November 19, 2024, at 1:00 PM

Original link

The meeting is called to order at 1:00 PM; it being noted that Councillors P. Van Meerbergen and S. Hillier were in remote attendance.

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by E. Peloza

That Consent Items 2.1 to 2.5 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

2.1   Covent Garden Market By-law Update

2024-11-19 Staff Report - Covent Garden Market By-law

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by E. Peloza

That, on the recommendation of the City Clerk, the by-law appended as Appendix “A” to the staff report dated November 19, 2024, being a by-law to fix the number of Directors for the Covent Garden Market Corporation, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on November 26, 2024, to amend section 2 of the by-law to fix the composition of the board of directors to be nine (9) members, two (2) of whom shall be members of Council.

Motion Passed

2.2   2024 Resident Satisfaction Survey

2024-11-19 Staff Report - 2024 Resident Satisfaction Survey

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by E. Peloza

That on the recommendation of the City Manager, the report, including the 2024 Resident Satisfaction Survey, as appended to the staff report dated November 19, 2024, BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed

2.3   November 2024 Strategic Plan Progress Report

2024-11-19 Staff Report - November 2024 Strategic Plan Progress Report

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by E. Peloza

That, on the recommendation of the City Manager, the report including the 2024 Year-End Progress Report, as appended to the staff report dated November 19, 2024, BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed

2.4   Anti-Black Racism Action Plan

2024-11-19 Staff Report - Anti-Black Racism Action Plan

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by E. Peloza

That, on the recommendation of the City Manager, the following actions be taken with respect towards ending Anti-Black racism:

a)    the recommendations of the Anti-Black Racism Action Plan which are specifically directed towards the Corporation of the City of London BE ENDORSED;

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to undertake the following actions for accountability and implementation:

i)    create an implementation plan for the Corporation of the City of London actions to end anti-Black racism with activities, responsibilities, timelines, measures, and budget requirements (inclusive of additional funding needs) by April;

ii)    share recommendations with community organizations, encourage and advise on anti-Black racism initiatives; and

iii)    continue to build and strengthen meaningful relationship and collaborations with members of the Black community by implementing the recommendations outlined in the action plan.

Motion Passed

2.5   Whole of Community System Response - Q3 Quarterly Report

2024-11-19 Staff Report - Whole of Community Response

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by E. Peloza

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, the Whole of Community System Response – Q3 Quarterly Report BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed

3.   Scheduled Items

None.

4.   Items for Direction

4.7   Service Depot Location Update Report

2024-11-19 Staff Report - (4.7) Service Depot Location Update Report

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by C. Rahman

That the following actions be taken with respect to Service Depot Locations:

a)    the Service Depot Location Update Report dated November 19, 2024 BE RECEIVED and no further action be taken;

b)    Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back to Community and Protective Services Committee with respect to operationalizing mobile transactional outreach services and act responsively as encampments move around the city; and

c)     Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to continue with transactional service delivery in existing service depot locations until February 28, 2025.

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by S. Trosow

That, pursuant to section 27.6 of the Council Procedure By-law, a change in order of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee Agenda BE APPROVED, to provide for Item 4.7 in Stage 4, Items for Direction, to be considered after Stage 3, Scheduled Items.

Motion Passed (9 to 6)

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by S. Lehman

That the Service Depot Location Update Report dated November 19, 2024 BE RECEIVED and no further action be taken.

Motion Passed (10 to 5)

Moved by A. Hopkins

That, pursuant to section 32.5 of the Council Procedure By-law, “shall the ruling of the Chair BE SUSTAINED?”

Motion Passed (12 to 3)

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That pursuant to section 31.6 of the Council Procedure By-law, Councillor J. Pribil BE PERMITTED to speak an additional one (1) minute with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (9 to 6)

Moved by J. Morgan

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That the motion be amended to add a new part c) and reads as follows:

That the following actions be taken with respect to Service Depot Locations:

a)    the Service Depot Location Update Report dated November 19, 2024 BE RECEIVED and no further action be taken;

b)  Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back to Community and Protective Services Committee with respect to operationalizing mobile transactional outreach services and act responsively as encampments move around the city; and

c) that Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to continue with transactional service delivery in existing service depot locations until further direction is provided by Municipal Council.

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by S. Lehman

That the motion be further amended in part c) to include “until February 28, 2025” and delete “until further direction is provided by Municipal Council”

Motion Passed (12 to 3)

Moved by J. Morgan

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That the motion be amended with parts b) and c) to read as follows:

b)  Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back to Community and Protective Services Committee with respect to operationalizing mobile transactional outreach services and act responsively as encampments move around the city; and

c) that Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to continue with transactional service delivery in existing service depot locations until February 28, 2025.

Motion Passed (10 to 5)

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by C. Rahman

That the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (10 to 5)

7.   Adjournment

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee BE RECESSED and reconvene November 20, 2024 at 9:30 AM.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

The meeting recessed at 4:02 PM.

Full Transcript

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

View full transcript (3 hours, 15 minutes)

Good afternoon, everybody. I’m gonna ask people to take their seats, please, as I’m gonna call the 17th meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee to order. The City of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, the Haudenosaunee, Lene Peiwaq, and Adawanderin. And we honor and 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 Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples, and as representatives of the people of the City of London, we are grateful to have the opportunity to live and work in this territory. The City of London is also committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for meetings upon request. And to make a request specific to this meeting, please contact SPPC@london.ca, or phone 519-661-2489, extension 2425. Colleagues, I will advise that Councillors Hillier and Van Mirbergen are joining us virtually.

All other members of council are present in chambers, and I will begin by looking for any disclosures of pecuniary interest. Seeing none, colleagues, before we move on to the bulk of our agenda today, I want to— Excuse me, Chair? Councillor Ferrera. Thank you.

I just wanted to know if we could make a change of order amendment for the procedure here for 4.7 service depot location. I do feel that it’s priority, and I’m worried that we might not get to that part of the agenda today. So, Councillor, if you’ll allow me to finish some of the preamble that I was going to provide, then I will come back to you if you wish to seek a change of order. However, as picking up where I was starting, I really, really cannot stress this enough to colleagues.

We have a budget PPM scheduled at 4 PM. We have 14 delegates pre-registered. That does not account for anybody who may just show up in the gallery. At five minutes each, we are going already late into the evening.

We have several substantive items on our agenda to get through today. Should we not complete that agenda by 4 PM when Budget Committee has to be called to order? And I will say that the Budget Committee has to be called to order within a half an hour of the published start time. So, if we are extremely close to ending, we could potentially carry on for a few extra minutes and finish.

However, Budget Committee must be called to order by 4.30. In the event that we are unable to finish this agenda, we will recess until 9 AM tomorrow morning and return to finish the bulk of the SPPC agenda tomorrow morning. So, I would really encourage colleagues to please be focused and concise. Please be mindful of the fact that we have items to get through in your comments.

Please keep in mind that, you know, certainly for items on the consent in particular, these have all been on their agenda since last week. There’s opportunities also to ask very specific questions to staff offline. And not everything has to be done in our meeting today with respect to a specific question you might have on one sentence in a report on the consent. So, I would please ask you to be mindful of your time and mindful of the fact that individuals may have to make some significant adjustments to their schedule to reconvene at 9 AM tomorrow morning.

So, with that, I will return to you, Councillor Ferra, if you wish to move a change of order at this time. However, I would suggest to you that a change of order would be most appropriate in the items for direction after we’ve dealt with the consent. Thanks, Chair. I’m okay with going through the consent items, but I would like to put a motion for a change of order right now.

Okay. So, what is your motion, please? To move 4.7 up to the top of items for direction for the first item. Do you have a seconder for that?

Councillor Trussell. We are going to put that to a vote in E-Scribe. So, I will ask the clerk to open that vote when it is ready. Councillor Van Mierberg in.

I’ll vote no. Closing the vote, motion carries nine to six. Okay, colleagues, so in items for direction, we will deal with 4.7 first, and then we will move to the balance of the items. Looking for any direction on the consent agenda, if someone’s willing to move the consent agenda, we can then go to questions and comments, moved by Councillor Pribble, and seconded by Councillor Palosa.

I’m going to very quickly ask colleagues, if there’s anything they wish to have pulled from the consent agenda to be voted on separately. Seeing none, then we will move to questions and comments on the full consent agenda. Councillor Pribble. Thank you, Chair.

As for the Chair to the staff of 2.3, Strategic Plan Progress Report. By the way, thank you very much for the work, and I really like the updates. I want to state, and what I really also like is that you are including the reports that we can go, and please continue that. It really honestly makes it much easier for us to track the progress.

The question I have, we did not include, or the matrix are not included in this portion, and I would imagine it is because the year, and it’s not over yet, if you can please confirm that, if that’s the reason. And also, when the matrix will be reported back to us, thank you for the staff on that, Mr. Fowler. Thank you, and through you, Mr.

Chair, that’s correct. The metrics will be included in the mid-year progress report coming before committee in May 2025, and that will represent the entirety of the metrics and performance reporting for the year 2024. Mr. Preble.

Perfect, thank you very much for that information. No more on this part. I do have quite a few questions, but I’m gonna leave it off the line. Thank you for that.

And the other one is 2.5 quarterly reports through the chair to the staff. In this reporting, we do have certain areas that, for example, there’s Q2 was our deadline, and it says not started. We have Q1 and progress is not kind of evaluated. And I just want to ask you, again, we’re not gonna be resolving it now.

If when we get the update next time, if there could be more specific, and if there are certain things that we stated Q1, and we fill out the reason why, potentially it hasn’t been done or the reason for it. So that they just has to do with that report, the timeline and progress, if the progress is properly updated, according to the timeline. That’s the only thing I’m asking for in this report. Thank you very much.

I don’t know if there’s anyone from the staff that would like to comment, but otherwise I don’t have any other questions or comments. I see thumbs up. Thank you very much. No more questions, sir.

Thank you. I did see Mr. Dickens nodding his head. Did you want to provide a comment back on that?

Through you, chair, just confirmed with Ms. Ireland or lead on the backbone team, that absolutely will bring forward the next report with a more detailed breakdown of the progress section of those deliverables. Thank you for that. Looking for other questions on consent items.

Councillor Hopkins and then Councillor Trussa. Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair.

No questions, but I do have a few comments on 2.2, which is the 2024 residential satisfaction survey. Through you to staff, really appreciate the time and efforts that go into the survey. I always do look forward to them. It sort of confirms some of the comments that I hear from my residents in the ward.

Obviously homelessness is still a concern in the community and road infrastructure as well as mental health and inadequate transit. So it sort of just makes me realize what I’m hearing as well and confirming it. I do want to bring to everyone’s attention to the fact that there is being an increase in the public contacting City Hall. And the satisfaction from 92% from last year to I think 88% has gone up.

And that really shows the work that city staff are doing in terms of dealing with the public. And I really want to give my thanks through you, Mr. Chair, to staff for the great work that they do. It also made me realize, too, as we are undertaking ward boundary reviews to the importance of trying to get a better understanding on the satisfaction coming out of our wards, too.

I’d really like to see that in the survey. I’m not sure if it can be done. But I just want to make those comments. And again, thanks, Steph.

Councillor Trussa. Thank you, on 2.2 through the chair, very quick question. Would it be possible in future surveys to ask people their ward number? Or if they don’t know it, at least where they generally live, I think it would be useful information.

Thank you, and through you, Mr. Chair, I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t do that. We can work with the vendor to look at getting that in future surveys. Thank you, Mr.

Fowler. Councillor Trussa. And finally, through the chair, do you feel that we’ve got enough respondents that we would still get a significant number if we break it down to 14 wards? Or would you need to ask more respondents to get a higher end?

Mr. Fowler. Thank you, Chair. That question is probably best for the vendor.

But I would say that what they do, typically with the other demographic indicators, is to weight them by our understanding of what the population breakdowns are. So if they get, say, a greater number of a certain gender, they would then break it down so that it did reflect, proportionally, what our population was. So I would anticipate they would do something similar and therefore wouldn’t need to necessarily go to an increased survey count, which would, of course, increase cost. Okay, Councillor.

Thank you, that’s very helpful. One more question through the chair. I noticed that for the second year in the row, the social housing was at the very, very bottom of the satisfaction and my question is, does that question just go to residents of the social housing or is that also distributed to the whole population? Mr.

Fowler. Thank you and through, through you, Chair. That question goes to everyone. One of the dimensions of this survey is, it is about perception of service and not necessarily direct impact through service.

So we are asking what is anticipated to be a random sample representative of the London population and not just those using that service. Thank you, Mr. Fowler, Councillor. Any other questions on the consent agenda?

Councillor Raman. Thank you and through you and I’ll be brief. First, I wanted to say on 2.1, I appreciate the update to the bylaws to include young leaders in our community. The bylaws were prescriptive, they used the language emerging leaders, but I do think it could apply to youth in our community as we’re looking to do with the advisory communities as well.

I appreciate staff’s work on 2.2 and 2.3. I just wanted to comment on 2.4. So I didn’t want today to pass without making a comment on the anti-Black racism action plan that’s in front of us today. This work is the combination of a number of months and a full year of work on connecting with the Black community, making sure that there was ample engagement opportunities with the community to engage on topics that were of importance to them.

And there’s a number of recommendations here and I think you’ve hit the highlights in terms of what I believe the community has been sharing for some time, especially around employment needs, needs for access, housing concerns, making sure that an equity tool is being used and that there’s opportunities for an implementation plan that will see these actions through. So I just wanted to say thank you and I appreciate the work that’s in front of us. I will share that I look forward to receiving the implementation plan and hope that the implementation plan when brought forth to us as counselors gives us the opportunity to really dig into some of the conversations that the community had a little bit more. And lastly, there is a mention of a budget component to it, but I did have some time to connect with staff ahead of time and they are going to also work within existing budgets.

So just wanted to share that. Thank you, Councilor Robin and Councilor Stevenson. Thank you. I just had a couple of questions regarding 2.5.

