February 11, 2025, at 1:00 PM

Original link

The meeting is called to order at 1:01 PM; it being noted that Mayor J. Morgan and Councillor S. Stevenson were in remote attendance.

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED Councillor E. Peloza discloses a pecuniary interest in item 8, clause 4.1 of the 3rd Report of the Community and Protective Services Committee, having to do with the Bob Hayward YMCA at 1050 Hamilton Road, by indicating that a family member works for Goodlife Fitness.

Motion made by P. Van Meerbergen

Seconded by S. Hillier

That, pursuant to section 6.4 of the Council Procedure By-law, a change in order of the Council Agenda BE APPROVED, to provide for Item 7.1 in Stage 7, Motions for Which Notice is Given, to be considered after Stage 2, Recognitions.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

2.   Recognitions

None.

7.   Motions of Which Notice is Given

7.1   Mayor J. Morgan - Supporting Our Local and Broader Canadian Economy During Ongoing Trade Uncertainties

2025-02-11 Sub. Supporting our Local and Broader Canadian Economy - Mayor Morgan

Motion made by P. Van Meerbergen

Seconded by S. Lehman

That pursuant to section 11.3 of the Council Procedure By-law, leave BE GRANTED to permit Mayor J. Morgan to move a motion related to item 7.1 on the Council Agenda related to Mayor J. Morgan’s submission regarding Supporting Our Local and Broader Canadian Economy During Ongoing Trade Uncertainties.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

Motion made by Mayor J. Morgan

Seconded by P. Van Meerbergen

That the following actions be taken with respect to supporting our local and broader Canadian economy during ongoing trade uncertainties:

a)       the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to review the City of London’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy and processes to ensure that the acquisition of goods, services, and construction would be prioritized from Canadian businesses, while also identifying any potential barriers and disruptions;

b)       the Mayor BE REQUESTED to advocate to the federal and provincial governments for revisions to trade agreements or policies that restrict municipalities from giving preference to Canadian companies in the procurement of goods, services, and construction;

c)       the Mayor BE REQUESTED to advocate to the federal and provincial governments to collaborate with municipalities in developing strategies that safeguard Canadian businesses and consumers;

d)       the Mayor BE REQUESTED to advocate to the federal and provincial governments to remove interprovincial trade barriers, fostering stronger economic ties between Canadian provinces;

e)       a Team Canada approach BE SUPPORTED and that London actively engage in provincial and national efforts aimed at addressing trade challenges and protecting Canadian industries; and

f)        provincial and national initiatives promoting the procurement of Canadian goods and services BE SUPPORTED.

Motion made by S. Trosow

Seconded by P. Van Meerbergen

Motion to amend part b) to read as follows:

b)       the Mayor BE REQUESTED to advocate to the federal and provincial governments for revisions to trade agreements or policies that restrict municipalities from giving preference to Canadian companies, and in particular local businesses, in the procurement of goods, services, and construction;

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

Motion made by Mayor J. Morgan

Seconded by P. Van Meerbergen

That item 7.1, as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

Item 7.1, as amended, reads as follows:

That the following actions be taken with respect to supporting our local and broader Canadian economy during ongoing trade uncertainties:

a)       the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to review the City of London’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy and processes to ensure that the acquisition of goods, services, and construction would be prioritized from Canadian businesses, while also identifying any potential barriers and disruptions;

b)       the Mayor BE REQUESTED to advocate to the federal and provincial governments for revisions to trade agreements or policies that restrict municipalities from giving preference to Canadian companies, and in particular local businesses, in the procurement of goods, services, and construction;

c)       the Mayor BE REQUESTED to advocate to the federal and provincial governments to collaborate with municipalities in developing strategies that safeguard Canadian businesses and consumers;

d)       the Mayor BE REQUESTED to advocate to the federal and provincial governments to remove interprovincial trade barriers, fostering stronger economic ties between Canadian provinces;

e)       a Team Canada approach BE SUPPORTED and that London actively engage in provincial and national efforts aimed at addressing trade challenges and protecting Canadian industries; and

f)        provincial and national initiatives promoting the procurement of Canadian goods and services BE SUPPORTED.

At 1:41 PM, His Worship the Mayor J. Morgan leaves the meeting.

3.   Review of Confidential Matters to be Considered in Public

None.

4.   Council, In Closed Session

Motion made by A. Hopkins

Seconded by S. Hillier

That Council rise and go into Council, In Closed Session, for the purpose of considering the following:

4.1 Land Acquisition / Solicitor-Client Privileged Advice / Position, Plan, Procedure, Criteria or Instruction to be Applied to Any Negotiations

A matter pertaining to the proposed or pending acquisition of land by the municipality, including communications necessary for that purpose; advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege; commercial and financial information, that belongs to the municipality and has monetary value or potential monetary value and a position, plan, procedure, criteria or instruction to be applied to any negotiations carried on or to be carried on by or on behalf of the municipality. (6.1/3/ICSC)

4.2 Solicitor-Client Privileged Advice / Litigation/Potential Litigation

A matter pertaining to advice subject to solicitor-client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose, and advice with respect to litigation with respect to various personal injury and property damage claims against the City. (6.2/3/ICSC)

4.3 Labour Relations/Employee Negotiations

A matter pertaining to personnel, labour relations and potential employee negotiations in regards to the Corporation’s management employee group, advice and recommendations of officers and employees of the Corporation including communications necessary for that purpose. (6.3/3/ICSC)

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

That Council convenes In Closed Session, from 1:42 PM to 1:51 PM.

5.   Confirmation and Signing of the Minutes of the Previous Meeting(s)

Motion made by D. Ferreira

Seconded by P. Van Meerbergen

That the Minutes of the 2nd Meeting of the Municipal Council, held on January 21, 2025 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (11 to 0)

6.   Communications and Petitions

Motion made by S. Hillier

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the following communications BE RECEIVED, and BE REFERRED as noted on the Added Agenda:

6.1    Unsheltered Homelessness Encampment Initiative and Incremental Reaching Home Funding Allocations

  1. Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development - Memo

  2. (ADDED) S. Canchi

  3. (ADDED) J. Herb

  4. (ADDED) S. Campbell

6.2    Framework for the Provision of Overnight Warming Centres and Resting Spaces for Cold Weather

  1. B. Floriancic

6.3    Amendments and Additions to the Affordable Housing Community Improvement Program Guidelines

  1. Revised Pages

6.4    (ADDED) Demolition Request and Heritage Alteration Permit Application at 66 Blackfriars Street

  1. M. McClure

Motion Passed (11 to 0)

At 1:55 PM, Councillor S. Trosow enters the meeting.

8.   Reports

8.1   3rd Report of the Community and Protective Services Committee

2025-01-27 CPSC Report

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That the 3rd Report of the Community and Protective Services Committee BE APPROVED, with the exception of items 5 (2.4), 6 (2.5) and 8 (4.1).

