls from people say, you know, don’t put the hub there, because we don’t know where the hubs are going. We have criteria. So I’m really looking forward to watching the next stage of this process unfold. And thank you very much.

And I think I’m just going to leave it at that. Four minutes and 59 seconds. Councilor, you could not have time that better. Councilor Hopkins.

I’m not sure if I can build on Councilor Trisull’s enthusiasm, but I am going to try. I really want to thank him for his comments. But more important, I do want to thank staff for their public service to our community. That’s what they’re there for.

That’s what they’re doing. That’s how I see this plan. I think it is the new way going forward. I also want to thank the community and the stakeholders that have been part of that process as well for your community service and public service as well.

I do have a couple of questions. My first question relates to the, I guess, the hubs. We’re moving forward with the five hubs, if that is going to be indeed the case that we do here tonight with the RFP process. We know the hubs aren’t going to be permanent housing for the vulnerable.

And there was a comment from another Councilor about how we move the people through the process. And that’s something that is a question I’d like to go through you, Mr. Presiding Chair, to staff on how we go forward increasing our housing stock. And the housing stock is really something that we need to do better, more understand and would like to know what are those opportunities and do we need to do more to staff?

Let’s start with Mr. Dickens. And then if in terms of the process of moving people through the hubs, if Ms. Lazenby or Mr.

Warren want to expand on that, of course, we’re thankful that you’re staying with us this evening to answer those questions. So we’ll start with Mr. Dickens. Thank you, Chair, and through you.

We are, as you know, focused on creating 100 highly supportive housing units this year for the highest acuity individuals to move into that housing, focusing on, again, priority populations. That work is happening at our housing implementation table. We’re discussions have centered on defining what highly supportive housing is, working through the criteria on those priority populations, and starting to undertake a bit of an exercise in terms of what projects are in the pipeline that would align with both those populations and that definition criteria. So we continue to move forward that work on the highly supportive housing.

We are meeting again next week as part of that implementation table and advancing that work on the bricks and mortar side. There are a number of efforts and endeavors that are happening in Mr. Mathers’ world through his team’s efforts around creating housing stock of all various kinds and sizes as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dickens. I’ve mentioned his name a few times tonight, and he’s dodged throughout, but I wonder if Mr. Felberg might want to expand on the work that’s being done around our affordable housing stock in particular.

Certainly to you, Mr. Chair. So we have our roadmap to 3,000, but we also have our 47,000 unit target that we’re all trying to balance and implement all at the same time. But when it comes to the affordable housing side, as you know, there is an application that we have currently in planning and development for a new subdivision on a former school site.

So that could be an opportunity for us, for the city to show leadership, and we’d come back to this council and look for direction on how to activate that if it was related to this plan. But again, those types of partnerships are the types of partnerships that we’d be working and looking for with the broader community as well and working with the development industry on those types of things. Thank you, Mr. Felberg.

Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, I’m really pleased to hear that there are other things going on, and I really do think we need to do more, encourage lots of opportunities to get these housing, getting our housing stock up to support the vulnerable as they go through the process. I do have another question as it relates maybe to the hubs through you, Mr. Presiding Chair, around pets.

I didn’t see it in the plan, but how we do accommodate pets. I know it’s very important to all of this, but I think especially to the vulnerable population if that’s going to be included as well. Well, I am going to base the way that she rushed to the microphone to respond that Ms. Lazenby would be willing to answer that question for you.

Yeah, through the chair, we absolutely are including pets in accommodating in the hub accommodation, and thankfully we’ve had a couple of programs in the community accommodating pets. We have some experience on how to do that, but they are absolutely important to accommodate with their humans in this service. Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you for that response.

I just wanted to take the opportunity to ask that question, because I do hear from residents about the importance, so thank you for that. I do want to make a comment. I want to thank the Mayor for end, Councillor Stevenson, and the Deputy Mayor Lewis for the motion coming forward to work with the provincial government trying to get the funding addiction rehab centers, the funding for that. I know I really welcome the comments in the letter to be at the front, because there are many, many municipalities experiencing the same challenges as we are, and I really do appreciate getting right off and getting going.

We’re going to have the AMO conference here, I hope, with the delegations, that hopefully we’ll have many, many delegations that we will continue this conversation next month with the provincial government. So thank you to the three of you for bringing that forward. I just sort of want to add the importance, and I know we’re all here very passionate about housing and homelessness. We heard it when we were campaigning, I think each and every one of us sees the homelessness, maybe not so much within the outer lying areas of the city, but we are starting to see more and more of it.

And the Londoners want us to do something, and I am really excited that we are doing something here. We should understand any plan is flexible, we really don’t know what the future is going to look like, but I think the desire, the need, obviously for funding, but the fact that we are doing something is what I’m very excited about. And I know we may disagree with some of the comments that are made, but I do think, pardon? 20 seconds.

20 seconds, but I do know that we can all get together and make this happen. So thank you. Thank you, Councillor Hopkins, Councillor ramen. Thank you and through you.

I echo all the thanks that has been shared so far to those that have spent an enormous amount of time working on this plan, and I’m glad to see that we are at this stage in implementation. Being mindful of my time, I wanted to start first by asking if you can comment a little bit further on the mitigating burnout and moral distress piece that’s included in this report. We’ve seen this as we’ve been having this discussion and how imperative it is to provide that joint response in the whole of community response because of the moral injury that we’ve been seeing across frontline workers. So I’m just wondering if you could speak to that a little bit more in terms of how the hubs themselves play a role in addressing some of those challenges and concerns.

Thank you. Well, let’s start that with Mr. Dickens. Okay.

We’re going to go to Ms. Lazim even through the chair. I think that one of the things that we’re trying to establish here is standards of care that exist across a service sector that supports the capacity for staff to make decisions in the moment that support the participants that are right in front of them so that they’re able to make those kinds of decisions that are not causing the moral distress, that there is opportunity to work with community partners so that you have answers for a participant, so that you have solutions for a participant who’s coming to the door. One of the things that is really difficult is when you have restrictive rules or frontline staff don’t have the opportunity to make some of those choices with the participants who are accessing services, that that is a significant contributor to that moral distress.

And to create those community partnerships in which people, in which frontline staff don’t feel alone in that, in which that frontline staff are supported by a broader community sector so that it’s not just kind of this individual organization trying to do all of the work alone. Council Roman. Thank you. In the report and throughout I’ve heard that we are looking to use best practice, evidence-based, data-driven, as well as experiential and to manage all of those different opinions, different ideas and different forms of research.

And you know I saw in here some references to research and the one that I just want to point to is on page 40 when we’re talking about a continuum of substance use support and treatment. And I’m just wondering if you want to provide a little bit more context to that research because I think it’s important and I’m pointing specifically to the subtext seven health Canada expert task force on substance use, recommendations on the federal government’s drug policy. So I’m not asking you to go into in-depth detail, no one at this room to go into in-depth detail about that. But I do think it’s important that as this has been shared in the media that we also guide that conversation around some of that research and evidence-based approach and why perhaps a different approach is being contemplated based on best practices and research to date.

Thank you. Mr. Warren and through the chair so when we’re considering evidence for this we recognize that the voice of folks with live living experience oftentimes leads academic research as well and academic research often validates what the voices of living experience are bringing forward but just some years behind. We wanted to acknowledge that as expertise we’ve committed to through this process that the voice of folks with lived and living experience is going to be a critical part of not only the design but the implementation and the ongoing quality improvement.

We need to live that as well. So we wanted to make sure that we had it down here as a core piece of what we’re doing and are inside of a very important piece of what we’re doing that that voice is not only going to be heard but valued equally to the academic partners that are often led in that direction by those folks. Councillor Roman. Thank you and through you.

So just to follow up one of the concerns I’ve heard from residents is that you know there may be people seeking support that maybe need a higher level of support, a high acuity but they do not have they’re not using drugs and so being in the same environment can be challenging for those individuals. Can you speak to the thought and what kind of what kind of of case management I guess thought would be put into how those individuals would be placed? Who wants to respond to that one? It’s allowed to be through the chair.

