September 25, 2023, at 4:00 PM

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The meeting is called to order at 4:00 PM; it being noted that Councillors P. Van Meerbergen, E. Peloza and S. Hillier were in remote attendance.

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   September Progress Update - Health and Homelessness Whole of Community System Response

2023-09-25 Special SPPC - Staff Report - (4.1) Health and Homelessness Whole of Community System Response

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, that the September Progress Update – Health & Homelessness Whole of Community System Response Report BE RECEIVED for information; it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a verbal delegation from R. O’Hagan with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Additional votes:

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by C. Rahman

The delegation of Ryan O’Hagan BE APPROVED to be heard at this time.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

4.2   Health and Homelessness Whole of Community System Response RFP 2023-199 Hubs Implementation Plan Results

2023-09-25 Staff Report - Health and Homelessness Whole

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the award of the contracts for Request for Proposal (RFP) RFP-2023-199 Hubs Implementation Plan: Lead Agencies London’s Health & Homelessness Whole of Community System Response as an irregular result, as per City of London Procurement Policy Section 12.2 (c) “Committee and City Council must approve an RFP award with an irregular result greater than $15,000”:

a)    the Request for Proposal 2023-199 BE AWARDED to each of the following organizations to provide Hubs for an initial two-year commitment at a total estimated operating cost of $15,650,424; with an option to renew operating contracts for up to four (4) additional one-year terms at the City’s sole discretion, based on satisfactory services, performance, and funding/budget availability:

i)    Atlohsa Family Healing Services Inc. at 550 Wellington Road, Building J in the estimated amount of $2,118,146 per year;

ii)    Youth Opportunities Unlimited at 800 Commissioners Road, Building 16 and 329 Richmond Street in the estimated amounts of Year 1: $1,317,500 and Year 2: $1,983,800;

iii)    Canadian Mental Health Association Thames Valley Addiction and Mental Health Services at 556 Dundas St. in the estimated amount $1,425,562 per year;

the proposals submitted by all proponents meet the City’s requirements and are in compliance with the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy, in accordance with Schedule 1 as appended to the staff report dated September 25, 2023: for a total operating and capital investment of up to $20,616,024. of which:

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to allocate up to $10,388,716 for operating for 2024 and 2025 from the Provincial Homeless Prevention Program;

c)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to seek funding from the Fund for Change to fund the capital requests received to support the three hubs in the total estimated amount of up to $4,965,600 for the provision of the initial hubs implementation;

d)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to seek funding from the Fund for Change to fund the estimated operating costs of the Canadian Mental Health Association Thames Valley Addiction and Mental Health Services transitional beds to be located at 705 Fanshawe Park Road West for the provision of the initial two (2) year contract term for hubs implementation at an approximate cost of $5,261,708 pending necessary development and Planning Act approvals;

e)    a one-time funding allocation of up to $1,500,000 from the Social Services Reserve Fund BE APPROVED, if required, should ineligible costs under existing provincial funding sources be identified while finalizing the agency purchase of service contracts and budgets;

f)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all administrative acts, including review of sites and support for Planning Act applications to align current or future hub sites with criteria, and any activities associated with additionally requested funding necessary in relation to this project;

g)    the approval given herein BE CONDITIONAL upon the Corporation entering into a Purchase of Service Agreement with Youth Opportunities Unlimited, Canadian Mental Health Association Thames Valley Addiction and Mental Health Services and Atlohsa Family Healing Services Inc;

h)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to continue to work with the community on the hubs implementation to establish additional opportunities for future procurement of additional spaces;

i)    the annual funding approval noted in a) above is SUBJECT TO the availability of funding through the City of London, and/or other funding sources;

j)    the proposed by-law as appended to the staff report dated September 25, 2023 as Schedule 2 BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on October 5, 2023 to:

i)    AUTHORIZE the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, or written designate, to approve the Municipal Purchase of Service Agreement between The Corporation of the City of London and each hub provider for the purchase of services to provide and operate three hubs; and,

ii)    AUTHORIZE the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, or written designate, to execute the Municipal Purchase of Service Agreements with each hub provider;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received the attached presentation from K. Dickins, Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development and 136 added communications with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (9 to 6)

Additional votes:

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That pursuant to section 31.6 of the Council Procedure By-law, Councillor D. Ferreira be permitted to speak an additional five minutes with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by C. Rahman

That pursuant to section 31.6 of the Council Procedure By-law, Councillor S. Lewis be permitted to speak an additional two minutes with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by S. Trosow

That pursuant to section 31.6 of the Council Procedure By-law, Councillor S. Stevenson be permitted to speak an additional two minutes with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed

Moved by S. Lewis

With respect to the Chair’s ruling that a Referral of this matter is in order, shall the ruling of the Chair BE SUSTAINED?

Motion Passed (8 to 7)

The Chair’s ruling is sustained.

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by J. Pribil

That consideration of Item 4.2, Health and Homelessness Whole of Community System Response RFP 2023-199 Hubs Implementation Plan Results, BE REFERRED to the October 31st meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee.

Motion Failed (6 to 9)

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That pursuant to section 31.6 of the Council Procedure By-law, Councillor C. Rahman be permitted to speak an additional five minutes with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee recess at this time, for ten minutes.

Motion Passed

The Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee recesses at 7:15 PM and reconvenes at 7:33 PM.

6.   Confidential

6.1   Solicitor-client Privileged Advice

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee convene, In Closed Session, in order to consider a matter related to advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose, related to a legislative interpretation and for advice about legal liability related to criteria for outcomes of an RFP.

Motion Passed (8 to 6)

The Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee convenes, In Closed Session from 6:47 PM to 7:06 PM.

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

None.

7.   Adjournment

Moved by P. Van Meerbergen

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That the meeting BE ADJOURNED.

Motion Passed

The meeting adjourned at 8:31 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 (4 hours, 17 minutes)

Okay, I’m gonna call the meeting to order. So this is the 23rd meeting of strategic priorities and policy committees, this is a special meeting, so we have just the two items on the agenda. I’m gonna start by reading a land acknowledgement. The city of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabak, Haudenosaunee, Lene Peiwak, and Adwondron.

We honor respect the history, languages, and culture of the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home. The city of London is currently home to many First Nation, Métis, and Inuit today. As representatives of the people of the city of London, we are grateful to have the opportunity to work and live in this territory. Further to that, the city of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for meetings on request.

To make a request specific to this meeting, please contact SPPC at London.ca or 519-661-2489, extension 2425. Now with that, I’ll open the floor for disclosures of pecuniary interest for any colleagues. Okay, I see none in the room or online. Just note, we have Councillors Blosa, Vamir Bergen, and Hillier participating remotely.

So colleagues know who’s remote. This is special meeting. We have no consent, no scheduled items. We have two items for direction.

I’ll deal with them separately. The first is the monthly progress update on the health and homelessness whole of community system response. It’s a report to be received. Now there’s also a request for delegation status related to that report from Mr.

O’Hagan. I don’t see Mr. O’Hagan here. I do see him now.

Okay, perfect. Okay, so we can address that. Sorry, I didn’t see you up there. So there is no staff presentation.

The report is for receipts. So if colleagues are looking to grant the delegation request, now would be the time to potentially move a motion. Councillor Troz, I’ll go ahead. I move that the request be granted.

Okay, for a five minute delegation, right? Okay, seconder for that, Councillor Raman. Okay, any debate or discussion on granting the delegation? Okay, seeing none, we can, oh, go ahead.

Thank you. I look forward to hearing their response remarks. So do I. Okay, thank you.

And we’ll open that for voting. Having a little challenge logging into East Cry by vote, yay. Councillor Palose votes, yes. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed 15 to zero.

You have five minutes. If you wanna come to the mic, we’ll just make sure it’s on first and I’m not gonna start the clock until you hear me. Yes, we can hear you. So you have five minutes and you can go ahead right now.

Awesome, thanks so much. Good afternoon, Councillors. Thank you for accepting my request for delegation. I wanted to speak about this topic once again.

First and foremost, a sincere thank you to everyone involved in the planning and now implementation of the whole of community response. To the mayor and Councillors, thank you for engaging the public repeatedly throughout this process. Thank you for asking tough questions and making tougher decisions. To city staff and partner consultants across the region, your work is invaluable.

10 months and certainly thousands of combined work hours have went into this plan and this would not have been possible without you. And to Ms. Livingston, for her work as city manager, her work with the city is commendable and significant and I wish her the best in what will hopefully be a less controversial retirement than the last decade and a half or so that she’s worked with the city. I cannot begin to express how elated I am that the city of London has taken evidence-based models of success and are now implementing them.

Countries with housing first models of care have seen significant success over the past number of years and I’m excited to see how that translates to the city of London. It’s quite something to live in a city that’s far ahead of the rest of the country and indeed the continent when it comes to a plan to support some of our most marginalized people and that couldn’t have been done without all of the people that I mentioned. I wanna briefly talk about a concern that I have with the program but I would rather be cut off while speaking positively about the response and so I’m gonna start there. I read the staff reports before today’s meeting and they make me happy, they make me hopeful.

I see democracy actively in action with a strategic plan being addressed strategically. The community engagements were well attended and provided much needed information for Londoners across the city. Many individual counselors have done a fantastic job of engaging their constituents in these conversations. I am glad that this plan is truly a holistic one.

This doesn’t aim to address just one part of a large problem but it hopes to address a number of concerns by addressing multiple issues as one with an underlying key component, a lack of housing. I am forever glad that businesses were consulted and that equity deserving groups were specifically brought in to address people or culturally specific concerns and needs. While I haven’t yet had the chance to peruse the 136 additional agenda items that were added, the fact that so many people are engaging with this process speaks volumes about the importance of this matter. My final positive comment for today is regarding the RFP process and the staff recommendations.

I cannot think of three organizations better fitted to start us off in the implementation of this plan. Three organizations each with their own distinct areas of expertise have been recommended to open the initial five hubs. These expertise include mental health and addiction supporting our youth population and with regards to a unique understanding of indigenous concerns and needs. While I’m not sure who else applied through the process, I’m happy to see these three may be successful in their proposals dependent on the next 36 hours.

I do however have a concern and I appreciate all of you who took the time to respond to it when I emailed about it. As all of you around the horse who know, I have a personal experience of trauma in relation to an interaction with the London Police Service. I’m gonna try very hard to keep my own personal bias as a way from this comment, but please understand that my experience is what has shaped my views on this matter. Without getting into the details because time is limited, a reminder that I was detained by at least five officers, handcuffed and taken through Victoria Hospital following the mental illness call.

All of this while I stood with my back against a wall, answering the questions that I was asked. I recognize that the LPS will be an instrumental part of the whole of community response. To this, there can be no doubt. I am often critical of police, but I do recognize their importance.

My concern here revolves around the current perception of police by folks struggling with mental health disorders, a drug addiction, homelessness or any combination of those. I question how police will be involved in, for example, the voluntary transportation of an individual using these services. And as an aside, I think Deputy Mayor Lewis for a really great response to that particular question. Or how a person with mental illness may respond to being approached by a police officer on the streets following a call from one of the hubs.

I sincerely hope that additional training may be considered in a program implemented that aims to fix relationships between our law enforcement and our unhoused population. For years, advocates have called for social service workers and practitioners to work in tandem with police to support people with issues and experiences outside of the police’s scope of expertise. I know that my prior email found its way to the people for whom it was intended, and I’ll be following closely to see how or if this concern is addressed. I want to finish with a final thank you.

I have no idea if this is the solution, but I know that what we’re currently doing isn’t working. It’s time to try something different, and I have great hope for this program. Thank you all for the work you do to support our most marginalized Londoners. Thanks.

Okay, thank you, and let me just personally apologize for getting your pronoun wrong. That was my bad, sorry about that. Okay, so that’s the delegation. I have the staff report.

I could look for a mover, it’s for a receipt, and then we can take any questions or comments on it. Deputy Mayor Lewis, seconded by, Councillor Ferrera. Okay, questions or comments on the September progress update. Go ahead, Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you, I have a few questions. Under workplace development, I wondered if it is being addressed the concern around the competitive nature, I guess, around the workforce, and is there any concern that the new hubs and housing will draw from, particularly the two big emergency shelters that we have that each house over 100 people, and as far as I know, unless it’s been happened recently, haven’t had baseline funding increase in a long time. So I just wondered if that’s being addressed to ensure that the shelters where we already have safety concerns, we don’t run into some serious issues there? Mr.

Dickens. Through you, Your Worship, this topic has come up, certainly at the workforce development table, as they talk about a number of issues that are impacting the system, one of which is the competitive nature of how we can support the workforce to make sure that they’re taken care of, but also recognizing where the workforce needs to grow to across the board. The topic of the competitive wages or the potential for there to be impacts on the shelter system is something that’s been raised at the strategy and accountability table, and it’s actually something that’s being discussed as part of Thursday’s agenda. The agenda on Thursday will look at the sustainability or sustaining the system that currently exists, and that includes a number of organizations, it also includes the large shelters.

To have a conversation about how we can ensure we’re not depleting one to support the other. As it relates to shelter staff, those are decisions they would work through in terms of their employer, but also what opportunities do or do not exist for new hires as part of the hub’s implementation. But that is a topic that is on the forefront and one that we’ll be discussing this Thursday. And through the chair.

So is pay equity going to be something that’s going to be looked at while we’re standing up the new hubs to ensure that the workforce and the best that we can do remains where it is? Will there be additional funding as one of the things you’re considering? Through you, your worship. Pay equity and a compensation framework are things that are part of those discussions is looking at really supporting the existing workforce in terms of the retention piece but also attraction piece going forward.

So the pay equity is one of the popular topics in this regard. Thank you and through the chair again. I also wondered when council will see the governance structure and the accountability plans to ensure that, to ensure that as we do this or if we choose to move forward, that there’s accountability and transparency around outcomes and around finances. Mr.

Dickens. Through you, your worship. As we look at the governance structure, so we have a community-based strategy and accountability table and as the hubs stand up, should the hubs stand up, there will also be a hubs lead table where the lead organizations will be working together as one network and really starting to establish those memorandums of understanding those service level agreements and looking at what some of those key deliverables are. As part of our system foundations work is where the work is happening on creating those evaluation and measurement frameworks which will start to identify and articulate the key performance indicators but also identifying those milestones that we’re looking to achieve and then how we will know if it’s working or if it’s not, then those lead agencies would be working on that course correction.

It is part of the whole network so we will all be a part of those conversations to make sure we are course correcting. And just to add, for any lead agencies, they would be entering into purchase of service agreements. So the schedules in those purchase of service agreements will spell out those accountabilities as well and those would be things that we can report back to council. Councillor Stevenson.

Okay, thanks. So just two questions there. Is there an approved diagram that shows the governance model right from the top down to the bottom? I had, and if so, will that be shared?

True, your worship, yes. There is a governance and accountability structure that’s been in place and has been, I believe, shared with council starting in April when the community brought that forward. So that’s been in almost every monthly report in terms of the various tables, who’s engaged those components. And I believe it was the April report or, yes, I believe it was the April progress report that described in detail how that would work.

Okay, thank you, I’ll look that up. So that model that shows it on one page, the overarching ones that are responsible and then all the way down, that one page diagram is in that April report. Go ahead. Your worship, I believe it is the April report.

I’m willing to be stand corrected that it may be the May progress report that it’s in and it describes each component of it. In terms of the governance and implementation framework for the response. With respect to holding lead agencies accountable for funding and delivery of service, the mechanism is the purchase of service contract between the municipality and the organization. Okay, so my understanding though, was there was gonna be a whole new level of accountability this time around.

Maybe I got that wrong. Because under the winter response, purchase and service agreements, there were a lot of concerns, at least for me personally, around the lack of financial and outcome. So is there, I thought I heard there was gonna be something with the university or there was gonna be a new level of accountability. Could you come into that, please, thank you.

After you your worship, the engagement of the university is what Mr. Dickens was referring to in terms of the helping us and the systems foundation table establish an evaluation framework. So we are working with Western at the front end to identify kind of the objectives, all of those pieces and how we will know what difference has been made and whether we’re successful in terms of moving forward with the implementation of hubs and highly supportive housing. So that is the evaluation framework that we are engaging with Western in the development of.

Last question on that is there’s a lot of interest in this amongst the public. And I wondered if there’s any talk in this process of having sort of real time updates available on the website or something where people can go and see how we’re doing on this whole of community response. Go ahead. Yes, Mr.

Mayor, Council directed back in July that we keep our website up to date and provide residents an opportunity to respond through get involved. So as we have approved products and information that is being put up and there is that ongoing feedback loop. So that is the mechanism that we are using. Go ahead.