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

8.1.1   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

Motion Passed

8.1.2   (2.1) 1st Report of the Animal Welfare Community Advisory Committee

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That the 1st Report of the Animal Welfare Community Advisory Committee, from its meeting held on December 5, 2024, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

8.1.3   (2.2) London Fire Protection Grant 2024-25 - Transfer Payment Agreement (Relates to Bill No. 74)

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, the proposed by-law, as appended to the staff report dated January 27, 2025, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting on February 11, 2025 to:

a)    approve the Ontario Transfer Payment Agreement between His Majesty the King in right of Ontario as represented by the Minister of the Solicitor General and The Corporation of the City of London for the Fire Protection Grant (“Agreement”), as appended to the above-noted by-law;

b)    authorize the Mayor and the City Clerk to execute the above-noted Agreement; and,

c)    authorize the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, or their written designate, to execute any reports required by the province under the above-noted Agreement. (2025-P16)

Motion Passed

8.1.4   (2.3) Appointment of Consultant Engineer - OVHL Thames Valley Corridor Parkland Improvements Construction Administration

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated January 27, 2025, related to a Consulting Services Contract for the Old Victoria Hospital Lands (OVHL) Thames Valley Corridor Parkland Improvements Project (Federal/Provincial Infrastructure Project funded under the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program):

a)    the price submitted by Dillon Consulting for Contract Administration and Site Inspection Services for the OVHL Thames Valley Corridor project of $589,105.00 (excluding HST) BE ACCEPTED; it being noted that the price submitted by the Consultant meets the City’s specifications and requirements in all areas;

b)    the financing for this project BE APPROVED as set out in the Sources of Financing Report as appended to the above-noted staff report;

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

d)    the Mayor and the City Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to execute any contract or other documents, if required, to give effect to these recommendations. (2025-A05)

Motion Passed

8.1.7   (3.1) 2nd Report of the Environmental Stewardship and Action Community Advisory Committee

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That the following actions be taken with respect to the 2nd Report of the Environmental Stewardship and Action Community Advisory Committee (ESACAC), from the meeting held on January 8, 2025:

a)    an expenditure from the 2025 ESACAC Budget BE APPROVED, up to $375.00, for speaker gifts and refreshments for its Green Development Standards Information Session; it being noted that the ESACAC has sufficient funds in its 2025 Budget to cover this expense;

b)    the 2025 ESACAC Work Plan, as appended to the above-noted report, BE APPROVED; and,

c)    clauses 1.1, 2.1, 3.1 and 4.1 BE RECEIVED;

it being noted that the delegation request from B. Samuels was withdrawn prior to the meeting.

Motion Passed

8.1.9   (5.1) Framework for the Provision of Overnight Warming Centres and Resting Spaces for Cold Weather

Motion made by D. Ferreira

The Civic Administration BE REQUESTED to investigate and report back to a future meeting of the Community and Protective Services Committee with a framework for the provision of overnight warming centers and resting spaces for cold weather emergencies; it being noted that this framework should include the following:

a)    a review of climate conditions required for opening additional emergency overnight warming centers and resting spaces during circumstances such as extreme weather events and consider alternatives to community centre spaces with respect to types of facilities that could serve as spaces for overnight warming centers and resting spaces, such as churches, or other faith community, charitable or not for profit spaces as well as opportunities to utilize community volunteers where appropriate;

b)    process for quick implementation with service providers, other city departments, and emergency services for assistance with the staffing and monitoring of overnight warming centers and resting places in cold weather emergencies; and,

c)     sources of funding for the provision of such overnight warming centers and resting spaces, including engaging in discussions with the province around municipalities’ ability to access “disaster relief” funding similar to what would be accessed in the event of other weather events such as a tornado or flood. (2025-C01)

Motion Passed

8.1.5   (2.4) Whole of Community System Response - Q4 Quarterly Report

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy Manager, Social and Health Development, the staff report dated January 27, 2025, with respect to the Whole of Community System Response Q4 Quarterly Report, BE RECEIVED. (2025-S14)

Motion Passed (11 to 1)

8.1.6   (2.5) Unsheltered Homelessness Encampment Initiative and Incremental Reaching Home Funding Allocations

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, that the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated January 27, 2025, related to amending existing contracts to implement the Unsheltered Homelessness and Encampment Initiative (UHEI) and additional Reaching Home incremental funding to support those living in encampments and experiencing homelessness:

a)    an amendment to the existing Municipal Purchase of Service agreement with The Ark Aid Street Mission to a total estimated increase of up to $767,087 (excluding HST) for the period of January 1, 2025 to March 31, 2025 BE APPROVED to continue 70 emergency shelter spaces to utilize the UHEI and Reaching Home incremental funding as per The Corporation of the City of London Procurement Policy Section 20.3 e);

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

ii)    the approval given, herein, BE CONDITIONAL upon The Corporation of the City of London entering into new and/or amending existing Purchase of Service Agreements with agencies identified through the City’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy to deliver the approved services;

b)    an amendment to the existing Municipal Purchase of Service agreement with The Ark Aid Street Mission to a total estimated increase of up to $3,068,348 (excluding HST) for the period of April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026 BE APPROVED to continue 70 emergency shelter spaces to utilize the UHEI and Reaching Home incremental funding as per the Corporation of the City of London Procurement Policy Section 20.3 e);

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

ii)    the approval given herein BE CONDITIONAL upon The Corporation of the City of London entering into new and/or amending existing Purchase of Service Agreements with agencies identified through the City’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy to deliver the approved services;

c)    an amendment to the existing Municipal Purchase of Service agreement with The Ark Aid Street Mission to a total estimated increase of up to $282,913 (excluding HST) for the period of January 1, 2025 to March 31, 2025 BE APPROVED to continue day drop in space to utilize the UHEI and Reaching Home incremental funding as per the Corporation of the City of London Procurement Policy Section 20.3 e);

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

ii)    the approval given herein BE CONDITIONAL upon The Corporation of the City of London entering into new and/or amending existing Purchase of Service Agreements with agencies identified through the City’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy to deliver the approved services;

d)    an amendment to the existing Municipal Purchase of Service agreement with The Ark Aid Street Mission to a total estimated increase of up to $1,131,652 (excluding HST) for the period of April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026 BE APPROVED to continue day drop in space to utilize the UHEI and Reaching Home incremental funding as per the Corporation of the City of London Procurement Policy Section 20.3 e);

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

ii)    the approval given herein BE CONDITIONAL upon The Corporation of the City of London entering into new and/or amending existing Purchase of Service Agreements with agencies identified through the City’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy to deliver the approved services;

e)    the Civic administration BE DIRECTED to find a source of funding for an estimated total of $1,156,201 which includes the $360,285 annual shortfall for the day time drop in space, the Ark Aid Street Mission to provide 12 women’s only beds at the CMHA My Sister’s Place location at a total estimated cost of $638,056 and the Ark Aid Street Mission to provide 10 spaces at their Oxford street supported housing location at a total estimated cost of $157,860;

f)    an extension to the existing Municipal Purchase of Service agreement with Atlohsa Family Healing Services at a total estimated increase of up to $33,750 (excluding HST) for the period of January 1, 2025 to March 31, 2025 BE APPROVED to temporarily expand indigenous led outreach supports and services using the UHEI and Reaching Home incremental funding as per the Corporation of the City of London Procurement Policy Section 20.3 e);

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

ii)    the approval given herein BE CONDITIONAL upon The Corporation of the City of London entering into new and/or amending existing Purchase of Service Agreements with agencies identified through the City’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy to deliver the approved services;

g)    an extension to the existing Municipal Purchase of Service agreement with Atlohsa Family Healing Services at a total estimated increase of up to $135,000 (excluding HST) for the period of April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026 BE APPROVED to temporarily expand indigenous led outreach supports and services using the UHEI and Reaching Home incremental funding as per the Corporation of the City of London Procurement Policy Section 20.3 e);