Well one of the reasons why we want people to have their own space and their own living quarters is so that their behaviors which can often you know or not often but sometimes be maybe a little more aggressive than you know what we’d like to see in community spaces or you know not as kind of well self-managed or self-regulated and that includes things like substance use that people have their own spaces so that those spaces are their spaces while they’re staying at the hubs and that the impact of their behavior is much less to those around them so certainly and I have a lot of experience with this of you know when you have even even three or four people sharing a room whatever one person does is going to impact everybody else and that is where those individual spaces really become key to the success of being able to accommodate people who have complex needs which includes things like substance use. Council Roman. Thank you and I appreciate being able to ask those questions. My last question for now just pertains to our next steps as it relates to our government relations approach you know as we’re making this decision today I’m mindful of the fact that we will have quite an audience of MPPs and MPs hopefully coming to AMO next month and the opportunity that’s there for more dialogue.

I also am mindful of timing in terms of when budget asks and submissions are required the process by which we do that and how much engagement is necessary. So I just wanted I was hoping to get maybe a glimpse of what to expect in future government relations endeavors as we continue in this discussion and I’m happy for anyone to answer that thank you. Ms. Livingston.

Through you Mr. Chair we’ve actually begun that work by having conversations with our local MPs to help folks from a technical perspective understand the plan and what is being considered and what the immediate financial asks are. We were advised that in order to pursue a more detailed conversation certainly with the province having this level of detail of a plan would help us with those discussions we earmarked AMO as the place by being the host and also the opportunity of so many cabinet ministers and the premier it gives a great opportunity for us to further those discussions. In addition to that we’ll be continuing the work that we do each and every year with respect to pre-budget submissions all of those usual processes that we avail ourselves of every year we will continue to do that work.

This will be an ongoing dialogue with our other level of government partners as we look to try and implement this together as we move as we move forward so that kind of process has begun certainly last weekend and this week to have much more regular repeated conversation sharing of information as we as we move forward those are some of the very immediate steps and kind of the key places that we would be availing ourselves of. And Councillor you’ve got about 44 seconds left anything else okay so now everybody on the first round has had a chance to speak those put their hands up anybody hasn’t I will give you an opportunity now before I move to people who’ve put their name on the list for a second go around seeing none I will go to Mayor Morgan thank you I’m going to just comment on a few things that were mentioned because I think there’s valuable points being raised and I think the dialogue is very good I just want to add my thoughts to a couple of things that have been raised already on projections and I know Mr. Dickens was asked to give some estimates I think we have to recognize that and this was mentioned to a certain degree there are many forces at play here interest rates being one of them right anything that pushes people to the brink of stepping from something that’s affordable out of that is going to put pressure on homelessness in Canadian cities so the monetary policy that bank of Canada housing supply issues and not having enough stock. Frankly universities need to build more residences as more people come to this country to learn there’s pressure on the rental markets in places like London that has a large university and college population social assistance rates were mentioned you know these are things that if we’re going to make a projection on where we might be headed all of those things factor into the pressures they go you know positively and negatively making it very very difficult to predict I want to emphasize again because I know this comes up when I engage with public about who this particular plan is for and where this fits on the continuum of our work you know this this particular plan is for the high the individuals the high QD individuals as we call it and and it’s important for us to focus on them that’s not the exclusion of everybody else and I hear often people say what are you doing about other people who are homeless what what are your plans for that and when we think about all of the work we’re doing on the housing side of things mr.

Felberg mr. Dickens mr. May there’s talk about you know we’re talking about there’s market rent rent options we’re talking about some options below market rate rents we’re talking about deeply affordable options and then there’s RGI and then there’s also supportive housing which you know is it can be a component of those so why is it important to focus on the high QD individuals first I want to use St. Thomas as a really clear example of what can happen when you focus on a specific population that has very high needs they they had 15 people in their city and Mayor Preston and I have talked but this many times those 15 people had 800 interactions with police that’s just one service let alone emergency rooms land ambulance social services but just if we just focus on police 800 interactions with police we know in London that the average mental health engagement is about 5.4 hours with our police so if you project that I would say maybe these were mental health engagements they could have been addiction-related but 800 contacts with police could have been like 4,300 hours of officer time you know what happens after they took those 15 high needs individuals and put them into a supportive environment that into well as running in their city the year after they were in that supportive environment they had 40 contacts with police so from 800 to 40 that’s like 4,100 hours less potentially if it’s about the same as the contact time in London that’s like 171 days of time when you invest in people who need supports who are drawing on multiple services you can have huge impacts across the stress on those services and we’ve heard and we’ve read op-ed’s about our hospital system and the demands on the emergency room and the mental health beds within the system and the outpatient beds and the land ambulance pressure and the police contacts and so for us even if we can’t help everybody this year even if it takes time to ramp up every person we help has savings elsewhere and that’s why I think it’s a whole of community plan because every investment we make in the neediest in our city helps free up capacity for others who use those services as well and so I think that this is a powerful approach to take and I think it’s it’s not only the right thing to do but it can have huge spin-off benefits I want to talk about Councillor van Mirbergen’s comments about if we do something really great here other people will come well we’ve seen a number of different approaches from municipalities if you look at what Hamilton did they basically said encampments can be anywhere and then they’re going to try to get volunteers for people to live in their houses well there was not a giant flood of people out of London and into Hamilton you know people do not shift around in these large numbers as people tend to think they do and I can tell you with my colleagues on the Ontario big city mayors the position that the Ontario big city mayors have approved as a group the 29 largest municipalities on Ontario is essentially the system that we’re trying to put in place and that is what we collectively as mayors are lobbying the province to help support everywhere across all of the different cities so although everybody may be doing something slightly different we’re actually trying to all take steps together at the same time so London might be one two or three steps ahead but I can tell you my colleagues and other cities are one or two steps behind and they’re catching up and they want to catch up and we want to learn from each other when we talk about the way that we’ve approached hubs we’ve learned from some of the benefits and some of the mistakes that have been made with Kingston and the hub that they have we talk about handling encampments and the strategy that we put forward we’ve learned from other municipalities sorry 30 seconds all right my point is we’re going to learn together we’re going to take actions we’re not going to get everything right but I think if we take each and every step and we know that they’re going to be positive impacts we can make progress towards something that is better than where we are today and we can also get to where we all want to go and that’s really tackling this not just in our city but across the province and hopefully across the country thank you mayor morgan council for your next thank you presiding chair and through you I have some questions but I wanted to just make some comments just coat tailing off of council ramen councilor trassel in the mayor’s comments and that would go to our government with respect to our government relations at bocacy going towards the different levels of government and I would not come put any any motions on the floor but I would say as you are asking for funds and giving the details give a you know push a little bit harder if you can to have the province and the feds come up with some type of system response and if it mimics ours and we are the leaders in that because I have heard before people are looking to us and they’re looking to see what our successes are and how we’re moving about and developing the system so I would say see if you can maybe get put some ideas in their heads too as well as get some funding for us I also wanted to just go through the list here I am very appreciative of the the mayor and the government relations staff going to get time to take the advocacy efforts with the government of Ontario to secure the provincial addictions rehabilitation I think that’s a good a good step so I do like that and I would also I also do like again something that the mayor brought for the community improvement plan loan payments I do think that that would be a great help for our downtown businesses you know I do it’s it’s not like the lifesaver of the world for the businesses but it’s a great helping hand and it’s definitely something that I know they’ll appreciate so I do hope that my colleagues here on council will support that and so to my questions my first question is for council ramen’s addition and I don’t know if councilor if it’s a question that you’d be able to answer it’s nothing for the actual addition it really is some house keeping items for it so looking at the strategy and accountability table I do see that table as something that and I’ve never asked this question so I’m just kind of asking now that’s something that would be permanent correct like that could be something that would be permanent as the whole of community system response continues will continue to have that and the reason I ask that is because I’m looking at it vis-a-vis the hubs of implementation table which from what I’m gathering once we implement our hubs we are not going to have that table anymore so I just wanted to know if we’re appointing the mayor of the mayor and the deputy mayor to that strategy and accountability table that would be something that would be ongoing miss Livingston.