Sorry, I meant more of an overarching picture of where we’re at in terms of how many homeless, how many high QD, how many shelter spaces we have. I think Toronto is doing something like that now where you can look and see. I think there’s an interest in that. I just wondered whether this group is looking at something like that?

Mr. Dickinson. Through you, your worship. At a recent community and protective services committee, Council directed us to come back with a report that was a bit of a homelessness snapshot, homelessness at a glance.

So we will be bringing that report back which will demonstrate sort of the point in time, year to date, look at homelessness in our community. Currently, we do not have a real time tracking system. We do a number of, we have a number of reporting channels reporting back to the ministry, reporting to built for zero through the federal government as well in terms of some of our expectations through those funding bodies. But in terms of having a real time up to date, the city currently does not have something like that.

Okay, thank you. We have Councillor Hopkins next. Yeah, thank you, your worship. And through you, I just want to thank staff for the report.

I do have a question just followed with a couple comments. My question through you to staff is really around the number of tables that we have. We’ve got the implementation table and strategy and accountability table. And my question is more around the hubs and implementation table as we go through the process.

The question is really around the one number to call model wondering how that is going to come about or when is that going to come about is a question through you. Sure, Mr. Dickens. Thank you and through you, your worship.

That is the next piece of the work that will occur is around establishing the one number. As we’ll, as mentioned earlier, some of those standard operating procedures are those service level agreements. So once we go through the process of establishing the lead agencies, the hubs implementation table will continue to work on how we’re leveraging our existing coordinated access program and system to make sure individuals are getting matched to the hubs but also go through the process of creating the one number to call. Yeah, looking forward to that.

And as we go through that process, then eventually I know it is really important that we get into the supportive housing. Would that be followed? Would that information sort of help with the supportive housing model that we would follow up with or just trying to link everything together? Thank you and through you, Your Worship.

So the supportive housing piece continues to unfold and we would be coming back. We’re actually working through that table to create a bit of a report similar to what the hubs implementation plan report looked like to bring that back to council this fall. So you can get an overview of some of the work that’s been happening and some of the work that is still yet to happen so that council gets a more fulsome picture. Beyond just what’s provided in the monthly updates.

Yeah, thank you for that. So more reports to follow. I just wanna just make a couple comments. I wanna thank staff for all the public engagement that you’ve been doing.

I know you’ve been very busy throughout the past number of weeks. I think that’s been a really important part of the process. I know residents in my ward are in and throughout London are very interested in the more we engage, the more we learn all of this and continue that engagement, not just to this point, but as we go through the process, I would really encourage that public engagement that you’ve done so well today. So thank you.

Thank you, Councilor. I have Councilor McAllister next. Thank you and through the chair. I also wanna echo my thanks to staff for the public engagement.

I really do appreciate them working with me to have an additional session added in Ward 1. I know the people greatly appreciated that, having the ability to talk with staff and our community partners face-to-face. My question is in regards to the business reference table and recognizing that the Hamilton Road BIA was not originally involved in this, I would like to request that the Hamilton Road BIA be added to that table. Putting on my other hat right now, in terms of representing the BIA, I have had requests from them to be added.

Hope I don’t need a motion for that, but I hope staff could add them into those discussions. Thank you. May I go to a comment? Just, I saw it shaking of no heads for a motion being needed, but I’ll just confirm.

Through you, your worship, certainly we can extend an invite to the Hamilton Road BIA to be part of that business reference group. Okay, I have Councilor Privel next. Thank you and through the chair to the staff. There was a statement, my homeless snapshot staff will be bringing back to us an approximate date that line for that.

Through you, your worship, believe the wording and the motion was at a future CAHPS meeting. The team is currently working through our corporate communications department to try and create a bit of a report card style report for committees. We would expect maybe the end of October, but it could be in November that that snapshot comes back. Okay, thank you for that.

And second, also through the chair to the staff. Is this the right time to talk about cold weather relief response or we can get an update on it? Thank you. Through you, your worship.

Yeah, I think it’s referenced in the report, so I’ll allow it. I just, I don’t want to turn the whole meeting into a winter response meeting, but I think yes, you can answer the council’s question. Through you, your worship, the cold weather response update will be coming at the end of October SPPC. One more question, follow up.

Through the encampment strategy, we approved the money. I think if I remember correctly till end of September, and if you can update me on that, because if it’s going to come at the end, what is our game plan, either prolong it or what are our plans? Thank you, your worship through you. Yes, those funds are in place through to the end of September.

The team is currently working through some service providers that are currently providing service through the London Coffee House, through CMHA, and some services through my sister’s place. That table is looking at a wind down plan and how we can effectively utilize the existing resources, but also where appropriate wind down the encampment service depots and align it with the cold weather response. So those services are remaining in place at this time, but we are working to transition those. Some of those transitions are based on community input and feedback, some are based on operational evaluation, but we will be looking to start to wind down those service depots where appropriate and start to mold them into the cold weather response.

One more full up sort of check to the staff. So if it’s only to the end of September, if we were to prolong it in any way, hardly agency is going to secure their staffing to provide these services, if we will tell them kind of last minute. Through you, your worship, the staffing that was providing services at those service depot were existing staff. They were not necessarily new hires, so there is no staffing impact anticipated at this time.

No more full up, thank you. I don’t have anybody else on this. I have Councillor ramen, go ahead. Thank you and through you, just to follow up on the cold weather response.

So just to be clear, we are funding these organizations until the end of September. Cold weather response doesn’t come in until the end of October. Are we certain that these organizations have enough funds to provide the services that are needed between the end of September and the time of the next report in October? Mr.

Cooper. Thank you and through your worship. The ongoing work with the encampment strategy table has started to form what the cold weather response for this year is going to look like. It also includes the continuation or conversation around the continuation of the existing services that have been extended over the summer.

This includes the depots, as discussed over the last 90 days, as well as the ARC location and coffee house. So those organizations are part of the conversation and I suspect they’re, understand they’re going to continue services while we have this conversation. So this is very similar to how things unfolded in August and July, the conversation, the commitment was there to continue to work with those organizations and they kept the doors open, so to speak, to serve individuals. And then we were able to ensure they were made whole financially.

So we expect any kind of plan to come forward to have that similar process. Thank you, just to follow up. So made whole after the fact or are they able to access funds ahead of time because I do know that was kind of the concern the last time as well. Thank you and through your worship.

I appreciate the question. We work with our procurement partners here at the city to ensure that we’re able to follow our procurement policy and ensure that organizations are paid in a timely manner. Councillor Stevenson, yes. Thanks just to follow up on the cold weather.

When I hear that we’re going to be seeing the plan at the end of October, I’m just a little concerned that at that point again, there’s no time for feedback or to make changes ‘cause it’s gonna need to be approved in order to be ready for when winter comes. Is there a way for us to get some information via memoranda or something so that we have an idea of what’s coming so that we can have some input? Thank you, your worship, through you. The plan is being developed in real time.

So it’s not that there is a draft version of it to circulate or share. If it’s, it will be going to the end of October SPPC meeting which means it’ll be submitted to Council October 20th is the submission date. So that team has been working through a number of key deliverables in terms of spaces to identify where space is available for the cold weather, organizational capacity to deliver some of those services throughout the cold weather and potential funding that may be requested or required through the cold weather. So those three components continue to be discussed and worked on and refined and that table will continue to develop that plan and we will be sharing it at its earliest possible date.

Go ahead. Just a question then to know whether this is being addressed but I brought it up around the core area action plan looked at the oversaturation of services in oldest village. I’m really hoping that that answer is gonna come forward either through the next core area strategy or through this whole of community to address that issue and is there, are you looking at doing funding social services on our main street of Dundas and Richmond in our core area or is there a commitment to not do that on our core streets? I just want to make sure because we seem to have competing things between our core area and our homelessness initiatives.

I’ll get a stop sensor. I’ll just let you know you have about 30 seconds left in your total time. I just want you to know that’s coming up. Your worship, from that question, if I understood correctly, there’s a couple of things happening.

One, the work we’re doing here that is related to whole of community system response and that’s what this report addresses. I believe the question was also about how are we proceeding with the development of the next stages around the core area and some of the actions that will be in place. Mr. Mathers and I are working on that and intend to bring something forward in November.

I don’t really know how to address the question with respect to saturation of social services in relation to the whole of community system response discussion today. I’ll ask it more simply then. Last year we had cold weather services on Richmond and we had two or more on Dundas East and I’m just wondering whether there is gonna be, whether we’re gonna have that again or whether we’re gonna allow the support of our businesses there and social services off our main street. Through you, Your Worship, that is part of the consideration is looking to see if we can align with the principles and the structure of the whole of community system response and that helps implementation plan.

So finding alignment in some of those principles around locations, that table is working with a number of property owners and service delivery partners to look at where spaces would be available and where they would be appropriate. So to say that they are not, I don’t have a finalized list of those spaces but we are trying to follow those principles set out in the Hubs implementation plan. All right, thank you. Councillor Pribble is next and I’ll add you back to the list, Councillor Rhonda.

So to chair to the staff, could we please get a timeline in terms of if it’s gonna come back to the Council October 20th and if we do approve it, what would be the next steps and timeline for the RFPs or RFQs and when actually the winter response would be in place? Through you, Your Worship, the report will go to the October 31st SPPC meeting. It gets submitted on the October 20th date. Then we would be bringing forward recommendations in that report to stand up the cold weather response.

So looking at locations and service providers and budgets and the deliverables and the scope of the response and what that would entail. So that’s what will be in the October 31st SPPC meeting. Thank you and sort of chair to the staff. So when actually do you see or what is our plan to open up the shelters for the winter response?

When are they planning to be in place? Through you, Your Worship, as I stated, this plan is still being developed. So organizations are identifying what they are able to deliver and we’re still working through what locations would be available and appropriate to do that. Some of that availability of property would be driving the opening date.

This table though is focused on getting this stuff up and running as soon as possible. They’re very eager to get it out the door before December. But the amount of work that goes into this with this system requires the time that it takes. So they will be moving as quick as possible to have the biggest impact that they possibly can in the spaces that are most conducive for helping people throughout the coldest months of the year.

So to chair to staff. So currently we do not have a date target when we want to have these shelters open. Through you, Your Worship, in the October 31st report will be very clear about the dates, locations, timelines, all of that. I hope between October and first freezing days that everyone is going to move really fast because the people on the street and encampments, they will not be understanding that we don’t have a date or that we are not ready.

So I just hope that everything I wish we did have a date or at least a target date what we are striving for. But I really hope in my notes, I really had that we were striving for middle of November. I think that probably the earliest is 1st of December. And that’s what we did last year.

We had four months. And as we know, the situation in the encampments and on the streets are not faster. So I hope that the agencies that are already working on it, even though they don’t have the details. So we are ready to go.

Thank you. That’s a ramen. Thank you and through you. I note that the cold weather inclement weather response outline for review is going to the strategy and accountability table for September 28.

Is that something that we can get as well? Thank you, your worship. Yes, it was scheduled to be at the meeting this week. However, the team is not ready with the specific details.

So we are looking to the October 11th SAT to hear more of those. And then that’s what will be provided depending on what decisions get made and what that plan’s starting to look like. That’s what would then populate the report for the end of the month. Thank you.

I just wanted to go back to the comment around alignment around locations and the hub implementation plan. So are we saying that for the cold weather response, we will follow the same guidelines around location that we use for the hub implementation plan? Mr. Dickens.

Thank you, your worship and through you. So we will work to align ourselves with that criteria and the values and principles of the whole of community system response. What we’re trying to create is more synergy between this entire movement to make sure that we’re in alignment with how services are being delivered. Using a trauma-informed lens, violence-informed, making sure that we’re taking a human rights approach to supporting folks.

Within that is also following where possible those location criteria. Noting that hubs are going to be very different than what a cold weather response is. Cold weather response is meant to be a ad hoc temporary increased service levels to support folks throughout the coldest months of the year. So where possible, we will align ourselves with the outline in the hubs of implementation plan and the whole of community system response.

Go ahead. Thank you and through you. And just to better understand how these things are meshed together a bit. Can, and again, around this idea of no wrong doors.

If someone showed up at a hub and was looking for services and support, my understanding is we would meet them with some services at any hub location and that from there we would then find whatever, or direct them to whatever additional services were needed. But that happens at any hub location. Through you, your worship, at the locations that are providing that respite service and those drop-in services, those hub locations would make sure they have an active and intentional engagement with the individual that comes through their door. And that may be for access to food, water, shower, laundry, or just a place to connect with staff and then be supported into finding the most appropriate space or the space that’s available to support them, or making sure they have the services and resources they need to self-support for whatever that need is.

So it would be through those respite locations. Thanks, us, my speakers. Okay, so the report is for receipt. It’s been moved and seconded.

There’s no more speakers, so we’ll open that for voting. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed, 15 to zero. Okay, the next item is 4.2. So colleagues, I’ll just direct you to a couple of things.

There are a number of pieces of correspondence on the added agenda that I’m sure you’ve all reviewed. Also, Mr. Dickens will eat about a 10 minute presentation, which will overview the report. I’ll say, I know there’s a number of guests in the gallery here today interested in this item.

For those of you who’ve been here before, you will have heard what I’m about to say pretty much every time we have a meeting where there’s lots of interest from the public. And that is, there may be things that are said that you like, there may be things that are said that you don’t like. There may be people in the audience who agree with you. There may be people in the audience who disagree with you.

What we create here is a safe space where everybody feels welcome. So we don’t do cheering or during or anything like that. We just listen to the debate and discussion. And I know some people have some signs that they’re holding up to and people have expressed themselves but we don’t do that public outward public appreciation or otherwise during the course of the debate.

Everybody’s viewpoints are welcome and embraced and we have a good discussion. So we will start off with Mr. DeGence presentation. Through you, Your Worship.

As we start today, we click through here, as we start today, it’s important to remember where we were less than one year ago. And one year ago, we were without a system. We were with organizations operating in silos and strained relationships across a number of sectors. And with an increasing level of need and desperation on our streets and a crisis that was dramatically worsened by the pandemic.

That’s why today represents something very exciting in London’s work to address this crisis. The new system was created collectively by all summit participants. This is a solution that was built by frontline workers, expert organizations, hospitals, and people who had lived in living experience. Ultimately, the new system aims to support the whole community, those who are most marginalized, those working in the system, and those trying to provide support, including businesses and community members who also experienced the impacts of this crisis.

One of the key components of the response is the creation of hubs. The first step towards hubs was the creation of an implementation plan, which involved multiple rounds of public engagement and more than 1500 comments about the hubs themselves. In July, this implementation plan was endorsed by council. The next major milestone in this work is the selection of lead agencies and locations for these hubs, which necessarily has come together very quickly, as all of this work has, in order to address the crisis our entire community is facing.

The request for a proposals process for these lead agencies closed earlier this month, and we are excited to be able to speak to you about those recommendations coming out of that process. Before I move into the recommendations, here’s a bit of a quick refresher, a reminder about hubs. Hubs supported timely, safe, and direct pathway to housing for the highest acuity individuals in our community. And when we say high acuity, what we mean are that those are individuals who are the most complex and bring the most complex needs and require the most supports.

Hubs will focus on helping these high acuity individuals, but this doesn’t mean existing and ongoing supports won’t continue to operate for medium and low acuity individuals. This is an elevated approach to help these individuals differently. The hubs will become one system with multiple locations to meet people where they are. Hubs will serve a range of individuals and an identified priority population.

Hubs may serve one or more populations in addition to the general population of people in need, or in our case, they may serve one population exclusively, depending on the unique needs. And while hubs will have beds, they are not just about beds. They are about services, wraparound services, and 24/7 services. They are different also than supportive housing.

Hubs will help individuals stabilize and support them in moving towards highly supportive housing. The most important thing to remember about hubs is that every interaction in these spaces is an active and intentional effort to enable an individual’s next steps towards highly supportive housing. Common core functions of a hub are to provide 24/7 safe places, access to basic needs, including food, shower, laundry, and rest, community engagement from the lead agencies with their neighborhoods and surrounding community, access to housing supports, income supports, integrated care planning for individuals, justice system services, medical stabilization supports, quick access and intentional connections to acute and primary care, and a combination of respite beds and transitional beds with access to translation services and interpretation, an active and supported transportation for those that they support. The next step, as I mentioned earlier, towards sustainable housing for those living with homelessness is the development of these hubs.