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

ii)    the approval given herein BE CONDITIONAL upon The Corporation of the City of London entering into new and/or amending existing Purchase of Service Agreements with agencies identified through the City’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy to deliver the approved services;

h)    the use of Housing Stability Services budget for a total amount of up to $1,400,000 BE APPROVED to support costs associated with the provision of Transactional outreach and provision of basic human needs using the UHEI and Reaching Home incremental funding from January 1, 2025 through March 31, 2026;

i)    the use of one-time funding of up to an estimated $876,441 BE APPROVED to support Ark Aid’s Cronyn-Warner and day drop-in locations from one-time 2024 surplus in the Housing Stability Services operating budget resulting from anticipated reimbursement from the Interim Housing Assistance Program (IHAP) for January 1st to December 31st 2024, and that the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to contribute up to $876,441 from the Housing Stability Services 2024 operating budget surplus to the Operating Budget Contingency Reserve to facilitate this funding;

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

ii)    the approval given herein BE CONDITIONAL upon The Corporation of the City of London entering into new and/or amending existing Purchase of Service Agreements with agencies identified through the City’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy to deliver the approved services;

it being noted that a verbal delegation from S. Campbell, Ark Aid, with respect to this matter was received; it being further noted that the delegation request from N. Stuckey was withdrawn at the meeting. (2025-S14)

At 2:26 PM, Deputy Mayor S. Lewis, places Councillor E. Peloza in the Chair.

At 2:30 PM, Deputy Mayor S. Lewis resumes the Chair.

Motion made by C. Rahman

Seconded by S. Lehman

that part d) relating to an amendment to the existing Municipal Purchase of Service agreement with The Ark Aid Street Mission for the period of April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026 BE REFERRED to Civic Administration to examine options for beds in place of day drop-in spaces, with any service provider who can provide the beds without subcontracting;

Motion Passed (10 to 2)

Motion made by C. Rahman

Seconded by S. Lehman

that part h) BE AMENDED to read “the use of Housing Stability Services budget for a total amount of up to $1,400,000 BE APPROVED to support costs associated with the provision of basic human needs using the UHEI and Reaching Home incremental funding from January 1, 2025 through March 31, 2026”;

Motion made by H. McAlister

Seconded by S. Stevenson

Motion to refer part h):

h)   the use of Housing Stability Services budget for a total amount of up to $1,400,000 BE REFERRED to a future meeting of Community and Protective Services Committee for Civic Administration to provide an operational plan on how to provide basic human needs using the UHEI and Reaching Home incremental funding from January 1, 2025 through March 31, 2026 and that Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to continue to provide existing basic human needs provisions with this funding until April 30, 2025;

Motion Passed (10 to 2)

Motion made by D. Ferreira

Motion to approve part e):

e)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to find a source of funding for an estimated total of $1,156,201 which includes the $360,285 annual shortfall for the day time drop in space, the Ark Aid Street Mission to provide 12 women’s only beds at the CMHA My Sister’s Place location at a total estimated cost of $638,056 and the Ark Aid Street Mission to provide 10 spaces at their Oxford Street supported housing location at a total estimated cost of $157,860;

Motion made by S. Trosow

Seconded by S. Lehman

That the motion be amended to delete references to funding for the annual shortfall for the daytime drop in space and the Ark Aid Street Mission to provide 12 women’s only beds at the CMHA My Sister’s Place and to read as follows:

e)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to find a source of funding for an estimated total of $157,860 for the Ark Aid Street Mission to provide 10 spaces at their Oxford Street supported housing location;

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

Motion made by D. Ferreira

Seconded by S. Stevenson

Motion to refer part b):

that part b) relating to an amendment to the existing Municipal Purchase of Service agreement with The Ark Aid Street Mission to a total estimated increase of up to $3,068,348 (excluding HST) for the period of April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026 to continue 70 emergency shelter spaces to utilize the UHEI and Reaching Home incremental funding as per the Corporation of the City of London Procurement Policy Section 20.3 e) BE REFERRED to Civic Administration to report back regarding potential emergency shelter and drop-in spaces;

Motion Passed (8 to 4)

At 4:10 PM, Deputy Mayor S. Lewis, places Councillor E. Peloza in the Chair.

At 4:15 PM, Deputy Mayor S. Lewis resumes the Chair.

Motion made by D. Ferreira

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That part e), as amended, BE APPROVED:

e)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to find a source of funding for an estimated total of $157,860 for the Ark Aid Street Mission to provide 10 spaces at their Oxford Street supported housing location;

Motion Failed (3 to 9)

Motion made by D. Ferreira

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That parts f) and g) BE APPROVED:

f)    an extension to the existing Municipal Purchase of Service agreement with Atlohsa Family Healing Services at a total estimated increase of up to $33,750 (excluding HST) for the period of January 1, 2025 to March 31, 2025 BE APPROVED to temporarily expand indigenous led outreach supports and services using the UHEI and Reaching Home incremental funding as per the Corporation of the City of London Procurement Policy Section 20.3 e); 

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

ii)    the approval given herein BE CONDITIONAL upon The Corporation of the City of London entering into new and/or amending existing Purchase of Service Agreements with agencies identified through the City’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy to deliver the approved services;

g)    an extension to the existing Municipal Purchase of Service agreement with Atlohsa Family Healing Services at a total estimated increase of up to $135,000 (excluding HST) for the period of April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026 BE APPROVED to temporarily expand indigenous led outreach supports and services using the UHEI and Reaching Home incremental funding as per the Corporation of the City of London Procurement Policy Section 20.3 e); 

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

ii)    the approval given herein BE CONDITIONAL upon The Corporation of the City of London entering into new and/or amending existing Purchase of Service Agreements with agencies identified through the City’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy to deliver the approved services;

Motion Passed (9 to 3)

Motion made by D. Ferreira

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the balance of the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

Item 6, clause 2.5, as amended, reads as follows:

That the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated January 27, 2025, related to amending existing contracts to implement the Unsheltered Homelessness and Encampment Initiative (UHEI) and additional Reaching Home incremental funding to support those living in encampments and experiencing homelessness:

a)    an amendment to the existing Municipal Purchase of Service agreement with The Ark Aid Street Mission to a total estimated increase of up to $767,087 (excluding HST) for the period of January 1, 2025 to March 31, 2025 BE APPROVED to continue 70 emergency shelter spaces to utilize the UHEI and Reaching Home incremental funding as per The Corporation of the City of London Procurement Policy Section 20.3 e);

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

ii)    the approval given, herein, BE CONDITIONAL upon The Corporation of the City of London entering into new and/or amending existing Purchase of Service Agreements with agencies identified through the City’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy to deliver the approved services;

b)    an amendment to the existing Municipal Purchase of Service agreement with The Ark Aid Street Mission to a total estimated increase of up to $3,068,348 (excluding HST) for the period of April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026 to continue 70 emergency shelter spaces to utilize the UHEI and Reaching Home incremental funding as per the Corporation of the City of London Procurement Policy Section 20.3 e) BE REFERRED to Civic Administration to report back regarding potential emergency shelter and drop-in spaces;

c)    an amendment to the existing Municipal Purchase of Service agreement with The Ark Aid Street Mission to a total estimated increase of up to $282,913 (excluding HST) for the period of January 1, 2025 to March 31, 2025 BE APPROVED to continue day drop in space to utilize the UHEI and Reaching Home incremental funding as per the Corporation of the City of London Procurement Policy Section 20.3 e);