Through you mr chair yes we would anticipate that the strategy and accountability table would be in place for for some time initial pieces of work are with respect to the well certainly the first five hubs there’ll be more work that comes with respect to that table in terms of how we have it operate as a system and all of those pieces other pieces that will come forward will be with respect to the highly supported housing and recommendations regarding workforce development there’s an entire piece of work beginning around systems foundations so it is the strategy and accountability table that provides guidance and kind of oversees that implementation work as we then bring it forward to council so yes it would be in place for quite some time I would anticipate. Councilor Ferreira thank you and through you I figured as much I just need to ask the question I wanted to go to perhaps Miss Lazenby and ask about the relationship building component just moving forward because as we open up the first three to five hubs five hubs hopefully we’re going to be focusing on the most highly acute individuals for those services so I just wanted to know I do I am on of the understanding that that work is already undergoing so I wanted to know if you can maybe make some comments on the relationship building aspect so that once we do open up the hubs we will have individuals coming to utilize those services Miss Lazenby through the chair what we are trying to build here is spaces that people want to access and relationship building is an interesting one because you know in building rapport with participants one is that it’s something that can actually happen relatively quickly as long as you are able to provide the supports and services that a person needs as long as you are able to you know provide that non-judgment meet people where they’re at and so we think that the standards of care that we have developed within the concept of the hubs supports that relationship building that the approach to service and the way in which staff and the hubs do their work will support that relationship building and relationship building also happens you know when when we’re seeing you know we’re hubs will rely a lot on let’s say outreach workers who have those relationships with folks who are in encampments or sleeping Ralph are unhoused to help bridge those relationships so to help create those relationships with the hubs you know as services we do that kind of work together you know fairly regularly as it is now so we’re well practiced in that knowing that we all have a different service to provide and can help bridge that gap with each other so I think that what we’re trying to build makes that relationship possible and easier to be able to connect with people. Councilor Ferra thank you introduce my last question I know we’re talking about the procurement process and moving towards that but this was also in the report and it’s the one number so I thought I maybe just asked about that because I feel like this is a very important aspect to the whole system so from what I understand the one number is probably going to go through another procurement process or I’m not too sure how that’s set up but I just wanted to maybe have some a little bit more information on the one number system and if you can maybe tell me is it going to be like a three-digit number is it like 999 or 811 or something like that just these are questions that I just wanted to know if you could answer that Mr. Dickens.

Through you chair we don’t know what that number is going to be yet and we have a little bit of work to do before we get there what is detailed in your hubs plan and in the staff report is a intake and referral model that will get us started that will make sure that people have a pathway into the hubs to receive that support what came out of the implementation table discussions was you know looking at the best way to create a one number and the one number originated actually through some feedback from businesses and summit participants where individuals voice to us that it can be challenging at times not knowing who to call do I call 911 for EMS do I call police do I call CIR do I call check what happens so out of the summer process and hearing directly from businesses it made its way into the house plan that we need to create a one number solution those discussions evolved into really tapping into the experiences of other organizations and institutions that have gone down this path before us in terms of what works well when it comes to creating or accessing existing infrastructure so we will embark upon that process when you talk about the hubs implementation table disbanding it will continue to operate even as these hubs open because we still have a lot of work to do ensuring the hubs are operating effectively that we can advance our intake and referral process to make sure we move forward with the one number piece and also looking at other service components that we can refine and enhance as we go so that work is still yet to come but we have a model as depicted in your report that will get us started counselor for our thank you through you that’s that’s all my questions thank you for the information thank you counselor counselor Stevenson you’re next thank you I do have operational questions but at the moment I still want to stick to the like what’s the big impact that we’re going to have that it was mentioned about not wanting to have zoning issues and problems what zoning category is it that you’re looking for for these first three to five through the presiding office mr. Felberg thank you and through you mr. chair so what we’re we have a series of different zones that we’re working with and so we’ve got our residential zone our business commercial zone we have an institutional zone and we have a just a regular commercial zone and then within that we’re working within a definition called the emergency care establishment and that applies to a certain subset of zone of zones within the zoning bylaw and then have identified a certain number of properties around the city counselor Stevenson thank you and my understanding is that emergency care establishment is less than six-week stay mr. Felberg thank you and through you mr.

chair so the the key to the emergency care establishment it does say six-week stay in it but the key component of it is the short-term duration so the goal there is that these individuals as they are moving and transitioning through housing they will transition through that house into permanent housing and that’s the whole the whole impetus and the whole plan. And with this plan of three to five and a hundred highly supportive for this year what is the anticipated length of stay in the hubs for this year? mr. Dickens or Ms.

Lazenby any thoughts on that or other staff who want to thank you jerry all the time to answer that so through you we don’t at this time we don’t have a projected length of state it’s going to be an individual based system we put the individual at the center of this plan and really try to address those individual needs now some people may be closer to the housing continuum some people may have a quick touch and into some highly supportive housing or other types of housing most likely highly supportive housing and others will be further away from that and we’ll take this an individualized approach to make sure the care is is targeting the individual needs so I don’t have a an estimation of that time for you. Elsa Stevenson thank you and again I’m a numbers person so when I look at it and we do if we do five hubs at 35 people or say 25 people it’s 125 or 175 but we’ve only got a hundred highly supportive housing units so and then another few hundred plan the next year so it seems like people could be in there for a year or so unless there’s more coming that I’m not aware of Dr. Dickens through you chair yes we’re trying to get a hundred highly supportive housing units online as fast as possible and through the work of Mr. Felberg and Mr.

Mathers we are advancing other housing projects and other housing stock not all of it will be highly supportive housing but as we go through the work at the implementation table we are seeing new partners emerge and new partners are emerging with plans and ideas and potential units that would push us past the hundred units potentially so still a little bit of work to do on determining the alignment and connectivity of those plans to what our definition and the priority populations are trying to serve but as we start with a hundred we may surpass that but there would be other housing stocks we’d love to connect people with. Elsa Stevenson thank you and I understand that there’s no guarantees and everything but but again we sort of a one-to-one match of 125 or even more 175 with a hundred highly supportive at what what length of stay is it a zoning issue like is there like what is short term to Felberg I think thank you through you Mr. Chair so the short term again is it’s it’s a it’s a decision really that it’s going to be made by our professional planning staff and our zoning staff as they’re looking at the different properties that we have I guess what I would say is that this the definition that we’re using is really for us to really get those first three to five out those first three to five hubs are the most important thing for us to get out right now so it’s allowing us to do that and then as we learn as we bring as we stand up those different hub locations as we start to identify the properties as we start to align the services we’ll start learning from that and then from there if it’s necessary for us to come in and do something a little more broad a more a collective city zoning then we can certainly come in and do that okay and not to belabor this point but and the the key is that these will be short term and so we’re building you know ideally we do five at 35 is 175 people that we’re talking about building this year with only a plan for a hundred highly supportive housing and then whatever happens next year so I’m curious what is the average length of stay in our emergency shelters right now do we know the average length of stay in our emergency shelters recognizing that we don’t typically run those so you might not have that information at your fingertips through you through you chair I do not have that accurate information on my fingertips what I could share with you is that stays at emergency shelters have increased where some individuals have spent a number of years in in emergency shelters or in emergency shelters for quite some time out for a couple days back into emergency shelters now there has been a significant shift through a number of shelter providers to increase the focus and dedication on being a housing housing support service and having housing finder staff so doing that case management support in shelter to connect people to housing also the efforts of our diversion program have helped divert close to 40 percent of our callers away from emergency shelter in the first place and into better natural supports including housing thank you and given what the mayor said about the focus being on the highest acuity they are going to need high highly supportive housing we’re not going to be diverting them to anywhere else so in this original plan we’ve got 175 in our hubs and 100 highly supportive so I’m just going to say again like is there a thought that it would be okay if people did spend six months to eight months in these hubs and do we risk some sort of OLT appeal if it’s then not falling under a short-term stay which according to the emergency care establishment is less than six weeks who would like to take a stab at that one I was going to speak to the 100 to 125 and then Mr. May others can speak to the question regarding appeal so that’s where we’re starting we’re not going to end at 100 we’re trying to bring on as much highly supported housing as possible these were projections to be concrete they are not rate limiting so this is what we’re trying to establish for people and so with the work that is happening at the housing implementation table we might be able to bring on more past that certainly we know as we’ve said over three years it needs to be closer to 600 so that’s the objective exactly the timing of it that will unfold as the implementation table does their work and then I’ll refer to Mr.