There’s a lot of talk about encampments right now and we’ll be talking about that later. But there’s a lot of concern in the community around the cold weather and what the plans are for if we do get the predicted cold wintery weather that people are talking about. And I just wondered if staff could share with the public what the plans are there if we do get a very cold winter. Mr.

Dickens, Mr. Dider’s beer, whoever wants to take that one. Through you, Chair, I’ll start this as well. Hi, Mr.

Cooper here can also elaborate. I think civic administration has been pretty clear throughout the year that there is no new winter response program, what you have approved previously as a sitting council is the continuation of the winter response through in many regards, most of the winter response through until the end of December. And we are looking to continue those services, those overnight beds on and those services through other funding sources. We have continuously spoken to all service providers.

Some have protocols in place for when the Middlesex London Health Unit issues an extreme cold weather alert that they’re able to temporarily for a short period of time expand some space within their existing structures to provide some overnight accommodation or in order to the cold accommodation for small numbers of people. And as communicated to Councillor Stevenson prior, those number of additional spaces are very few. You’re talking just over a dozen 12 to 15 spaces that people can flex. All organizations have looked at where they can convert space into temporary accommodation and what the challenges or limitations or opportunities for that regard might be.

There are no other alternatives. We are in a community that is hopefully weeks and not months away from hearing an announcement or a decision on heart hubs and creating space for folks. We are a community that is looking to continuously bring on more housing spaces in the work that we do on a regular basis as well as highly supportive housing. And we will continue to find ways to sustain overnight beds that are temporarily funded so we don’t lose those resources.

That is essentially the culmination of the winter response. And I would say that civic administration and community organizations have looked at every opportunity. And I apologize, Mr. Cooper.

I’m used to seeing you beside Mr. Dickens, not at the other end of the row, but I will just see if there’s anything you want to add or if Mr. Dickens covered everything, you’re shaking your head no. So, okay, so Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you and through the chair. A follow up too, I’ve been communicating with staff around the asylum seekers and refugee claimants in our shelter system when we talked about it at committee. It was gonna, the numbers were gonna be added to the snapshot. I hadn’t seen that done, but my understanding is now that’s being done and the reports are being updated.

Would it be possible to have those added to the next council agenda or the next committee whenever those are ready for public distribution that they get put in with the public agendas? Mr. Cooper or Mr. Dickens, whichever one of you wants to feel that one.

Thank you, Chair, so the online homelessness snapshot was a council decision and something that staff were able to do and we produce. I don’t have a member of the communications team handy here to confirm if those are going up today, but they’re expected to be up before the end of this week. And what we will do is we will recirculate a link to that dashboard that is on the City of London website to all members of council so they have that information instead of writing a staff report, which will direct you right back to that same website. Thank you and see, when you sit at opposite ends, I can see you both nodding your heads, but you don’t see each other nodding your heads.

So I had to put it out to both of you, but thank you for that, Councillor Stevenson. Thank you and that sounds great. I wasn’t looking for another staff report in previous, I could be incorrect, but I believe in previous quarterly updates to the whole community. The snapshot has been part of the package.

I noticed it wasn’t there this time, and I do think it’s useful to have that in the public agenda. So maybe staff could comment on that. So I just thought if you’re gonna do it for the next one, if you could put the previous ones in so that all of the correct information is in the public record. Mr.

Cooper. Thank you and through you, Mr. Chair. That’s something we can easily do.

We’ll work with our comms team to ensure that we have a printer friendly version of what is online, and then we will share that with the clerks. Thank you, Mr. Cooper, Councillor Stevenson. Super, that’s great.

Thank you very much. The other question I had is, there’s been talk for quite a while now in the press and in the public around, you know, not being committed to that 12 to 15 hub number anymore. And I think, you know, there’s a general understanding around that, and it was exciting to see the new announcement of the nine beds for the YOU hub coming very shortly. But when we did the hub plan, it was 25 to 35 beds per hub.

And this YOU hub is gonna have 15 hubs. So, you know, what— Councillor Trussile on a point of order. Yeah, I would just simply ask the chair to remind the Councillor that we are dealing with the Q3 report, which is a report that’s been filed with us. And these are all questions that I think are valuable for future discussion, but this is the Q3 report.

So I just want to raise that. Thank you. I’m gonna rule that the Councillor is asking about the whole of community system response. Yes, this is the quarterly report.

I don’t quite know if she’s been able to articulate where she’s going with the question, but I think if it’s related to what’s coming in a future report, then that’s within the scope of what’s on our agenda. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yes, it is.

So I was just saying the YOU hub is, and always was committed to 15 beds at that hub. And when we talked about the hub plan, we talked about net new beds. They were promised to be net new beds. So the Atlosa hub, those beds were already promised to the end of December.

Those weren’t new net new beds. So I guess my point is, if I look at it, to me we have about a half a hub so far in terms of the number of beds for hubs. And if we’re talking about not being committed to 12 to 15 any longer, at what point will Council get from the whole community, maybe a revised plan or estimate as to what the public can expect going forward? Mr.

Dickens. Through you, Chair, I have not made any comments on the media, so I’m unable to comment on remarks made around moving or diverting away. I will also just remind Council that the hubs plans and the awarding of those two hubs was Council approved. Council approved the number of beds.

They approved the hubs plan. You approved the funding to those two organizations. So it should not, and if it has a take responsibility for that, but it should not come as a shock at the number of beds that are being provided in these hubs. YOU has successfully been able to move 50 youth through their interim hub location.

And I am very excited for what they can do, fully operationalize in partnership with London Health Sciences Center in their newly renovated space. LOSA continues to support people regaining connection to their community and culturally and spiritually through Indigenous led services, which is quite remarkable as well. As far as when we would update the community on revised plans, our implementation tables are constantly looking at the applicability of the plans. And as we have a new Council endorsed, a Council approved evaluation framework, generating the outcomes of that evaluation framework will actually help dictate and give evidence-based decision-making on what plans need revised and what revisions in which ways need to be made.

So it would be a bit hasty on my part to rush to any amendment of plans until we actually have data to inform that decision-making, which we’re excited to receive and have. And if we have to make amendments and change plans, we will do that. We remain steadfast as a municipality, we’ll be able to keep our commitment to bringing on more health and homelessness hubs and we anticipate that we’ll be in a position to release a request for expression of interest before the end of this year, closing early in the new year. That will bring forward hopefully more opportunities for more hubs to come online.

Ultimately, hubs are a pathway to housing and whether we are trying to set targets on how many hubs are not. The goal is we need more indoor spaces. We’re eager to hopefully land a hard hub. We’re eager to launch an expression of interest for H and H hubs.

But we know that ultimately what we need to do is continue to bring on more housing. The more housing we can bring on of any kind and the more housing we can bring on of the highly supportive kind makes the hubs all more effective. So I don’t think this is necessarily a, how many will you have and that’s how we’ll engage success. It’s how many people can you support and how well can you support them.

And I think our evaluation framework is gonna tell us a lot about that. And as we bring on more highly supportive housing, we’ll create pathways out of hubs for people instead of always trying to create just more hubs. Thank you, Mr. Dickens, Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you and through the chair. I just have one more question and it’s about the finances. I’ve been trying to share what’s been done with the 25 million so far, but there still seems to be that question keeps coming up on social media, you know, what’s happened with the 25 million. And I wondered if there was a way to share that.

I know that the London Community Foundation has a link on their page. It hasn’t been updated since April. Maybe there’s no updates, I’m not sure. But my question is around that.

Is there a way to share some of that information so it answers the public’s questions? And the second part is of the hubs and highly supportive housing that we’ve opened so far, I believe they only had one or two years of funding associated with them. So we’re already one year in. We’re not that far from talking about needing sustainable funding past that.

And I wondered if there’s any comments on that or will that be shared so that we can keep that in back of mind that what we’ve set up all had very short-term funding associated with it for operations? So, Councillor, I’m not going to ask staff to talk about the London Community Foundation donation holding. However, I am going to go to the mayor who spoke publicly about this yesterday and give him an opportunity to respond to that. Yeah, so I can talk about the 25 million piece of the question that the other pieces are more relevant for others.

But just to be clear, ‘cause I agree with the Councillor, there’s some level of confusion about that particular donation. I had the privilege of being able to announce the donation to the Community Foundation at the state of the city. But like any large donation, it’s stewarded by a professional organization, the London Community Foundation, which has a charitable organization and has all of the parameters in place to fundraise and execute donor agreements on topics of interest from a wide variety of perspectives, this being one of the donations that they steward. Like any professional or fundraising campaign, this money, which is held by the Community Foundation, is raised and fundraised under the leadership of a campaign cabinet, which Chef McCowan leads, and there’s a group of individual Londoners who’ve been actively stewarding and fundraising within that structure itself.

There will be an update from them later this week on how the matching fundraising is going. I believe they’ll end up doing a release like Thursday or Friday of this week. But as for how the money comes in, like any large donation, this perception that a $25 million check was handed to the city of London is just not true. The donations under a donation agreement with the London Community Foundation, the money comes in on whatever schedule that they’ve arranged with the donor, often large multi-million dollar donations come in on a timeframe and money is executed as it comes in and is available.

And so through my understanding, and this is where I would ask Mr. Dickens to correct me if I’m wrong, there’s been a number of pieces that have gone to the whole of the $25 million fund, which is authorized and spent by the Community Foundation, not by authorization of other groups in the city, under the donor agreement to ensure that it is matching the terms as they’re required to do for which the money was raised. Money has been given to support the two existing hubs. Money has been allocated towards the conversion and temporary running of the Elm Street, Elmwood Ave, Elmwood Ave location.

And I know yesterday while you was clear on how they have spent the $3 million that they were allocated under the fund for change money and the hub that they’ve created, how they’ve operated interim, and then how they are now able to leverage that dollars in a much greater way, instead of having six spaces who have helped 50 people, don’t all have access to more spaces and help many more people. So all of that is done through the Money Community Foundation and that is how pretty much every major donation in the city works. There’s a lot of excitement around it. There’s a lot of people who’ve given money.

There’s a lot of people in that donor list who get regular updates who have donated money from the Money Community Foundation about how the money they’ve donated is being stewarded and spent as they’re required and obligated to do. And I do know that they’re gonna make a significant update on where things are at later this week. So hopefully that provides some clarification, the other parts of the question I can’t answer. Thank you.

And just before I go to either Mr. Dickens or Ms. Barbone, ‘cause I know where this second part was around financing, I am going to caution, Councillor, that consistent with Councillor Trussell’s earlier point of order. I think we’re starting to veer much further away from the third quarter update and into much longer term questions, which might be more appropriate, as Mr.

Dickens had indicated earlier, when the data starts coming in and they can make evidence-based pitches to other levels of government perhaps. But I will go to Mr. Dickens and Ms. Barbone on the question you asked about the fact that the funding was for a limited time, for some general comments.

But I will caution that I think we’re starting to veer well beyond the Q3 quarterly report and into things that are a year or more away and not necessarily germane to receiving this report today. So if we can focus in more on the report that we’re receiving today, that would be appreciated, but I will go to Mr. Dickens and/or Ms. Barbone on the financing question.

Thank you, Chair and through you. We have contracts in place with the hub operators through to the end of December 2025 with provisions for extension. So hopefully that helps. Thank you.

And Ms. Barbone, did you have anything to add? No, okay, Councillor Stevenson. Yeah, just quickly, I think it’s a part of the quarterly update that might be good to see to see that projection of what is solid and where the gaps are and to keep that larger perspective on the financing because the hubs are funded to December 2025.

I can’t remember on the highly supportive housing. I remember we did one year, but I can’t remember when that start and end time comes. So I don’t need anything more today, but it’s just a thought that the financial commitment piece is important to keep that bigger perspective. Thank you, Councillor.

I just wanted to comment too. I’m not in any way saying that there’s any disappointment in the two hubs that came. They’ve come as committed to. My comment was just on the number of beds.

Sorry, thank you. Any other questions before we call the vote on the consent agenda? Seeing none online or in chambers, I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Building the vote, motion carries 15 to zero.

Thank you colleagues. We will move on now to items for direction and we’ve had a change of order. So the next item on our agenda is 4.7. This is the service depot location update.

You will recall that this was referred back to staff to come back with a report to this council at this particular committee meeting. I have had one Councillor reach out to indicate that they wish to move an alternate motion. So I will go to Councillor McAllister. Thank you and through the chair.

I believe I have a seconder in Councillor Layman and I’m looking to have this report received and no further action be taken. Councillor Layman, can you confirm if you’re seconding? Yeah, I’ll second. Okay, so we have a staff report and there is a motion on the floor to receive and take no further action.

So I will look now for speakers on the motion as moved and seconded. Councillor McAllister. Thank you and through the chair. Apologies and a bit tired late night for me.

I woke up early trying to respond to as many calls and emails as possible. Understandably, ward one residents were very shocked to see this the other day. Did my best to respond to everyone. So apologies if I couldn’t get to everyone.

I really want to stress as we go through this process. It’s not only this, but when we’re looking at the whole community response and this has been said before, I do think the residents are growing increasingly frustrated. I spoke to this at the last SPPC in terms of the notification when we do things, but I need to really express the anger quite frankly that is coming out of my ward and the east more generally. Unfortunately, I think trust has been broken and we need to work hard to rebuild that.

But the concentration that we saw in this report is quite frankly unacceptable toward one residents and the east more generally. And I feel that sentiment on a regular basis. I’m increasingly spending more and more of my time dealing with homelessness. I’m honestly jealous of some of my colleagues and the time they’re allowed to a lot to other issues, which my residents care about as well.

But this is at the forefront of so many of the discussions I have. I wish there was a way to provide these services in another way. I don’t think the depose is a direction we should go with right now. Noting that the funding that was announced as well is not sufficient to sustain multiple plans.

I personally wanna allocate resources to shelter, which I think especially going into cold weather is incredibly important. So I’m gonna leave it there. I know some colleagues might have other thoughts and thank you for hearing me out and hopefully I can get support on this. Thank you, Councilor McAllister, looking for other speakers.