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

ii)    the approval given herein BE CONDITIONAL upon The Corporation of the City of London entering into new and/or amending existing Purchase of Service Agreements with agencies identified through the City’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy to deliver the approved services;

d)    an amendment to the existing Municipal Purchase of Service agreement with The Ark Aid Street Mission for the period of April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026 BE REFERRED to Civic Administration to examine options for beds in place of day drop-in spaces, with any service provider who can provide the beds without subcontracting;

e)    an extension to the existing Municipal Purchase of Service agreement with Atlohsa Family Healing Services at a total estimated increase of up to $33,750 (excluding HST) for the period of January 1, 2025 to March 31, 2025 BE APPROVED to temporarily expand indigenous led outreach supports and services using the UHEI and Reaching Home incremental funding as per the Corporation of the City of London Procurement Policy Section 20.3 e);

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

ii)    the approval given herein BE CONDITIONAL upon The Corporation of the City of London entering into new and/or amending existing Purchase of Service Agreements with agencies identified through the City’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy to deliver the approved services;

f)    an extension to the existing Municipal Purchase of Service agreement with Atlohsa Family Healing Services at a total estimated increase of up to $135,000 (excluding HST) for the period of April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026 BE APPROVED to temporarily expand indigenous led outreach supports and services using the UHEI and Reaching Home incremental funding as per the Corporation of the City of London Procurement Policy Section 20.3 e);

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

ii)    the approval given herein BE CONDITIONAL upon The Corporation of the City of London entering into new and/or amending existing Purchase of Service Agreements with agencies identified through the City’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy to deliver the approved services;

g)    the use of Housing Stability Services budget for a total amount of up to $1,400,000 BE REFERRED to a future meeting of Community and Protective Services Committee for Civic Administration to provide an operational plan on how to provide basic human needs using the UHEI and Reaching Home incremental funding from January 1, 2025 through March 31, 2026 and that Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to continue to provide existing basic human needs provisions with this funding until April 30, 2025;

h)    the use of one-time funding of up to an estimated $876,441 BE APPROVED to support Ark Aid’s Cronyn-Warner and day drop-in locations from one-time 2024 surplus in the Housing Stability Services operating budget resulting from anticipated reimbursement from the Interim Housing Assistance Program (IHAP) for January 1st to December 31st 2024, and that the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to contribute up to $876,441 from the Housing Stability Services 2024 operating budget surplus to the Operating Budget Contingency Reserve to facilitate this funding;

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

ii)    the approval given herein BE CONDITIONAL upon The Corporation of the City of London entering into new and/or amending existing Purchase of Service Agreements with agencies identified through the City’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy to deliver the approved services;

it being noted that a verbal delegation from S. Campbell, Ark Aid, with respect to this matter was received; it being further noted that the delegation request from N. Stuckey was withdrawn at the meeting. (2025-S14)

8.1.8   (4.1) Bob Hayward YMCA at 1050 Hamilton Road

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to explore affordable housing development opportunities with the YMCA of Southwestern Ontario regarding their property at 1050 Hamilton Road; it being noted that these discussions and any partnerships or property acquisitions that come from them would be incorporated into the subdivision planning of the former Fairmont Public School; it being further noted that the communication from Councillor H. McAlister, as appended to the Agenda, was received. (2025-S11)

Motion Passed (11 to 0)

Motion made by S. Trosow

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That the Council recess at this time, for 10 minutes.

Motion Passed

The Council recesses at 4:35 PM and reconvenes at 4:48 PM.

At 4:48 PM, Councillor P. Van Meerbergen leaves the meeting.

8.2   3rd Report of the Planning and Environment Committee

2025-01-28 - PEC REPORT

Motion made by S. Lehman

That the 3rd Report of Planning and Environment Committee BE APPROVED, with the exception of item 7 (3.1).

Motion Passed (11 to 0)

8.2.1   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

8.2.2   (2.1) 1st Report of the Ecological Community Advisory Committee

Motion made by S. Lehman

That the 1st Report of the Ecological Community Advisory Committee, from its meeting held on December 17, 2024, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

8.2.3   (2.2) 2nd Report of the Ecological Community Advisory Committee

Motion made by S. Lehman

That the following actions be taken with respect to the 2nd Report of the Ecological Community Advisory Committee, from its meeting held on January 16th, 2025:

a)    that K. Moser BE APPOINTED to the Environmental Management Guidelines Working Group; it be noted that E. Williamson, Manager, Environmental Planning, K. Edwards, Manager, Community Planning and M. Shepley, Ecologist Planner, provided verbal presentations on the Environmental Management Guidelines status;

b)    that the Committee Clerk BE REQUESTED to include a discussion on potential matters that should be incorporated in the Terms of Reference for the Ecological Reference Group on the next agenda; it being noted that the Ecological Community Advisory Committee (ECAC) received the Environmental Planning Work Plan appended to the ECAC Added Agenda and heard an overview of the Environmental Planning Work Plan from E. Williamson, Manager, Environmental Planning, K. Edwards, Manager, Community Planning and M. Shepley, Ecologist Planner, provided verbal presentations on the Environmental Management Guidelines status; and,

c)    clauses 3.1 and 3.2 BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

8.2.4   (2.3) 2nd Report of the Community Advisory Committee on Planning

Motion made by S. Lehman

That the 2nd Report of the Community Advisory Committee on Planning, from its meeting held on January 8, 2025, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

8.2.5   (2.4) Amendments and Additions to the Affordable Housing Community Improvement Program Guidelines (Relates to Bill No.’s 75 and 76)

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Housing and Community Growth, the following actions be taken with respect to the amendments and additions to the Affordable Housing Community Improvement Program Guidelines:

a)       the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated January 28th, 2025, as Appendix “A” to this report BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on February 11, 2025, to amend By-law No. C.P.-1545-41, being “A by-law to establish financial incentives for the Affordable Housing Community Improvement Project Area”, by:

i)    deleting Schedule “2” and replacing it with a REVISED Schedule “2” to the Affordable Housing Community Improvement Plan – Financial Incentive Program Guidelines – Additional Residential Unit Loan Program;

ii)    adding a NEW Schedule “3” to the Affordable Housing Community Improvement Plan – Financial Incentive Program Guidelines – Detached Additional Residential Unit Program;

iii)    adding a NEW Schedule “4” to the Affordable Housing Community Improvement Plan – Financial Incentive Program Guidelines – Dollars to Doors Affordable Units Program;

iv)    adding a NEW Schedule “5” to the Affordable Housing Community Improvement Plan – Financial Incentive Program Guidelines – Highly Supportive Housing Units Program;

v)    approving the following loan agreement templates;

i)    adding the Additional Residential Unit Loan Agreement template;

ii)    adding the Detached Additional Residential Unit Forgivable Loan Agreement template;

iii)    adding the Detached Additional Residential Unit Loan Agreement (Affordable) template;

iv)    adding the Detached Additional Residential Unit Loan Agreement (Indigenous) template;

v)    adding the Dollars to Doors Affordable Units Loan Agreement template;

vi)    adding the Highly Supportive Housing Units Loan Agreement template;

vi)    authorizing the Deputy City Manager, Housing and Community Growth, or their written designate, to amend, enter into and execute the above-noted agreements provided the terms of the agreement conform with the applicable Affordable Housing Community Improvement Plan Financial Incentive Program Guidelines;

vii)    authorizing the Deputy City Manager, Housing and Community Growth, or their written designate, to approve, enter into and execute amending agreements; and, 

viii)    authorizing the Deputy City Manager, Housing and Community Growth, or their written designate, to approve an agreement or amend existing agreements that incorporates two or more grants or loans for programs under the Affordable Housing Community Improvement Plan, where practicable, and to authorize the Deputy City Manager, Housing and Community Growth, or their written designate, to enter into and execute these agreements;

b)    that the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated January 28, 2025, as Appendix “B” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on February 11, 2025, to repeal By-law No. C.P.-1561-107 “A bylaw to approve and authorize the use of the Additional Residential Unit Loan Agreement template between The Corporation of the City of London (the “City”) and the Registered Owner of a property providing affordable rental units ( the ‘Borrower”) to provide for a loan to address affordability of home ownership and to create more long-term, stable rental housing supply to help address low rental vacancy rates, and to delegate the authority to enter into such Agreements to the City Planner or delegate”; and,

c)    that Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to review and report back on Schedule 1 of By-law No. C.P.-1545-41, being the existing Affordable Housing Community Improvement Plan – Financial Incentive Guidelines – Affordable Housing Development Loan Program.