And we reached a huge milestone in that area when the RFP opened in early August to identify lead agencies and proposed locations for the first hubs. This process necessarily came together quite quickly, and the RFP was built using all of the components of the hubs implementation plan and reflected the details that had been approved previously by council, which itself was informed by many, many factors and inputs, including significant community engagement. The lead agencies for the hubs have significant expectations on them. Just to name a few, a demonstrated ability and experience working with these priority populations that would use the hubs.

Experience managing 24/7 operations and the ability to be a multi-sector collaborator with strong relationships and a demonstrated history of strong financial management. We were very pleased to receive four bids from credible, reputable and outstanding organizations with expertise in providing health and homelessness services in our community. Similarly, through the hubs RFP process, we learned some important things about how this work should be operationalized. And we will be recommending that we continue throughout this process to follow that expert guidance.

That means that the recommended approach has already contained some operational enhancement and changes. Three of the submissions are being put forward as recommendations to council. Each submission was evaluated using the predetermined scoring criteria with a cross-functional evaluation committee and in accordance with the city’s procurement policies. In this crucial community work, we need to balance both quantity and quality as we stand up hubs.

And we are very confident in the quality of this pool of proponents. The recommendation going forward this evening is to select at LOSA Family Healing Services, youth opportunities unlimited and the Canadian Mental Health Association to provide hubs for an initial two-year commitment with the options each year after to extend. The report also recommends allocating roughly $10 million from the provincial homeless prevention program funding for the operating costs of the hubs over that two-year term. Approximately $5 million would also be requested by the city from the Fund for Change to support capital costs for these first hubs.

These applicants have significant expertise and strong individual track records. Important partnerships are proposed in the submissions that will continue to see experts and organizations work together. The combined subject matter expertise will further strengthen the potential for success of these hubs. LOSA Family Healing Services.

LOSA is the only agency in London currently mandated to serve the indigenous population experiencing homelessness. LOSA currently offers a comprehensive suite of services and programs aimed at providing wraparound supports to individuals, including men, women, children, and youth, and families. LOSA currently operates two 24/7 shelter locations. Jawa Nong, a Violence Against Women Shelter, funded by the Ministry of Children, Community, and Social Services, and a temporary indigenous-led and culture-based emergency homelessness response.

The proposal from LOSA identifies that they will be located at 550 Wellington Road. This is located on the St. Joseph’s Healthcare London Parkwood property. The hub aims to open in December of 2023, and the capital and operating estimates are provided for you in this presentation, the capital being roughly $1.3 million, and the operating being roughly $2.1 million.

Youth opportunity is unlimited. This hub will focus on supporting the youth priority population. YOU is proposed creating six respite beds immediately this year through repurposing of existing shelter space, and will begin to open new space on the grounds of London Health Sciences Center, a partnership that will allow professional youth workers to engage directly in hospital, to support what are essentially children in youth that may be in the care of children’s hospital or accessing youth mental health supports in order to access wraparound care provided by the hub. YOU will be leveraging all components of the youth system to ensure that through their expert ability to assess and triage, youth are connected to the right service.

The hub is a new partnership and is bolstered by the ability to connect hub participants to the entire portfolio of programs available at YOU, including Jones Place, Cornerstone, the Youth Shelter, the Youth Wellness Hub, and their other support services. In all the proposal outlines that through this partnership and through maximizing system supports, more than 60 youth would be served per year in the youth hub. As soon, at the soon to be completed Jones Place, it is proposed that clinical healthcare space is created to ensure the partnership with LHC extends into the community and youth gain access to primary and acute care medicine through that location. The YOU hub location is proposed at Building 16 at 800 Commissioners Road East.

That is on the property of London Health Sciences Center, a secondary location for the medical clinic and acute care will be provided at Jones Place, which is downtown on the YOU campus. The Canadian Mental Health Association, Town’s Value Addiction and Mental Health Services, is proposing a two-site model. Transition beds are being proposed at the Fanshawe Site 705 Fanshawe Park Road West. This site does require zoning change to be able to provide 20 transitional beds.

The 20 spaces for women are provided for women that are able to stabilize and work towards their housing goals and be supported through intentional connections to the support of housing pathway. The Fanshawe location is comprised of single units with some two-bedroom and one-three-bedroom apartment unit that lends the possibility for both women and children to be served at this location. This site is not a drop-in site. It is not the location of the respite beds.

While those females accessing the services will certainly come and go, they will be supported through active transportation to get to any appointments that may be required. This location is, as mentioned, not a drop-in style, but it is a space where women can achieve stabilization and work towards their appropriate types of housing. Again, accessing the entire suite of services through CMHA. The transitional beds are focused on providing consistent, stable 24/7 safe space.

These beds are reserved for individual stays and supported by caseworkers and a plan to maintain stability, build trust interactions, and move individuals forward with their housing plans. The other site proposed as part of the CMHA proposal is the current My Sisters Place location of 566 Dundas Street. This is where 10 respite beds would be open this calendar year to provide space for women to come in and receive those respite services, including access to basic needs and those connections to the appropriate care provision. The next steps in this process is pending the decision of SPPC and ultimately counsel on October 5th.

Civic administration will take the appropriate next steps to bring online these services and these new spaces as soon as possible. Thank you. Thank you very much. I have, I just gotta switch my screen the other way.

I have a speaker’s list, Deputy Mayor Lewis. You had your hand up first, I’ll add others as we go. I need your microphone, I think Mr. Dickens.

Thank you, worship. I’m sure we’re gonna have a lot of conversation with this, so I’m going to start framing it by moving the staff recommendation. Okay, so you wanna move the staff recommendation, which is in the report, it’s got a lot of parts to it. Is there a seconder for moving the staff recommendation?

Councillor Ferrera. Okay, start discussion on the staff recommendation. If you wanna start out, I just remind colleagues, as we go, I’m gonna time kind of up to your five minutes of time. If you’re looking, if you wanna speak more than that, I’m gonna need like a motion at some point to extend.

So I’ll just enforce as we always have equally and we’ll deal with any additional needs for speaking through any sort of motions or directions from council. So I would say that means if you wanna speak and then not speak and speak, just be conscious of kind of managing your time. So are you looking to speak now? No, not now, okay.

Then I’ll start a speaker’s list. I don’t wanna scare everybody away with the discussion here. Go ahead, Councillor Ferrera. Thank you.

I’m gonna start with the communications I read on the added agenda. There were a lot. I see that. I think I counted 136 with 133 against and three four and then I saw the communications coming on emails after that.

So I read them all and I would say that this is probably roughly the equal amount of communications on this topic I get in 10 days. So I understand, I understand, but this is, I just wanted to put that out. And I had a lot of feelings reading that, those communications, but I guess I’ll start with something that I’d like to say to everyone here and everyone in the gallery and everyone in London. This is not just a downtown issue.

This is an issue for every single Londoner. We all have a stake. We all should have a stake. And the direction that we’re taking gives us that stake.

So I wanna start with that. There are some communications I wanted to read, some comments that I saw, but I don’t necessarily know if it would be that appropriate, but I’ll just pick and choose some of the words. There are many families here with children. We pay high property taxes.

I moved to the outskirts of the city a few years ago to avoid the core. Homelessness and other social issues are the reasons why I don’t take my family downtown. So I had a lot of sentiments coming in from my constituents after they read the news articles and some of the added agendas. So I thought I’d share some of those.

And the first one is someone that I spoke to in my neighborhood, and she told me this. I feel forgotten about the rest of the city. They don’t even know we exist. We have children, we have families, we have neighborhoods, we have playgrounds, we have schools, we have parks, we have businesses too, and believe it or not, we pay high property taxes as well.

So what I really wanna put out, and I am gonna ask to speak again. So I hope that I can get that, but I’ll stop it there ‘cause I did wanna start there to open up this conversation, is again, this is all of our issue. You can’t see it as out of sight, out of mind, because we’ve done that before, and clearly, everybody agrees that the status quo is not working. What we have done before is not working.

So if you are a Londoner and you enjoy the city, and you enjoy living here, and you enjoy everything the city provides, you need to understand that you just can’t receive and take. You have to give as well. We have duties, we have civic duties that go along with our rights that we hold very dear. You can’t just take those rights and not provide your duty.

So those are the sentiments from the downtown counselor speaking on behalf of all the downtown residents. There are people here, so you must not forget that. And I’ll stop it there for now. Okay, thank you, counselor.

Other speakers, that’s for fair, you wanna continue on? Thank you, I will. We have a strategic plan that we all signed up for, created within the last few months. We all endorsed a whole of community response.

We all stood by this. I believe it was unanimous that endorsement in March, I’m not sure, but I need to point out some of the things in our strat plan that we will totally ignore and just disregard if we vote the Fanshawe location down. So some of the values, inclusivity, respect, compassion. Some of the areas of focus, and pretty much we will be shooting down almost more than half of the strat plan if we vote this down.

Areas of focus, reconciliation, equity, accessibility, and inclusion. It reads, “Our community is welcoming, inclusive, “and accessible.” It also reads, “We should be a leader “in standing up against hate and intolerance. “We will create a more welcoming environment “for those who are often excluded. “We will support and promote inclusivity “and accessibility across the community.

“We will promote equitable, inclusive, accessible, “and welcoming spaces for intersectional identities “with a particular focus on women and girls, “focus area, housing, and homelessness. “We will adapt a unified— 15 seconds, Councillor. I would motion for an extension. Moved by Councillor Trossa.

Seconded by Councillor Hopkins. Any discussion? I’m gonna do this by hand, so people online will just have to indicate all those in favor of the extension for Councillor Ferrera. Sorry, Mr.

Merritt, but how long is the extension? I’m gonna read it as he gets an additional five minutes, and it’s only related to Councillor Ferrera as the motion was moved now. So, all those in favor? Any opposed?

That motion’s carried. Thank you, colleagues. Focus area, focus area, housing, and homelessness. We have, we will adopt a unified and collaborative approach to housing and homelessness.

We will create meaningful change. We will implement the whole of community system response to the health and homelessness crisis, fostering pathways to housing. Focus area, wellbeing and safety. Prioritizing safety and quality of life for all Londoners.

We will ensure Londoners feel safe, citywide, and in the core. Focus area, safe London for women and girls, and gender diverse and trans people. We recognize that gender-based and sexual violence disproportionately affects women, girls, as well as gender diverse and trans individuals. We will strive to make London a city where women, girls, non-binary, and trans individuals and survivors can feel, can freely participate in public life without fear.

And then focus area, I’ll leave it there just so I can, I’m not done, but I’ll just leave the straw plan there. But I think it’s pretty clear that we’re gonna throw away our straw plan if we vote it down and some big pillars that we all stood behind on that straw plan. So we’re supposed to remove barriers and promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are supposed to increase the capacity of our services in this space.

We have an emergency in our city and we need to relieve the pressures. And most importantly, we need to stop making decisions that promote systemic marginalization because look where that’s got us. So my question is, are we gonna disregard most of the strategic plan here today? Are we going to take back our endorsement of the whole of community system response?

Despite all the work and all the experts and all the committee meetings and all the time that we’ve put in that I’ve put in, are we going to vote in a way that promotes the continuation of the marginalization of those who have been historically marginalized? That’s what I’m asking because I didn’t sign up for that. So consider that when you make your vote today. I live in the ward, I have a family, I have friends, I have neighbors, this award here.

I see what’s happening to our entire community every single day. I get a huge amount of communications every single day. And I need the rest of London to stop turning their back on the city’s issues ‘cause they’re your issues too. It’s not just some people’s issues.

If we voted down, how are we supposed to find another location of a hub? How are we supposed to say to the next community? Well, we said no here, but we’re not saying no there. There’s no favoritism here.

This is supposed to be completely nonpartisan, non-biased, objective. So ask yourself these questions because I really hope that you do not, not too many negatives. I hope you do vote for this plan today ‘cause we are an emergency. This is an emergency situation.

Those are my comments. Okay, thank you, Councilor McAllister next. Thank you and through the chair. I wanna start off by actually thanking the organizations to put in the bids.

There’s a lot of work that went into this and I really do applaud them from stepping forward and being the first to take a crack at this. I wanna express, as Councilor Ferra did, the sentiments that I’ve heard from my ward. In no un-simple terms, I feel the East has said it’s about bloody time. And I mean that it’s an area that has faced a lot of the challenges.

Not just the core, the East has faced them as well. And as the Councilor also said, we have to share that. And I think the plan that’s being put forward does respect the whole community as we have laid out. There is a plan in place in terms of having a safe environment for the participants, but also for the community.

There are avenues for feedback. We’ll have a dedicated line in terms of reaching out to the hubs. So I do believe that we have accounted for a lot of the issues that have been raised. And I wanna just say once again, that this support of the model works.

We’ve seen it work. Look at organizations like Inwell. They’re able to get people on a road to recovery with safe housing, the healthcare supports they need. So I personally am in favor of this plan.

I think it addresses a lot of the concerns that we’ve heard from our community. And I would also like to say that to those who think that this is an expensive plan, we’re already paying for it. And I mean that in terms of our services, we can all recognize our police services are overloaded, our healthcare services are overloaded. And we need to do something differently.

And I think that this plan will do that. It’ll give us the ability to redistribute our resources and tackle a lot of the challenges that we’re facing currently. So I just wanna say thank you. And I hope that my council colleagues will endorse this plan.

Thank you. Okay, other speakers, Councillor Stevenson, go ahead. Thank you, I have a few questions. I have an amendment and I may ask for some extra time at the end.

So some of the questions are, I’d like to know or have staff explain how 26 respite beds, ‘cause that’s what we’re looking at prior to December, is going to make a big difference in what we’re seeing and experiencing in this city with 600 to a thousand high acuity and 2,000 homeless on the street. Mr. Dickens. Thank you and through you, your worship.

That gets us started. It’s a crucial step to get beds open and operating. The proponents that responded to the RFP get indicated that this is what they’re able to do right away, recognizing we need as many beds as we possibly can get our hands on as fast as we can. So it will make a difference in terms of getting folks indoors.

It’ll be, again, this whole of community system response looks at bringing online hubs, as well as highly supportive housing. And so we absolutely will see a difference by having the respite beds come online and more come online in the first part of next year, as well. Thank you. My understanding is the respite beds the stays measured in hours.

So we’re really not adding other than the Atlosa beds, there aren’t any additional overnight beds. Mr. Dickens. Through you, Your Worship, respite beds will be provided overnight.

Folks may stay for a few hours. Those few hours may be from 11 to five or six in the morning, but absolutely the respite beds provide overnight space as well. It mentions that the mandatory criteria were met by all of these. Can you let us know what that mandatory criteria was?

Through you, Your Worship, that’s the criteria that was in the hubs implementation plan that was approved by council back in July. So looking at ensuring that there was hubs will be on an arterial road, transit route, not close to an elementary school and not close to splash pads or waiting pools, those type of things. Thank you. ‘Cause to me, they didn’t look like I thought they were going to, we were looking for 25 to 35.

And there’s only one that is in that number. They’re a lot smaller and yet the costs are still very, very high. You just explain what, is there gonna be anything different and when of all the services for six beds when we were looking at 25 to 35? Through you, Your Worship, two of the proponents have indicated 25 to 35 beds.

CMHA would have a combined 30 beds. Losa would have between 25 and 35 beds. And then the youth opportunities unlimited proposal, they would look to have 15 beds. And while that’s below the 25, they have indicated as part of their proposal and as part of their experience, they would be able to move more than 60 youth through the hubs and in a year.

And that is tapping into the various housing models and support programs that they have access to. The February report, when it first came forward, said that there were gonna be population specific to unique needs. Are any of these gonna be population specific beyond male youth and female? Because, through Your Worship, the populations that will be served will be indigenous identified individuals, female identifying individuals and youth.

Nothing more specific ‘cause the women’s shelter from the winter response, what came to council was women’s shelter, but it was more population specific than that? I’m not sure, I don’t know if you can clarify a little bit on what you’re asking. I’m not actually sure what you’re asking either. So I see some— Okay, sorry.

So the women’s shelter in the winter response, it said women’s shelter, but my understanding is it was population specific to sex workers, or at least prioritized that way? Go ahead, Mr. Dickens. Through You Your Worship, the proposal that we received from CMHA was to support females and female identifying individuals with the possibility of potentially supporting women and their children in some instances.

Nothing more specific than that. Some of the questions I get from the public is, have we considered using like the larger unused buildings, the trailers from previous years, and maybe the COVID hospital that we had that didn’t use, like were some of those considered? I would say council just to clarify where we are in the process, we issued an RFP. The agency’s returned information to us on how they would serve under the conditions of the RFP.