Councilor Frank. Thank you, I have a couple questions and I don’t know if staff will have the answers ‘cause I guess it’s somewhat speculative, but I’m just wondering through the chair, if we could understand, if we take no further action on these items, what will happen to providing food and water and washrooms to people living in parks across the city? Mr. Dickens.

Through you, Chair, services would come to an end as of December 31st. Councilor Frank. Thank you. For my understanding, again, follow-up question, these server-service depots are four locations where we deliver food, bottled water, have a chance to interact with those living in cabins and some of them also do have port-a-potties.

So if we take those away, we’ll staff not be able to go out and not specifically go to service depots, but perhaps go across the city wherever there are locations or is the only way that we distribute those basic needs items through service depots. Mr. Dickens. Through you, Chair, presently, it’s only through service depots.

And I think with the motion on the floor that we would cease delivering service depots, services in that type of way. Councilor Frank. Thank you. And then one further question.

So we have no winter response for bringing people inside, and this motion, if approved, would also then essentially say, we will not provide any food, water, or bathroom access to people as of January 1st. So I just wanted to be completely clear. No inside space, no food, no water, no bathrooms through the chair. So, Councilor, I think that Mr.

Dickens already answered in the consent agenda that there would be that currently there’s a continuation of indoor spaces and that, and I will go to him if I’m interpreting that incorrectly because if there’s additional information I’m happy to have him provide that, I’m not gonna ask staff to answer the same question multiple times, but that the funding that we had received from another level of government would be allocated in part to continuation of those indoor spaces, that there’s no new beds, but that existing beds would continue. But Mr. Dickens, if I’m interpreting your earlier answer incorrectly, please feel free to expand on that. Thank you, Chair, and what I will expand on is some beds that we didn’t explicitly mention, which is Council has previously supported the continuation of 31 indoor spaces at the Salvation Army Center of Hope, and those run until the end of March, 2026.

We do have the beds that the arc is currently operating through to the end of December, and we would look to use other sources of funding to continue those. And then we would have, we know we have new council direction around the discontinuation or no future funding for those daytime and overnight resting spaces on the main streets of BIA, sorry, BIA’s, so they would be looking to find alternative locations as well, but to answer your question, that is correct. The funding for the beds at Salvation Army to the end of March, the arc is currently to the end of December, that is your winter response that has been approved. With this, we would discontinue delivering services in the depots of the food, the water, the access to hygiene stations, when the previous council direction of funding those services to the end of December ends.

Councilor Frank. Thank you, just appreciate that clarity. One follow up question then, and just ‘cause I feel like the beds numbers change, so again, through the chair to staff, how many shelter beds do we have in the city on average, and then how many would the couple winter ones we just discussed increase it to, and then how many people to staff’s best estimation are sleeping outside if you have those numbers on hand? Mr.

Cooper. Thank you, and through you, Mr. Chair, we currently have 306 funded emergency shelter beds in our system, including that 31 from center of hope, and then 90 additional beds from temporarily funded by the arc, so that’s 396. And we have just completed our point in time count.

This past October, where 335 unique individuals were identified to be experiencing unsheltered homelessness. However, we do know that count is significantly higher, given a number of folks who are living unsheltered do not typically engage with services, and would not have engaged in the count. Councilor Frank. Thank you, one more follow up, and we’re almost done.

And so then we have 307-ish beds, and are those all full, and then we still have over 300 individuals sleeping outside, so this was closer to then, let’s say 600, 700 people sleeping, or without shelter, half of them are already in our shelters, half are outside, I just want to extreme clarity on that. Mr. Cooper. Thank you, and through you, Mr.

Chair. So the 306 beds are pretty much 97, 98% at capacity every single day, sometimes they’re turnover in beds due to a pest infestation damage, that sort of thing. And then the 335 individuals are not accessing shelter currently, or they’re only accessing, potentially, depot services, should they be close to those areas? Councillor Frank.

Thank you, yes, that’s the end of my question. So I won’t be able to support the take-no-action emotion. I can appreciate the Councillor and the issues that are occurring in his ward due to the service depots. I was actually going to see if there’s an opportunity to propose doing mobile services, instead of having service depot specific locations, because I think that I can understand the frustration that residents are having, from having service depots located in their neighborhoods, but I cannot zip by and not provide water and food to people who have literally no alternative, because we don’t have enough shelter beds.

So I will be able to support not feeding and giving people water. Councillor Trussell. Thank you. I’d like to ask the chair or staff through the chair.

Didn’t we make a commitment when we received the report that we got from the consultants in June that we were going to proceed with a transactional program that involved exactly what we’re talking about now? Which put in the other way, isn’t that a decided matter that we’ve made, which would require reconsideration? So I can answer that for you, Councillor. In the last cycle, we approved funding of the transactional services, as was just referenced by Mr.

Dickens and Mr. Cooper, until the end of December. We actually approved no funding for anything beyond that and actually provided direction to civic administration and the mayor to seek funding from senior levels of government and to prioritize the creation of overnight beds with that funding. So it would not require a reconsideration.

Thank you, and that’s very helpful. So I will not make a point of order, but I will proceed on the merits of this. I mean, when we agree to be on council, we’re agreeing to having, we have to take on some difficult decisions sometimes. And they’re always not neat, they’re always not nice and they’re difficult.

I think they just not take further action on this as irresponsible. I won’t get into sort of the technical legal question of whether or not that action would violate any of our affirmative obligations, which we’ve talked about in the past. So I’ll just say, I’ll be voting no on this amendment and I would urge my colleagues to do the same. We have to deal with the alleviation of human suffering.

We can’t turn our back on it because it’s an inconvenient discussion. So let’s spend our time having that difficult discussion and get on with it. But to just say, let’s take no further action on this, it’s only gonna make the situation worse. It’s only going to increase people’s suffering and it’s only going to down the line, make the ultimate decisions that we have to make even more difficult.

So I would ask people, please vote no on this. Councilor Palosa. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a few questions to staff and then a few comments. Just, I saw the recommendation. Could staff just remind me, like, what is the current source of funding to fund this? If it’s been approved or if that’s gonna be an extension, if the money’s already earmarked for these deposts or if we’ve gotten to that point in the conversation yet?

Mr. Cooper. Thank you and through you, Mr. Chair, I can answer this sort of where we’re getting funding currently.

We are utilizing a portion of the IHAP funding, so the Interim Housing Assistance Program, it was our reimbursement, which created a surplus in our housing stability service budget, as well as we are absorbing a number of those costs currently in our coordinated informed response budget, but that would not be sustainable into 2025. Councilor Palosa. Thank you. And with the recent federal funding announcement, just looking through following up on a comment made by Councilor Frank that looking to see if mobile service deposts would be an applicable use of some of that funding versus a stationary pop-up site?

Mr. Dickens. Thank you, Chair. I’ll start this response and Mr.

Cooper can fill in the blanks. It’s not impossible. We have two in a mobile delivery model right now. Were the mobile, I think, from a practical operational standpoint is that it leaves out the notion of access to hygiene stations, so the port-a-potties, which are available 24/7 and in close proximity to where encampments are.

For those that are unable or don’t feel comfortable leaving where they’re sleeping outdoors. And in the mobile model, we would end up going to some predetermined locations based on where people are in all practicality just to be transparent with Council and not having organizations drive the entire city trying to deliver meals and water. Councilor Palosa. Thank you for that.

I guess I’ll get into my comments at this point. I appreciate that mobile stations had the ability to be flexible and meet people where they’re at, realizing sometimes people are displaced if they’re along the river bank due to high water levels or their safety and just where they may come to. I will say that looking at the list of viable options from 50 meters, it’s perhaps easier for some to say, go ahead and do it when your ward hasn’t offered up anything for part of this solution. Not all wards are numerically listed on this.

I’ll also question for Ward 12. It is in a park with a playground and that has a water feature as well. So just once a person takes in account the water feature in the playground, I’m not really sure what space is left. I will admit that there was one resident in the area for a short period of time sleeping in the trail system.

He has not been there recently as it is on my morning run. So we would just check in. If, and I know as a performer in the 50 meters, I’m not questioning that and I’m not saying no to Ward 12. It really is that if there’s only one resident in the area of looking at how we spend those services, of are we looking to shuttle more people to other areas and re-resettlement of places or to say there’s now a depot here and go to other areas that weren’t, I guess that could be a follow up question of staff that if there’s just one person on the area or two, is that really, what’s our intention of putting up a depot where there might be very minimal numbers of people seeking on house solutions?

And Councilor, I just want to make sure you’re, ‘cause you kind of asked two questions there and then you reiterated one. Staff can just answer as they will to whatever they took away from my comments. (all laughing) Okay, so I will respectfully correct Ms. Dater’s beer if she’s ever read the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

The answer is 42. But I will, Mr. Cooper and Mr. Dickens, there was the question of is it the best use of resources if there’s only one or two individuals with a history of encamping in an area and there was a second piece there about would putting a depot there potentially be attracting or that outreach workers would be directing folks from other areas to that area.

Through you, Chair, staff had been or the community had been delivering depot services in locations where people were at. We were then instructed and directed to bring forward a new list of possible locations following these buffers. So that’s where it creates the disconnect between where there’s lists or there’s spaces identified that might not be close to where some people are at because those were not places we were currently delivering services ‘cause we were delivering services where people were at. I would also offer that there may be an outreach workers who do this tremendous work every day would probably confirm that there are people in these pockets of spaces already.

They may not be easily identified, but they’re likely there. Whether a depot site is located or selected from a list, it’s inevitable that people might try to get closer to where those services are being offered. Again, I will say we’ve brought forward this list at Council’s request. Councilor Palosa.

Thank you to staff for that and the work they’ve been doing on that. I haven’t decided listening to the conversation. Just one by their concerns is funding’s limited. And I know that it tends to be the city’s lead that designates shelter space for heads and beds and wraparound supports.

And we have some amazing community partners out there who do on their own deliver meals, socks, needed supplies who can’t ramp up just ‘cause they’re mobile, a handful of volunteers together for some of these organizations and just making sure that we put our money where it’s best used to make that impact of warm shelter space and leaving things that community members can do in those charities to let them do their work in those spaces. Thank you, Councilor Palosa. I’m going to go to Councilor Ferrera, Councilor Layman, then I have myself on the list and I’ll ask Councilor Roman to chair when I do that. But first I will go to Councilor Ferrera.

Thank you, Chair. So like what a predicament we’re in here, you know? We have, and I said this already and I’m saying it again, we have so departed from our whole community response. We have changed things so much.

And the most recent hijacking was some counselors, grab the wheel, drove us into an accident. Councilor, I’m going to caution you with the language of counselors hijacking is inappropriate. Councilors are entitled to have a different point of view and I would caution you to rephrase that, please. Here’s my point of view.

We have taken the direction and departed from staff for the 100 meter boundary. We have concentrated everybody who is living on the street in about 17% in change of the city. Staff’s report on the SPPC agenda said that concentration is raising a lot of issues. But staff didn’t say where that 17% was.

We took a direction from the last committee meeting to look at the 50 or 100 meter boundary to see where the service depots was. We refused to get the information of where that 17% is. We get this report back and we have seen what happens when we make decisions with no information. We need to do our diligence in this work.

I hear people talking about the trust. Yeah, the trust is broken. People are asking me, why are things getting worse? Why are they getting worse?

Because we’re making a worse. We’re making these last minute decisions. We’re politically charged on those last minute decisions and we have put ourselves in this situation. We have this motion that comes back and now there’s a motion to take no action.

That motion was brought from a last minute decision and the counselors who bring who are going to support the take no action are because they didn’t like what came out of that report. But this is where we’re at. I have, in my ward, the highest level of intensity of homelessness. I understand Ward 4 has a concentration in specific areas and Ward 1 is dealing with it as well and I also understand that there’s other wards that are dealing with it as well.

But the truth is Ward 13 has the highest concentration. We need to, it is. We need to, we need to actually have direction and policy on how we do this. If we’re going to take away service debos and we can’t provide those transactional supports, then people are going to be even more destitute.

They’re going to be going to more extreme levels just to survive. We are putting ourselves very closely, in my opinion. I’m not a lawyer, but into a charter challenge. We’re already there as far as I’m concerned.

The fact that we are going to take no action now is unbelievable for me, unbelievable. Like, is this what we’re going to do? We made it bad and we’re going to make it worse right now? That’s not what we need to do.

The council is who are going to support this motion, I say to you, think what you’re doing, because this is not going to be better. So I’m not supporting this, obviously. Councillor Lehman. Thank you.

I think this, I’ll tell you the explainer reason why I’ve supported this motion. We have a tremendously complex issue on our hands that we’re all wrestling with. And we all, you know, I think we share the compassion and desire to do what we can to address that. I think what we’re failing at is two things.

Trust, which has been mentioned a number of times. And the second thing is focus. We have limited resources, both in terms of time, with staff resources and with funding, which has been addressed at a previous meeting. Address a trust issue, which Councillor McAllister raised.

I think we’re losing that trust with the community. Just based on the communication I’ve received through emails and phone calls on things that are put through without proper community engagement. And I think this particular one is a great example of that. I was not consulted on the Riverside Drive location.

First time I saw it was in this report, same with my constituents who saw it 24 hours ago. That raises a lot of concern with people out there that we rely on to support where we wanna go. The second thing is focus. We are trying to do too many things for all.

When we can’t do enough for all the people all the time. In my opinion, we need to focus on beds overnight stays, winter response and our hub system. We need to focus our staff resources on finding solutions to those with our hub system. We still, I believe, have a handful.

We have gotten nowhere near the 14 hubs that we had identified as a goal. Our winter response program. We heard about that today. We’re in danger of falling inside of that.

Thank heavens, the higher order of government has come through with some just announced funding, which we’ll be going, I hope, to the issues of overnight stays. That’s where we need to have our focus. We’d love to be able to bring food and clean facilities to all those sleeping rough. We just can’t do it quite frankly.