May there’s with respect to the appeal question through the chair any matter that’s related to zoning or the conformance or non-conformance with zoning is a municipal compliance matter so that would be something that any issue with zoning would be considered by our lead in municipal compliance area and if there was a complaint that was received then we investigate that complaint it wouldn’t be on a one to one person basis so when we’re talking about the concept here the concept is whether it’s somewhere someone’s living forever or whether it’s a short term so we would have to assess whether it’s an individual or the average or all those types of things that we can look at but the the main component of this consideration is whether it’s someone’s permanent home or not the permanent home Mr. Dickens thank you chair and thank you for letting me weigh in on the matter of the one-to-one highly supportive high acuity as acuity decreases in hubs so as people get in off the street they’re receiving care they they start to stabilize as their as their needs are cared for and met as that acuity decreases not all individuals would necessarily need to go into that highly supportive housing environment they may need to go into other types of housing that include a staff member assigned to you attached to a program that would come on site to support you but as of the acuity decreases those folks may not all need highly supportive housing so it’s not a one-to-one connection. Okay thank you that’s that’s good to hear and so in this hub plan and with the three to five this year or the 10 to 15 and the up to 600 highly supportive what is the anticipated length of stay like how long are you are you thinking that people are going to be staying in the hubs Mr. Dickens?

Through the chair I don’t think we have any new answers to that question other than to say this is a population that has chronically gone underserved and we’re trying to put a very new and different and fundamentally different system in place to address their needs so I don’t know what the projected length of stay would be Mr. Stevenson. Thank you and I just again I’m trying to understand the plan right the overall arching plan how are we addressing the high needs and the number of people that are on our that are living outside and so the plan is to build three to five hubs which are going to be more like emergency beds but we don’t have the highly supportive housing to move them into so I just I guess I’m not understanding why the move forward on three to five hubs if we don’t have the highly supportive care and so then we are actually planning to house them in the hubs for six months to a year I that’s fine as long as I know that’s what we are considering or planning. So Councilor I don’t know that the staff can give you any different answer than they give you and that they are they still can’t give a number I would come back to a point Mr.

Dickens made earlier in that our the first attempt is in many cases diversion recognizing that that’s not necessarily a case for people who have been here a long time but it’s not necessarily just the highly supportive housing where people transition into once they’re stabilized. I don’t think in less staff indicate that they have something additional to add I think they’ve answered that to the best of their ability and I’m not seeing any staff members put their hand up so I miss Livingston. Through you Mr. Chair I just want to reiterate that the purpose of the hubs is to bring people from the outside in and so that they’re in hubs we can stabilize the two components of the plan were hubs and highly supportive housing we’re trying to move forward with both at the same time it may not be a perfect match it is trying to do these pieces as we move as we move forward and in order to move forward to trying to take implementable steps first three to five let’s get those established first 44 of highly supported units in place moving and then we’ll build as we go to try and achieve the desired state where people are not in the streets not in encampments where people are where people are housed the hubs are not permanent housing they’re not envisioned to be permanent housing it is not the purpose for them the purpose is to bring people inside to stabilize and move them to housing and that’s why we need to build the stock will it happen as fast as everyone would like initially no it is going to take its time to build the additional stock particularly on the highly supported side while we’re also creating the hubs which are the spaces for people to come in I think that’s the best answer we can give at this point counselor are you okay if I go to counselor Pribble for some questions and and I’m going to apologize when staff were answering I also left the timer running so I have no idea how much time you had left because my timer is now at like 11 minutes so completely lost track of that time counselor Pribble thank you Suri chair to the staff as the first hubs I guess the date is now January for next year I want to ask you about driven to risk counselor we we did not defer so right now just timeline wise just to be clear that’s not accurate the the January timeline was the timeline staff gave if we moved with a referral so their timeline is still back to the winter of this year to December hopefully if all goes well okay so let’s put it say if it’s a either one of those months that the chair just mentioned I never pressed on this part because I was I was advised during the last few months that the first initiatives from the summit will be in place during this fall and I don’t press on the winter response my question is now because it is very important we got the end of July and next meeting is going to be in a month if we don’t have right now the timelines in our minds what’s our game plan for the winter response because again time goes by very fast and I think we should be proactive I do understand the stakes the summit and everything took a lot of time and effort of everyone but on the other end we got a look at winter response if we don’t have any timelines yet right now what’s going to be our plan how we will address it when are we going to receive them thank you miss Livingston mr chair I would like to clarify that we do have timelines the timelines are if there’s approval this evening we would move to issue the RFP we would return at the end of September and then we would move to have the hub stood up by December we also reported in the companion report on our July progress report that the encampment table is also now moved to talk about what is the complimentary cold weather supports that need to be in place along with should the hubs be approved along with the hubs being in place so that work has begun and so I can assure you that that work has begun I don’t know if mr dickens that needs to add anything to where they’re at in the proposed timelines for it and I’m seeing mr dickens shake his head no that miss Livingston has answered that fully don’t so purple thank you sir the chair to staff when is the staff planning to make a decision if there’s a time for winter response so either our city or the social community agencies are actually ready because as we know hiring staff training staff takes time and I just want to know I just want to assurance that when are we going to do this when are we going to make that call so everyone is ready and we don’t make the decisions five to midnight so I I think councilor pribble we’ve heard from staff already that they need our decision on this to understand what scale of winter response or cold weather response might be necessary it’s very hard for them to get timelines on that unless they know what we’re doing with this so I think that that has been answered but I’m going to see if miss Livingston wants to expand on that any further before I look for a next question through you mr chair as I indicated the encampment table is doing that work it’s not the city staff that are doing this work by ourselves that is the table that is leading it they are have begun the work there is a meeting this week I believe to continue the work I don’t know exactly when the plan will be finished that we would be bringing forward to council perhaps after the meeting this week we would have a better understanding of that time timing and could share it with council.

Councilor Pribble sorry so the meeting is this week so we should we will be getting some update next week do I understand correctly don’t think you do but I’m going to ask miss Livingston to clarify that mr chair the meeting is this week I I understand that out of that meeting we’ll have a sense of timing of of when we would be when the community would be in a position to bring forward a proposed support around cold weather so I we may be in a position to send a note to council to inform them of kind of the general timing that folks would be working towards I don’t I don’t have that today yes and I just wanted to draw out a colleague’s attention when you’re asking about timing I would ask you to refer to our meeting calendars as well so that you can have an idea of when if we ask staff to bring something back when they would report that back to the next standing committee meeting so you know winter response typically would land at community and protective services the next meeting of community and protective services is not until August the 15th so at the very soonest that is when a report coming out of the encampment table would be able to have any sort of update and even then they may not have the plan finalized but it may be an opportunity for a timeline to come forward but if we can just refer to our our own calendars for our standing committee meetings that I just think it’s important to for colleagues to recognize that when these reports come forward there is a schedule there so we often need to factor in when that next standing committee is that a report would come through to and I’m just sharing that for everyone if there was a zoning amendment change something to that nature that would have to come through an appropriate meeting of the planning and environment committee you know if there were property acquisitions or dispositions those kind of reports have to come through the community and protect or sorry the corporate services committee the one that I chair so I should know what the acronym stands for so just as you’re asking these questions tonight and other questions colleagues may have coming forward keep in mind that when you’re asking for when could information come back it will be at one of those future standing committee meetings before we would get an informal update council approval thank you so just last comments for the chair to the staff I hope during the next meeting we will get the update because I want to make sure that if we if we are forced or if we are forced sorry that’s not right where if we need to address our winter with some kind of actions response initiatives I want the agencies to to have the opportunity to be prepared for it I’ll leave it at that and I’m looking forward to response next month thank you thank you counselor and I and I did see some nodding heads from staff they’re recognizing that yes we they do know that agencies will need some some runway on that item do I have other speakers I’m just actually I shouldn’t have ignored the zoom screen for so long and I will let colleagues know the councilor plows that has joined us virtually but I don’t see any hands up by zoom Councillor Stevenson thank you I’m still kind of stuck on these numbers and so just bear with me on this that if we do three hubs at 35 people per hub and that’s and that’s all we get that is 105 people if they each stayed three months that would be 420 people so what I’m saying is we got it we got a plan here and and just say we meet the minimum number which is three hubs at 35 people and they stayed three months which is twice as long as what is allowed with the emergency care establishment we’d still need 420 highly supportive housing units available even if it was half that because of the diversion we’re still twice what we’re anticipating so my question is one of the things I’ve been hearing about is that the length of stays in the emergency shelters is too long could be attributing to the the extra stress and stuff because they weren’t meant to be long term we’re building what is meant to be short-term emergency stays so it’s not a home it’s not a place that somebody can really settle and we don’t I’m hearing we don’t have an estimated length of stay we’re using an emergency care establishment guideline that anticipates less than six weeks with what seems like no reasonable expectation that that will happen so why are we not maybe looking at hostile zoning regulations or why so many hubs if we don’t have the highly supportive housing to put them in could we maybe build more highly supportive right away instead mr. Felberg through you mr. chair so i’m going to take the term hostile to refer to a group home in a group home is actually very specific it says no more than 10 individuals are able to live in a group home in a particular particular time including the supports that are there with them additionally that is long-term housing that is not what we are building or what what we’re proposing tonight through the hubplain the hubplain is transitional housing it’s intended to help individuals stabilize so that they can then find housing as miss Livingston mr. Dickens and others have said as if we are successful in bringing the hubs on and successful in bringing on new additional housing units we’ll be able to move those folks from the hubs into the housing units it could also be that through the community that the larger broader community as mr.