So I don’t know if your question is for some of those agencies on why they didn’t consider that, or if you’re trying, like ‘cause our staff couldn’t answer why the agency’s bidding didn’t consider a specific location. So I’m not sure. I’ll always draw that. Okay.

I’m wondering if I could get the sales pitch on spending the over $100,000 per bed. I understand it’s not one that’s looking at it that way. And yet from a public perspective, just wondering if you can tell us why so much money when we spend closer to $10,000 a year on a shelter bed that does three meals a day, 24/7, with some of the emergency shelters. Go ahead.

Through You Your Worship, I don’t have a sales pitch to offer you. What I will say though is that this was not strictly your procurement process to get as many of beds at the lowest dollar amount. This was to procure services. And this was to procure services that were identified as core functions and the Hub’s implementation plan that Council endorses 24/7 safe places, wraparound supports, access to acute medical care and a whole suite of services.

When we look at the cost per bed, that’s a retroactive sort of analysis on a funding model that was not requested of the proponents. We didn’t ask for them to submit a budget based on the cost per bed. When we do look at other costs per bed, we know that shelter beds currently operated about $40,000 per year for a shelter bed, which is not necessarily equivalent to the services that are being provided for this priority population, this high acuity population that’s going unserved right now. We know long-term care beds, typically around about $131,000 a year, and a hospital bed is around a half a million dollars a year.

So those are some of our comparisons if you were to do a cost per bed analysis. The questions, Councilor. Okay, so the speakers list. I’m looking for people who want to speak next.

I know everybody wants to wait right to the end, but someone’s got to stick their hand up and then go ahead. Councilor Ferra had to do the same thing. It was kind of a- Okay, I was looking to put an amendment on, I guess it would be K just asking for the detailed financials to these plans prior to council voting on this, ‘cause I do want more than just like this one line or the details, things like full-time equivalents on the salaries and what kind of services in the breakdown. Given this is an RFP process, I’m not sure if it’s Ms.

Barbone or I’m not sure who will answer because it probably relates to the RFP documents. So go ahead. Thank you through the chair. So that’s not information that typically we would provide for any procurement.

And essentially, we’ve outlined in the RFP that reporting would only include financial summaries of bids as the remainder of the information would remain confidential. So that proponents would be free to submit their information for evaluation and that was outlined right in the RFP. So that would not be something that through the RFP process, we would be able to disclose at that level. And just to add, that’s through those city of London’s procurement policy that council has approved.

So that information is not available because it would put at risk the bids that are received in the financial information that has been provided to the city to evaluate the procurement policy. Even in a confidential envelope? Is it available to confidentiality in some way? I guess is the question.

So through the chair, so the actual, the wording in the procurement policy that council has approved includes that reporting will not include financial summaries of bids as this information will remain confidential. Any disclosure of information shall be made by the appropriate officer in accordance with the provisions of the Municipal Freedom of Information Act. So that certainly would be subject to the INFIPA process and would need to follow those protocols. A little confused as to how we’re supposed to improve something when we don’t even know what the full-time equivalents on the salaries are.

I mean, it’s pretty hard to say yes to $21 million without seeing the details. That’s not a question. So I’m not sure if you’re asking if we could make a statement. Well, I’m asking.

I’m saying that this is all the information that we will see or through a Freedom of Information request after because we’re being asked to fund a lot of money. So we don’t even get to know how many salaries we’re paying for. Can we get a response to that from this problem? Thank you through the chair.

So when the City of London sets out any procurement that could include whether we’re building a road, a community center, any kind of service or purchase of some item that we are looking to procure. From that evaluation perspective, the City of London, when we bring forward, is approving what the cost is of that item or service that the City of London is procuring. We do not, as when we’re building a road, look at how much we are the salaries, the contractors are paying their salaries to complete that road, just as a perfect example. So whether it’s a service or salary, at the end of the day, the City of London is procuring a service that costs a certain amount of dollars for which the City of London is approving through the award in accordance with the procurement policy.

So the very details of what might be making up that bid would ultimately be part of the service that the City of London is procuring. So from a transparent, competitive bidding process, by virtue of going out to the public and receiving bids, as those bids are put forward, it is only the top bids that are ultimately put forward for Council Awards. And from any nature of the procurement process, those bids are essentially asking for competitive bids because only those that score the highest would ultimately be brought forward for Council approval. So that’s not information for any other procurement that we would ever bring forward as to exactly what those details are because that would be very, very similar across all the services, depending on what you’re procuring.

It’s the actual cost that the City of London is looking to achieve what that RFP or tender process would ultimately be looking to reward. And that’s no different on this being an irregular bid ‘cause it’s not like we really had competitive bids for a specific service. Go ahead. Thank you through the Chair.

So this was a competitive. There were four bids that were received. The fact that it is regular is because the budget total was beyond what the City of London had in the Council approved budget, noting that one of the recommendations is that we would be looking to support some of the cost of the hubs through the fund for change. Another question I has, it was mentioned in the presentation that the hubs will work as one system.

And I’m just wondering if they could just expand on that. Mr. Dickens. Through you, your worship.

So the hub operators will actually operate as bit of a network of hubs. So ensuring that we have, we’re not using the term community of practice, but the hub lead agency group. So as the lead agencies come together to make sure we’re committing to that interoperability, looking at a shared intake model. So when we look through the coordinated access system and matching people to hubs, being able to match folks to empty respite beds, working together on those evaluation and measurement framework, these lead agencies will operate as a group, as a collective, as we look to deliver hubs in the community, which is different right now than independent operators.

And we do work through some shared systems, but this would be a step above that. Deputy Mayor Lewis, next. Thank you, your worship. I’m going to allow others to speak, actually.

I was going to speak to the fact that RFPs, we do not disclose salaries, but Mr. Dickens and Ms. Barbone have already addressed that. So I’ll leave it at that for now.

Okay, can speak later, but so far I have no one else on the speakers list. Go ahead. I will continue then while we have others an opportunity to see if they wish to speak or not. And I think the comparison that was made by Ms.

Barbone, you know, when we get back on RFP, if we’re going to do work on Southdale Road, we don’t get to see how much the guy may, putting the asphalt down makes, versus what the guy using the stop and slow sign makes, versus what the engineer who did the draft plan made. So we’re not privy to those things when we put out any sort of RFP. I have seen a lot of social media commentary over the past few days, a lot of back of the napkin math, I’m going to call it. And I think we have to come back to, we’re not just purchasing beds here.

We’re purchasing a suite of services that wrap around those beds. We’ve heard some comments about, well, why don’t we just expand at the men’s mission or the Salvation Army or those sorts of things, or this agency is already doing this work. I had the opportunity to visit the men’s mission last week. The number of people staying at the men’s mission to case worker ratio is 33 to one.

The ratio at the hubs give or take because there’s going to be some slight variance is about five to one. Because we come back to, this is a high acuity population that needs a lot of help to stabilize. We’ve compared it to the winter response, but the winter response was always meant to be a seasonal solution, not an ongoing permanent one. Although I would note that Adlosa is actually proposing essentially to build on what they started with a winter response.

A winter response that I had the opportunity with Councilor Lehman to visit and seen very positive results coming out of that. So the location where they offered that is now where they’re proposing for an ongoing response, 365 days a year moving forward. So of course, it’s going to cost more and it’s a different suite of services that are being provided. But I want to build on something that Mr.

Dickens alluded to. I’ve seen a lot of comparisons too. Well, this is what a shelter bed costs, but these are not shelter beds. We heard the long-term care beds over $100,000 a year, but an emergency room bed, half a million dollars a year for an emergency bed to operate.

And we know, ‘cause we’ve received this in prior reports, that last year, emergency room visits by those who are identified by the hospitals as identifying themselves as individuals experiencing homelessness was 6,000 emergency visits. Taken up time in emergency rooms, frankly, that were not emergencies, but because they had nowhere else to go. And delaying everybody else who needed the emergency room services wait for healthcare times, because there is no other system for them right now. And this system is proposing to offer that.

You know, we’ve heard lots of comments about the police as well. And I wanna point out this is information from London Police Services themselves. 2,127 calls last year that were associated with mental health calls. It accounted for 87% of their total calls over the course of the year, and over 11,500 police hours eaten up by mental health call services related in part.

And because the police tracking is slightly different than hospital tracking, those may not necessarily all align with individuals experiencing homelessness. But five and a half hours on average for the call and over 11,000 police hours dedicated to that. If we wanna talk about the cost of this, the cost of doing nothing is much, much greater than what we see before us today. And I haven’t even started talking about like code zeros and how that impacts EMS land ambulance services in the community, where we regularly need to have ambulances from other communities come in to provide service because all of our ambulances are tied up with patient offloads at the hospital.

I’m delighted by the organizations that have come forward because I think they’re incredibly, incredibly credible organizations. I know YOU, the bed count might be low, but what I will say about YOU, and I can say this from personal experience, having seen foster children as a foster parent, seen foster children through CAS, go through CAS, they have the throughput that others cannot make. I am gonna run out of time, so I’m gonna ask for a two-minute extension. Move by Councillor Trostas, seconded by Councillor ramen.

Well, I’m gonna not look for debate on these that people can vote yes or no. All those in favor by hand, any opposed? Motion’s carried. Thank you.

So I’ve seen firsthand the good work CAS does, but they have the throughput because they already have shelter beds on Clark Road. They already have housing at the cornerstone, and they have a new building under construction at Jones Place. So I expect, frankly, that the average day of folks in the YOU hubs will be less because they’ve got the throughput right now to move people through to other options once they’ve stabilized. But I also wanna pick up work on a couple of things that Councillor Ferreira alluded to.

This is everybody’s responsibility. And I’ve seen a number of comments over the weekend specific to the Fanshawe Park Road location that’s set as too close to schools and parks. We have over 400 parks in this city and over 140 schools. These sites, even the Fanshawe Park Road site, over a kilometer from the nearest secondary school and over a kilometer and a half from the nearest elementary school, if we are going to say we can’t put a hub within a distance more than a kilometer, then we can’t put a hub anywhere, ladies and gentlemen, because we have too many, those circles across the city map will just mean they go nowhere.

So this is everybody’s problem. In the East End, I have a NOVA. It’s been there for a long time, well before I was elected. They serve vulnerable women’s population too.

And the number of complaints I’ve had about a NOVA in the neighborhood in the last five years is zero. This is a vulnerable population that needs some support. We are trying to do things differently and I really encourage colleagues to fully support this moving forward. We know, we’ve set it all along.

We may get a few things wrong. We may need to adjust as we go, but we can’t not try. We have to try something. Winter is coming.

This is the thing to try for now and we will adjust as we move forward. Other speakers? Oh, sorry. No, there’s no amendment.

There was a question, just a matter of question asked about the procurement policy question answered. So we’re still in the main. Councillor Hopkins, go ahead. Yeah, I think I’ll go just to keep the conversation going and I am very fully supportive of the recommendation that we have in front of us.

I recall a year ago we were all out campaigning and I know I heard just about from every Londoner that we need to deal with the homelessness situation in our city. And I am just so grateful to be here a year later with the work that many organizations have already started. The work that staff have been doing that we’re here looking at a response, a plan. May it not be a perfect Deputy Mayor Lewis.

Alluded to the fact we should be able to make some mistakes, learn, but we should be allowed to move forward with a plan for the city. It’s what Londoners want. And it is all of our responsibility to make sure that we go forward with this plan. For me, the biggest risk is that we don’t take one.

That’s simple. We need to do that. And I’m confident it is a change. And when there’s change, everyone gets a little anxious, a little concerned.

We have to ask the questions. We have to continually do that public engagement and we do this together as a city. It is imperative that we all help one another, make this happen. For me, ultimately it is that supportive housing that we are so desperately in need of for getting people into housing.

We would just have to proceed. The cost, I’ve heard loud and clear from residents, how could we be spending so much money? I’m not sure if they’ve gone to a hospital lately, but with the challenges that hospitals are having with the increase of population as well as mental health issues, we are spending quite a bit of money already. And if we have to weigh that out also with the police services, there are a vital important part of this response going forward.

So I’m just going to end it with that. Those are my comments, interested in hearing comments from my colleagues as well, but I’m just so pleased to be here and to be able to vote on this recommendation. Thank you. Thank you, speakers.

While everybody’s thinking about when they want to speak, I’m just going to ask a couple of questions. I’ll speak later, but I have a couple of questions about the report that I’ll just go to staff on time myself and take that off my time later. I wanted to ask about the RFP process, three successful proponents, one not successful. There’s an H that says civic administration be directed to continue to work with the community on hubs and implementation to establish additional opportunities for future procurement of additional spaces.

I’m not just interested in the discussion we’re having today, but the opportunity and the pathway to potentially getting into four or even five hubs, additional spaces under our kind of existing hubs implementation plan. I know we said three to five, I know we hit the three, that’s great, but I’m curious about how that direction and what the opportunities are between now and whatever the next opportunity is for to build on the process that we’re talking about tonight. Your worship, it’s a readiness conversation. We have had some indication from a number of organizations that they want to play a vital role in this, whether a partner in a hub or leading a future hub.

So this is about having organizations be prepared. Our rate limiting step on how many right now is frankly funding. And so as soon as that funding’s available, the community wants to be ready so that we could proceed with starting to stand up additional hubs. So this is about folks continuing to do the work about what they might be able to contribute here, both as a lead or a potential future lead or as a partner and looking and thinking about those locations and sites so that when funding becomes available, we can move quickly.

Okay, thank you. That actually was the only question I had. So I stalled for a minute colleagues, but anybody else wants to speak should put themselves on the list. Go ahead, Councillor Frank.

Thank you, yes. I wanted to express my support for the proposed hub RFP recipients and say thanks to the applicants as well as the work of staff on these tight timelines. I know we’re both trying to move fast and also have opportunity to have a consultation. And I know that it is a tough dynamic to manage, but I do see this as a step in the right direction towards addressing these complex issues.

And I think it’s crucial that we all acknowledge and we have been that this is just one piece of the much larger puzzle. I think sometimes it’s hard for me to conceptually knowing that this is the hubs plan and we also have our roadmap to 3,000 and they’re running concurrently, but it’s hard when you can’t see them together because without housing, a lot of these healthcare related services are hard to understand how they will move the needle. But we know that this is the reality and we’re dealing with these complex web of factors and these problems have been years, if not decades in the making. But I think that we should not let the enormity of the issue paralyze us into inaction.

And I think that if we strive for perfection, and I’ve said this before, we’re always going to fail and we’ve commented a lot about trying to move forward, give this a go, see how it goes, tweak it if needed, and that we need to be providing these supportive housing beds with wraparound services in order to offer our most vulnerable citizens a lifeline and a safe space where they can start to rebuild their lives. So as we know, these folks are the most acute and therefore the least likely to be successful without significant support. And that is why these are expensive. And I’ll admit, when I first got the report, I was, I was like, whoo, this is expensive.

But I spent a bit of time on the weekend talking to people, reading through more of the reports, reading previous reports and reflecting on those things helped me move through those initial thoughts. And first, again, it’s essentially a highly technical, medical care and short-term housing all combined to one, which is why it’s more than just a bed or just a bed at a shelter. Second, it’ll help more than 70 people a year because we’ll have people cycling through this as we have those units open for housing. So again, to make it so reductive into just how many beds are available, it’s not just gonna support 24 or 43 or 70 people when you get it all going.

People are supposed to move through these spaces. Third, as has been mentioned many times, it’s still cheaper than somebody living on the street. The cost for emergency hospital stays, police hours, ambulance visits combined make the cost more expensive, leaving people unhoused. And this way at least starts to provide a more dignified way forward.

Also, the funding is coming from fund for change. And so very little will be coming from taxpayers and even that is coming from reserves. So again, we’re able to try out this methodology without having to increase property taxes. Fifth is a frame of reference.

One kilometer of widening Wonderland Road would have been $26 million. And I see this as a much more valuable service to our community. As well, we have an ask with a province for $8 million in operating. And I think that we actually have to have some hubs operating for them to want to give us operating money.

Again, so I think moving forward with these gives us the opportunity to see how they’re working, address the issues that we’re seeing. And this model has come to us from the community and community organizations collaborating with stakeholders. This is the way forward that they’re suggesting. And we know that we have two year contracts through this RFP with one year renewals.

So I think that this gives us the opportunity to, again, check in and see if it’s working. So I’ll be supporting this RFP because I want to see us make progress. And again, I know that throughout this process we’ll be able to tweak it as needed. And as we do at PAC when we hear from PPMs, I’m happy to make some, what’s the word, not amendments, but tweaks, tweaks as we move forward.