We need to focus our resources to finding beds shelter, especially with the winter months coming ahead. So that is why I’m supporting this. Thank you, Councillor Lehman. I will, just before we move on, I’m gonna say as chair, just to bring people back to the discussion from the last committee cycle, that I think your point about receiving it on an added stands.

I do want to indicate though, that staff were not directed to consult with the broader public. That was directed to be something after council provided direction to specific locations. However, your point about not seeing it until yesterday on the added is a valid one. I am going to go, so first of all, I will indicate that I have myself on the list.

I have Councillor Stevenson on the list. I have Councillor Ferrer wanting a second time and Councillor Ferrer, I will advise you that you’ve used three minutes and 20 seconds. I’m going to go to, so I’m trying to decide on which order to do this. I’m gonna offer, ‘cause I did consult with the clerk just before the meeting.

I’m hearing a division amongst colleagues as to what direction they want to go. I’m gonna provide some guidance on that, but I will share my comments from my ward perspective first. If I can get Councillor ramen to take the chair, and then I will share when I resume as chair, what I can offer to colleagues as a potential pathway. Thank you, I have the chair, go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Presiding Officer. So, I too will be supporting this. The receive and take no action. First of all, I think that we weren’t in our direction when this was referred back to staff.

I suppose maybe this is on us, but I don’t think the spirit of the intent to avoid concentration was fully heard. Because all you have to do is look at map one of the 100 meter distances, and they are all in the east end. In my ward, 1475 Bridge Street, is the Kiwanis Park Skateboard Park. Immediately adjacent to that is Prince Charles Elementary School.

So, absolutely not will I support the service depot in that location. And if we go further into Kiwanis Park, then we’re getting into our naturalized playground at the south end. And to the point that Mr. Dickens had made earlier about some of these locations being where some individuals have been encamped before, absolutely.

I have repeatedly had two forward messages from the school principal, from the home and school parents, from others about encampments, immediately on the back fence line of the school. So, I will not support this, the proposed list. I hear what Councillor Palosa was saying about the location for her in the 50 meter list in ward 12. I hear what Councillor Lehman is saying about the proposed location in the 50 meter list in ward eight.

And I still see a fairly significant concentration of everything being in the east end. So, I support where Councillor McAllister is taking this. I also support the idea that we need to be focused on overnight beds. And I agree with Councillor Lehman.

Yes, we are not going to help everyone. We are trying to do so many things at once. We can only keep so many balls in the air while we’re trying to juggle all of these challenges. And the more we spread the resources, to me, the less results we get, particularly in terms of beds.

So, for me, I support taking no action. I would rather take the funding that we have and devote it to things like the arks beds at Cronin Warner. Other opportunities, you know, I don’t know whether the Salvation Army might be interested in an extension beyond March or anything like that. That is a to be determined.

I know we only just got information about the federal funding on Friday. I know staff have been working through the weekend and are trying to update us as best they can. But I don’t see service depots as making a valued contribution in terms of the return on investment for our dollars. I agree with Councillor Ploza.

There are others as well, volunteer organizations, church groups who are doing some of their own outreach, which is much appreciated, of course. But we cannot be everywhere doing everything. And so, I am supportive of this. I want to see our focus on beds overnight in the winter months.

So, I’ll conclude my comments there, but I will say I certainly agree with Councillor McAllister with the locations in Ward 1, with Councillor Cuddy about the locations in Ward 3. These are not acceptable alternatives to me. Thank you, returning the chair to you with Councillor Stevenson and Councillor Ferrer on the list for a second time. Thank you.

So, having said my piece from my ward perspective, I want to come back to process for a moment because I hear some divergent views and I want to refocus colleagues for a moment on what we have in front of us, which right now is a motion to receive and take no action. I want to come back to the staff report that we would need to direct civic administration on specific locations where they could operationalize a depot. That was consistent in the last meeting and it’s consistent in this report today. They need our direction to do so.

So, I did consult with the clerk procedurally and I’m gonna advise colleagues now of an option that they can consider. Should they wish to keep this meeting efficient and perhaps not have a series of 20 no votes on something, which is this, we have a receive and take no action. I would suggest colleagues, if you wish to move a location from the list that’s in your ward with a receive and take no action with the exception of location X, I would not deem that contrary, but I would deem contrary if you’re moving motions that are outside your ward because it’s not consistent with those counselors who’ve indicated they’re gonna support receive and take no action. So, I’m trying to provide you a path where should you wish to operationalize a location in your ward that you want to bring forward, then I would accept that as an amendment.

But in the interest of an efficient meeting, that’s why I’m proposing that option to you. If you see something in this list that you want to operationalize in your ward, then by all means you would, I would deem that in order as an amendment, but I will only deem that in order if it is in your ward because otherwise you are in ruling of the chair setting up an inefficient meeting, creating a series of repeating the things that we’ve already heard in an ongoing series of votes that are likely to be a negative. So, providing that guidance to you in case you wish to move an amendment, but that is the guidance that I can provide you at this time. Councillor Stevenson, I have you next on the list.

I will go to you. Thank you. It’s not often I struggle to find words, but we are in two years into a crisis that had me run for office to try to make a difference. And this is where we find ourselves.

I am gonna support this because I have been opposed to service depots from the beginning. I have been to a service depot. I have volunteered and confirmed what I believe to be true. We are not alleviating the human suffering that exists with the sandwich and a water bottle.

I wish we could. To hear my colleague say what they’re saying at the thought of the encampments coming into their wards. When in my ward, and I’m not gonna compete with Councillor Ferrell over whose ward has more, but it was in the 2019 to 2023 core area action plan that there was an over saturation of services in Old East Village. That area is hurting.

And the people on its streets are dying. And in the summer of 2022, we had a hunger strike where people stood on the front lawn of this building and said no more excuses, people are dying. And those people, as far as I understand, are leaving this whole of community to which we were asked not to be part of. And we were asked to let the experts lead us.

We were building a bridge as we walked across it. And I’ve been asking where does that bridge go? And do the bridge builders have a portfolio of bridges that are successful? This matters.

The residents of London hold us responsible for the condition and the deteriorating condition of our parks, of our core area, of our neighborhoods. Everyone is suffering right now. The businesses, the homeowners, the tenants, and those who are trapped on our streets. It saddens me to support this.

It saddens me to hear the comments that are being made. And now the focus is on indoor shelter, which I support and I supported last year. And you know where it is? On the main street of a district in despair.

Not at the thought of despair, 24/7 despair. For years now, we have a problem here. And I agree. We are asked to make difficult decisions here.

We are responsible for this. And it doesn’t matter how we got here or why, I’m not into any blame shame or guilt. It is November the 19th, 2024. And this council has a problem that it is responsible for.

Nobody else. This council is responsible. I have so many questions. The asylum seekers and the refugee claimants, when I look at the numbers, it’s 40 to 55 beds of our 396 current shelter beds.

We are getting the money for that. But is there not any way to house those people in another way such that we aren’t losing the few shelter beds that we have? I would, I do have that question for staff. Sorry, I’m asking you to pause council for error on a point of order.

I believe we were supposed to be discussing service depots. I understand that there’s indoor shelter beds, but I do see that the councilor might be steering a little bit far from the item that we should be discussing. So I think the fact that we heard earlier, Mr. Cooper, indicate that some of the funding that is carrying us through to December 31st is from a reimbursement through the IHAP.

Makes that relevant. The councilor’s point is relevant in germane to the discussion. Because IHAP money has been used in part for this, which is federal money, which was coming as a result of the asylum seeker claimants. So it is germane.

I have a point of personal privilege. Councilor Palosa. If just the chair realizing I will do it again and come a bunch of time of just instructions to the gallery for decorum and comments. As I know that we sit close and they are over, I can hear them over colleagues’ comments.

That is valid and thank you for that. I’ve been able to hear them as well from this chair for those in the gallery. If you wish to speak to each other, please take it out in the hall. We can hear everything very clearly.

We need to be hearing each other. Whether you agree or disagree with what someone is saying, this is a space where the views need to be allowed to be expressed without any sort of hearing or discouragement for those of you who’s being expressed. So please just retain quiet in the gallery. Councilor Stevenson and just before you resume, I’ll let you know you’re at three minutes and 52 seconds.

That was my question, thank you. Is it appropriate to put an amendment on to this that directs a whole of community and civic administration to come back with indoor options for locations for arcade and for others to give Council the opportunity to make decisions? Is that an appropriate place for this? With respect to Councilor, it is not because this is specific to the service depots.

Direction was already given to staff at the last SPPC to seek federal funding for the creation of indoor spaces. This is just on the service depots. Okay, thank you. So my question, I heard in the conversation that we were utilizing the IHAP funding for reimbursement of the service depots currently and absorbing it in the CIR, which wasn’t sustainable.

But I’m concerned about that any part of our CIR funding is going to service depots currently. Could I just get clarity there? Mr. Cooper.

Thank you and through the chair and the last report, we had identified that source of funding. And I think Council removed an amendment to reduce that funding to 99,700 of the IHAP piece with the remainder being supported through our CIR budget, our existing CIR budget. Thank you for that, Councillor Stevenson. Okay, thank you.

So I will just end that I am supporting this motion in a very sad way, but I will support it. And I will be looking to see what I can bring forward to offer some other alternatives or do something. Thank you, Councillor Stevenson. Next on the list would be Councillor Ferrera for his second round.

So I’m going to look to see if anyone who hasn’t spoken wishes to speak before I go to second round speakers. And I’m seeing none. So Councillor Ferrera, I’ll return to you. I’ll just remind you you’ve used 320 of your time.

So you’ve got about a minute 40. Thank you, Chair. I appreciate the Oscar worthy performance. You know, Council blew up that bridge as we were trying to walk across it.

We’ve been doing it again and again and again. What’s going on right now with extra amendments and motions is exactly what we’ve been doing. You know, if we focused on the hub system and the whole community response at first, like our original unanimous endorsement had, if we did that implementation, we wouldn’t be here. We would be in a conversation with less people on the street, plain and simple.

I would also say that in that conversation at the last committee where we were talking about indoor spaces, we were talking about the encampment services, we lost track, we got off the rail so much that we started talking about not having shelter services, resting spaces, sorry, on the main streets. We’re supposed to be talking about mitigating and how mitigating our issues and bringing our homelessness response in order. We didn’t. So we’re just making it worse.

We already made it worse, we’re making it worse right now, right in front of us. Everybody should see this. You know, I understand that the direction that came from committee wasn’t what the Councillors wanted to see. They didn’t wanna see the service deples brought into the East End, I get it.

But, you know, we should have made an informed response, a informed decision. I was told the last council meeting that it was too late when I was trying to get that information. Is it too late now? You know, that’s my question that I posed to you.

I don’t like how we’ve wasted staff’s time and resources to put together this plan within two weeks. I don’t know how long it was, very fast, good job staff. But then we’re gonna throw it away again. How much money did that cost?

How much people power and people time did that cost? And here we are. Actually, in a worse situation we were two years ago. I agree with Councillor Stevenson, you know, we are in a worse situation than when we started.

And so we— Councillor, you are at your time and I have Councillor Perbal next on the list. Councillor Perbal. Thank you. In terms of the motion that’s in front of us, I will be supporting it.

And the reason why I’m gonna be supporting it that in last some weeks I’ve gone through certain calendars that are out there, for example, like the Hunger Relief Action Coalition. And when I went through, for example, their calendar, there are a lot of locations throughout every day in London, providing kind of the services that we would be providing through these depots. When I went through them, there are other ones that are not even listed there, that these services, in terms of what we wanna provide, food and drinks, that are being provided. We were with the mayor and some other Councillors that I event a couple of weeks ago.

And that was the thing we mentioned to the organizations who were participating in it, to put a really more accurate detailed calendar that could be potentially even shared with our services at City Plaza and informing the individuals where they can access these needs. So I do believe that when I look at all the locations and all the days, I believe that what we wanna provide, it will be provided. And again, some of the things that were stated here, that we are not providing virtually anything, nothing is on the table. I would disagree with, and again, the staff confirmed in terms of the mission services and other beds that we are providing.

Yes, it’s still the end of this year, or some of them till end of March. But the things is, in terms of the depots, those services I mentioned, they are not limited to end of the year, they are on an ongoing basis. And thanks to all the ones that are providing it, which we are all grateful for, hopefully this will continue. Or sorry, it should continue.

And when I talk to some of them, they do not have the plans that they will be seizing these operations or these services that are providing. That’s kind of in the motion. In terms of the big picture, and what was stated here, we missed out a great opportunity when we received the whole community proposal in front of us. And when we received it, we were told by the community, this is the best that’s in front of you.

And in that time, I said, I don’t know if it’s the best, because it’s the only thing that’s in front of us. And my disappointment is that we came out with one plan that was the most expensive, serving the least number of people. If you look at the in terms of the security. And I believe that what would have helped us, the council was if we had different options, plan B, plan C, plan D, just like you have actually in the world, in the business world, in other parts of the world.

The reason why is because if one doesn’t work, you jump into the B. If it doesn’t work, you jump into the C. But we are ready to take actions and strategically. So we are not bringing the fires, we are not making these decisions, which I agree with what was said here.

We are making decisions five to midnight. Why? Because in the strategy, first place, we received only one option. And that’s, that’s how I’m thinking us now.

And I just hope that we get back on track. There was a motion that was put out by two councilors in terms of some other initiative. And I hope that we start looking at addressing these options, BCD, so we don’t have to make these last minute decisions. And when we realize A is not working, we can immediately go to plan B.

And that’s the part that we are missing. So whatever, whatever I really heard, most of us, or most people had said, it’s true, but it’s going back to that July, August, when we received that report with only one option, and we were called, that’s the best there is. It was the only thing that was in front of us. But going back to it, just to bring me back, I will be supporting it, because what we need to do now, council, visit staff, to work with the organizations that are out there, and maximize, because some of them are really truly duplicated.