Dickens identified that we will have some supportive housing units that do become available through other agencies that are starting to raise their hands so while it’s not a one-to-one relationship it truly is a whole of community system response where we’re trying to put it all together and leverage the expertise of everyone in the community thank you mr. Felberg Councillor Stevenson thank you my understanding is that there’s a group home zoning as well as a hostile one and the hostile doesn’t limit to the number of people is that true i guess i’m just wondering how we can make a plan based on emergency establishment care when there seems to be no reasonable reason to think that it’s going to be short-term unless we’re talking about six to twelve months and then is that the best way to house people i do want them inside but i’m hearing conflicting things that it’s not going to be long-term and yet it is going to be long-term because we don’t have a highly supportive housing that meets the numbers so i’m just gonna hopefully and i’m going to use the chair’s prerogative here to provide my interpretation of how staff have answered that which is yes the numbers don’t match up and there is still going to be a shortfall because we are not going to fix this problem in three or four or five months that this will be an ongoing process for a while and that the parts will not always line up on a one-to-one ratio and there will still be people who are sleeping rough this winter because we are just not going to be able to produce everything at once so i think that they have answered that but if you’re looking for something very specifically different counselor i’m gonna ask you to articulate that and i i just uh want to make sure folks know right now i only have counselor trust out on the list after this okay thank you i’m in no way saying this is gonna solve the problem and we’re gonna have everybody off the street what i’m saying is the 600 highly supportive doesn’t match the 15 units the 10 to 15 hubs at 25 to 35 people i’m saying that that doesn’t coordinate if it’s going to be 25 to 35 and 10 or 15 hubs then we need like i would just expect the plan to be much more than 600 highly supportive homes or highly supportive housing units so you know if we even if we did three hubs at 25 people if they were going through every six weeks it would be 637 units we’d need so i’m just saying the numbers are like way way off in terms of i’m just wondering why only 600 highly supportive for all of these hubs that’s my question okay so i’m gonna let miss Livingston respond and then we have hit uh your time counselor so i’m gonna go to counselor trust our next miss Livingston mr chair we estimated the number of highly supported based on the number of high acuity when we were doing the work of the summits i it is entirely possible that that number needs to be higher or lower that was the estimate at the time again it is the expectation that as we build the hubs and highly supportive and we are in a position to move people through we will have a much better understanding of what that end number needs to be uh and this is how we’re implementing trying to take each step as we move forward what we know is both need to happen and so that’s how we’ve been trying to approach the implementation uh to try and create transition to a system uh when we using the resources and capacity we have available to us as we move forward thank you miss Livingston counselor trussow very briefly and through the chair it’s not like we’re trying to like book hotel rooms for a stay where we know well we’re gonna need this for for three for three weeks one of the things that’s going to happen here i i hope which is one of the desirable outcomes is that as people are in these places their acuity level is going to go down and well what so so we can’t take the number of people who have high acuity needs as a constant because um one of the one of the points here is that we’re moving down on that scale which means a whole variety of other types of housing options open up for them and that and it’s such a human factor and where people are on the acuity scale is it’s very subjective and it’s fragile so somebody might be making good progress um moving on the acuity scale and then they go outside and have a bad interaction and that could set them back and we don’t know we can’t control we can’t control those things because you see this is not this is not a kind of scientific experiment where we have people sitting in petri dishes and we could watch them because part of what we’re trying to do here is increase people’s autonomy with with which comes some some risk in terms of interactions in the community so while i appreciate the counselor’s attempt to get more precision here i just don’t think that we can be adopting uh the the methods from a scientific controlled experiment to do that and i and i think should should the need arise we could we could seek uh there are various forms of zoning relief that exist under under the bylaw including zoning amendments which would require a change presumably a public participation meeting but um for perhaps a variance i i don’t know but i don’t think i don’t think that we’re locked in so much because this is a this is this is an area of endeavor under under the planning act that the city has quite a bit of control over and i have every confidence that we’re going to be able to be flexible in terms of some of our um zoning issues that that might come up so i’m not as worried about the zoning matter as others are because the city inherently controls that and yes some aggrieved person might decide to take us to alpat but they if they do that they still they’ve still got some serious standing issues if they’re not the applicant thank you counselor and anybody who ever attends planning and environment committee meetings know that we don’t always uh we do make amendments to zoning so um and i see our planning staff in the back smiling at me and thinking yes it’s you every time counselor louis and they’re probably right um i have counselor frank and then counselor cuddy uh on the speaker’s list uh and then i have myself on uh for a brief matter uh counselor frank thank you um i emailed staff my questions in advance so i don’t actually have any questions just a few comments um i want to echo some of the counselors comments but thank you to our service providers to our staff and to the community for the work on this uh i think that what we’re really trying to do is change the systems that we do have control over as was mentioned earlier um i think some of the real reasons we’re in this precarious spot is because we have decades of underfunding of social housing the financialization of our housing sector there’s issues of food insecurity the fact that our minimum wage is an ill living wage uh the growing cost of food and fuel the embarrassing amount we offer people on odsprow that doesn’t cover barely any of their expenses um the overwhelming lack of political will to do something about these multiple social crises a growing divide between the rich and the poor and overall it’s going to get some some laughs but i think capitalism is a lot of the problems that we’re facing right now um and i don’t know if we’re able to address our entire economic system within this municipal level that we have but i think what we’re trying to do is is wrap our hands around what piece of the pie we can address and try to make some movements um i see the hubs is uh on ramp for housing again i don’t think it’s the the final resting spot of anyone who is trying to find long-term housing and health care um but i appreciate the on ramp that staff in the community are working on um again want to thank everyone who has been working on this service provider staff partners that we have in the community uh for coming up first with a solution because i think we and i know when i was at the door canvassing um and people are saying that homelessness was their number one crisis um i didn’t have a good solution so i appreciate that you guys have come with a plan um with a budget with some asks and with some partners um because i think that uh you’ve offered us something and i’m happy to support it and see where it goes again we’ve heard time and time again it’s probably not going to be perfect and that’s okay i think when we strive for perfection we’ll always fail um and i think that’s part of being human and i also hope that there’s some Ted Lasso fans on council or in the in the uh gallery because i believe in hope and i believe and believe and i think that we need to believe in something and this is um probably one of those opportunities we have so um i hope that people believe and believe because i think it’s a really powerful thing thanks thank you counselor for not moving to amend our entire economic system because that would have required us to go in camera and get some legal advice from mr. card um i do have counselor katie next thank you and through you presiding officer um first of all uh and i’ll be brief um first of all i want to thank the city manager um and all of your staff for the hard work you’ve done with this and it has not been an easy process um and thank you um it’s just i can’t imagine i know the work you’ve done on it and the work that we’ve done on it and uh i’m so impressed by by everything and all of your staff and thank you so much uh i spent two hours uh today with the chief of the new chief of police cycling in the rain and a little bit of sunshine and so security and violence are sort of top of mind for me today as we as he and i traveled through words uh three and four and one of the questions that i have for staff uh presiding officer is um an issue of security but because i know in the past i have met with those who are marginalized and asked if i could give them a ride somewhere uh and many of them have have turned me down because they’ve uh they’ve been concerned about their safety um they don’t want to go to some of these um shelters because they’re afraid of their safety that the fact that they might be harmed and i’m curious to know how we are going to protect them any differently in the hub than we would in some of the current shelters we have thank you thank you counselor uh let’s go to um is allows me first to discuss uh security and safety issues um through the chair i think that there’s a number of things that uh the hubs uh embrace that help to um ensure safety and security of the participants um one is about the staff to participant ratio um and so recognizing that you know folks who are higher acuity folks who have more complex needs need more support and so therefore uh ensuring adequate staff ratios uh which will also ensure an adequate opportunity to monitor the property uh not just internal but the outdoor part of the property is also part of the program um and to be available to respond to any of those kinds of concerns um folks having their own private space is uh significant in terms of um that that feeling of safety and security and also actual safety and security that it reduces conflict reduces theft provides an opportunity for people to feel safe and secure um and then also keeping the numbers lower so that we’re not having you know um a a mass man of people accessing the same space with the same kinds of issues i think that that will help um alleviate any um fears that people have regarding their safety and security well on site councilor cuddy thank you for that answer i um i’m really not sure that they have their own space i don’t want to argue the point with you because this is your bailiwick not mine but they they have their own spaces now when they go to some of these shelters they have their own rooms and they still don’t feel secure they go to the shower and so on and they’re