So as we see, there’s a need, we can address those issues as they come, but I think that we have to get the ball rolling. So I’ll leave my comments there. That’s a true sound. Through the chair, would it be correct?

I guess maybe to miss Farbone or to Dickens. Would it be correct to say that if this hub model is successful, it can scale up and we can start replicating this in other places with other agencies if we get the support from the community? Mr. Dickens.

Through you, Your Worship. Yes, that is what we’re trying to do is to look at getting a start and getting these hubs up and running to have an immediate impact on our community and then making sure that we have the evaluation tools and the framework in place to measure and determine the effectiveness of these hubs and then make the appropriate decisions around the scalability to support more folks in our community as the need greatly outweighs the resources currently. Thank you and I’m glad you used the word scalability and I’m glad you used the notion of evaluation criteria because most certainly that is going to be an ongoing step that is gonna inform our future activity in this area. So I think it’s probably not a good idea from a program development view to just take a strict cost per bed approach here because the level of services is just so intense compared to other things that we’ve tried and there is the scalability question.

I would like to just point out that I did visit the site and I looked at the courtyard around the hotel. No one’s getting in there, no one’s getting out of there. I mean, it is a huge large structure that probably goes way above whatever the zoning requirements limits are for fences. Is there any concern having looked at the premises that people from the neighborhood will be able to get in out the back or vice versa, Mr.

Dickens? Through you, Your Worship, the proponent identifies a number of steps including a schedule of how that community engagement will work but also how they propose to ensure the safety of all the participants in that space and ensuring that there’s privacy and dignity provided to those vulnerable females that are accessing that space. So that includes how folks are moving about the location on the property, ensuring that it’s safe, secure, but also really taking the necessary steps that recognize that the women supported in this space will come and go as part of the neighborhood. They will go to no frills, they will go to get the prescriptions filled.

And that’s what you want as part of supporting individuals to fully feel as members of a neighborhood. So the education will be twofold, it will be for the participants, but it will also be for the neighborhood in terms of how they collectively maintain a safe space. So let me just say then, I am in full support of this concept and I am truly in awe of the work that the staff and the community partners have done on this. I would not have conceived at the beginning of this council term that we would have been able to make this kind of progress with the support of so many people, with the support of so much financial contributions coming from a variety of different agencies and other government entities.

I feel as if the concerns of the taxpayers are being very well, very well taken care of here. We have multiple sources of funding and I don’t see this as being something that is going to create a burden when it comes time to thinking about our levy. There are too many sources, there are too many sources of external funding here that are poured in. We would be missing a historic opportunity that we will regret if we do not do this now.

So I’m gonna be voting yes and I urge all of my colleagues to do the same. And again, to staff, thank you very much. This was just outstanding staff work and I think we are looking at something that is gonna be emulated by other communities. Councillor Pribble.

Thank you. When this concept was first introduced to us and the 60 plus page document, I did have various numerous conversations with our staff, with local agencies, with international experts that are dealing with homeless issues and everyone was supportive of it, which was great and I was behind it as well. I say, hey, who am I with my experience with homelessness and addictions that I shouldn’t support this project? And I did say that for me, the decision is gonna be when it comes to the financials and the quality of services and also the number of people will be taken care of.

When this came back with the number of people that will be serving, servicing, it was disappointing for me. It was and it’s not, I’m quite sure the agencies that it’s not that they wouldn’t want to more, but it has to do with the real estate and the availability right now. I do greatly appreciate all the work that was done and it was fantastic in terms of us bringing everyone together, everyone working together. We did the due diligence, we did talk to the Londoners, we did get their feedback.

My issue and whatever was said here around the horseshoe and I cannot disagree with anything. Everything, it’s whole community, whole London, everything great cannot disagree with. I have a hard time that in one year we’ll be sitting here. We are gonna be, we have spent 12 and a half million dollars and we addressed 44 people going to 73.

While we have 2,000 out there with 600 high credit. Isn’t there something, and please persuade me, because again, this is a totally different municipal politics in terms of that, this is the senior management team and we can talk about it before, so this is the only time I can. Please persuade me that or tell me that we cannot come up for 12 and a half million dollars to serve more than 44 and then 73 people. Who is gonna see the difference?

When 44 or 73, which is less than 5% are still gonna be, we are gonna take care of. And yes, I do understand, we need to start somewhere. I do understand, we are gonna learn and we are gonna make mistakes. But are we gonna do it on 44 people out of 2,000?

And that’s the issue I’m struggling with and so far what I heard around the horseshoe from many of my colleagues, I still feel the same way. And for me it’s not, I don’t even get down to the locations. If it’s a preferred location snow, I’m looking at the big figures and we will have over 2,000 people this winter, next summer still out there and we are addressing 44. I would love to be in a situation that we have out there 300 people left and we are gonna start focusing on the details and let’s deliver the top-notch services to them.

But we don’t have the luxury, we don’t have the luxury. And that’s the thing that I hope I’m gonna hear from someone that I will change my mind on this. Thank you. Yeah, I thought that was a question to councilor staff but I thought council, that’s more for the councilor.

Honestly, I would love to benefit the staff, actually even preferably councilors, but honestly, who has, who has the power who thinks that then persuade me that we can for 12 and a half million dollars in a year serve 44 people in 73, I would love to hear that. Well, councilor Trossa has some time left so he’s gonna give it a go. This will be short, we cannot afford not to do this. Councilor McAllister.

Thank you and through you. I do think that was already answered. We were at hospital this morning and the cost of providing healthcare and these services is massive and I don’t think anyone can sit here and say that this isn’t gonna cost that amount of money. Like it seems like a large amount of money but it really isn’t in the grand scheme of things.

It might seem like a smaller number but this is a high acute population that requires a lot of services. We’re trying to get people on a road to recovery. We’re not trying to just put someone out of mind, out of place, outside the city, just dump them somewhere and say, well, good luck because honestly, I think that that’s what I’ve heard from some people is that they don’t wanna see the problem, they don’t wanna provide any solutions in terms of getting people on a road to recovery. We need to do something to actually help people get to a better place and I think that this will provide that.

The cost might seem high but healthcare costs money and the province has downloaded a lot of these responsibilities and someone has to do something and I do believe that municipality is doing something and that’s why I support this plan. Councilor Pribble, sorry, if I’m slow, I’m just writing down time, so go ahead. I totally agree that it’s expensive. My question is not, you have to do something, no doubt.

And as you know, and I think most of you know me now in almost whatever 10, 11 months that I speak for this population for homelessness and most of you my involvement. So that’s not the point whatsoever. My point is, is this really the best way for us to move forward and cater 12 and a half million dollars for 44 to 73 people? That’s my point.

Is there a better, higher return on investment that we are helping more than 73 people? That’s my point. All these things, as I said, I cannot disagree with you. You are saying it’s right, it costs money this.

My question is, can we come up with that better plan than helping 73 people for 12 and a half million dollars? That’s my question. Deputy Mayor Lewis, you’re on the list. We gave you an extension before you didn’t use it all.

So you got like 45 seconds, you want it? And then you have to ask for another extension. That’s okay, I won’t be asking for another extension, at least not right now. It’s not 44 to 73 people.

These are not permanent apartments where people will be living. There is throughput to these as people stabilize and access other housing supports, including sometimes with the youth shelter through CAS reconnecting with family options. So it is not 44 to 73. It’s not that number of apartments.

So it’s not 12 million dollars for 44 people. It is simply not true. And I think I addressed that with the throughput on CAS. So I’ll leave it at that.

That’s the number of spaces that will be available to be used at any one given time, but not by just one person permanently. I’m gonna just, I’m gonna use up some of my time to respond to Councilor Pribble. Maybe Councilor Lamen, you can take the chair. Okay, I’ll go to the mayor.

I’ll just let colleagues know. I might ask for an extension later ‘cause I had some other things I wanna say. But I wanna say to through the presiding officer to Councilor Pribble, beyond what the deputy mayor said, is this is the plan for the high QD individuals. So saying that, you know, we’ve got 2,000 homeless out there.

We’re not ignoring those people. Every single piece of work we do on affordability in the city. Every time we partner with an agency to open up a Sylvan Street or an RHI or another property where there’s affordable housing or the Pond Mills Road, every time we do that, we’re trying to help the general affordability problem in the city. Every time we lobby for things like improve social assistance rates, so the provinces do no more, or the federal government actions they can take on cost of living, that’s trying to help people falling into homelessness.

So if you try to say the plan that we’ve designed and we’ve agreed to go with, which is meant to help the high QD individuals, isn’t helping 2,000 people. That’s true. We’re doing many other things to help those 2,000 people. Many other things.

There’s many activities that we’re doing. Our whole roadmap to 3,000, all of the partnerships, the way that we’ve redeployed money within the roadmap, those are all activities. Under the Housing Accelerator Fund, we have millions and millions of dollars related to helping people with affordability and homelessness. But this is a plan to help the high QD individuals like the deputy mayor described.

A plan with flow-through to create spaces where people flow through and look at why OU. They may only have 15 spaces, but they think they get 60 people through there per year. Like 60 people, year one, 60 people, year two, 60 people, year three, that’s 180 people. High QD needs, all youth, all need help.

So I hope you look at this from the perspective of, this is what the plan is for, but it doesn’t mean we’re ignoring everything else we need to do. So that’s my response to your question, Councilor. I’ll turn the chair back to the mayor. Okay, I’ll look for other speakers.

I’d Councillor Stephen Smith. Thank you, I have a couple of other questions and then I can make my comments. One of the questions that the public asks is, we seem to fund a lot of our money goes to wages and I understand that the people need to be provided for, but in all of these scenarios, the amount that goes to participant and support services is less than 10% of the cost. So I wondered if you could just answer, like to me and for the public, when we say we put all this money out and it just seems to go to salaries and we don’t seem to be moving forward that we’ve seen before at least.

So to that question. Through you, your worship, certainly the staff wages are high cost because those are the staff that are needed to deliver these services. The participant and support services include transportation supports, hygiene kits, laundry supplies, some of those direct services and supports. And so by nature of those items, their cost is lower than what it would take to make sure we have the proper staffing in place to deliver those crucial services.

When we’re talking the highest acuity people, what does the private transportation look like? Through your worship, the proponents have different modes of transportation that they would use through different providers, but it could include things like a van that is available to have those individuals transported directly. It can also be support services to ensure that someone is accompanying somebody in that vehicle, but it is a direct intentional making sure you get from point A to point B and receive that point B as well. And do we have permission for the ambulances to drop at these hubs like we do for the Huron Street location?

Ms. Livingston. Yes, thank you for that question. The next step pending council’s approval of the initial hubs is to work with Chief Roberts.

We’ve already had a discussion. There’s an application to the province to be able to see the hubs as an alternative destination. So that will begin again pending council’s direction here. That will begin that work immediately with Chief Roberts so that ideally that approval is in place as the first hubs are opening, but that’s the next step.

Maybe if I could add to help the council ask the question, at OBCM, City like Kingston also has hub styles. And so there is an ongoing discussion with the province through the mayors about alternative drop-offs with land ambulance to try to avoid some of the pressure on emergency rooms. So it’s not just a question that Mr. Roberts will work on.

It’s a general discussion that’s happening across the province. But go ahead, other speakers. Do you want to make sure people online, sorry, I don’t always look at that screen. So just, Clerk is going to monitor for me but there’s no one there right now.

Go ahead, Councillor Frank. Thank you. I’m just wondering if no one is interested in speaking if we can vote? Yes, we can.

I was just making sure before I say, okay, we’re going to vote and not like five people stick up their hands. So I think everybody’s maybe trying to go late in the debate. It feels like it’s late in the debate. So if you’re looking to go, Councillor Stevenson, I think now is kind of the time to get in.

Seems like now is the time. Okay, so for me, I would spend three times this money, no problem at all. It’s not about spending the money. It’s about meeting the needs.

And I do need the sales pitch. I’ve said this since the beginning. I need the sales pitch on how this is going to work, where this fits into the bigger pieces in the bigger puzzle, because we have a big puzzle. And I just can’t agree to one piece for these costs without understanding how it fits in the larger puzzle.

I get the whole idea of flow. I understand that we have all kinds of different things we’re working on, but understand that it is a stagnant flow at the moment. People who used to spend six weeks in the emergency shelters, my understanding is they’re 12 to 18 months sometimes. It’s a long, long time.

So how are we going to create flow here when we don’t have flow anywhere else? And we have a backlog of people who need to move through. They need somewhere to go. And so I need that pitch, too, that more, more stagnant flow, I don’t see it as doing what it needs to do.

I knew you were going to ask for this. This is the time where you want to ask for a couple of minutes more time, because you’ve come to the kind of the total. So how much more time would you like to ask for? Two minutes.

Okay, motion for two more minutes for Councillor Stevenson. Move by Councillor Omens. Seconded by Councillor Trossau. By hand, all those in favor.

Any opposed? That motion’s carried. There you go, Councillor. Thank you, colleagues.

This is crisis that we all heard about last summer that each one of us in every Londoner, I think, has their collective hearts are breaking based on what we see. And the reason I have voted no over time, whether people believe it or not, is because what we’re providing isn’t enough. It isn’t enough, I need us to dream bigger, get creative, figure it out. I don’t want it based on what’s been done before, because what’s been done before hasn’t worked.

Some part of it isn’t working. And we need to address it. Right now we’ve got our homeless and addicted population that is not being served in the way that they need to. Our businesses are not going to make it in our core area.

And our neighborhoods and our residents have so much anxiety and so much stress on their mental health. When we start to turn this around and when we start to make improvements, we’re going to have the ripple effect. Everything that we do is going to be magnified in the benefits as we all feel it. But I need the sales pitch on how that ripple is going to happen, how, as Councillor Pribble said, 26 respite beds, how are we building connection?

How is this dignity? How is this healthcare when they don’t get to stay very long? I just want to understand. I want to vote, yes, I can’t in this moment.

I’m going to do a lot of work between now and council. But I need to be sold on this. I need to understand how this piece fits into the larger picture. When are we going to get to those 2000?

We’ve got people on waiting list five, six, seven years. It seems to me that when we do this in dribs and drabs, literally that is when we’re talking about 18 transitional beds and 26 respite. I’m very fearful that the people who are on our streets waiting are then going to be high acuity because we haven’t been there for them. And so where are we in terms of recovery and detox and transitional support for the people who’ve taken on that huge life-changing commitment to tackle addiction and mental health?

So I need more information. I’d like to have that. We have time before we vote at council. And I’m asking to understand and to— Londoners care.

Londoners are willing to pay. We understand that we’re paying a price now. But we also cannot afford to not hit the mark on this. Go ahead, Councillor Frank.

Thanks, yes. I want to add a bit to the sales pitch. I think one of the ways that we could address the 2000 who are chronically unhoused and the many who are precariously housed is if the province increased social assistance rates and properly funded health care and brought in some addiction services that were medically provided. In absence of all that, we are trying to do what we can with the money that we have.

And $25 million is a drop in the bucket to try and address this. If we want all of those things to be resolved within this year, we need social assistance rates to go up. We need the federal government to continue providing money as they are for our housing. So I think, again, we are doing what we can’t move this forward.

But there are so many different parts that are not necessarily an entire responsibility. And I’ll be honest, I think a lot of this is health care related and should be provincially funded. But here we are, as a municipality, trying to step in and take leadership and show some action. So I think that, to me, is another sales pitch.

Where again, we know. Under 100 people is not a lot, but that is what we can do with the money that we have so far. And that’s what the community has told us. So that is why this hub plan is what we have to move forward.

If we could do all that other stuff, that would be wonderful. Now, if you know some MPPs and want to give them a call and ask them to increase the social assistance rates and move forward on some of the health care items, wonderful. And that’s what we’ve been trying to do with our advocacy. But again, I think this is what we are able to do at this time in absence of more support from other levels of government, Councillor Hopkins.

Yeah, I just have to follow up with that one as well. I think I’ve got a few minutes left. I know at the AMO conference back in August, Mayor Burlington, Marianne Meade Ward made a comment, the bear pit, saying that the federal government has the money, the provincial government has the power. And the municipal government has the problem.

We have to deal with the problem. And we do have to ask money for supports from all levels of governments. Getting back to Councillor Preble’s comments about a better way, I don’t know what the better way is. To me, this is the better way.

I do not see another way right now. And we do have to do something. So don’t know. I know you’re asking for a sales pitch, but I’m not a salesperson at all.

I think we have to do what is right, and we have to work together. The fact you, Councillor Preble, and yes, you do have some time to go ahead. Just to fill up on the last comment, so again, to make it kind of, is there for the amount that we are investing? Can we make a better life of more people that we have right now on the table?