There are some days that I see from East Old East Village to West of downtown, that there are some days that they are going to exaggerate. Every third fourth corner provided food and beverages. And then there are days, there is nothing. And this is the thing that we need to do, the coordination, collaboration, with all these great organizations that are providing these services.

And we need to get better in it. We have to maximize those opportunities. And I truly believe that what’s in front of us in terms of depots, that these services, where we want to deliver these depots, will be delivered through these organizations. And that’s why I will be supporting the option for us.

Thank you, I left you for seconds. Looking for any further speakers. Mayor Morgan. Thank you, Chair.

And I’m going to ask you to take some leeway to respond to a couple of things that was said during the debate, but I will stay relatively focused on the motion before us. But I am going to respond to a few comments. First, I want to say to the Councillors who spoke about their particular words, like I totally get it. I’m the other person in the city who has to take feedback from every resident across the city on the impacts that they’re facing in their neighborhoods.

And they are my direct constituents too. And I think, I totally understand, totally understand that it is a difficult job to do if you’re hosting something like a service depot, the incredible amount of additional time that it takes to explain, engage, head off challenges, identify needs and provide that feedback back into our staff. Like I totally get that there are a million things we all need to be doing as Councillors and that this is not something that when you signed up, you thought that you would be deeply engaged in it. It’s probably taking away from the other things that probably got you into running in the first place.

So I get that. The motion we have before us, that their recommendation is to refer it. I just want to be clear. We’re just talking, just talking about staff’s report on service depot locations.

Previously, we approved a significant number of components of the encampment strategy. We have some funding for things through the end of the year. We don’t have funding for things beyond that. But the service depot’s piece is a specific discussion about service depots.

Now, in this discussion, I’ve heard a couple of things said, you know, I heard Councillor Frank talk at one point about she wasn’t interested and I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but as I generally understand it, totally gets what I said about other Councillors and the hosting of a service depot in their ward, but is looking for providing some level of outreach services through perhaps a mobile option that other communities have. And I’m not adverse to that. I’m unsure on where that works into the directions that we could possibly give or what that would look like. But I’ll be honest, I’m not adverse to despite some of the difference of opinions around this table, from a basic provision of some basic needs.

But I get that the service depot option on that is highly problematic for the ward Councillors who have to host those locations. I want to say, and with the utmost respect, there are a few Councillors here who are starting to link the encampment strategy into, well, we need to think about the whole of community response in a different way. The fundamental core piece of the whole of community response is hubs in highly supportive housing. Four high needs individuals, and we’re talking about, homelessness is a big challenge.

We’ve got the roadmap to 3,000, we’re trying to create housing a lot of different ways. But the whole of community response and the work that was being done on hubs in highly supportive housing is centered around the highest needs individuals. And that is not failing. Could it be better?

For sure, with more resources, we can actually be doing more of what we know actually works. Just look at the highly supportive housing, House of Hope, the 81% fewer emergency room visits from those individuals, 56% fewer days spent in hospitals and inpatient, 54% fewer instances of being admitted to a hospital, 63% fewer days in custody, 51% fewer interactions with police. We actually know what works. We just have a complete inability to scale it up to the level that we have.

And if you want to think, yes, things may not feel like they’re getting better, but you want to put those 50 people out on the street, or the people in Thompson Road, or the other people that we put in highly supportive housing, or the new highly supportive housing places, or the people at Losa or YOU, it is worse than it is now. It is hard to see that, because those people are off the streets to being helped. It’s hard to see that 50 people went through the YOU six spaces and are now in a better place and not on our streets. Things are not failing, but so let’s keep the discussion focused here.

On service depots, is there another way to do this? There probably is, and we should get back to the discussion on how we do that. But linking it into the wider picture or the work that we’re doing, or the fact that we actually know what to do, the fact that the province has actually recognized that as well and is starting to replicate it, the fact that when the hard hub application went up, almost 100 applications came in across the province to say we all want to be part of the solution, the government could put more money behind it, and many communities would be willing to step up and serve people in that way. 30 seconds.

Of course we know it’s working. Everybody knows it’s working. We just know it needs to be scaled up significantly. It doesn’t feel like it on the street because we have not helped enough people yet, but we could.

So I am open to another discussion. I don’t know if it can be an amendment given the chair’s directions here and the openness to say people could put something from their own board. I’m not sure if we could entertain the mobile option yet, or whether there’s an opportunity after this vote is over, but I’m interested in exploring where Council Frank was going, because I get that I don’t want to, I’m willing to not support the service depot structure, but I would like to support some structure instead, and I don’t know when the decision point is in that, but I’d seek some guidance. Appreciate the time.

That is time. I was just about to stop you there. I will share before I go to my next speakers, and I have Councillor Hopkins, and then Councillor Raman, that in a discussion, and I’ll offer this and follow up to what you just asked, and the previous question through Councillor Frank about mobile options, I would respectfully ask that if you want to look at that sort of scenario, that is a discussion to start by having a perhaps a discussion first with the city manager and Mr. Dickens with respect to how federal funding might be allocated and what might be available, and then consider a direction to bring forward through the next cycle.

I know Mr. Dickens has provided a little bit of an update on the federal funding through email today. I know that many of you were already either on your way to chambers or perhaps even here, and so you may not have had time to digest that yet, but I would suggest that you want to consider that at a future meeting point in time, and take a look at what’s already been looked at through the federal funding that Mr. Dickens has shared with us to date, recognizing that not everything has been finalized yet.

So I just wanted to share that for colleagues as I hear your desire to look at alternate delivery options, that would be a discussion to start with our senior leadership team first. Councillor Hopkins. I’m making me smile. I just want to go to the mayor’s comments and really want to thank him for bringing it back.

I think we did get off track. I was constantly thinking to myself, listening to the comments around the table here that when we talk about the whole of community response and the principles, that’s our plan, and that is not what we’re here to talk about, and I do think that plan, yes, it may not be perfect, but it is going to take us some time, and that we are alleviating some of the suffering that is in our city, but I want to stick with the service depot locations, conversations that we have to deal with, and I strongly disagree with taking no further action. The reason I strongly will not support that is because that is not going to be the answer to getting trust back into the community by not taking any further action. I think we’re sort of kidding ourselves if that is the reason why we would support the taking no further action.

I do think it’s really important to hear the numbers that we just heard from staff. The beginning of the conversation we got inside spaces, we got 396, half of that is outside, and not to feed people, not to give them water. I know the residents that I represent in the ward would not be okay with that, it’s that simple, and I really think we need to come up with better ideas, better plans, and really understand exactly the consequences of the decisions that we’re going to be making because it has been a bumpy road up to date, so I won’t be supporting to take no further action. Thank you, Councillor Hopkins, Councillor Raman.

Thank you and through you, Chair. I just had a few questions as we continue to debate this item. My first question is through you to staff, if we do decide to take no further action today, do we think that encampments that are currently spread out in parts of the city right now will receive adequate supports from community organizations that are funded by the public? Through you, Chair, if I understand the question correctly, it’s I’m not sure I’m in a position to be able to determine what community organizations will do in regards to other funding sources, like if they receive, if what you mean by public funding, if you mean from other sources, will they still continue to do work?

They might, I don’t know what it’s at what scale. And the same for volunteer organizations that either come to town or do this work sporadically, I don’t know what they will do. What this will mean though, as I believe, is that as civic administration, we would not be operating or funding the delivery of depot services as proposed. Councillor.

Thank you, and through you, and I’ll try to make my question clear. So just to be clear, is there any other organizations or anybody outside of the city providing washrooms or garbage cleanup? Mr. Dickens.

To my knowledge, Chair, through you, I don’t believe if there’s other organizations not affiliated with us that are providing garbage collection or washroom services. We are funding the provision of the porta-potties or the sanitation stations, and we work through Ms. Share’s team on the garbage collection and in events where there’s an environment or a location that is requiring additional supports, we would use a third party contractor to assist with the garbage collection. Councillor Robin.

Thank you. My concern with the direction that we’re heading in is that if we don’t have service depots, then people will not have adequate washrooms nor garbage pickup, and therefore, the situation will actually not only get worse for those living unhoused, it’ll also get worse for those that live in areas that are surrounded by encampments because those services will not be there. Some of my council colleagues spoke to the additional desperation as well. That would be there if people did not have that access to food and to water.

And I agree that that would be a conclusion if these services were not provided. And in fact, I think where we’re heading in this direction and I can kind of see where things are heading in this conversation right now, it seems that the service depots are the sticking point right now. And so I plan, I think at this point, to continue to support meeting human rights needs, especially because the funding that we receive from the federal government actually outlined that we had to meet those needs. So I’m not sure how we go about passing a motion today to say to take no action on service depots without having an alternative.

So my concern right now, and I heard your direction chair, is how do we then operationalize another direction to be able to meet the funding requirement of the money that was just announced. So that’s something I’m not entirely clear on because the simple math of it is, is that we’re not at this point in time nor do we have council direction to ask staff to go out and find additional beds. And I know that those are ongoing conversations that the community has with us. But without that direction, we are basically saying encampments will stay because there are no additional indoor spaces, but we will not be providing basic human rights after December 31st, and with that, I believe then we would fundamentally be out of compliance with the agreement with the federal encampment strategy.

And that’s where I’m a bit concerned. Now I haven’t been part of those advocacy conversations, but from what I’ve heard in the conversations I have had, that would be my issue from a compliance perspective, and I won’t even get into from the ethical perspective on all of that as well. But at this point, I think that we’re heading into an area where I think we could even jeopardize our funding. So I will follow whatever the direction is that happens, but plan to bring something forward if needed to be able to put us in compliance again.

So I’m not sure if I heard a question or comment to staff from you there, Councillor. I can tell you from the chair, and Mr. Dickens has been deeply involved with these federal conversations. So if he wants to provide more information, certainly I will go to him to do that.

The requirement from the federal government is not to meet all human rights. They’re not simply providing us enough funding for that. It is to take a human rights-based approach to the spending. And so I will see if Mr.

Dickens has anything further to add to that, but my understanding is that the federal government’s requirement is to have an approach that respects human rights. It does not anticipate the city being able to fulfill all human rights with the funding provided. Thank you, through you, Chair. There is a reference in the guidelines and the federal guidelines that there’s alignment with human rights, with human rights commitments.

And initiatives should prioritize the progressive realization of the right adequate housing and affirm and protect the human rights of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness. That is what the guidelines say. Thank you for that, Mr. Dickens.

Just so that we’ve got clarity on that. Councillor ramen, if there’s a follow-up from that. Thank you, and through you. So where I’m speaking of it from a human rights perspective, it is actually to do with those that are living unsheltered.

And so at the time where we are saying, come December 31st, there will be no provisions of support, unless you’re available for a bed of which we don’t have enough, then I do believe we will find ourselves out of compliance with, and so I personally need more clarity on that. And I would caution us going down a road that puts us at a place with no solution. And I know I’m thinking through and trying to figure out something for our next step as well. I hope to hear more from my colleagues on that.

Thank you, Councillor ramen. Councillor Frank, can you hold for just a moment please? I just need to check with the clerk on a quick question. Okay, so just before I go to Councillor Frank, because I did have a question for the clerk, and it is relevant to both your comments and the mayor’s comments.

So I’m gonna provide a little bit of an update on the direction that I provided earlier to you. So it would not be an amendment to this motion before we move to the next item. It would be an order if colleagues wanted to move an additional motion that asks staff for a report back, a report back, not specific direction, but a report back on options for mobile service delivery. So a direction would be contrary to what’s on the floor, but a request for a report back on some other options would not be contrary.

So I hope that helps the conversation, ‘cause I know you were looking for some direction, your worship, Councillor ramen. I know you indicated that too. Councillor Frank, you had suggested that earlier, trying to find a way to thread the needle here procedurally. And so it would be a separate motion after we vote on this motion.

So if you want to give that some consideration, I would suggest you wordsmith something quickly. Councillor Frank. Thank you, yes. And I do have something wordsmith and sent over to the clerk.

So we’ll have that in queue, I suppose, after this vote. I did have one further question. So through your self to staff, we’ve already approved our encampment strategy, minus we took out the transformational outreach, correct? Mr.

Cooper. Thank you, and through you, Mr. Chair, the final encampment report that was approved this past summer included transactional outreach, transformational outreach, health and safety as main pillars of that work. The recommendations report was to how to operationalize that.

The most recent council cycle, which then was putting resources to those themes that were originally approved by council this summer. Councillor Frank. Thank you. Then I will add that after this vote, I will put a motion on the floor regarding operationalizing mobile services.

And given that council has already approved the encampment strategy, I’d just like to remind folks that it’s in line with something we’ve already approved. Thank you. I have Councillor Stevenson, you used your full five minutes on this item. I’m looking for any other speakers before I call the vote.

Councillor Trussow. Through the Chair and to my colleagues, I hate to be the one to raise this. But the question of compliance, this is not just a question of potential noncompliance with funding requirements. This is a question of potential noncompliance with very, very solidly rooted based human rights obligations, which unless or until the Constitution is suspended, are binding on us.

Now, typically there is not an affirmative obligation to provide services. However, we have undertaken to provide these services. So we have to look at what the effect is gonna be of removing these. So my question and the last thing I wanna do is go into closed session, but I have to ask this.

And that is, does this amendment that’s on the floor take us a step closer to a legal compliance issue that could put us out of sync with not only the Waterloo decision, but the entire human rights framework, which is binding in Canada, because it’s inconvenient to make a decision about where these depots should go. So I guess my direct question is, what is the legal risk of passing this amendment right now? Ms. Polit on the provision of service depots within the legal advice that you would provide us in public noting that we would have to go in camera if you need to provide more advice in camera.

Councillor Trussau, your mic, please. Thank you and through you. With respect to the depot issues, the current case law speak to removal of encampments. Due to lack of shelter, they don’t talk about depots and the provision of services per se.

Thank you. Councillor Trussau. Thank you very much and through the chair. We’ve all received reports about what’s in the existing case law.