they’re afraid for their life and that’s what they’ve told me and so i just don’t see the difference between the two but thank you for that answer thank you councilor miss lasamby did you want to expand a little bit and perhaps provide some more information i would yeah um i think that one of the other pieces that we and not one of the other pieces there’s a couple pieces about the standards of care that we’re looking for these programs to operate under and one involves participant engagement on a regular basis so that there’s a feedback loop within the hub itself of how a program is operating that there is opportunity for participants to express their concerns with staff and management and that that’s accessible to them that that’s not something that they have to um you know um you know wait you know nine to five to actually express their concerns but that staff and the management are actually prepared to respond to those concerns um things like having regular you know house meetings for lack of better words or participant meetings where those kinds of concerns can be um you know fielded i think that there is a different kind of cultural shift we’re looking to have in hubs that hopefully can create that space for people to feel safer that it’s not just it feels less institutional than i think a traditional shelter would would be uh thank you for expanding on that for us um i have uh myself on the list next and i’m going to ask counselor layman to take the chair i’ll go to deputy mayor uh thank you uh for recognizing me mr presiding officer uh i have one uh item that i want to zoom in on here right now um i guess upon kind of intended because counselor plosas with us on zoom at the moment um uh which comes down to the amendment uh that counselor uh ramen put forward uh with regarding to appointing uh the mayor and the deputy mayor uh to represent counsel at the strategic accountability table for the whole of community system response um i’m going to propose a slight amendment to that i think counselor plosas raises an excellent point in terms of uh being the budget chair um the importance of having somebody directly connected to our municipal budget um participating in that and so uh colleagues i am willing to uh take a step back and i would like to suggest that gee be amended to read uh that the mayor and the budget chair be appointed to represent the municipal council at the strategy and accountability table for the whole of community system response uh and that the deputy mayor serve as an alternate when one of those members is not available and i do not know whether i have a seconder for that or not chair mr presiding officer uh but i realize that there was i see i do have uh i’ll look for a seconder of that please counselor for that oh for our guest counselor for a second if i can just please uh yeah please um so there was a question uh during the break uh no we did not break quorum but somebody did ask about uh um whether it was going to be uh two people at a meeting or one person at a meeting and whether i’d be feeling in as an alternate um the idea i think i don’t want to put uh too much into words and other people’s mouths was that there may be occasions where where both were there there may but that it was important to have the opportunity to have somebody filling in and in the event the mayor couldn’t be there um but i would not necessarily be the acting mayor just because the mayor has a scheduling conflict um it would not necessarily just fall to me to fill in for him unless i’m just listed as an alternate because i’m only the acting mayor when the mayor is actually physically out of town or there is some sort of personal matter that’s arisen where he’s had to transfer that responsibility to me for a short time so i think it’s it would be very valuable uh to have the budget chair participate in this process uh and that i am happy to fill in as an alternate for either one of my colleagues if they can’t make it um but i think it would be more helpful for our budget chair to be there on a regular basis than for me to be there so i’d like to um really encourage colleagues to support this amendment and give uh um a point counselor paloza uh as the budget chair to be the that primary contact and i will happily fill in as needed all right counselor paloza i’d like to hear that you’d be willing to accept this position of counsel on voted it i accept thank you um any uh conversation or debate uh on the amendment seen on a call about type faster this is amendment to uh for deputy mayor uh proposing that the budget chair may point to this um so is it the clerk is is it ready to be viewed okay hold hold on folks uh clerk will be with shortly uh clerk would you please read the motion thank you through the chair um the the motion will be available momentarily in e-scribe i just want to alert members that because the system has been sitting for a while you may need to refresh your screen in advance of me putting it in there thank you members should be able to see that if they go to the current item in the meeting okay folks please refresh your screens we have a motion moved and seconded and i’ll call the vote closing the vote that amendment is passed 15 to 0 i’ll return to chair to the deputy mayor thank you counselor layman and i would suggest as a point of personal privilege that the clerk i’m sure types faster than the counselor for more date um looking to see other speakers i’ve got counselor stevenson that will be the last speaker on my list currently so just letting folks know if you want to get on the list now is the time counselor stevenson thank you just just to finish up what i was saying the last time is we have before as a plan that has a maximum of 15 hubs at 35 people a hub that’s 525 people that if they each stayed six months if we were rotating twice a year we’d need a thousand and fifty new highly supportive units every year just to keep that going so i just leave that with you that i i i don’t understand that and when i look at the the costing we got two point seven million per year um if there were 35 units in each hub it’s sixty four hundred and thirty dollars a month if there’s 25 people in a hub it’s nine thousand dollars a month and we have the we have one emergency shelter right now that i can think of with the center of hope that does about it’s about twenty seven hundred dollars a month that we pay for a shelter bed i understand it’s not private accommodations but there are three meals they have a nurse there’s mental health there’s other resources there so can you just tell me and the public like what what is what is the advantage that makes it two and a half to three times more a month per person for this new hub design versus the older system just allow somebody to the chair well one is about the staffing ratios that are required to support people who are high acuity um you know there is a reason why folks who are um are sleeping rough right now and that is because our current infrastructure does not support those individuals they need different resources they need more resources to be able to support them adequately um the folks that we’re talking about supporting through a hub model are not likely to be even allowed in shelters um let alone be able to be adequately supported because shelters are often under uh under resourced and underfunded um so this is it’s a very different um approach to a very specific population that as a community right now we are unable to support adequately with the resources that are provided okay thank you for that answer um i know that the hubs i believe are going to be consistently low barrier and i’ve heard from several people that a desire for high barrier like for dry or you know no substance abuse issues at certain ones is the thought that some of the older uh emergency care shelters might then meet that need or is there some other plan to meet the need of those that are looking for um as for them what they deem to be a safe shelter through the chair i think it’s uh an inaccurate to um just portray a shelter where people are using substances or people who are substance users as unsafe um i think that there is you know infrastructure around supporting individuals um that that may create those kinds of um circumstances but just wanted to kind of clarify that piece um and you know we certainly as a hub to implementation table have not um you know uh gone the route of planning what the consequences would be for other programs or those that how other programs would change as a result of the hubs becoming operationalized um and i think that’s certainly something that the community would want to look at or individual programs would want to look at if that is something that is a gap in our community thank you miss lesbian okay thank you another question is i went through was we’ve got words like near and close proximity and i know when in other legislation around um marijuana shops and that kind of thing there was more a definitive term and i wondered if you can just um clarify a little bit what near or close proximity might mean mr feldberg certainly and through uh mr presiding officer so um so near and proximity are actually definitions that we have scattered throughout our our official plan and we have them also within our zoning bylaw but they are not explicitly defined uh they’re used as a way for our planning staff to make judgments based on the neighborhood based on the context based on what the use of a particular property would be okay thank you um so my my last question is um and i and i hear some some comments saying that i should be talking to the social agencies uh social service agencies directly but my understanding is that i’m our contractor was with staff and i’m asking staff these questions and the reason i bring up the women’s shelter that was just opened is because that’s what happened since my term here and i hear a lot about 24/7 and and that being the way we want it to be and i’m in full agreement but in this particular case we don’t have 24/7 yet and i’m just wondering like i want it and i want these hubs to be 24/7 and i’m just wondering if staff can address maybe how they’re going to solve the staffing shortage issues or whatever the issue is that is keeping us from meeting that 24/7 full capacity in one that we just opened before we open three to five more so miss Livingston can you speak to what the workforce implementation might be doing around the staffing uh i know that we don’t have the workforce implementation table folks here today to talk about how we’re we’re increasing staffing levels in the or supporting capacity in the system um but i’m just wondering if there’s any comment knowing that we are not uh we also don’t run the the post-secondary programs and and uh those things that provide the training for those workers so i recognize that you may not have an answer for that um through you chair thank you i believe the question was around how we would address staffing at safe space i believe is what was being asked no the most recent women shelter is that sorry for a clarification uh yeah my question is there appears to be an issue around having the 24/7 full service currently and so we’re looking at building three to five more and we we had even in the winter response we had a lack of complete use of the beds and other other things that held back um full service capacity that was desired so as we build you know we’re going to invest a lot of money uh into these projects we like i said we have a building right now that we funded for 24/7 that is not and so maybe staff can explain what the issue is and how we’re dealing with that so that we know these three to five will be able to be fully operational 24/7 fully staffed with all the beds used so i’m going to see if mr. Warren or Ms.