That’s really what it comes down to. And I do believe, so do we have to do something? Absolutely. Is this the only way to do it?

Or is this a time to pass and say, we have a fantastic feedback. We know what we, what’s needed it. But is there something better that for $12.5 million, we can make a better life for more people? That’s what it really comes down to.

And did we explore it? I’m not so sure. I don’t think so. Thank you.

Councillor McAllister. Thank you and through you. I don’t know how much time I have left, but I’ll be very brief. In terms of the sales pitch.

You have two minutes, actually. Oh, I don’t. We don’t have to use it all. All right.

I won’t use it all in this case, but I would just like to say in terms of a sales pitch, I feel like I’ve heard loud and clear. I mean, the summit was an impressive feat of Londoners coming together and telling us what they thought the solution was. We had so many people involved, and I heard loud and clear what they suggested. These are agencies who have worked on the ground with this population, and they are the ones telling us, this is what we can do to make a difference.

And so from my point of view, I’ve heard the sales pitch, and I think that we can do something to address the issues they’ve identified. I think this will have long-term meaningful change in our community, but we have to take that plunge and try something new. So again, I fully endorse this because we have to try something different, and we’ve heard from the community, especially our experts, that this is something that we need to do. Yes, Councillor Stephen, so you’ve basically got time for a question.

Are they watching you at another extension? Just have a comment, actually, as I’m listening to this, that I hear, and I probably don’t understand the complexity of this, but when you talk about our service providers are saying, this is all they can do, and we have to do something. If we needed hybrid redone, and the service provider said we can only do 100 feet, and it has to be gravel, would we do the same thing? Would we say this is the best we can do?

We have to do something? I just… Seems like, Councillor Robin, go ahead. Thank you, and through you, I’d like you to move a motion to postpone to our decision for tonight to October 31st SPPC meeting.

Colleagues, I just got to clarify some language with the clerk on this. Thank you, I did consult Robert’s rules to see the difference between post-spawn and refer. So, and I know Robert’s rules of the order, but I’m going by the procedure by-law. So, postpone in the procedure by-law first, to a certain point of time, refer, generally refers to another media meeting in which this is.

If the referral doesn’t have anything attached to it, I think that that’s no problem for the next meeting. I just would need to ensure that we’re okay with any sort of timelines we have on a procurement process for either one of those options. So, do you mind if I check out? Thank you, and through you.

So, my motion is then subject to whether or not staff agree to my motion? No, you can put the motion on the floor if you want motion to refer. I just don’t know if you want to postpone this, which is usually at a certain point of time in the same meeting. Refer would be to a future meeting in the way that it’s- If that’s your interpretation, I’ll take refer then instead of postpone.

So, refer just this matter to the October 31st SPPC. Okay, but we’ll make it a referral. Thank you, I’ll take a referral that then instead of- Okay, is there a seconder for that? Sorry, Council approval.

So, motion to refer to the October 31st SPPC. So, take this item, drop it there, moved and seconded. We can debate this. I’ll go to Councilor Raman first on the referral.

Thank you, and through you. And first, I want to start by taking a moment to thank the lead agencies that have put in the RFPs that are in front of us this evening. I want to start by commenting on a few things. And the first of that is that for the majority of Londoners, for Londoners, I will say, they learned of the locations that are being proposed on Wednesday afternoon.

And so, part of the reason for my referral is so that they can better understand and participate in the discussion around the locations that are being suggested and put forward as well as the entirety of the proposal, the costing, et cetera. The second part of my referral, it relates to, or speaking on the referral, sorry. I want to go back to the Hub’s implementation plan and what we discussed. What we said very clearly, what I agreed to in that meeting was that we were not going to rezone any of the first three to five hubs.

In our RFP submission, we now have a rezoning of which we told the public that we were not going to do that. Second, we said we would have 90 to 150 beds by December 2023. This proposal is not that. It is 44 beds for December 2023.

Third, we said the cost would be spread out between 25 and 35 beds at $2,700,000. So that, again, is not what we’ve outlined here in this proposal, which is why it’s also here as irregular. I think it’s really important that we clarify to the public why it is we have a different RFP and we have a different approach that we’re considering. I think that it’s important for us to consider at this time what it is that we provided to residents Wednesday afternoon.

I had residents, I had business owners that learned Wednesday afternoon that their businesses would be impacted, that they would have to find another location to run their restaurant on Wednesday afternoon. I had residents who were learning for the first time about this proposal and have, up until 345 today, have been calling me because they had just learned about this proposal. So I want to say this. I had a chance to take a look at the other locations that are proposed, had some time to drive around and take a look at the ones that I was able to see.

This, in my opinion, especially at the Fanshawe Park location, it’s not what we had agreed to in the first three to five hubs. Again, we said we weren’t going to rezone in the first three to five hubs. We have residents who are less than 200 meters who received no communication. We said we would be communicating and that we would be consulting with residents along the way while we were looking at the locations.

When I probed with staff, when does that consultation start? I was told two months before the opening of the hub. That’s not the expectation that we set out. So I’m asking for us to take some time to allow people the opportunity to receive what’s in front of them today.

And by the way, this is amenable. So if, for instance, someone wants to amend it and say we go ahead with what needs to be done because it’s timely around the RFP for the December 2023 beds, I understand that and would take that amendment. But I am putting this forward at its entirety. So the community has a chance to explore all of it, to look at the costing completely.

The other piece of this, which is an unknown to me at this point, is we have in here a direction to ask the fund for change for funds. What’s the, do we know that that is a given that we are definitely going to get that money? And what’s the plan if we don’t get that money? And so I think that that also would need to be answered before we make a decision and a commitment if those funds are not then made available from the funder.

I also think October 31st gives us an opportunity to go back to the province and say, look, this is where we’re at at this point in time. This is where we’re at with this proposal. And we’ve come and asked for operating dollars and here we have an opportunity. And I also think there’s an opportunity to talk to the businesses that are around some of these locations.

So I know, and I can only speak for what I’ve heard from 705 Fanshawe Park Road, because— Councilor, I just want to pause because you’re approaching a type of seat if you want to, literally, want to ask for an extension. I will ask for an extension of my colleagues for five minutes. Five minutes, OK. Moved by Councilor Pribble, seconded by Councilor Stevenson.

All those in favor of the Center for Council Raman. Any opposed? Continue on. Thank you, and I appreciate the extension.

I have had a chance to talk to a lot of businesses, but I do know that there is information that is still needing of consideration by us. And so I want to give the public and those businesses around this location the opportunity to have that dialogue with us. And I think that having just learned about this, they’ve not had that opportunity to have enough dialogue with us at this time. And I think that that’s really important.

And I would like to see us, at least give ourselves a month, to have consultation with the community, to have consultation with the businesses on the proposal that’s in front of us. I understand the need to move quickly. And I understand the need to be able to have some of these beds in place for December 2023. But this is, again, not the 90 to 150 that we said we would have ready.

The other piece of this is on October 2031st, as you’ve heard, we are expecting to get the cold weather response. And I think it’s really important that we look at this and the system together. And to see both of those items in front of us at the same time at the SPPC meeting, I think gives us an opportunity to be able to review from there the chance to look at both the cold weather response and the number of beds that we have ready for December 2023 through our hubs model. And then from there, look at whether or not that meets the needs as much of the need as we can at the time.

So I’ll hold for there and reserve the rest of my time if possible. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, Chair.

Through you, my first comment is I need some feedback from yourself and the clerk before I decide whether I’m challenging the chair on whether or not this is in order because I’m not aware of procedures that allow us to refer an RFP. And that’s what we are voting on. It’s not about receiving the report. It’s actually with regard to the receipt of requests for proposals.

And I’m not aware of any other instance where an RFP is referred to a future date for further consideration. What is out for a vote right now? We are not going back to the applicants and asking them to come back with different bid models. And so I’m not sure other than community consultation, which, again, typically on an RFP, is not something we do.

So I’m trying to understand, Chair, your ruling on why this is in order in the first place. OK, so I will explain my ruling, and then should you want to challenge again. So the motion the counselor made was just a referral. Although she may have spoken public consultation and other things, there’s no direction in the motion to do that.

From my perspective, it is a pick up this document, refer it to the October 31st meeting, and we have the decision there. So it is only a moat. The only thing before us is simply a refer to that meeting. So procedurally, that would be in order, in my opinion.

So a follow-up question for you, then. It has been our practice that referrals require a direction that we don’t refer simply to buy more time. Now, maybe that has just been a past practice and not actually enshrined in our procedural bylaws. But based on the lack of direction in this referral, and that is tied specifically to a recommendation from our staff on an RFP, I’m looking for some further explanation on that.

Yes, so in the procedural bylaw, yes, in the past, we may have said refer with these other pieces. But that’s not what the counselor’s done. And there’s nothing in the procedural bylaw that says you can’t do it this way. It’s up to counsel to decide whether or not they want to allow the referral.

So you can just refer a matter to a feature meeting with no additional direction. OK, I haven’t decided yet whether I’m going to challenge this chair’s ruling on this or not. I need to review that section of the bylaw myself. But before I do that, I will just say if you’re going to challenge the chair’s ruling, you need to do it now.

There’s no coming back later. You’ve asked the question. I’ve made my ruling. If we proceed on, then that’s it.

Well, then I will challenge the chair’s ruling. I don’t think that this referral is in order. It lacks direction, and it’s specific to an RFP. We get the wording.

OK, so just so colleagues know how this works. Thank you. Can I speak to the challenge? No, it’s not debatable.

So the way that this works is it doesn’t require a seconder. It needs to be if so the person has done it. The question that will be before you is shall the ruling of the chair be sustained. So if you support my ruling that the referral should stand, you vote yes.

If you don’t, you vote no, and there’s no debate on this. So it goes immediately to a vote. So when we get that typed in, I appreciate that this is not something that you had prepared typed in that the chair gets challenged a lot. But we’ll get that wording up, and then we will have this vote.

I’m just going to read it. Concerning the matter with respect to the chair’s ruling that a referral of this matter is in order, question is, shall the ruling of the chair be sustained? Challenged by Councillor Deputy Mayor Lewis, and we’ll open that for voting. I don’t want to have debate if people are asking what the vote means if you support the decision of the chair to allow the referral, you vote yes.

If you don’t support the decision of the chair, you vote no. No questions or no debate. Councillor Trosto. I vote no.

I don’t see my voting. I vote no. Are you saying, there’s a vote in process, Councillor, but you’re trying to get, like, what is it? Sorry, I was just confirming, because I accidentally hit.

I read it wrong, I hit the wrong vote, but I just corrected that. The vote’s not closed, so like, you click voting in progress, you can adjust votes. Like, everybody can do that. Losing the vote, the motion is passed, eight to seven.

OK, so that means the ruling of the chair is sustained, so the referral is on the floor. We’re debating the referral. I have Councillor Layne. I have— oh, sorry, Councillor Deputy Mayor Lewis.

Yes, thank you, Chair, check my time. So I’ll be brief. I’m not going to support delaying a decision until October 31, because what that does is means we have no beds open this year. These timelines are tight to begin with.

It has been repeated time and, again, that we will continue to have ongoing engagement as we move forward, but that engagement will happen as we move forward, that we won’t halt to do ongoing engagement, that we will engage as we roll. As I said, it’s very easy for me. The consequence of supporting a referral means no more beds this year. And potentially, partner agencies walking away.

I’m starting with speakers this year. I’ve got Councillor Layman, Councillor Troceau. If you’re not on the list yet, stick up your hands. I’ll get you on.

Thank you, Chair. Just a question through you to staff with the Fanshawe location specifically. There is mention of rezoning that’s needed. That rezoning process, I would assume, would come to planning.

And at that point, there would be time for public participation meeting, is that correct? Councillor, I need you to root your question in why you need to know that to support the referral, because the referral is not an opportunity to continue to debate the main motion. So, I mean, if you don’t need that piece of information to decide whether or not you support the referral, then that’s not a question we’re gonna entertain or debate that we’re gonna have right now. This is the information you need to make a decision on the referral.

The referral is made to gather more time to hear from the public on the location at Fanshawe, and perhaps others. So for me to make my decision, I want to know if there’s time for the public to weigh in on the specific location when it comes to planning for rezoning. That’s my purpose on the question. Okay, Mr.

Felberg, everybody pointed to each other there. Thank you and through you, Mr. Chair. So any property use must conform to the OP in the zoning by-law.

So in order for us to do that, we would need to take forward a rezoning application, and that would receive public notice, and then it would then come to planning, planning an environment committee for a PPM within 90 days of receiving that application. At that point, Council would then, or planning an environment committee would then hear from the public, have an opportunity here from the public, and then that decision would then go forward to Council for a final decision. Once that decision is final, there’d be an opportunity, a 20-day appeal period opportunity, once that decision from Council was made, and then after that, we’re subject to the timelines of the OLT and their decision. Councilman, so I just want to make sure I’m crystal clear.

There will be an opportunity for the public to address planning committee, granted, not council, but planning at a future date. Thank you and through you, Mr. Chair, that is correct. Thank you.

Councillor Schossell and then Councillor Robin. Through the Chair, please, let’s not do this. Let’s not do this. This is going to really take away from our credibility.

If we’re at the point now, if we’re at the point now where we can’t vote this up or down, after all we’ve been through, we are going to look foolish. We are going to look indecisive. This is not gonna put us in good stead with additional donors. It’s not gonna put us in good stead with the senior levels of government that are watching what we’re doing very carefully, and I just think it just discredits the ability of this council to take decisive action.

And the other thing I wanna say is if anything we do to delay this is gonna result in additional human suffering. And I just don’t think we want that on us. So let’s get this done. I think it’s very clear where people on this council stand on this, and quite frankly, I don’t see it changing.

I don’t like the second guess how my councilor colleagues are gonna vote. But I don’t think this is gonna change anything except push us into colder weather, except push us further down the line, to push us, we’re not even gonna be able to begin to go to the fund or start the planning application. This is not good policy making, you know? And I will take responsibility for my vote.

And if you don’t like it, I’ll take responsibility for it. But let’s not delay this. It doesn’t help the people who are suffering. It doesn’t help the neighborhood.

It doesn’t help anything. And it just makes us look petty. So please don’t do this. I have Councilor Robin next.

Thank you and through you. And thank you to Councilor Layman for his question about planning and the rezoning. And this is another reason why I believe it’s really important that we have this conversation for October 31st and referring this matter. There is new legislation and we’re not yet sure on how that legislation can impact this decision and the rezoning.

So one of the things that I’m not clear on yet, that I’m still trying to make myself clear on it, maybe other people have more information than I do, but I was told that I need to ask the mayor’s office for this information, which is pertaining to the strong mayor’s powers in rezoning. And my understanding is that through the strong mayor’s powers that this could be considered of community interest and therefore this could not have to go through the rezoning process, which means that appeals could be held for two years. So again, I think it’s imperative that the community be able to understand if they will be able to input into this discussion or if there is the possibility that this could be a moment where the strong mayor’s powers are used and a rezoning would not be heard. And again, that is why I think it’s really important that we take the time and give people the opportunity to make themselves educated and aware of the possibilities with this type of decision.

And that’s why I’m asking for the referral to October 31st. And I wanna remind my colleagues, this is the first time that we are doing this, not just the hubs implementation, but the first time where we have this possibility with the rezoning for this reason. And so again, this is really important for the community to understand and it’s why we need to take our time. Thank you.

Because for the referral, I had Councillor Layman. Is the Councillor correct regarding the strong mayor’s power? So Councillor, I know you’re asking me a question and I’d likely need to confer with Mr. Card on a piece of the legislation to be able to answer that.

So if I know we’re in the middle of a debate, their council would like me to answer that clearly and definitively I require just a question of Mr. Card to be able to just talk with him about an interpretation, about a piece of the legislation, about the prescribed requirements piece. Because I can bring forward bylaws, but the prescribed requirement likely means it would be subject to some of the things that you have an interest in with your question. So with Council’s indulgence, I could take, we take a 15 minute, there is food available at this time.

We could take a break. I could get that answer, I could come back we’re in the middle of a debate though. So I’d look to see if people would like me to do that. Councillor ramen.

Thank you and three, just for clarification. So this would be for all of Council to go in camera to receive that legal opinion. I have no objection to all of Council receiving advice from Mr. Card.

So if people would like to do that, we would need to go into camera for that because it would be advice and legislation. So someone need to move that. Can I just follow up with a question? So could we go in camera on all pieces related to this for legal advice?