My worry is where this is going. And even though there’s no case law on point about removing services that have a known effect of ameliorating people’s hardships. And what results from that, I still have this concern that there is a underlying tension between what this council is about to do and our human rights obligations broadly construed. So I guess I would like a more fulsome responses to whether or not this motion that’s on the floor.

And I’m not saying it would be necessarily illegal, but would it take us closer to perhaps a challenge that we’re not in compliance with our Waterloo and other human rights obligations? Councillor Trussau, I think the city solicitor has already answered that. But I will see if she wishes to expand further on the advice she’s already given. Thank you and through the chair.

It’s difficult to speculate at this point, if I’m looking just in terms of depot because the case law is not very complete. As I said before, it does focus on shelter spaces rather than provision of services. Thank you. Councillor, I’ll return to you noting that you have used four minutes.

Well, in that case, since I’m just speaking based on my existing knowledge of things that have been in our past reports, I think we’re going down a very dangerous road here. We will come back to this, should other events happen. I think that before we say take no action, we should have a plan in effect. And I think the failure to do that is reckless.

Reckless. I’ve already stated my opposition to this amendment and I’ll leave it at that. Thank you, Councillor McAllister. And you have three, 10 left.

Thank you and through the chair. I’m trying to say this in the most diplomatic way possible but I find these conversations very difficult. As this debates been going on, I’ve been getting some emails, messages from my residents and one of the things they find a bit reprehensible with this discussion is the Councillors who take issue with this are also the ones who are not dealing with it. To be honest, until I see a depot in Spring Bank or in the Western Councillor McAllister, please hold.

I will hear Councillor Trust’s point of privilege. My point of privilege is I really, and I felt that that was targeted to myself. I’ve been very outspoken on this and I think it’s to suggest that I’m not dealing with this, maybe in a different way, maybe not at the same intensity. Councillor, through the chair, please, not directly to the Councillor.

I deeply resent that this is being directed towards me. I believe it is. I think it’s very divisive and I am going to just say, we are also representing the entire city here. We’re not just representing our wards.

So, Councillor, I’ve heard your point of personal privilege. I’m going to allow the Councillor to continue because he was right as I was recognizing your point of personal privilege, suggesting that a depot in Spring Bank Park, for example, has never been done. He was not the Spring Bank Park to my knowledge. That is my point of privilege.

So, I’m going to deal with, I’m going to deem that point of privilege dealt with. Now I will go to Councillor Hoppe. Thank you, and I do have a point of privilege as well, and I appreciate the Councillor’s passion for representing his ward, but I too have a ward. It may not have as many people living out on the streets, but it is a ward that is privileged in giving back to the community as well.

And it does mean that they do work in the agencies, they do work with the homeless, and it is a priority in that ward for us to deal with the homeless situation. So, I do not think that putting the East against the West is the best way forward. So, I’ve heard your point of personal privilege, Councillor. I think that the Councillor is making a point based on, as he has shared, feedback he is getting from his residents, and I don’t think that based on your point of personal privilege that people in your ward work in the sector is relevant to dealing with it in their backyards, it’s not the same thing.

So, I’m going, no, I’ve made my ruling, the point of personal privilege is dealt with. I’m now going to the third point, Matt, Councillor Hopkins, I have dealt with your point of personal privilege. If you wish to challenge the chair, then you’ll have to challenge the chair. I will challenge the chair.

That’s not debatable. So, the question shall be put, shall the ruling of the chair be upheld, and then we will move to Councillor Ferrer’s point of personal privilege. Mr. Chair, just when the vote comes up, you just remind people of voting yes, means one thing versus voting no, just procedurally.

Yes, once the vote comes up, I will do that. The vote is now open in front of you. That pursuant to section 32.5 of the Council procedure and policy by-law, shall the ruling of the chair be sustained. If you vote yes, Councillor Hopkins’ point of personal privilege has been dealt with in my ruling.

If you vote no, you are deeming that it has not been dealt with. - Using the vote, motion carries 12 to three. Thank you. Councillor Ferrer on a point of personal privilege.

Thank you, Chair. That my point of personal privilege is the comments from the Council seem to be indicative that I am a Councillor who doesn’t have any stake in the game. I would correct. I am the Councillor who has most of the stake in the game, and I just feel like comments like that is in tune with motions that I’m seeing where the downtown is not being really heard, and we wonder why we have issues with the core, and this is exactly why.

Thank you, Councillor Ferrer, Councillor McAllister. I would suggest that Councillor Ferrer’s point to his word dealing with encampments is not one that should be dismissed, and so perhaps you might want to consider that most, rather than the Councillors who are raising this, something to that effect. Right, acknowledging that there is an issue down that one Councillor who does have and has had active service depots in his ward is on the opposite side. Yeah, recognizing that difference of opinion between the Councillor and I, please.

Councillor Ferrer, this has to be new, ‘cause I’ve dealt with your point, and the Councillor is changing his language. This is new. It’s not a personal, it’s not a point of opinion. It’s a matter of fact.

Councillor, I think we’re really splitting Paris here because he said the two of you have a difference of opinion on the issue. He didn’t say that you have a difference of opinion on whether or not you had service depot or encampment issues in your ward. So I think we need to all, quite honestly, take a deep breath. We’ve just dealt with three points of personal privilege in a row that are frankly not really moving us anywhere when Councillors are trying to summarize their discussions.

I think we’re splitting hairs. So I’m not gonna uphold that point of personal privilege because I think the Councillor was expressing you have a difference of opinion on the issue, not on whether or not you have encampments and have had service depots. I think he acknowledged that in his statement and he hasn’t even had a chance to finish his statement before another point of personal privilege was called. Councillor McAllister.

Thank you and not allowing me to continue as I was getting to a point. Where I come back to is the concentration and this is what I heard from my residents. This is what I’m bringing forward. When I asked staff to go back and look at this, recognizing yes, there are limitations in terms of the setback.

I do not think it is appropriate to constantly come back to the same parts of the city and ask them to carry all of this weight. We have heard this repeatedly in a number of discussions. You can call me divisive if you want, but this is the reality of what East Enders are facing. We hear this time and time again.

It is not exclusively me. Other Councillors in the East hear this. It is disproportionate what we are experiencing. We are looking for solutions as well.

We are not without compassion. There are a lot of people in the East who care and as Councillor Hawken said, a lot of them work in the sector too. That is not the issue here. It is putting the responsibility on one ward time and time again, which is the issue.

And that is what I’m looking to correct here. I am 100% in favor of hearing alternative motions, but concentrating depots in one part of the city is unfair. And I don’t know how anyone can view that differently, to be honest, because you can see it clearly on the map and that is what set off my residents in the last few days. And that is what I’m expressing to Council.

And that is unacceptable and is very unfair. I am happy to have a discussion about providing services in an alternative format. But to keep coming back to the same parts of the city, yes, Councillor Ferrer, you have a lot of issues downtown. Yes, OEV has a lot of problems.

I have a lot of problems as well. Hamilton no doesn’t have a core area action plan. We don’t get to be part of that. We’re looking for solutions too.

And so I ask my colleagues to please support this, not concentrate, and let’s come up with solutions that can help Londoners across the board and not only in one part of the city. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor McAllister. Councillor Preble, you have five seconds.

Go. Currently there are in London, many more locations that we are talking about that are providing these services. Instead of us working together with a maximising the opportunities. Councillor.

We are looking at other locations. Councillor, no. If you want an extension of time, you have to put that to a vote. I cannot, and I will not just use my discretion as chair to extend anyone’s time further on this debate.

Everyone has spoken almost to their full time. Councillor Preble. I would like to ask for 20 seconds, 15. Is there a seconder?

I’ll give him a minute. I’ll move a minute. We will ask the clerk to open a vote on a one minute time extension for Councillor Preble. Closing the vote, motion carries nine to six.

Councillor Preble, you have up to one minute. Thank you, my colleagues, and I will be needing one minute. I just want to let you know that in front of us, there are a number of locations. And it seems like the difficult part for us is where they are located.

And we are, and after I was arguing, but we are discussing that. We currently have, in City of London, on a continued basis, more locations than what we are talking about. Already existing. And instead of us trying to maximise and stretch the dollar as far as we can, it is the current organisations.

How can we support them? Because they already have it in place. They have the manpower, which is the most expensive. We are discussing the locations.

And I think our focus should be, existing at once are there. No problem. No residents of ours are complaining. They’ve been doing it for months, for years.

Let’s focus on that and stretch the dollar. Let’s support them. How can we support them? Instead of arguing now about where should be located.

You have the locations. 59 seconds, good job. You stayed under your own one minute. I would, I have no other speakers on the speakers list, on this item.

So I’m gonna ask the clerk to open the vote. Councillor Trossau. I’ll vote no. I don’t see it on the screen.

Trust out, your mic, please. Closing the vote, the motion carries 10 to five. All right, colleagues. I know that I believe two of you have circulated additional language.

I am going to, we will deal with that next. I would advise all of you that you may wish to contact your admin assistant and get your schedule cleared for 9 a.m. tomorrow morning because we are not going to finish this agenda before then. And for those who sought delegate status on the other two items because of a change of order, you are likely to gonna have to come back at 9 a.m.

tomorrow as well. Councillor Frank. Thank you. I’d like to put on the floor of motion to direct staff to operationalize at reach services, or sorry, transactional at reach services and act responsibly as encampments move around the city, which is in line with our encampment strategy that we approved recently.

And I look for a seconder. Councillor, can you please read that again? Thank you, sorry. I just sent a most recent one.

So direct staff to operationalize transactional at reach services and act responsibly as encampments move around the city. Okay, Councillor, that is actually contrary to the ruling I provided earlier, which is you can ask staff to report back on other options to operationalize, but you are, that what you’re providing here is a direction rather than a report back for Council’s consideration. So it would be contrary to what we just voted on. I would suggest that you can amend that slightly to ask staff to report back on options to operationalize, but you are directing them to operationalize without a report back.

The direction that we just upheld was inclusive in that report to receive and take no action was that civic administration needed direction on locations. And so if you want them to report back on a different service model, i.e. mobile, they need to report back to us on that, otherwise it’s in contradiction to the earlier ruling. And that was what the clerk was just whispering in my ear as we were trying to get the language that you just sent over.

Sure, at this point I’ll take what I can get, so that sounds good. Bear with us just a moment while the clerk would smith that a little bit into the report back. Okay, we’re gonna have the clerk read out the language and Councillor Frank if you can indicate if you’re okay with that language. Civic administration be directed to report back to the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee with respect to operationalizing mobile transactional outreach services and act responsibly as encampments move around the city.

Okay, first I’m gonna check and see if Councillor Frank, is that capturing your intent? I just want to confirm that’s responsibly and not responsibly ‘cause I’m trying to say responsible. It is responsibly. Wonderful, thank you.

Yes, I believe Councillor Ramen is willing to second but Ms. Dater’s beer wanted to weigh in on this and then I’ve got Councillor Hopkins with a question. Ms. Dater’s beer.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to be clear that this recommendation will be to the CAHPS committee, not to the SPPC committee, just to be clear on that. That answers Councillor Hopkins’ question, I think.

It is and through the chair is that a concern for staff to get back to us. I’m not sure when CAHPS is meeting I’m just going to, so that’s December the second then or not. Ms. Dater’s beer.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair, through you in recognizing that Council’s looking for a report and staff need time to do it. I do not think that a December CAHPS presentation is capable at this point in time, so it’ll be January. I recognize the complexity of that given that the service ends at the end of December.

Councillor Hopkins. Yes and just to follow up, do we have a CAHPS meeting scheduled for January as well? Well, that I can tell you, the clerk was directed to prepare a new calendar, which is coming to our council meeting next week, so we will have it then. And I can tell you that the draft, the clerk has prepared.

I believe there is a CAHPS meeting in the first full week January the sixth, I believe, or the seventh. Sorry, I don’t have the draft in front of me, but the draft calendar does have one very early in the month, Councillor Hopkins. And if, thank you for recognizing me again. I have one last question, and it is about the possibility.

I know housing is going to CAHPS now, not to SPPC, but given that this has been a conversation here at SPPC, can we have the direction to have this report come back to SPPC? I know that will be December the 10th, so probably not able to, but again, just want to, we’re looking at the beginning of the new year, regardless, just confirm that. Ms. Dater’s beer, the December SPPC would not accommodate a staff turnaround as well, I think is the question there.

Through you, Mr. Chair, it would be very difficult, I think, despite our efforts and our desire to want to do this because it’s an important issue, to be back in front of you with important information in December. Having said that, I do want to remind you again, that we have a new process in place as it relates to the committees, and we would be putting everything related to housing to the community and protected services committee. That’s the direction we have from council, and I don’t mean to be difficult about that, but that’s my understanding.

Whether we get to the January 6th CAHPS committee, we’ll be challenging because we have a break with holiday reduction in service for a short period of time over the holiday season. We will endeavor to try to do that, but more likely the 27th as a CAHPS committee meeting, there’s two in January, just to be clear. Thank you, Ms. Dator-Spier.

Okay, so we have a motion that’s been moved and seconded, looking for speakers on that. Seeing none, if folks want to speak, please indicate so I can get you on the speakers list, ‘cause I had no one, and then I had three hands up as I was about to call the vote. Councilor Pribble, I will go to you first. Then I have Councilor Ferreira, and then I have Councilor Stevenson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, comment to this motion that’s in front of us, and maybe to the person who proposed that would this include not just the mobile, but already existing organizations’ locations, because as I stated in my additional minute, we do have locations throughout the city, and it’s not just downtown, it’s not just in one area, organizations that are providing these services. Would this include, this motion include the existing services? So again, we can, instead of duplicating, we can maximize the human and financial resources, and to get the furthest from every single dollar.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, I’m not sure that the mover can actually respond to that without asking staff to respond to whether or not, in operationalizing mobile services, they would be contacting other agencies, because this is a direction right now to civic administration, not to outside agencies, in terms of what they do. So, Councillor Frank, if you’d like to comment, because it was directed to you, but I recognize you cannot speak for external agencies, or what staff can scope in their report. Sure, I’ll answer what my intention was, and then perhaps staff can provide some more context, but there are existing places that provide food, for sure, across the city.