Lazenby have any thoughts in terms of the staffing capacities in the system beyond uh the the walls of this building um because as i indicated we uh you work in the field uh you know that the staffing challenges are like in terms of recruiting and hiring staff in your areas of expertise uh i know i’m putting you on the spot and if you don’t have um anything that you can share with us around that uh i also will accept that as an answer to i know i recognize that you don’t run the training programs either but uh i i will ask if you have any thoughts that you can share on that um but i don’t think that we have any better answer than what we’ve gotten already but i will see if our community partners have anything to add uh through the chair um one of the exciting things about getting together as a community and trying to figure out what it is that we need is having a workforce development implementation table where we are looking at trying to address these issues as a community um because not every single organization struggles with staffing and that’s for different reasons right um it may be that uh you know contracts are too short that’s a really common thing in our industries you know if you’re hiring for six month contracts that’s a problem you’re not going to be able to actually you know recruit uh uh the same uh folks that you would for longer periods of time or permanent positions um things about you know uh how much people are paid or the benefits that people are offered so there’s actually a lot of issues that contribute to um you know staffing shortages in different um organizations and staff retention um and the workforce development table is really put together to try to figure out what those issues are and actually come to solutions as a community um and so i think that it is possible that when we look to open hubs and when we look to hire staff and and that you know as a community that we run into some of those issues um but it is also possible that people are excited about doing something new um that people are are looking to to the hubs table and to the to what we’re doing as a system and excitedly wanting to work there um so i think that we’re trying to address those issues we’re trying to make you know um the hubs and appealing place to work as well that we’re trying something new which certainly frontline staff want the opportunity to do so um in terms of participating but the workforce development table i think is really going to bring those issues to light and it’s something that we want as service providers as well um we want to know what the issues are broadly and how we can address them collectively okay thank you for that um i’ve got councilor plosa next can i go to councilor plosa now okay councilor plosa uh thank you mr presiding officer and just for clarification um and transparency if we could use the name of service organizations when referring to them and this creates a safe space and i don’t believe as much as the city was hoping to get contract providers and organizations that could do 24/7 i don’t believe this was a contract that was actually signed at 24/7 service also recognizing um as some colleagues may refer to it as a women’s shelter just for transparency it serves women transgender and women identifying people just for colleagues to know um those who are accessing the services through this provider thank you thank you councilor and i’m going to look now to see uh i know council trust i’ll uh indicated one clause earlier but as as i have known else on my speaker’s list i’m going to look to see if colleagues wish clauses called separately which clauses they wish called separately uh as the speaker’s list is exhausted i’m going to look to start calling the vote um so clauses pulled separately if you want a clause pulled separately please uh indicate now councilor vamirbergen yes thank you chair if you could call a and b separately please okay the clerk has made note of that any other clauses colleagues wish called separately third and final call for any clauses colleagues want pulled and dealt with separately seeing none uh so we are going to call councilor vamirbergen can i actually ask you are you okay with us calling a and b together i would prefer if they were separated if we did a and then b okay so you want to call a and then b uh has been yeah okay just wanted to check on that councilor trust i i just want to make it clear through the chair and to to the mayor particularly um i wasn’t speaking against the idea of doing that i just don’t feel as if i’m ready do it tonight and i would just have a little a little more um information and raise a couple of questions which i think would detract from the gist of why we’re here tonight would there be any harm and and i’m asking this i’m not putting it on the floor would it would there be any harm and just putting that that little piece about the cip over to another meeting or is that is that wound up with this so much that we can’t do that well i will first as a chair uh councilor truss out advise that um this would be a different referral so it would be an order if you wanted to move a referral but i understand that you wanted perhaps some commentary first so i’m going to go to mayor morgan who added this to the agenda to get his comments with the indulgence of the chair i i just want to provide a little more context that i don’t know if it’ll make councilor truss out comfortable but i’ll i’ll also at the end of my comments address why i don’t think we should delay this particular piece um this stems from consultation and dialogue i had with the bias uh both ward counselors that are mainly impacted um by um uh both construction health and homelessness and and residual impacts from the pandemic and talking directly with businesses who say without the customer base the city’s payments which recently restarted because we pause and burn the pandemic are an additional burden that is pushing them to the margins so should we not provide some relief we may be pushing people like we’re essentially a creditor and i’m not sure that’s the position we want to be in in this circumstance so for us to be able to say we have the financial capacity and we know how to do this as we’ve done it through the pandemic to take one last thing off of the plates are people who have taken risks to put in facade loans or make building code improvements to their business will still having the viability of the program for new people to apply to it should they choose to enter and move into these areas it’s something that from the words of the businesses that i’ve spoken to is immediate because the payments have restarted and we need a little bit of runway which is why the time frame is there and it’s all consultation with the treasurer to pull those back and it’s also a program where if you want to still make payments you can like if people want to get it off their books they don’t have to take us up on this so it’s only for those who choose to offer this because of those pieces i would say for those who desperately need it it needs to be approved as soon as possible for those who don’t need it they don’t have to take us up on it thank you mayor morgan i will go to council trust out what i have councilor preble wanting to make a comment on this item as well that satisfies my concern so um i’ll um we’ll withdraw any objections at this point that makes sense and i think it’s consistent with some of the timing that we talked about before and i understand that both of the involved ward counselors are are good with this through the chair i want to make sure that that’s the case in in which case thank you very much for that explanation okay uh councilor truss i did ask uh so maybe just uh we could just do a quick show of hands uh counselor stevenson and counselor for error you’re both okay with the cip uh loan deferral just so that counselor truss i was aware yes not yeah and counselor truss i was withdrawn his concern on this counselor preble did you still want to speak to this or are you good with this i’m good with that and i’m glad to hear that the only thing is i was just i just hope the fellow counselors will support it as i said previously the businesses in both eras very challenging times no doubt and uh i said it already few times most of them will be repaying the loan either by the end of this year 40 000 or 60 000 next year due to the uh can canada uh relief funds for the covid so i hope everyone will support it and just in case i’ll i’ll say i’m not part of this group or i didn’t take advantage of these loans personally or my business but i hope you will support it because it’s the times are they’re very challenging and i think that this makes sense and thank you to the mayor for proposing this thanks thank you counselor preble uh counselor truss i just want to make sure you’re okay with e being called with the rest of the motions now yes i am thank you sir counselor mccallister and stephenson and then hopefully folks are ready to call the question and thank you through the chair i just also wanted to make a quick comment as uh counselor that also has a pia this is not just restricted to the core and uh my uh business members would also appreciate that assistance too so thank you for the for the addition thank you counselor mccallister counselor stephenson yeah i wanted to say thank you to the mayor for the efforts that he did uh in in facilitating that it really is a lifeline for some businesses and some of them they have the serve loan to pay off by the end of the year and by this reprieve of payments is gonna allow them to pay off that loan which will save them twenty thousand dollars in grant money so in a sense by us deferring these loan payments we’re giving them some of the federal government’s money so thank you to the federal government too um but it really is very much appreciated like very much appreciated i know the mayor did some extra work for that and i’m very grateful for that so on behalf of the businesses i thank you for that also for allowing me to be on the motion for the treatment centers because that is something i hear a lot about and uh that’s gonna satisfy um a lot of people so thank you for that um for the deferral of the loan payments do we would staff be able to let us know the five largest loan uh loans just so that we would see who who those are uh i don’t know i did give it to staff in advance um be in order or not but if you’ve given it to staff in advance i will go to miss barbone thank you through the chairs so the counselor did provide that information the staff had left for the day so it’s not information that i have with my fingertips but what i can provide is that um the in terms of the i have the balances of what the different types of loans are that we track so in total there’s 143 loans that are outstanding with respect to the cip programs the largest loan so the the most loan that you can get through the facade um the building upgrade loan is two hundred thousand