Motion Passed

8.2.6   (2.5) Monthly Housing Update

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Housing and Community Growth, the following staff report dated January 28, 2025, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

8.2.8   (5.1) Deferred Matters List

Motion made by S. Lehman

That the Deferred Matters List BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

8.2.7   (3.1) Demolition Request and Heritage Alteration Permit Application at 66 Blackfriars Street

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Housing and Community Growth, the application under Section 42 of the Ontario Heritage Act seeking approval for the demolition of the existing building and approval for a proposed building, as described, herein, and appended in Appendix “E”, on the property at 66 Blackfriars Street, within the Blackfriars/ Petersville Heritage Conservation District, BE PERMITTED with the following terms and conditions:

a)    Regarding the trees:

i)    that a permit to injure or destroy a tree (including but not limited to the northeast oak tree and northwest oak tree), pursuant to the Tree Protection By-law, is required prior to any work commencing on the property;

ii)    the northeast oak tree shall be protected and preserved;

iii)    the northwest tree should be removed before the demolition of the existing building on the property;

iv)    the owner is encouraged to be creative in reusing of any of the felled wood;

v)    that the compensation tree planting will be reviewed and required as part of the required Tree Permit(s), with an appropriate compensation rate determined by Forestry Operations;

vi)    that the Tree Protection Fencing shall be installed around the northeast oak tree

prior to demolition of the existing building and must be re-installed prior to construction of the proposed building; The Tree Protection Fencing shall be maintained in good repair for the entire duration of any activity on site;

vii)    that the use of mechanized equipment, for demolition and/or construction,

shall be prohibited within 14.8m (48’7”) of the trunk of the northeast oak tree (“critical root zone”). The use of mechanized equipment may be permitted from Albion Street or the rear of the property;

viii)    that the crawl space of the existing building shall be left in place at the front (north) and east and west sides, to the maximum extent possible. No less than 100% of the front (north) wall and 10m (32’7”) of the west side wall and 6.8m (22’3”) of the east side wall are to be left in their current condition. The crawl space walls can be removed to a maximum of 10 cm (4”) below the existing grade. The remainder of the area must be filled with good quality topsoil (in compliance with Chapter 12, Section 12.2.3 of the City’s Design Specifications and Requirements Manual). This must happen within one week (seven days) of the demolition of the existing building. Any exposed roots that are discovered must be covered immediately with topsoil;

ix)    that monitoring by a Certified Arborist is required for any demolition or construction with notification for any work occurring to Forestry Operations in writing via ; and, 

x)    that demolition work and any ground-disturbing activities associated with the construction of the proposed building (e.g. foundation) must only occur prior to April 1, 2025, and subsequently in accordance with Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s guidance on limiting the spread of oak wilt;

b)    Regarding the proposed building:

i)    that the horizontal painted wood or fiber cement board be used for the exterior

cladding of the proposed building;

ii)    that the details for the design features in the north gable and south gable be

submitted to the Heritage Planner prior to installation;

iii)    that front yard parking is prohibited;

iv)    that the Heritage Planner be circulated on the Building Permit application drawings to verify compliance with this Heritage Alteration Permit prior to issuance of the Building Permit; and,

v)    that the Heritage Alteration Permit be displayed in a location visible from the street until the work is completed;

c)    Regarding the commemoration:

i)    that an interpretive plaque be installed by the owner on the property in a location visible from the sidewalk that celebrates the natural and cultural heritage of the property and area following the demolition of the existing building (Contributing Resource);

it being pointed out that the following individuals made verbal presentations at the public participation meeting held in conjunction with these matters:

  •    H. Garrett, Zelinka Priamo Ltd., and; 

  •    M. Betancourt.

Motion Passed (10 to 1)

At 4:56 PM, Councillor S. Lehman leaves the meeting.

8.3   3rd Report of the Infrastructure and Corporate Services Committee

2025-02-03 ICSC Report 3

Motion made by C. Rahman

That the 3rd Report of the Infrastructure and Corporate Services Committee BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (10 to 0)

8.3.1   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

Motion made by C. Rahman

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

Motion Passed

8.3.2   (2.1) RFP 2024-228: Consulting Services for Operations Masterplan Study

Motion made by C. Rahman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the following actions be taken with respect to the Request for Proposals for Prime Consulting Services for Operations Masterplan Feasibility Study (RFP-2024-228):

a)    the proposal submitted by Stirling Rothesay Consulting Incorporated, 24 Deanbank Drive, Thornhill, Ontario BE ACCEPTED at the submitted fee of $119,000.00 excluding HST; it being noted that the evaluation team determined the proposal submitted by Stirling Rothesay Consulting Incorporated provided the best technical and financial value to the Corporation; met the City’s requirements in all areas; and acceptance is in accordance with section 15.2 of the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy;

b)    the financing for this project BE APPROVED as set out in the Sources of Financing Report as appended to the staff report dated February 3, 2025 as Appendix “A”;

c)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all administrative acts which are necessary to undertake the project;

d)    the approvals given herein BE CONDITIONAL upon the Corporation entering into a formal contract with the consultant for the work; and

e)    the Mayor and the City Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to execute a contract or any other documents, as required, to give effect to these recommendations.

Motion Passed

8.3.3   (2.2) 2024 External Audit of London’s Drinking Water Quality Management System and 2024 Management Review

Motion made by C. Rahman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the report on the 2024 External Audit of London’s Drinking Water Quality Management System and the 2024 Management Review BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed

8.3.4   (2.3) 2024 Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks Inspection of the City of London Drinking Water System

Motion made by C. Rahman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the report on the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks Inspection of the City of London Drinking Water System BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed

8.3.5   (2.4) Appointment of Consulting Engineer: Sunningdale Road West Improvements from Hyde Park Road to Jordan Boulevard

Motion made by C. Rahman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment & Infrastructure, the following actions be taken with respect to the appointment of a consulting engineer for the detailed design and tendering of the Sunningdale Road West Improvements project from Hyde Park Road to Jordan Boulevard:

a)    MTE Consultants Inc. BE AUTHORIZED as the consulting engineer to complete the detailed design and tendering services at an upset amount of $296,883.40 excluding HST, in accordance with Section 15.2 (g) of the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy;

b)    the financing for this contract amendment BE APPROVED as set out in the Sources of Financing Report as appended to the staff report dated February 3, 2025 as Appendix “A”;

c)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all the administrative acts that are necessary in connection with this contract; and

d)    the Mayor and the City Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to execute any contract or other documents, if required, to give effect to these recommendations.