They, in my opinion, are stationary, ‘cause they’re inside a building, they can’t move. So, mobile will be moving around to where people are in encampments and providing food. I do know that there are other groups that do this, my understanding is some of them are funded from the city, some are not, and I would hope that staff would coordinate with them to make sure that there’s no duplication, but my understanding is that there’s simply not enough and the demand is very high. So, being able to provide food and water to these encampments across the city, moving around as they move around, that is what mobile means to me as moving to the encampments.

Councillor Privel, I’m gonna check in with staff as well, ‘cause I know that that was part of the question was, is staff going to talk to other agencies? Mr. Cooper, can you, or Mr. Dickens, either one of you?

Thank you, and through you, Mr. Chair, as part of the work of the encampment strategy table and the encampment operational table, those groups are a number of those groups. I won’t say all of those groups are active in that table. So, conversations can be had through that, and we’ll receive feedback through that group at their next meeting.

The other point I’ll just make is, we don’t know all of the agencies that are working in the community, right, that are maybe working in the back of their van or things like that. So, that would be much more challenging to try and get an exhaustive list of that. And as Councillor Frank mentioned, we use the Middlesex London Health Unit food calendar, or meal calendar, so we do share that as well with individuals. Councillor Privel.

Certainly, I’m not an expert in this area, but I have been volunteering for close to four years as an outreach organization, and I go to the encampments on a regular basis. The issue there to the individuals, if they’re honest with me, it’s not for them to go somewhere and to receive the must, which is food and beverage water that they need to survive. And that was never the issue. So, I don’t think into a mobile bringing directly to them, it’s not that we would be putting their lives at risk as long as we have places that offer this, and as long as they are aware of it.

Because when I go to the encampments, many of them, I don’t know if they forget, or if they are not honest, but they certainly say we had no idea that half a kilometer from here, these services are provided. So, there was, again, going back to it, instead of reinventing the wheel, can we work first? And again, I do understand that our staff doesn’t know all these organizations working out of the van, they are currently listed numerous at numerous locations. And I just keep thinking, why can’t we start with that and maximizing our current opportunities, then trying to add additional wheel to the vehicle?

Thank you. Next on my list, I have Councilor Ferreira. Thanks, Chair. So, the reason that I change the orders, ‘cause I see this as a very big priority issue, it is getting cold, people are outside, we’ve already had first frost.

That’s why I wanted to have this debate now, so we could have something in order for staff to go out and help us with our direction, whatever that may be, as soon as possible. I see this motion from Councilor Frank, thank you, Councilor. I understand that she is of the opinion that she’ll take what she can get, and it seems like I have to be of the same way to make this mess a little bit better. So, I am concerned about that delay for two months, and I am concerned from what the city manager has said when it comes to staff being able to develop it with the time that we see is coming before us.

I guess, those are my concerns right off the bat. Now, for the operationalization of everything, I was under the understanding that service depots were more cost effective and easier for us to operationalize, ‘cause we know where the locations are. And from what I understand, because I am also very in-tuned with the different encampments and people who are living unhoused, they’re moving around a lot because that is the situation of it all. So, considering those two facts, because people are moving around, locations don’t necessarily stay in the same spot, they could be moving around.

Staff would have to, on top of providing services, the transactional services, they would also have to find where encampments are, and they would have to keep track of this, and I would assume that would be more resource intensive and potentially even more cost intensive. So, I just wanted to go to staff and ask, with those comments, how do you see, I know you haven’t developed an operationalization or anything yet, but just knowing what you know, is that workable? Is that something that would be effective for council? Mr.

Dickens? Through you, Chair, thank you. You’re right, we have not designed a mobile transactional outreach service delivery plan yet, but yes, there are certain efficiencies that come with the predictability and stability of where you’re providing services and coordinating that when meals and water are being provided, that there’s garbage being collected at the same time and scheduled at the same time, that different organizations work in crews and teams, and that you start to develop that rapport with the people that are in that space. That being said, we know where encampments are, we collect that data when they’re reported to us, they get marked, we get out to them to the best of our ability.

Will it be more efficient or more effective to be mobile? To be determined, we’d have to do a lot of coordination across city departments to make sure we actually set up, I don’t know if our route is the right terminology, but if Ms. Share’s team that’s dedicated to the coordinated informed response department, we wanna make sure they know where we’re going with mobile services and what route we’re taking and what times we’re going so that it is more coordinated to collect garbage while people are also receiving their food and their water. And with a mobile outreach service, although we haven’t designed it yet, I think it would probably prevent us from having the consistent port-a-potty available that a current service depot offers.

Councillor Ferreira. Thank you, Chair, thank you for that answer. It sounds like it would be less efficient and more resource intensive, which means less cost effective, more expensive, to this direction, but if it’s the only thing we can get, then it’s the only thing we can get. I would also point out that concentration of people are, it’s already happening with that 100 meter boundary and I do understand that the East End Councillors are not happy with the concentration in their end, but I would say think about the concentration in the core, think about the concentration in War 13, think about that, because effectively, we are still concentrating encampments, we are still concentrating people who are unhoused.

We are, as I’ve heard already, at risk of any type of charter challenges, and we are also creating the situation to make people a little more destitute, and I am very concerned about that. But I will be letting you know, I just hope that you listen to the War 13 Councillor when he tells you this, because I am telling you the truth. Councillor Stevenson. Thank you, we just voted 10 to five, and I don’t know what the reasons were why people voted the way that they did, but some of the things I heard was, we don’t want to congregate at all in the East End.

Communities and neighbourhoods haven’t had the time to respond, reflect, be involved in this. I’m hoping that the Councillors that now have it not in their ward, don’t now support the saturation of it in the core. Believe we have not in my ward, Councillors. This is a problem that we have.

The people who are living unsheltered right now, many of them are on ODSP and OW. They have the same basic needs monthly amount that our housed residents have. There’s over 100 amazing, generous groups in the city who deliver food every week, on top of the churches, and the food bank, and the, like, we have a generous, contributing community that is doing the food part. They are counting on us to take care of the shelter piece, and we are counting on the province and the federal government to fund the medical treatment and the addiction treatment that people need.

I understand the desire to do something, to feel like we’re making a difference. Sandwiches and water bottles are not it, and mobile units to where they are, where they are, is unacceptable. I’m asking my colleagues to say no to this, and let’s do whatever we need to do in the next week or two to come up with something that’s actually gonna get these people what they need beyond the medical care and treatment that they need, is shelter from the frigid temperatures, and the wet and the snow. That is what they need.

Many of them out there have a $300 a day addiction. They are having to steal, sell their bodies, sell drugs, get other people to do drugs in order to survive the day. So when we offer to feed people where they’re at, that neighboring community is being ravaged day and night. By people who aren’t mean, they’re not trying to cause trouble, they are trying to survive.

They are trying to avoid withdrawal. And to do that, they are stripping the wires out of our parking, the lights in our parking lots. They’re stripping the wires from people’s homes. They’re stealing stuff off porches, they’re breaking in.

They’re trying to survive. We get to help them, and this isn’t it. Mr. Trussell.

Well, through the chair, I will support Councilor Frank’s motion, although I’m a little worried that it’s not really gonna take care of the problem and certainly not in time. There’s been talk about the voluntary sector coming out and delivering some of these services to people. I guess my question for Steph is understanding that when we have a city sponsored depot program, we’re using city vans that are insured, we know exactly what ingredients we’re passing out to people. They know exactly where it’s safe to take their delivery chucks and where it’s not.

On the other hand, when volunteers, I’m thinking about the voluntary agency that is servicing people through their trunk, even if it’s a larger van. Are they going to have to deal with parking regulations? Are they gonna have to deal with a code enforcement in terms of providing food? How are they going, would they need a license to do that?

Would they need a license to set up sanitary facilities with those sanitary facilities being inspected? I just think that we should not overlook. Actually, you can answer that question before I go. Mr.

Cooper, Mr. Mathers. Through the chair, we haven’t looked at this sector at all as far as a review of the applicability of any of our bylaws. So then the same bylaws that would pertain to a park vehicle anywhere in the city would be applicable to these vehicles.

And as far as from food and the provision of food, I’d look at the health unit who regulates the portions of that as well. We don’t have a license that’s related to these unless it was a food truck. That would have some bylaw provisions related to it, but we don’t have any specific elements that would be applied to this category. Thank you and to the chair, I just want to say that answered my question.

I started looking for other speakers who have not yet spoken before I look for people who want to speak a second time. I have no first round takers. So Councilor Prabell, you want to just go again? Thank you, Chair.

I will not support this motion. I’m not interested in other report. I’m interested of us taking the actions. We do have the organizations that are providing this.

I want our staff to get together with them and say, how can we maximize this opportunity? This, the staff can do tomorrow. We don’t need another report. I will not support it.

I want to take the action. We’ll obviously have some, let’s get it done. Thank you, Councilor Prabell. Any further speakers?

Seeing none, if Mayor Morgan? Yes, I have a question for our staff. Given where the gap is, in that the inability to report back, let me step back and make some comments that I’ll ask the question of staff. What I hear colleagues saying is service depots, which we made a decision on, not working for the ward councilors.

I think there’s a number of councilors who say, we do support the provision of basic need services in some capacity across the city in some method, Councilor Skyler’s motion and the motion on the floor is investigating an alternative option. I do share some concerns about the gap between those services. I know when we are able to receive federal funding, I think the timeframe has a level of retroactivity to it. So, is there some sort of, I guess the question of our staff, is there some sort of backstopping that needs to happen to be, to continue to be able to provide a level of transactional services until we get to the point where council can make the decision on alternative method of delivery?

Mr. Dickens. Through you, Chair, thank you for the question, your worship. Right now, services would be set to end December 31st.

What would be helpful if council were to go in this direction of staff reporting back on a mobile delivery model? We would seek to have current services continue until staff report back on a different transactional outreach service model. We do plan on reporting coming to council in January with funding contracts for council to consider under the banner of federal funding. We hope that based on what we’ve asked for at the federal government, we’ll be able to retroactively, as per their guidelines, fund whatever service gap there is between the end of December and the report back and operationalizing the stuff.

However, on the service delivery aspect, what would be helpful is modifying the language in this motion to continue services until staff report back. Mayor Morgan. Yeah, so I’m willing to do that for the purpose of investigating it. I don’t know if there’ll be a seconder for that, but I’m willing to move the motion to continue to operationalize the transactional outreach until the report back on the alternative method is available.

Okay, I need to check with Mr. Dickens if that needs more specificity because you talked about operationalizing. However, the models would change and the operationalization that you have right now is continuing the service depots in their current location. So I think Mr.

Dickens, can you indicate whether you need more specific direction or not? Thank you, Chair and through you. So we’re leading towards an alternative to what exists currently. The mayor has raised is if that creates a gap and we would agree that it does create a service gap between reporting back on an alternative and what is currently in place.

So what would be required is the latitude to continue delivering the current until we can report back on an alternative? Okay, so your worship, did you want to reiterate what your amendment to the existing motion is? Yes, so I’ll articulate it, is although I understand the concerns at this point in time, I personally am with my own vote and am not willing to create a gap while Council considers alternatives. I recognize that it’s not an ideal path forward for an additional month or whatever it will be, but it is something that I think should be considered as an amendment.

So I’m happy to take the wording that is, I suggested some, I’m not sure if the clerks agree that that’s sufficient, but that’s what I’d like to move in as an amendment. You’re gonna have to give the clerks a minute. While the clerks are working on that, it’s 3.34, I just want to advise both Mr. Samuels and Mr.

Wallace, we will not be getting to items 4.5 and 4.6 today. We will be recessing the SPPC so that the budget meeting can proceed until 9 a.m. tomorrow morning, seeing a thumbs up for Mr. Samuels and seeing a nod from Mr.

Wallace. So hopefully you can arrange your schedules to join us tomorrow morning as well, Mr. Hopkins. Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair, for recognizing me. I do have a question about tomorrow’s meeting. Could we move it to 9.30? I do have an appointment at 8.30.

Well, we haven’t, we don’t actually have a motion on the floor yet. Councilor ramen has circulated to the clerk a willingness to move to recess until 9 a.m. However, you’ve flagged an issue so that we have time for her to consider whether that can be accommodated. Councilor Plaza.

Sorry, I’m good with you there time ‘cause I could do virtual bitches for Councilor ramen’s motion that perhaps the link could be offered. So our far delegates don’t need to come back in case their schedules don’t allow it. They can maybe just zoom in as an extra courtesy for their patients with us. We can certainly make sure that a zoom link is available to both our delegates if they would prefer to join us virtually because of other commitments in their schedule.

But of course, they’re welcome to join us in person if they’re able to do so. And Councilor Hopkins, I did see Councilor ramen nodding that she can probably accommodate that in her motion. So I’ll leave that to her as she’s working on that with the clerks. I think the clerks have some language now to read out and then your worship, you can confirm if that meets your intention here.

Perk has removed their screen. So I’ll read it out. So it would be a motion, the motion be amended with a new part that civic administration be directed to continue with transactional service delivery in existing service depot locations until a further direction is provided by municipal council. So if you can confirm that you’re okay with that, that the motion be amended with a new part C, that civic administration be directed to continue with transactional service delivery in the existing service depot locations until further direction is provided by municipal council.

Okay, that’s been moved. Seconder, Councilor Hopkins, you’re willing to second. Councilor Palosa, you had a question? Yeah, if we just identify the funding source if staff already have it or just for me know where it’s coming from.

Dr. Dickens. Through you chair, a bit of chair. So the civic administration has received an indication from the federal government that we would be receiving some funding under the federal encampment initiative.

One of the items that we were directed by council to seek out was funding for transactional outreach. So we anticipate that with the receipts of the federal funding, we would be able to apply it to deliver transactional outreach services which is the provision of basic needs under this portfolio. And Councilor Palosa is giving a thumbs up to that. So, okay, so we have a motion that’s been moved and seconded.