dollars so on average the highest loan is would have been issued at that amount but the majority of the highest balances that are outstanding are in old east as well as downtown so we do track it by um the segments of the type so i can provide that information in terms of that’s where i would see the greatest amount of the benefit likely because those have the highest amount of the loan balances if that provides you at least a little bit of what you were looking for thank you and i was glad to hear it was all of the bi’s in that general downtown so that’s great great well i have no one else on my speaker’s list we have exhausted uh that so i am going to ask the clerk to open the vote the first vote will just be on part a and that is the london health and homelessness whole of community system response proposed hubs implementation plan has appended to the staff report dated july 24th 2023 as schedule one be endorsed and i will ask the clerk to open the vote now posing the vote the motions passed 11 to 4 and now part b i will ask the clerk to call separately as well this is that civic administration be directed to undertake a competitive procurement process to select the lead agencies and their corresponding locations for the implementation of the first five hubs and report back with the results and sources of funding for approval and i am using uh mayor morgan and council roman as the same mover and seconder on all of these unless either one of them indicates otherwise to me so seeing none i’ll ask the clerk to open the vote on that posing the vote the motions passed 12 to 3 and finally colleagues i am going to ask the clerk to open the vote and if you think i’m going to read all out all of the rest of the clauses i am not i am going to say on the balance of the report however i will very quickly uh highlight that uh this is to secure the sources of funding uh uh for the implementation for the first five hubs including a request of the community foundation to access the uh donation that was received that we received this report for information uh that the cip loan payment deferrals uh be approved uh that the mayor and government relations staff undertake the advocacy work on the rehab hub or the rehab center i should say don’t want to mix terminologies there um and that uh the mayor and the budget chair be appointed to represent municipal council at the strategy and accountability table with the deputy mayor as an alternate and that civic administration be directed to complete they will initiate the continuous public feedback loop part as circulated by the mayor earlier so those are the remaining clauses that we’re voting on now and i will ask the clerk to open the vote closing the vote the motion is passed 14 to 1 thank you colleagues and moving on we do have item 4.2 the july progress update to the health and homelessness whole of community response report and so we will start a speaker’s list on the items contained in that report ideally the first person to put their hand up will move the report so that we can frame the context of the debate so move by councilor trussow and seconded by councilor cuddy any speakers to 4.2 councilor stevenson thank you i just had a couple of questions on um page 100 under highly supportive housing it says the co-chairs have set a date in august and the group will meet into september as they focus on identifying units to occupy i just wondered if there was some clarity around that are we looking at more of the affordable units um or when it says units to occupy i was just curious about the language councilor can you just repeat that page number please it’s page 100 thank you you’re highly supportive and uh would that be mr dickens thank you chair and through you so this is the process of identifying projects in the pipeline so the table is looking to look at a number of organizations that have multi-year master plans that have um partnerships that are in the works and other housing projects that might be further down or further up in the pipeline so that’s what this work is okay thank you and it says commercial space to residential usage which i think everybody’s happy to see there i’ll speak for me i’m happy to see it there and it right near there too it says this document will also consider exterior/communal space elements i just wondered if you could just expand on that and with that mr dickens again it is and thank you chair through you so as the table looks to design not just uh what highly supportive housing would look like inside the space but really around uh what would be purposeful and meaningful for the outside space and be that um green space be that um some setbacks be that some intentional designs i plan design uh to not just blend into the neighborhood and be a welcome feature but also to ensure that it’s providing the best possible layout to support a high acuity population thank you mr dickens councilor stevenson thank you just two more questions one is around the um drug use at the highly supportive housing what will it will be the same similar types of um guidelines with the highly supportive housing as with the hubs mr dickens thank you and through you chair so the highly supportive housing can be could be someone’s forever home um and similar principles that have guided this work from the summer process is to take a harm reduction approach uh and to ensure people’s safety so uh we will continue to follow those same principles that were just articulated through the hubs plan uh recognizing these are uh individuals place of residence uh and that there would be an element of personal choice but we’d absolutely take every step to make sure uh individuals are safe and all individuals in that building answer stevenson a final question well actually just a follow up to that one and then a final question the follow up to that one is so then is the will the drug use be limited to their personal space then or will it be allowed in the communal space and outside mr dickens uh through you chair this time it would be in their personal space but i don’t have any of the details around what that communal space would look like each space uh would follow uh lead organization guidelines in terms of service standards and providing safe space for all tenants uh so absolutely safe space or sorry to answer your question the personal space uh is where that may occur if that’s what individuals choose to do as individuals may choose to do that in any residence throughout the community um but we would have uh service standards in place to ensure that those that are receiving highly supportive housing are having the best chance of obtaining and maintaining their stability answer thank you so my last question is on the final page 105 and it’s the financial impact consideration so here we’re being asked to approve the 125 000 for a strategic communications plan and i just wondered if you could expand on that as to what the term is and why uh a communications plan now as we hit the end of it miss Livingston uh through you uh mr chair uh the strategic communications plan as i think we uh heard many times this evening there is a necessity to ensure that the public is aware understands the work that’s happening the opportunities to be engaged uh as new milestones are met that people know that those things are happening uh we’ve had lots of questions about how can people help this plan would help in terms of directing folks on you know towards the fund for change for example and in able to contribute so this is really about building uh an overall level of understanding and awareness about the work that’s happening uh and where that that work is going the focus over the next number of months will be uh as we’re moving forward to implement these first hubs making sure people understand what’s happening uh when the decisions are made where there’ll be how areas can be engaged so it really is seen as quite important as we move into this next phase of work thank you miss Livingston councilor hofkin well you did say that was your last question but i will allow a follow up yeah um my question just is according to the tender it was july to march of next year and i just wondered it just seems like the communication strategy is going to come after we’ve made the decisions so this is about informing the public for eight months after we’ve already decided the direction we’re going i’m just for me i just thought the communication strategy period is sort of over is Livingston uh through you mr chair uh certainly uh lots to strengthen in terms of communication of the overall initiative but i think we’re far from over we are at the beginning of implementation uh and the community many folks are interested so i think the focus of this effort is continuing to build awareness and understanding how people can be engaged what the next steps are focusing of course on the first implementation steps they’ll be more coming forward to council during this period of time particularly around highly supported housing around workforce development around one number to call all those component pieces so having a strong and robust communication strategy from our perspective would be important as we enter into the implementation phase of this work. Councillor Hopkins yes thank you mr pro siding chair i just want to uh thank staff through you uh for the updates i know a lot of work goes into the updates i appreciate them i know we all do around the horseshoe here it’s important that we’re updated happy uh to support the recommendation the strategic communication plan uh going forward is going to be important i just want to um make note of a few points in the update really appreciate the indigenous led response the consultation uh that’s going to be continuous with the indigenous community uh i also want to bring to everyone’s attention the strategic advocacy efforts with the government as well as we host amo here uh that’s going to be an important conversation with the provincial government and finally uh just uh the upcoming budget and consultations that are going to go forward with uh the governments so a lot of work still to happen again appreciate the update thank you thank you Councillor Hopkins i have no other speakers on the list to see i will advise colleagues both Councillor Palosa and Councillor van Mirberg and have left us so we are 13 now i’m not 15 uh i see no other speakers to this uh so the motion has been moved and seconded uh and i will ask the clerk to open the vote closing the vote the motion is one thank you colleagues i have good news for you we have no deferred matters or additional business we have no confidential items so that brings us to section seven of our agenda which is adjournment moved by Councillor ramen and seconded by Councillor Stevenson sorry Councillor Hillyer you’re turning on your camera way too late that was like lightning fast movers and seconders um this is by hand all those in favor that motion’s passed we are adjourned thank you everyone