I would say whoever moves the motion might want to provide. So let me just make sure. In order to go into camera for one of the reasons prescribed into the act, we don’t have to divulge the question or the specific question of the legal advice. Many times the question can be divulged.

But if you’re looking to ask other questions, it needs to be like, and I’m not gonna, like the clerk will read out a reason. But the reason usually says, go into camera for these reasons for the purpose of, it would be an interpretation of legislation or something like that. And if you have something else, we gotta say what that other thing is. Before we go in camera, we can’t just have a blanket free for all.

So I would need to know what that piece is before a motion is made or whoever’s gonna make the motion would have to add that piece in. Thank you. I’ll make the motion that we go in camera and for the reasons of which you’re going in camera as well as for the reasons I also provided, which is related to the criteria related to the RFP. Get specific wording on that.

Is there a seconder to move into camera for those things? I see Councillor Stevenson. Councillor Hopkins, I’m about to have a motion to go into camera. Do you have a question before we do that?

Okay, what’s the question? I’d like to know specifically why we’re going in camera. I understand it’s for legislation. I’m gonna ask the clerk for advice-based legislation.

I can’t tell you what the other question is ‘cause I don’t know. But often sometimes the question has to be asked in camera based on either the legal reasons or liability. So Councillor Raman is saying related to, I don’t know if you can describe that piece. Thank you, through you.

The criteria for decisions made around the RFP. Related to criteria for decisions made around the RFP. Which, Councillor, because the RFP is a public process, is this related to some sort of legal liability or risk? Thank you.

Legal liability related to the criteria related to it. Excellent, that or Councillor Trostoff? First of all, just because something’s a legal question doesn’t mean we have to go into closed session. I would urge that this is a matter of great public interest.

This is not like we’re gonna take a bid or decide whether we’re gonna settle a lawsuit or decide whether we’re gonna hire somebody. So I would suggest under the circumstances, good public policy would suggest that we not go into public session. I’m gonna vote no on this. And furthermore, this question about the zoning, that was known before the meeting.

This could have been put forward as a request. I just think this is another 12th hour attempt to delay and confuse this process. Councillor, the Councillor’s correct. You don’t have to go in camera.

Like you don’t have to. In this case, the request been made. So there’s a vote to go in camera or not. So the solicitor usually provides a vice in camera.

And like the solicitor, I anticipate he’s always said, I want to provide my advice in camera. It’s up to council and what they want to do is the next step. So I can’t answer your question ‘cause I don’t know what the solicitor will, I won’t do, right? So no, you don’t have to go in camera.

If it doesn’t mean when you ask the solicitor question, it won’t advise to answer the question in camera given you don’t know the answer. So, but sometimes we have a motion to go in camera. We’re just going to vote on that, right? If you don’t want to do that, you don’t want to do that.

If you want to do that, you can. So the motion’s on the floor. We’re going to open that for voting. Have the motion read out because it’s not on the agenda.

Motion reads as follows that the strategic priorities and policy committee convene in closed session in order to consider a matter related to advice that is subject to solicitor client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose related to a legislative interpretation and for advice about legal liability related to criteria for outcomes of an RFP. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed eight to six. Okay, so moving to camera means for those who are in the gallery, we’ll have to ask you to leave. We’ll do our in-camera session, then we’ll open the doors back up and go into public session.

Recording in progress. Okay, we’re back in public session. I’m going to have the deputy mayor report out on the in-camera session. Thank you, Your Worship.

I’m happy to report out the progress was made for the item on which we went into confidential session. Okay, I’m gonna answer Councillor Layman’s question myself. Under the strong mayor legislation, there is a procedure under the act that allows for the mayor to bring forward notwithstanding our procedure by-law, bring forward a matter or a by-law for council’s consideration. The requirements on that is I have to be of the opinion that the by-law could potentially advance prescribed provincial priority, and I have to follow some prescribed requirements.

So when I read Ontario Regulation 580-22, which is the province’s regulations around the areas of provincial priority, there is one, and it has two sections. Actually, there’s two. Building 1.5 million new residential units by December 31st, 2031, and constructing and maintaining infrastructure to support housing, including transit, roads, utilities, and servicing. In my current opinion and understanding of the regulations, this is not intensification, this is not new housing.

I don’t see this as advancing that provincial priority, which is building new 1.5 million new homes or doing that provincial support of infrastructure for building that new 1.5 million housing. So I would not be bringing forward any sort of strong mayor legislation related to this, because as I have a right under to interpret, whether it’s my opinion, my opinion, as it stands reading the regulation, is that this would not necessarily apply as an area of provincial priority, given it’s not an intensification project, it’s not really contributing to a whole bunch of net new housing units across the city. So that’s my answer to your question. Go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor. Oh, and you’re speaking on the referral, just for anybody who needs to remember where we are. Correct, and I’m totally aware of referral. And the referral, the basis of that is timing for the public to weigh in on this.

And I think what we have before us on the Fanshawe location is a zoning question. I think there’s where concerns are, and there’s always concerns when we change a property zoning, because it changes a lot of things within the area. So that’s why for me to vote on the referral, I had to be clear on whether the public would be engaged on that zoning question. I understand from your answer that there are no big city mayor powers that would potentially change the process of rezoning.

And what I heard from staff clearly is that there is a public participation portion when that zoning comes to planning committee. And I just needed to be clear on that question in regards to my support or not support of the referral. Councillor Frank. Thank you, yes.

Given we don’t know how much longer we’re gonna be here, I was hoping to make a motion for a short 10-minute break, so people could use the bathroom and may grab some food. Okay, that requires a seconder, Councillor Ferris, when we say 10 minutes? Okay, sorry, you gotta just make a specific motion on the microphone. Yes, 10 minutes.

10 minutes is moved by Councillor Frank, seconded by Councillor Ferris. I’m just gonna move that to a vote. All those in favor of a 10-minute break, any opposed? That motion’s carried.

I could just flash there. I’ll just have the colleagues who are joining online just show your screen or raise a hand so the clerk’s gonna count for you. Thank you for that. At some point, I had a speakers list on the referral.

I have some times down, but I think I’ll just, I’ll just look for hands again, because it was a while back, and I’ll just kind of start fresh instead of calling on people who might have changed their mind about speaking. So some people have spoken on the referral, others haven’t, I look for other speakers on the referral. Councillor Layman was the last speaker on the referral. Councillor Frank, go ahead.

Thank you, I’m not gonna support the referral. Other speakers on the referral did for one minute and 50 seconds. Councillor Ferris, go ahead. Thank you, I will also not be supporting the referral.

Okay, anyone else, sir, can I? Councillor Vamever, we can go ahead. Thank you, Mayor, I will be supporting the referral. I think it makes an abundance of good sense.

The public does need time to weigh in on this more fully, comprehend it more fully. And I think, again, it makes a lot of sense. So I will be supporting. Thank you, Mayor.

Mr. Stevenson. Thank you. I will be supporting the referral as well for the reasons that were given.

I think the public really does want more details, more time to really comprehend this big decision. And so I will be supporting. Mr. Roman.

Thank you, and through you. And I just wanna speak quickly to the difference between the opportunity to give feedback now and versus in a zoning process. So first off, in a zoning process, typically notice is given to a set amount of people that live within the vicinity of the zone. And so even on the zoning process, I know that a lot of people, I think I’ve received 575 emails in the last four days.

A lot of people were only hearing about this from the media. And so this is an opportunity to have a comprehensive conversation. This is the first time we are doing this. And if we wait to only hear feedback during the zoning process, then we will only hear feedback on the location in terms of how it fits within the zoning application and the change in zoning.

We won’t hear the rest of the feedback that people have perhaps related to the entirety of the plan or other matters related to it. So again, I understand the need to go fast. If there’s concern around separating or amending this so that other pieces can move faster so that the other pieces that need to more consultation, wait, I’m open to an amendment. But what I’m saying is that I do think there’s a need for more conversation and leadership from our end to be able to have those conversations.

I only was able to get to a few doors and all the businesses up and down one side of the street. And then 12 hours of phone calls. So I would like the opportunity to consult with residents to have more conversation, to know that they feel heard. And I think if this was for a lot of other counselors, they would want the same, especially the first time we go through this process.

Thank you. Councillor McAllister. Thank you, through the chair. I will not be supporting this referral.

And I think what I’ve heard from my constituents is over the years, they have been willing to take on a lot of these issues. They’ve put up with a lot and they’ve put in that. And I think it’s unfair. I think it’s been selfish that one part of the city is holding up this process.

When everyone else has decided that they’re willing to have some sacrifices in their parts of the city to get this through. It’s for the greater good. And as a city, we need to accept that sometimes things won’t be perfect and not exactly the way we want. But I think it’s unfair that we have put this burden on the backs of certain parts of the city for too long.

And we all need to take a part of that. Thank you. - Other speakers, Deputy Mayor. I believe I have a little time left on the referral.

So I’m gonna pick up where Councillor McAllister left off. Along Clark Road, we’ve already got the YOU Youth Shelter and the Unova Women Shelter. Not to mention something like 400 different units of rent-care to income housing in my ward at different service providers. I agree.

The whole city needs to be part of the solution to this. And what I’ve heard from a lot of these communications is the same thing I hear practically every planning meeting wherever there’s density and infill being proposed. I’m all in favor of it, but not in my backyard. It’s the same to the referral, yes.

I’m speaking to the referral. So I’ll, when I hear people say on the referral that we need more time for the community to engage on the plan as a whole. What have we been doing for the last four or five months? I know there’s been two public information meetings at East Lions Community Center in my ward, and that’s about the whole plan.

That’s not about a zoning. If we’re going to have a public participation meeting on the rezoning, it should be about the rezoning. We have had multiple engagements all over the city, including added ones on the plan as a whole. So to say that it’s not sufficient to just have it at planning, I don’t buy that argument.

I think that that’s disguising or providing an opportunity to have a discussion beyond what the intent of a rezoning is. And so I’m not supporting that. Engagement was built in to the plan that we all approved when we approved the RFPs, continuing engagement. And the engagement will continue, but I come back to what I said earlier, not at the expense of holding up progress.

We have to move forward on these. So I will not be supporting the referral. Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, on the referral, I will not be supporting the referral.

I understand the War Councillors’ challenges and the need to inform the public and have the public have a further conversation before it comes to us again back in October. But I would encourage the Councillor to still be fully engaged with the public and to listen to the concerns that are going on. I think the Councillor has asked some very important questions here through the process, and I thank you for that. But I won’t be supporting the referral.

That exhausts my speakers list on the referral. This is a referral to the October 31st meeting, I believe. Yes, the October 31st meeting of SPPC. So with no more speakers, we’ll open for voting on the referral.

Closing the vote, the motion is lost, six to nine. Okay, so that returns us to the main motion of which have that list. And so I’ll just put myself on the speakers list. So I’ll turn the chair over to Councillor Lehman.

I probably used a minute or two, so I’ll probably ask for an extension, but I’ll let you do the timing when you’re ready. Okay, go ahead, Mayor, and you have five minutes. Yes, so I want to thank colleagues for the debate on the proposals before us. I think there’s been a lot said about the merits of them.

I know that there are some concerns, although I’ll say it, I’ve really only heard, you know, significant concerns about one part of one proposal. And so I’ll probably focus my comments there, although I don’t want that to take away from what I feel is the important components of the other pieces of the applications before us. And I think I just want to make a brief comment on that. I think the low sub-proposal fits brilliantly with our strategic plan.

I think the YOU and their potential flow through that site, although it’s not a lot of units, is going to be a tremendous and help a lot of people. But I think the Canadian Mental Health Association site is the one where I’ve seen the most engagement in dialogue. And I want to say, as someone who has lived in Northwest London for a long time, I know that this is a very difficult conversation for people in that area. This is something new, it’s something that they’re not used to, it’s a change, it’s different.

And my mom and my brother live very close to that location. I know the area very well, I’m a little further away, but this is a corner of the city that I’ve called home for some time. And I would say, generally speaking, like people in the Northwest, they’re hardworking, they’ve carved out really great lives for themselves. You drive around that part of the city and you see people are doing well.

And we have this opportunity to support the community as a whole. I’ve seen that part of the city rally behind each other time and time again. Big fire at Limber lost in my first term, everybody steps up. It was a family murdered at an intersection there and that part of the community as well as the rest of the community stepped up.

I’ve seen a lot of comments around this that are simply just not true, like just assumptions and misinformation and a lot of comments rooted in fear. And I know that that’s a natural place to go and there’s a lot of unknowns. But when we see people land in places of fear like and often that leads to like information that’s just not correct, we have to counter that with truth and hope and discussions. And so I wanna say like there’s two ways you can approach this.

There are 20 women and in some cases some children as Mr. Dickens described it could be part of this proposal who are potentially coming to that part of the city pending the zoning which is a whole process we have to go through. And we can make all sorts of assumptions about what those people are and what they might do and their backgrounds. Or we could be one of the most compassionate parts of the city and say there are people in desperate need who are coming to this corner of the city like how can we help?

Like yeah, someone might go to no frills and walk down the street. Like how can I help them do that? How can I help them be successful? And what is a very difficult journey for them?

This is not a whole bunch of people who are going to be roaming the neighborhood causing all sorts of problems. This is a well-defined proposal with a credible organization getting to help people in transitional beds, not even respite beds but transitional beds and all they need is our help. And I think we can help them as a community. I think we could do so much.

When I read the CBC article last week where the woman who was being interviewed about reacting to the location said it’s around people that are a little bit more judgmental than say people in the East End. Where they’re a little more understanding about people’s situations. And that’s not how I feel about the community. That’s not the community I know.

People in the Northwest are compassionate. And I think if they just had like took a moment to step back and say these are women, some of them with children who need help that we could lean into this and help them in that part of the city. And this is just the first of many conversations we’ll have. And I hear many counselors saying like do your share and guess what?

It’s coming back the other way too. Other people are going to have to do their share in the future. There’s going to be other locations. There’s going to be other proposals.

We’re going to have to help a lot of people. But remember, we’re trying to take some of the most challenged people who just need our help, who have gotten through maybe the respite piece and are into the part where I’m on my way to housing. I’m on my way to supportive housing. And I’ve got this last stop on the way in transitional housing.

And I’m going to be wrapped around with supports from the community mental health agency and their partners. And I just need people to believe that we can help them and we can take them on that journey to the next step. And I know that people have all these worries. But I also know that if we move forward with this, you’re going to see that we can do this together.

You’re going to see that these people can be helped. And you’re going to see them be successful on a housing journey and then you’re going to see more people come through and more. And we’re going to start to take this high needs group of people who are on our streets suffering and we’re going to get them into housing. And this is part, a really key part of that step.

And so I know it’s difficult. I know it’s rooted in fear. I know there are a lot of people nervous. I know there’s a lot of people talking about what they feel about their own safety or their property values or their neighborhood, right?

But we can help these people. We can do this. And if there is a problem, if there is something that is not going right in this proposal, we’ve committed all the way through this. We’ve embedded it in the process to say community engagement from the hub’s leads, correct where we make mistakes, change the process.

And everybody on this council has committed to if we’re not getting something right, we’re going to make adjustments. 30 seconds. So I hope colleagues can join me. And I’ll say, as the mayor of the city, I’m going to vote for this because that’s the seat that I hold.

But as a community member, when this thing opens, I’m going to show up with my family and say, how can I help? How can I help these people in whatever way that I can do? So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to vote for this tonight.

I know there’s going to be a lot of people who might not be happy with that vote. But I honestly believe we’re doing the right thing and we can help some folks here. So that’s my position. Appreciate the generosity and the time, Mr.

Presoning Officer. I’ll turn the chair back to the mayor. I’ll look for other speakers. Councillor Stevenson.

I probably only have a— You’re right there, but— One question. And I’ll just ask for another sentence. Just in a question as to what you were just saying there. Maybe I just want to be clear.

I thought we were taking on the highest acuity homeless that were being rejected from the shelters. So when you say they’re just on the cusp of housing and they have children and stuff and walk in no fails, I’m just a little— just clarify for me. Yeah, I’ll answer. We have high acuity individuals.

They go into respite beds. They move into places with support. That’s what one of these places is. And then the next step on that is supportive housing.

So yeah, there’s high needs. Yes, they’re going to be struggling. But they’re going to be wrapped around with the supports they need in these places. So I’m not shying away from.

They are people who need help. They do have significant challenges. But that’s what the whole hubs thing is about, is wrapping those supports that they need to meet those challenges around them. And so both are true.