Motion Passed

8.3.6   (2.5) Appointment of Consulting Engineer: Construction Administration Services for Rehabilitation of the Adelaide Street North Bridge

Motion made by C. Rahman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment & Infrastructure, the following actions be taken with respect to the appointment of a consulting engineer for construction administration services for the rehabilitation of the Adelaide Street North Bridge:

a)    Dillon Consulting Limited BE AUTHORIZED as the consulting engineer to complete the construction administration services at an upset amount of $225,665 excluding HST, in accordance with Section 15.2 (g) of the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy;

b)    the financing for this contract amendment BE APPROVED as set out in the Sources of Financing Report as appended to the staff report dated February 3, 2025 as Appendix “A”;

c)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all the administrative acts that are necessary in connection with this contract; and

d)    the Mayor and the City Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to execute any contract or other documents, if required, to give effect to these recommendations.

Motion Passed

9.   Added Reports

That it BE NOTED that Councillor C. Rahman presented the 3rd Report of the Council in Closed Session, by noting progress was made with respect to items 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3 as noted on the public agenda, (6.1/3/ICSC), (6.2/3/ICSC), (6.3/3/ICSC).

10.   Deferred Matters

None.

11.   Enquiries

None.

12.   Emergent Motions

None.

13.   By-laws

Motion made by P. Cuddy

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That Introduction and First Reading of Bill No.’s 73 to 77, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (10 to 0)

Motion made by P. Cuddy

Seconded by A. Hopkins

The Second Reading of Bill No.’s 73 to 77, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (10 to 0)

Motion made by P. Cuddy

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That Third Reading and Enactment of Bill No.’s 73 to 77 and Bill No.’s 297 and 379, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (10 to 0)

14.   Adjournment

Motion made by S. Hillier

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the meeting BE ADJOURNED.

Motion Passed

The meeting adjourned at 5:01 PM.

Appendix: New Bills

Full Transcript

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

View full transcript (4 hours, 21 minutes)

To begin our meeting by acknowledging that we are gathered today on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Lene Peiwok, and Adawanda in peoples. We honor and respect the history, languages, and culture of the diverse indigenous people call this territory home. We acknowledge all the treaties that are specific to this area. The Turo Wampum Belt Treaty of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the Silver Chain Covenant, the Beaver Hunting Grounds of the Haudenosaunee, Nanfand Treaty of 1701, the McKee Treaty of 1790, the London Township Treaty of 1796, the Huron Track Treaty of 1827 with the Anishinaabeg and the Dish with One Spoon Covenant Wampum of the Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee.

The three indigenous nations that are neighbors to London are the Chippewa of the Thames First Nation, the Oneida Nation of the Thames, and the Muncie Delaware Nation, all who continue to live as sovereign nations with individual and unique languages, cultures, and customs. The City of London is also committed to making every effort, provide alternate formats, and communication supports for meetings upon request, and to make a request specific to this meeting, please contact council agenda at london.ca or phone 519-661-2489, extension 2425. Since I have the pleasure today while the mayor is away in Washington of chairing today’s meeting, and that starts with welcoming today’s anthem performer. Originally from Oshawa, Ontario, Sabrina Turnpenny now studies music with honors in music education at Western University, calling London her new home.

She looks to attend Teachers College beginning in September in the Intermediate and Senior Grade Divisions. Oh, you’re going for the tough ones to teach. Her main instrument is the oboe, although she enjoys performing on all woodwind instruments. Please join me in welcoming Sabrina, who will now perform the National Anthem for us.

Moving on in our agenda, I’m going to first look for disclosures of pecuniary interest, Councillor Palosa. Thank you, disclosing a pecuniary interest on the PAPs agenda, eight on the council agenda, four point moments in the package being the Bob Hayward YMCA at 1050 Hamilton Road as a member of my family works for a good life, so competing industry. Looking for any others, seeing none, then we will move on to recognitions, and I will go first to Councillor Raman. Thank you, Deputy Mayor Lewis.

I rise today to recognize London Hydro. I know for many Londoners this morning, they might have been dealing with a power outage this morning that made your commute and your morning a little hairy, but that was Hydro 1 and not London Hydro. On a more serious note, I want to take a moment and say congratulations on behalf of members of Council. I want to take a moment to recognize London Hydro for becoming one of Canada’s top 100 employers and as one of Southwestern Ontario’s top employers for 2025.

This award recognizes London Hydro’s commitment to being an employer of choice while contributing to the local economy and our community. By offering graduates the chance to join an exciting and innovative company that has vision beyond poles and wires, London Hydro continues to set themselves apart. Congratulations, London Hydro, and thank you all for allowing me to do the recognition. Thank you, Councillor Raman, and I will turn next to Councillor Palosa.

Thank you, Mr. Presigning Officer. It is with great pleasure for those who haven’t had a chance to visit, yes, to announce that the Children’s Museum has successfully relocated to 100 Kellogg. Their doors are open with long lines, so please reserve your space online ahead of time.

It has been a phenomenal journey recognizing they opened in 1977 with Carol Johnson’s vision of a place for children. To celebrate childhood, they’ve evolved from local parks to the old school where many of us have memories with our own children to know what’s going to be a Canada-wide renowned, if not internationally renowned, Children’s Museum has a 42-year-old vision, so please go check it out as 100 Kellogg continues to evolve into a magnificent jewel of the city and tourism destination. Thank you, Councillor Palosa, and I will turn next to Councillor Layman. Thank you, Arkinger.

London is home to world-class utilities, world-class facilities like Children’s Museum, which is fantastic to hear their new spot is up and running, but we’re also home to amazing world-class athletes. There’s only times that we celebrated athletic achievement in here, whether it’s Olympics or hockey or Canadian football. There was a little match on Sunday that some of you might have been aware of, and I’d like to recognize Sydney Brown. Sydney is London’s own who’s not only the first Londoner to play in the Super Bowl, but the first Londoner to win the Super Bowl, helping his Philadelphia Eagles destroy.

Well, it depends on where you’re at, the interesting thing about Sydney, it’s one thing to achieve excellence in whatever field you’re in, his plays, it’s football, but when you drill down you see what Sydney and his brother Chase, Chase, who plays for his Cincinnati Bengals, what they have managed to achieve, given the upbringing they have, they had a very challenging upbringing and in fact experiencing homelessness, and despite that, they overcame challenges through perseverance and drive to achieve greatness, but one way they had helped, they had helped with their high school and many teachers, and specifically their coach Dave Martin over at South there, and I think about how many thousands of kids come through those folks and the impact that they have on their lives to get them into a great path. And finally, I think the most important person to recognize here is Sydney’s and Chase’s mom, Rachel Brown, Rachel gave everything to her kids, sacrificing much to ensure the success of her kids despite the hardships that they face, so well done to all in a great to see Londoners achieve excellence. Thank you, Councillor Layman, and I’m going to rise and offer a recognition of my own, and colleagues, the reason I’m rising today is last week, I had the privilege of joining the London Police for an overnight ride along shift from 7pm to 7am with Sergeant Chris Golder, and it was quite a night of activity, and I want to share that with you, because early in the shift, we went lights and sirens to an active break and enter code 1 call. Not long after that code was cleared, we were pulling over a driver for unsafe driving in the downtown core.

Throughout the shift, we had two different calls that involved stabbings to respond to, which thankfully ended up as relatively minor injuries with trips to the hospital and individuals taken into custody. I also had the opportunity to see our coast team respond firsthand, dealing with an individual who was both homeless and someone who was known to have some mental health and addiction issues. Not only did the coast team respond quickly, but with the assistance of an outreach worker from Atlosa, and with the cooperation of the Salvation Army, the coast team was able to get that person into a stable, overnight bed situation, and did so demonstrating compassion and patience reinforcing for me just how valuable the coast program is in our police response to challenges in our community. We also had to respond to a call of a domestic disturbance reported by a neighbor who believed a gun might be involved.