Sorry, I varied from a speaker’s list a little bit and I thought Councilor Palosa might have another question about recessing till tomorrow, but it was related to the amendment moved and seconded speakers. Councilor Stevenson. Thank you, absolutely not. And the reason is the same reason I voted no on the last motion.

Please, if you said not in my ward, please don’t say, oh, well, it’s okay in the wards that are currently dealing with it. I’m not understanding the logic here. If you believe that people should get this food delivered to them, then it needs to be spread out. If you don’t believe that, then why would you continue to do it in a place that’s already suffering?

We’ve got councilors and residents up in arms that it might come to their park. Well, what about the people that it has been and is in their park and in their backyard? I don’t know the reasons why people are voting the way that they are, but I’m asking you to think about it and say, why would you support it in a place that’s already been in despair for a long time? If you weren’t willing to support spreading it out, which was the whole intention of it, so instead of going from concentrated in the East End, we’re saying concentrated in the core.

There is, and I’m gonna say again, I understand people care and they wanna do something. There are so many seniors and disabled people in my ward in my apartment buildings who run out of food at the end of the month, who have to brave the weather to get out to a place that will provide lunch and dinner in those last, in that last week of the month. The people who are living in encampments, which is absolutely tragic, actually need to move around or they will freeze. They need to get on a bus that has some heat.

They need to go for a walk. They cannot stay like they do in the summer. They will lose fingers and toes. It will not be good.

Food is not the issue. We have a hundred agencies delivering groups, groups delivering food. They get the same basic need as the little old lady or the old man or the young person who’s disabled or somebody who’s just struggling in these Ontario Works or ODSP. They are saying to me, and I have a lot of them in my ward, why not me?

Why don’t I get the basic human rights need of food at the end of the month? It’s not easy for me to get out and move around. Care too, we all care. Please say no to this.

Councilor McAllister, thank you through the chair. Just a point of confirmation as we’re having the discussion, what are the current service depot locations, Mr. Cooper? Thank you, and through you, Mr.

Chair, we’re currently providing services at Watson Park, and then a mobile depot that has been serving individuals in Evergreen Park at this time, Councilor. Thank you. So with the mobile, I’m just wondering, we already have mobile services. How can that not be altered to accommodate the mobile that we’re requesting, Mr.

Cooper? Thank you, and through you, Mr. Chair, if I can understand the question correctly, I believe what our current mobile services do is go where people are at, right? So we’re in that sense of utilizing our collected data to support people in the areas where they’re at in some level of congregation.

No, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, one bit more. The proposed depots, or the mobile depots, would look to spread out more around the city, where our current depots are really only going, or current mobile debots are really one of those two or three sites right now. Councilor McAllister. Okay, and through you, still I’m a bit confused with that because I feel like that could be scaled up, recognizing we have that experience with the mobile services.

I understand where the barrier is coming from, and again, my people aren’t unfeeling, and I understand the need to have these services, while something else is being spooled up. And you know what, I might take some heat for this, but if it’s a month to look at something else, I think that’s acceptable. But I would say we do need to keep the current setbacks as they are. I know residents have concerns about that, but if we are looking for something to replace an existing service and recognizing how close we are to the end of the year with the holidays impacting service, if a month is what’s being asked, I’m gonna hold to that, but I will be very firm on that, and then I wanna see something come back to replace existing services.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor McAllister, looking for further speakers. Councilor Perbal. Thank you.

I wanna be supporting this motion, because for me it’s very much open-ended, and I would support it potentially if there was a specific date, or by a delay this potentially, if it’s within a reasonable time, but again, going back to what I said a couple of times before, and I just wanna reiterate it again, we currently have organizations that are providing these services at various locations throughout London, and our residents are not unhappy with it, because they are not writing to us, or they are not complaining. I still don’t understand why our priority would not be to maximize the opportunity and support already existing services, and we are trying to create something new, which will take longer time, and which will be more expensive, and if it’s more expensive, we’ll have less dollars for the food and beverages. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Perbal, looking for any further speakers.

Councilor Trossau. Just to say through the chair, if somebody’s drowning and they need a life jacket, don’t not send them to the life jacket, ‘cause it would be better if the yacht came by to pick them up and give them a nice meal. Come on, folks. Why are people so fixed on making sure that people don’t have the fundamental basics of life?

And I do want to thank the mayor for at least recognizing there’s a gap, ‘cause that’s gonna create a lot of hardship. I just wonder, people are hungry, it is so privileged to sit at this table and say, let’s not give people sandwiches or water, a place to go to the bathroom. Well, it is, and I’m gonna stick by that, because you’re not hungry. Councilor, a point of personal privilege has been called, so Councilor Stevenson.

I do feel like it’s directed directly at me, and I’d like him to retract. Councilor Trossau, given that you pretty much voted the Councilor, I would purr that it seems to be directed at her and would ask that you consider rephrasing in terms of recognizing that Councilors are entitled to a differences of opinion in this chamber. Was it the sandwiches part or the water part or the bathroom part that was the problem, for may I ask? We are not engaging in cross debate on a point of personal privilege.

I’ve asked you to consider rephrasing your statement. Well, let me put it like this then, and I hope that this is a sufficient and adequate restatement for anyone who might have been offended. But I think that like when we start saying, giving people a little bit of water or a sandwich or cleaning their place up a little bit, or letting them go to the bathroom without having to go to somebody’s front lawn, it’s not good public policy. And I wanna reject that kind of thinking.

And yes, there are people who are housed. There are people who are very marginally housed. There are people who are on the brink of eviction. And I’m not saying that we should not be increasing their benefits or their food security or their housing security, but to say that the people who are the most marginal in our city should not get a sandwich, a sandwich, because there’s a voluntary group that can go out and deliver them the sandwich.

And we’ve already heard from our by-law officers that that might pose a problem. So I think we have a real problem here. I’m gonna be supporting the mayor’s motion. I don’t think it’s adequate to deal with the severity of the problem that we have been all certainly be supporting it.

And I thank Councillor Hopkins for seconding it. Is that okay? Thank you, Councillor. Looking for other speakers.

Councillor Pribble. Thank you, Chair, and through you to the staff. It’s not that I’m against this motion, but for me it’s very much open-ended. Is there a certain timeframe that you believe that we could include this motion?

So potentially some other ones who are feeling that it’s too open-ended would support. Thank you. Mr. Dickens.

Through you, Chair, with the recent news from the federal government, it’d be our anticipation to be as quick as possible. We’d want to be coming back to the January 6th community and protective services committee with an update on that federal funding and with funding agreements in hand for council to review and hopefully approve. So that would be when we would be coming back to council as to the January 6th community and protective services committee. And just before I go back to you, Councillor Pribble, I’m caveating Mr.

Dickens’ response with the presuming that council approves the draft calendar that is coming to the next council meeting. Councillor Pribble. If there would be a friendly amendment to this motion with a date February, does the staff feel that there would be sufficient? Thank you.

Okay, Councillor, there’s no such thing as a friendly amendment. It’s just an amendment, but nonetheless, it’s a legitimate question to ask if staff feel should the Council move an amendment with a hard deadline of by February 1st, whether they could meet that or not. And I’m just giving them a moment to confer. But you are, Councillor, I think for clarity sake, you’re also talking about these services in the current locations, correct?

I’m seeing a nod there. So Mr. Dickens and Mr. Cooper, when you’re ready to respond, please go ahead.

Through you, Chair, we want to make sure we get some stability in place as fast as possible. So that’s the priority, whether it’s overnight beds, we want to direct federal funding to overnight beds, transactional outreach to keep people looked after in the winter. So if it’s changed to February, I mean, that’s giving more runway, but it creates different challenges, I guess, in terms of getting funds into the hands of services so we can actually support people. We know that there’s going to be reporting deadlines to submit these reports that are going to conflict with a very short and December month.

And so we’ll work with the clerks for the best of our ability to get things in as soon as possible for the January 6th. So while I appreciate the extra time being suggested, it solves one problem, but probably creates another one somewhere in there. And then we’re sort of doing this on the fly, so my apologies. So Mr.

Dickens, if I can summarize the response, is that flexibility is better than prescriptive at this time? That would be fair. Councilor Pribble. I would like to make an amendment to this amendment by February 28th, which would be additional four weeks.

Do you have a seconder for that? We have a secondary and Councilor Lehman. We are now at an amendment to an amendment, so there are no more amendments because you are at the maximum level of amendment inception. I will look for any speakers on the amendment, and I will start with the mover on his justification.

And my justification is, so VR, we really address this as soon as possible, and I understand that everyone is busy, but again, this has to be the highest priority. So that’s why I would like to have a specific date in this motion. Thank you. Any other speakers?

Councilor Ferreira. Thank you. So where’s the urgency, you know, like this is pushing it back even further, like, you know, why don’t we just push it back to June? It just doesn’t make sense to me.

And you know, it’s this kind of stuff that I’m talking about. This is the kind of stuff that makes me lose it. All the faith that Council has what it takes to address this issue. We are not giving the city what they’re asking for.

Thank you, Councilor. Just before I continue with the speakers list, a number of folks are joining us in the gallery. I just wanna advise you that we are still in strategic priorities and policy committee. Budget committee has to convene within half an hour of the published scheduled start time.

We have to, however, at SPPC finish the item, which we are on. We did have a change of order. So 4.7 is actually being dealt with first. For those of you who are looking at that agenda, the other items in four.

And if anybody is still here or hanging around for the other items and items for direction, SPPC will be recessing to resume tomorrow morning so that the budget public participation meeting can begin. However, given that we have six minutes, the budget committee is not likely to start exactly at four o’clock, but it must start by 4.30. So I’m asking colleagues to keep that in mind. We need to wrap up the item on the floor before 4.30.

We will not be starting any new items from the SPPC agenda. So I will move on the speakers list. Councilor Hopkins, you are next. Thank you for recognizing me.

I did not wanna say anything, but I was reminded here we’ve been speaking for the past couple of hours. We started the conversation that we as a council must gain the trust. This is not the way to do it. Please do not support the amendment.

Thank you for other speakers. On the amendment to the amendment, which is the February 28th date suggested by Councilor Pribble. Sorry, I did have Councilor Raman first. Sorry, Councilor, I’ve got your name jotted down in about six places here.

Then I will go to Councilor Trustup. Councilor Raman, you’re first. Thank you and through you. So I will be supporting the amendment and I’ll be supporting the amendment because the direction that this amendment is attached to is a report back to CAPS and that just in virtue of when that report is going to come, which is January, we are left in a situation where we have to provide services while we await what will be the reported back direction.

So that is the reason why I’m supporting it. I’m asking my colleagues to do the same at this point. Again, I will go back to the funding that’s provided by the federal government is for an encampment plan. I’m supportive of additional services that we can fund through said plan, but right now we don’t have anything else on the table.

And so I really think that we need to consider what’s in front of us and move forward. Thank you. Okay, Councillor, trust our next Councillor Hopkins and then I’ll come back to you, Councillor, trust out. I’ll pass, it’s been said.

Councillor Hopkins. Just one clarity, this is the amendment on moving into February, is that correct? Yes, this is Councillor Pribble’s amendment to the mayor’s motion to backstop services for an additional month. It’s now been proposed for an additional two months looking for other speakers.

Seeing none, on the amendment for the February 28th date, I will ask the clerk to open the vote. The motion carries 12 to three. Okay, that brings us back to the mayor’s motion on filling the gap now with an extension until February 28th. Going back to my previous speaker’s list and looking for any other speakers on this, I see none.

So before I ask the clerk to open the vote on this, I will just ask Councillor Raman to take the chair so I can speak for about 30 seconds. Thank you, go ahead. Thank you, Madam Presiding Officer. So through you, while I appreciate your colleagues are trying to go here, I’m gonna be a no because for me, we have limited dollars and I want overnight beds and that it’s just that simple.

So I am not gonna be supporting the amendment or the motion put forward by Councillor Frank, but that is the reason why I appreciate why colleagues think that that’s something that they would like to support. I would rather support putting every dollar we can into overnight beds. Thank you, returning to the chair to you. Looking for any other speakers before I open the vote, Councillor Frank.

Thank you, I’ll be quick too. I too want overnight beds. I too recognize we have limited dollars, but I don’t want people to die until we can get them into those beds. So I’ll be supporting this.

Looking for any other speakers, Councillor Ferrera. I also want overnight beds as many as possible. I don’t think that’s the question of really what’s going on here. I think the question is, is where are the overnight beds?

I would love to hear people say where you do want overnight beds and where you don’t. Well, I know where you don’t. And no one else on the speaker’s list. I have Councillor Preble on the speaker’s list.

Councillor Preble, we’re back to something you’ve already spoken on. So you’ve used up two minutes on this item already. Very quickly, I will be supporting it. And one of the options, again, what I stated before, it’s not as much for me to start new initiative.

It’s already working together with existing organization and maximize our opportunities. I will be supporting it. I have no other speakers on the list. So I’m gonna ask the clerk to open the vote.

Posing the vote, motion carries 10 to 5. Now we are back to Councillor Frank’s original motion as amended now with the mayor’s addition. And so as we’ve had an extensive speakers list on this, unless anyone raises their hand right now, I’m going to open the vote and I don’t see any. So I will ask the clerk to open the vote.

Posing the vote, motion carries 10 to 5. Hey colleagues, we are at 4.01 PM. We have six items left on the SPPC agenda to deal with. Councillor ramen, you have a motion to put forward.

Thank you. I am moving a motion to recess till 9.32 morning. We have a motion to recess SPPC until 9.30 AM, seconded by Councillor Hopkins. I will ask the clerk to open the vote on that.

Councillor Trossau, posing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Okay colleagues, before you go anywhere, we are recessed from SPPC’s agenda until 9.30 AM tomorrow. I would remind you that that means we have an active meeting in progress. Please do not speak and be cautious of quorum about any items we have not yet dealt with on this agenda.

We also require about 10 to 15 minutes for IT to shut down the law.