Like I’m saying, absolutely, these are high needs individuals who can’t be somewhere else. But they’re moving through the process into supportive housing. So that’s my answer. Go ahead, Councillor— So thank you for that.

So the respite piece is going to take them from rejection from the shelter ready for transitional beds. Is that the idea of the respite bed piece is to— I’m going to let Mr. Dickens talk about the respite bed piece and its purpose, because I don’t want to get into a cross debate while I’m sharing. So Mr.

Dickens, can you talk about the purpose of the respite beds? Through you, Your Worship, the hubs model looks like creating two different types of overnight bed spaces. Those respite are more acute. In the moment, I need a place to go, to stay, to be warm, to be safe, to spend the night.

Those individuals have access to those spaces. More drop-in style can walk in. There may be a referral to that bed for that night, whereas the transition beds are more dedicated to an individual to stay there for a longer duration. So they can continue to work on that stabilization, maintain that stability, and work towards those housing goals.

The proposal from CMHA at the Fanchet site is to repurpose that motel into those transitional housing rooms, so that folks in come in, can stay, can stabilize, work through the activities of daily living, work through some of those groups, and the programming space that they propose to create on that site and help them move into the most appropriate types of housing, recognizing that they would be supporting folks accessing their wide range of housing options as well, but also into highly supportive housing and other types of affordable housing in the community. Councillor, you’re right at your time now, so, OK. All right, Councillor Raman. Thank you, and three.

Can you remind me how much time I have left? I actually think you— so you moved the referral right away, and then you spoke with the referral. So I actually think you pretty much have all your time. So go ahead.

Thank you, and three of you. I do have a series of questions related to this location, and at 705 Fanchet Park Road West that have been posed to me that I’d like to go through. One of the questions that I do have, it relates to an audit of the location itself. And whether or not there’s been any conversation with the owners or with the residents at the motel as to their housing stability right now at this point, if there’s been an audit of those that may be living at the motel on a more permanent basis.

Mr. Dickens? Through you, Your Worship, that is between the proponent and the property owner that they’ve been having those discussions. And they feel confident in bringing that property forward as part of their proposal in consultation with the property owner.

I don’t have the details of what conversations negotiations or the like have taken place with the property owner. That was not part of their proposal. Thank you, so just a follow-up. So CMHA has had the conversation with the hotel about whether or not people may be displaced from the hotel moving over to CMHA.

Through you, Your Worship, as I stated, I did not have that information. That would be a question for CMHA. OK, thank you, through you. And how would I go about asking that question?

Your Worship, I think it would be fit. We’re just discussing, because we are in the midst of a procurement process. However, your question was asked in a public forum. So I believe staff could undertake to follow-up with CMHA to provide that answer.

Thank you. And I did submit that question in advance as well. That has been raised quite a few times around concerns for those that may be currently living there. I’m wondering whether or not, because this location is the only one that’s considered for rezoning, and the location is scheduled for May 2024, if there was consideration given to the criteria, which, in the Hub’s implementation, initially stated that we would not rezone anything for the first three to five hubs, any feedback that was given to us as to why that was undertaken within the first three to five.

Mr. Dickens. Through you, Your Worship, as the Hub’s implementation plan states, the first three to five hubs should be zoned emergency care establishment, because it assists with the expediency. We did not say that it would not be a rezoning, or that it would not fall outside of that.

We said that it should be in that zoning classification for the expediency purposes to open up these hubs. Thank you, and through you. And when it relates to the locations that are in May 2024, how confident are we on that being the date that we could open the location? Through you, Your Worship, both proponents have indicated, based on their projected construction timelines, and their onboarding timelines, that they’re confident they would hit those windows.

Thank you. And through you, what it relates to this location was any consideration given to other— if this is the— if there are other motels nearby, if this is the only of its sort in that part of the city. Through you, Your Worship, this is what was put forward as part of the proponent’s submission. And we evaluated those submissions based on the criteria against the hubs plan, not on whether there were other hotels in the geographic area.

OK, thank you. And is it an easy process to get a zone for a hotel in any part of the city? Be Mr. Felberg.

Thank you, and through you, Mr. Chair. So any property can come in for a rezoning application. So it’ll depend on the context.

And it’ll depend on the existing uses and what the intended uses are, and then how that fits in with the community. Thank you. So a new hotel wouldn’t require, for instance, like a study to be done in order to determine whether or not it could be. OK, let me deal with the point of order.

Go ahead. With respect to efficient and timely meetings, whether or not there are other hotels in the area, I fail to see the revelations with regard to this line of questioning. If a private sector business deems that there is a market to come forward with a rezoning for another motel, a private sector business will do that. But I don’t see where the line of questioning is related to an efficient meeting on a decision with this matter.

With regard to the council, procedural by-law, efficient meetings are a part of that principle. OK, so the first part— and like the last part about the procedure piece is actually a more of a point of order— I’m confident the councilor is still within her time. I understand what you’re saying. I know it’s late, but I want the council to have the opportunity to ask questions.

I’m going to give her some leeway to make her points. I think she knows that we— I think I hear your points, but I’m going to let the councilor continue with the questions. To the point of order, you make a new point of order, then, because I go without it. Yes.

What is on the table is an evaluation of a very, very specific RFP, OK? And this is getting very far afield. And I appreciate the chair’s allowance, give the councilor some latitude. But let’s remember what is on the table right now.

I appreciate that. I think the councilor knows that. I’m sure she’s getting to— she’s got some questions. Honestly, her time would be up right now if we weren’t asking questions.

So I think we just proceed and let her ask her questions. I think I hear the cautions from colleagues. I will make it note, but I’m going to provide the ward councilor who represents the area, just a little bit of leeway on this to go the direction she’d like to go on this. And I’ll tighten it up if I need to.

Go ahead, councilor. Thank you. To finish on that point, I just did have residents reach out to me that this is the only place that they’ve had family be able to stay when they were going through treatment and things like that. So that was the reason that it was brought up.

I just wanted to go back to within the RFP when we talk about proximity to and location, just wondering if there was any distance or thought that actually— or sorry, the number distance that related to the proximity that we were looking at for housing or for schools? Through you, Mr. Chair. So when we’re assessing proximity, so the first thing that we have to do is we have to ensure that the property use conforms to the OP and the zoning bylaw.

From there, we take a look through the OP, look through the zoning bylaw, and we see that there is near and proximity you’re at, not actually defined within those two plans or within those two documents. So when we were establishing the vocational criteria, it was actually purposeful at the time, not to identify a distance, because we need some ability to make some rational planning decisions when the applications come forward. So what we’re talking about here is actually a zoning application. And when that application does come forward, it will be assessed on the merits.

It’ll look at the place type. It’ll look at the existing zones. I should also note that there is an emergency care establishment zone across the street from this location as well. It’s already approved in this area, and considering the intersection of two major arterial roads, it’s appropriate for some kind of use or a transition of, say, office, institutional, residential, or a mix of different uses in that location.

Thank you. And why would we not put it in proximity to a school? I think that’s a question about the criteria. Go ahead, Mr.

Dickens. Through you, your worship, that was feedback gathered from the community. So we did not provide any judgment of that. It was feedback that we gathered through the numerous council endorsed community engagement sessions.

Thank you, through you. I think that perhaps what we did envision was perhaps next door to a children’s toy store. So I think that that was something I know for myself that I learned through this process as well, that they’re from the criteria perspective that could have been more clear in terms of what I added in perspective to that. Those are my questions for now, as I know, I’m running out of time, but I do want to ask my colleagues to consider splitting this item and consider, because this is from May 2024, allowing the community more opportunity for feedback, by allowing for splitting this motion and amending it to include more community feedback on 705 Fanshawe Park Road West.

OK, so I’ll say a couple of things. One, splitting them out, no problem. I think A3 is also linked to D. So there’s two pieces there.

But I’ll also say that it’s basically a vote on the proponents of the RFP process. So we can vote on all the other pieces. When we get to those, people have to choose to vote for it or not. There was a motion to refer, but I was defeated.

So it’s the results of the RFP process that are before us, and we’re going to need to vote on that. Going back and changing the parameters of the RFP process to add other things in, would, I think, be counter to our— I need Ms. Barbara on the way on it, but I don’t think that would fall in line with the way that we would do an RFP process. We basically have to deal with the actual application that came in through the RFP process in some way, without going back and getting more information or doing other things with it.

The referral was just decided later, but at this point, this is what you said at the end there was a slightly different approach. So absolutely separated out. But I think there’s going to have to be a vote or decision on the RFP components as per our procurement process. Ms.

Barbara, please correct me if I’m wrong on any of the obligations that we have under the procurement process to make some sort of decision without fundamentally or even mildly changing the process in any way. Can you comment? Through the chair, that’s correct. The award would be based on the proposal submitted, and counsel would choose to either approve the award or to cancel the RFP.

So I will separate them, but we’re going to have to vote on the pieces. You still had some time left. I didn’t know if you were down or not. Thank you.

So just to clarify, so we can vote to separate, but we can’t add or amend to the motion to include any further public discussion in the process. So we can always separate a motion to allow CalSTRS to vote the way they want. But I am not going to interpret the procurement policy myself, I have to have our staff do that. And we can pass whatever motion we want, but I guess the reason why I raised it in the way I did is we have to be aware of the consequences and the procurement policy of what would happen.

So hence, the way I was interpreting what you’re saying is we need to vote on it. I mean, obviously, counsel can try to pass whatever motion it wants, but that’s the advice that I heard Ms. Barbara give and that the clerks gave me about the decision-making that we need to do on an RFP process, so go ahead. So to clarify, we’re saying that the RFP process does not allow us to have public input during this time and the only time for public input will be during the rezoning.

I need Ms. Barbara, and if you can answer about— this is a question about the RFP process, and I’m not going to interpret the rules of our RFP process. So what isn’t allowed in an RFP process in a situation where you’d want to take a proposal and then gather more information on it? I just would like an answer from you, because I’m not going to be the one to interpret our RFP process.

Thank you through your worship. So through the procurement process, there is a period of time in which the bids would be relevant for, so these have been set out to be holding their pricing for a period of 120 days. Should counsel wish to award the RFP, the counsel has to award the RFP based on the proposal that was presented? So if the counsel were to not decide to proceed today, you would have some time, however, that would not change the proposal on which you would vote.

You are going to accept it as is, or you would choose not to award it as is. There’s no ability to amend the proposals and to change what counsel is voting on. Hopefully that’s very clear. OK, I think I’ve gotten enough information to— I appreciate all the questions that require me to do a lot of procedural advice that’s not every meeting.

So first off, yes, separated. Second, as Ms. Brebonne said, whatever point we vote on any one of the RFP proposals, we have to vote either to accept them or not. There isn’t a changing or amending of them.

But also, that doesn’t stop counsel from making other motions related to other processes that they want to do. Just that is a piece of information about the RFP process. But yes, we can pass motions and do processes that we want to do procedurally at counsel. So I’m not going to block or stop a procedural motion that is in order.

I think Ms. Brebonne just gave some information about that. But people can make whatever decisions you want irrespective of knowing the information. So what I’ll say is, yes, you could try to make a motion related to just that piece.

I mean, what it is, I’ll decide whether it’s an order based on our procedure by-law and not based on the RFP process, because the RFP process is what it is. People have the information about that. It doesn’t stop us from doing something else with a component of it. Does that help Councillor Ramen?

I can come back to you if you like. Councillor Troso. I would like to make the argument that these motions are not severable and have to be voted up and down, because exactly what provisions are you taking out? When you read everything from A to J, there are a number of provisions that apply across the board to all of them.

So I’m not exactly sure how we neatly just pull this out. I don’t think it’s possible. And I would like the clerk to consider that. And if we are going to pull it out, I want some very, very precise language in terms of what’s being pulled out, because I don’t want to unsettle everything else that is in here, and I’m worried that that’s going to happen.

Furthermore, it’s very important for people to understand, and especially for Councillors to understand, that there is a difference, big difference, between a discretionary land use approval that goes to a quasi-judicial administrative procedure before us, and our procurement policy, which is not in the nature of getting public input on it. We have to be very careful to understand that the integrity, we have to be very careful to understand that the integrity of the procurement process is itself being undermined here, and we have to be very, very careful not to do that, ‘cause it’s a bad precedent. And that’s very different than coming before the Planning Committee on a discretionary land use approval. So I’m very troubled by this.

I don’t want a lot of side conversation when I figure stuff out with, that goes both directions. So I’m of the opinion that it can be pulled apart. I may need Mr. Dickens and Ms.

Livingston, Ms. Barbo. Pre-separate proposals, a Councillor wants to vote on one of them separately. I believe A can be reworded with the number, and then lead into part three.

D is related to part three. Are there other components related to part three that you would have to do separately if a Councillor wanted to vote on one piece of the proposal separately? And to Councillor Troso, I’ll make a ruling, and if you want to challenge it, you can challenge it, we did one of those, but I’ll just, I’m gonna decide whether or not it could be severed. I’m just getting some information.

My spoiler, I believe it can, so I’m just making sure that all the components can be. But if someone doesn’t like that ruling, then we have a process for that too. Ms. Livingston, you had your hand up.

Okay, false alarm. Okay, go ahead. Your worship, we believe that it is possible to separate out if you wish to do each proponent, individually, that is possible. So you could separate out CMHA.

However, because it was a single proposal, we would not recommend separating the respite beds and the transitional beds. So every piece of the CMHA proposal needs to be dealt with in the same way. I would just further note that depending on what decisions get made there, that may have an impact on some of the other clauses, depending on the decisions that get made. So my ruling on Councillor Trozau’s question of can this be separated is that it can be for the vote.

What I would prefer is if someone is looking to do something different with parts of this, the whole thing is on the floor. The only thing we’re gonna separate at the voting time is the vote. If someone wants to do a different process or make another motion, that would be an amendment that we would do before we get to the point of voting. The separation of voting point would simply be for someone to express their difference of opinion there.

But if a Councillor’s looking to do something different with one of these applications, rather than the referral of all of them, they could do that. I would recommend we do that as an amendment. That way, if something was passed related to that, then we would have to just readjust kind of the other components of the motion if Council wanted to proceed with the other two. Now, if any sort of amendment is defeated, they could still all be dealt with together and it would just be voted on separately so people could vote yes or no.

We would do the part separate first so that if it was passed, then nothing else has to change. It was defeated, then we would just have to have a bit of a recess and redo all the numbers for what remains to prove the other components. So that would be the way that I would suggest proceeding, simply because of the complexity of the document and to make the easiest, most transparent Council decision-making. So, Councillor Trostau, that’s how I would approach the separation piece.

To Councillor ramen and the question earlier, but wanting to do something different with that component, I would suggest that we don’t do that after we’ve separated simply for the voting piece, that that would be something that would be like a new amendment now related to some aspects of the proposal, that then we would look for a second or a debate, make a decision on, and then if someone so wanted to vote separately, we could. If for some reason, through that decision-making, that part disappears or it goes into some other process, we would still need the time to kind of adjust what’s left. Does that make sense to everybody? Okay, all right, I appreciate the time on that.

We just want to make sure we all know what we’re doing before we do it. So, with that, I will go back to the speaker’s list. What is on the floor is the entire staff report. Are there any other speakers?

Councillor Proble. I will just make a comment and again, I don’t know if, but I just let you know you have 30 seconds before you’ll need an extension, so there you go. Thank you. I don’t know if it’s going to be split or not, but either way, if it’s split or not, I just want to let you know the numbers, when they came back and such a lower number than expected per hub, I will be voting no for every single one of them.

And the reason for that is going to be because I, as a part of the head of the corporation, received one plan. This is the plan for $12.5 million. Take it or leave it and I didn’t get other options to see how far the $12.5 million could get us potentially and help more people than what we have in front of us. So I will be voting vote no on every single one of them.

Thank you, Councillor. Any other speakers? I don’t see any other speakers, so we can proceed with voting and we would like the vote divided. No, no need to divide.

Okay, the whole thing will be together then. This is the staff report, everything before us, without any changes to it. I have no requests for separating at this point. I have no more speakers, so we’re gonna, on last call.

Okay, we’re gonna open that for voting then. Councillor Ferrer, closing the vote, the motion’s passed, nine, six. Okay, that motion also included receiving the correspondence on both the regular and added agenda. So that moves us through 4.2.

There are no deferred matters of additional business. It’s a special meeting, no confidential items. So we’re at the point for a motion to adjourn. We’ll look for a mover.

Moved by Councillor Van Mereberg and online, seconded by Councillor Stevenson. We’ll do this by hand. All those in favor of adjournment? Motion’s carried.

Okay, thank you, we’re adjourned.