Thankfully that was not the case, but it still required officers to deploy and investigate not knowing whether or not they were going to be walking into harm’s way. We stopped on another traffic stop made by an officer where a driver with a suspended license had their vehicle impounded and was also charged with dangerous driving, taking another dangerous driver off the road that night. It’s a pretty mixed bag of activities and well into the deep of the night when it seemed like things might be calming and going quiet for the rest of the shift. Another code one call came in reporting a robbery at gunpoint at a residence.

Lights and sirens went on again and on route we heard that the suspects had escaped in a carjacking vehicle, but our quick responding officers were not only able to stop the vehicle without injury to anyone, but sees not only an illegal handgun, but a significant quantity of crystal meth as well as a number of hydromorphin pills from a safe supply program and taking the suspects into custody. So it was quite a night in terms of seeing what our officers deal with every day. I would also be remiss if I didn’t take a quick moment to mention that freezing rain began sometime around 4 a.m. And no sooner did that start coming down than I saw our city salt trucks out on the roads doing their best to keep the roads safe for the coming morning commute.

Throughout the course of the shift I had a chance to interact with a number of officers, one who had earlier in the day attended an opioid overdose death and another who had to attend a hanging death. I heard for myself some of the difficult situations that our officers experience every day in doing their jobs and I wanted to share that with you. For the course of my 12 hour shift the London police really did illustrate how these men and women show up for work every day not knowing what they will encounter, what dangers they may face, whether or not they may even come home at the end of their shift. I participated in a ride along on my last term of council, but I wanted to see for myself the changes.

So it’s really important for me that I share this with you. The last time I was on a ride along call the call queue throughout the shift approached 200 calls. This shift over the course of 12 hours the call queue only exceeded 30 calls for a brief period of time between about 10 p.m. and about 1 a.m.

Before it remained under 30 calls for the rest of the night. Officers were responding quickly getting to the scene and calling and getting those code one calls cleared, but they were also able to get code two calls cleared as well. And perhaps most importantly from the pre shift assignment period to the interactions throughout the night, I saw a renewed sense of commitment and optimism from our officers. I saw an increased ability for them to respond proactively to bad behaviors on the road or to provide backup to fellow officers on potentially dangerous calls because they weren’t dealing with a 200 call queue.

They could actually see the bottom of the screen and I saw that professionalism and sense of pride in what they were doing. I saw in them hope that our city can be a safe place again. So in closing, I want to recognize and thank Sergeant Golder and all the men and women of three division who were on shift with me that night for letting me ride along shotgun with them and experience for myself their daily realities, their commitment to our city. They do the uniform and they do London proud.

Thank you. Now colleagues, before we move along to our review of Councillor truss out. Yes, thank you very much. I would like to very, very briefly acknowledge the work of the London Black History Coordinator Committee, which is coordinating a number of celebrations and events this month.

Many of them held at the museum or the library or other places around town to a numerous for me to mention. They seek to engage the community in celebrating Black History Month through organizing, supporting and collaborating with community organizations on programs and activities that are available in the region to educate, inform and uplift. But before the end of the month, I hope everyone in this room gets the opportunity to go to one of these events. Given the situation in the world today, I think sometimes we take these celebrations for granted.

And I’ve really been reflecting on the importance of Black History Month in London and it’s more important than it ever was. So please try to engage with some of their programs. I won’t give you a whole calendar right now, but it’s there online. And again, thank you very much to the coordinating committee.

Thank you. Thank you. Councilor Trussow. Colleagues, before we proceed with the remainder of our agenda, those of you who have a visual on eScribe or on Zoom will know that Mayor Morgan has been able to join us.

He’s not able to stay for the whole meeting, but he is able to join us. And I believe there’s a request to consider a change of order. The mayor did provide a notice of motion. So I’m going to look to Councillor Van Meerberg and Councillor Hill here with second, a move of a change of order so that we can deal with the notice of motion as the first item on our agenda while the mayor is with us.

So I will look to the clerk to open the vote on the change of order. Mayor Morgan’s votes, yes, sir, just give the clerks a moment and they’ll get that vote open. Yes, noted closing the vote. Motion carries 13 to 0.

Okay. So the change of order is approved is approved. So now we need to move on for leave for the notice of motion given. So we do require a vote to give leave for the mayor to introduce the motion that he had put on our agenda.

So that’s moved by Councillor Van Meerberg and seconded by Councillor Layman that leave be given. We will look to the clerks to open the vote as soon as they have that ready for us. And should now be open, Mayor Morgan and Councillor Stevenson, if you can give us your votes. Mayor Morgan’s in favor.

Closing the vote. Motion carries 13 to 0. Thank you, colleagues. So leave has been given.

Mayor Morgan, I will now move to you to introduce your motion. Thanks colleagues. So I wanted to bring forward a motion that a number of municipal councils and are considering at this moment. There’s been a number that have passed.

You have it on the agenda before you. I apologize. I don’t have a copy in front of me. I’m just walking between meetings.

It essentially does a few things. One is, takes a look at our procurement policies and has staff report back. My understanding is that the City of London’s procurement policy is, oh, you know what? Maybe, Chair, do you want me just to say I’m willing to put the motion on the floor and then provide rationale if there’s a seconder?

Yes. And Councillor Van Meerberg and has indicated his second. So you do have a seconder. So if we can get the motion on the floor, then we can go to you for your rationale.

Let me know when. The clerks say you can go ahead now. Okay, so this is, as I said, a motion that a number of mayors and Councillors are bringing to their councils across the country was something we talked about at the big city mayors meeting in Ottawa. It’s something that the Ontario big city mayors meeting discussed as well.

And it’s a general review of our procurement policies to see where we may be able to ensure that we’re supporting Canadian businesses buying Canadian supporting local industries. There will be some restrictions on that. We do have current international trade agreements that we have to follow. We also have existing policies that we have to follow, but like many cities, we’re doing a review.

Now, it’s my anticipation that we are probably fairly heavily locally supporting given the types of infrastructure that we purchase. But it’s a general review that the province is looking at, federal government is looking at how many municipalities are. The other parts of the motion to involve supporting a team Canada approach to the current trade disruptions. I could tell you just from my time here in Washington, there’s a lot of support from Americans for Canada and what we’re doing.

There’s not a lot of people who support the idea of tariffs. But the one thing that has been very clear is that the United approach that Canadians are taking is very effective. Not only are we reaching out from the federal government to those counterparts of the provincial premiers to their counterparts, but through mayors and mayors associations through the National League of Cities and US Conference of Mayors, we’ve been reaching out. That approach is very effective.

And so I’m looking for a general endorsement of the work that we’re doing and the continued work on this. It will move very quickly. And it has been moving very quickly, especially with the announcement of steel and aluminum tariffs. That was all the talk today, of course.

That executive order has not been finalized yet. And we have some time in that until March as well. But our United approach is pretty important and so that’s another component of the motion. I think rather than just using up all my time, I’ll leave it at that.

I know that colleagues want to share their opinions on this. There’s all the components of the motion there. I’d be happy to answer any clarifying questions, but I’ll leave it to the debate after that now that the motion’s on the floor. So I appreciate Council’s consideration.

I also appreciate the uniqueness of me not there and having the opportunity to still participate in the discussion. So thank you for changing the agenda. I really appreciate that. Thank you, Your Worship.

And I do know that you have a limited window of time. So if you do have to leave before the debate’s complete, please feel free to interject so that we can allow you to leave and we’ll get another name on the mover position so that the debate can continue. So I’ll look for speakers on this. I believe Councilor Van Meerberg and you wanted to speak to this as well.

So I’ll look to you first. Well, thank you, Acting Merritt. I want to first thank Mayor Morgan. I brought this matter up at the last Council meeting as an inquiry and it was very gratifying to hear that he was already well underway on working on this with staff and others.

And so what we see today is something that’s 110% necessary. I would hope that all of us vote, but this would be a unanimous vote because it shows the whole United Canada approach. Even just this past week and in the grocery store, for the first time ever, I heard active conversations among consumers about what products were Canadian, what products weren’t. It was very important to everyone, certainly, that I saw.

And I think it’s just going to snowball and get even bigger. And so the comment that the Mayor made that if we stay united, we will have a huge effect is very, very true. I mean, humans have been trading for thousands of years. Trade is instinctive to our nature.

Why? Because it benefits all parties concerned. It raises our standard of living. There are only benefits.

And that’s why trade has, throughout the eons and millennia, has always been fundamental to our relationships. So whether this tribe had this product, that tribe did not, this tribe both had something else, they could swap and trade. We have refined that through the years to the point where the North American Free Trade Agreement, which is now Kumsa or whatever, it’s that three-party relationship that we have. We’ve honed it for generations to the point where it has become a true thing of beauty.

My own personal experience is I spend and have spent, through many years, a lot of time in the United States and some in Mexico regarding the automotive sector. And we saw how intricate that was when we had the truckers have a blockade at the Ambassador Bridge. I mean, it only took one day to get things to actually stop in the entire North American supply chain. Reports in this industry have said this tariff at 25% goes through, just that one sector, the automotive sector, will grind to a halt in four to five days.

The impact of that is unbelievable. How we got to this stage is certainly not Canada’s fault, it’s not Mexico’s fault. It’s the leadership of that president at the United States currently that has thrown a monkey wrench into something which has benefited and floated all boats. And now that is all basically in peril.

So again, thank you to the mayor for this motion. It’s something that we can do at the municipal level, very important. But again, everyone has a role to play. Everyone can do their part in the choices we make, the purchases we make, and so on.

So again, I would hope that this would be a unanimous vote. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor van Mirbergen. Looking for other speakers, Councillor Trozzo.

Thank you very much and through the chair, I would like to second what my colleague just said. This is one of those situations where we’re in fundamental agreement, and it’s a very unusual circumstances, very unfortunate circumstances that have brought us to this. So I’m going to join you by saying thank you to the mayor for bringing this forward. I will be supporting this.

I would, however, you knew there was going to be another piece to this. I would, however, like to offer what I think would be a very, very minor and exceptionally friendly amendment, and I hope this will be okay. I would like to add, in part B, from Canadian businesses, I’d like to add and in particular local businesses, end of quote, to the motion, because I think while we’re doing this, we also want to try to recognize that we do have other ongoing policies in our strategic plan and buying local and things like that, and I just want this to be moving in that same direction. So I would like to add in, and in particular, local businesses to the motion.

Thank you very much. I’ll remain standing. Okay. We’ll look to see if there’s a seconder for that amendment, seconded by Councillor.

By multiple Councillors, seconded by Councillor Van Meerberg and me. We’ll go to him as the seconder of the original motion and look to see if there’s any discussion on the amendment. Councillor Hopkins and then Councillor Palosa. Yeah.

Happy to support the amendment. And I just want to give my thanks to the mayor for meeting with local businesses last week in the community and having important conversations, and I hope they will continue as we deal with the tariffs and trade. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Palosa.

Thank you. Just wondering if, I know we’re just saying letters and advocating for ourselves, but is there any applied distance of what we’re defining as local? Just we get into things, local offices, local suppliers, local employees. Just flagging that as we do do our work on the floor.

Well, I can’t speak to Councillor Trost, I was intent, but I’ll give him an opportunity to respond to his intent. Well, we could ask the same question about Canadian businesses in terms of a percentage of ownerships and all sorts of allocation, allocation rules. And I think the intent of this motion was to keep it general. I think it’s pretty clear what’s meant by this.

I believe that to go into a long discussion of what constitutes local, just like what constitutes Canadian would derail the speed with which we’re trying to do this. So I’m going to decline answering that, and the intention is to be very, very general. And this needs to be filled in with other things in our procurement policy. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. I will just add that I think it’s important to recognize that Clause B is the Mayor be requested to advocate. And so I think that the definition of local would be something that might be an ongoing discussion between members of Council and the Mayor as that advocacy work picks up. I would turn to the Mayor to see if he wants to comment if that would be his intent.

Yes, I have no objections to the amendment at all, I think, listen from, for Councillor Pelosi’s concern and through the chair, we know that we’re a local economic region, like we know that our general economic region that we operate with on as well beyond the city’s limits. We’re integrated with the existing small communities around us. We’re highly connected to the investments that are out there industrially, like with St. Thomas and others.

So I mean, local is a proximity thing. And I think the general idea here is let’s try to support the local economy. We know that local suppliers and not transporting goods long distances are good for the environment as well. So I think the intent is clear.

I’m not sure we need to find it further. And listen, part of this will require like changes in legislation. That’s why it’s an advocacy piece, right? So as the different levels of government are considering that, which I can tell you they are actively considering.

I think us expressing our desire to have some flexibility to procure locally, but certainly Canadian and Councillor Trost that was right. There are a number of definitions of what that means, but there are some very clear examples of what is not Canadian out there. And so how that plays out, we don’t know. I want to add one piece of context that makes this piece of the motion relevant.

And that is, I know that we are used to operating under specific international rules and trade agreements and procurement policies. I could tell you from everybody I’ve spoken to, the current administration at the top of the United States government does not care about rules. Like they just don’t. If they don’t like them, they’re going to try to do something different.

And so all of these things are likely up for adjustment over the next little while, whether it’s renegotiating Kuzma or the USMCA or looking at these sorts of policies. But this clause says is we are going to choose to be active in the lobbying efforts. We are going to decide as a city that we are going to participate in them. And we’re not just going to sit back and hope that it all works out for the best for our community or our region.

So I fully support Councillor Trost that as an amendment. And I fully support engaging with members of Council on an ongoing basis on their concerns or what they think that means with our advocacy efforts as well. So thank you, Chair. Thank you, Your Worship, looking for any other speakers on the amendment.

Seeing none, then I’m going to ask the clerk to open the vote on the amendment. Vote Mayor Morgan. I vote in favor. Thank you.

Thank you. Noted closing the vote. Motion carries 13 to 0. And now we’re back to the main motion as amended.

We’ll keep the same mover and seconder on the as amended hearing that they both supported the amendment looking for any other speakers before we call the vote. Councillor Ferreira. Thank you. Acting Mayor.

So I fully support this motion as well as fully support the amendment too. I just want to speak to this one, you know, Canada and our local economy, especially with our good supply chain is very integrated into the North American economy. And we, you know, do have lots of risks because of that. So kind of bringing emotion and focusing on our local economy and just raising it up and protecting ourselves for the future, especially considering we have what’s propped up on the other side of the border is a very good thing.

So I’m a full support of that. I would also say that, you know, considering the priorities of everything, you know, we do have a provincial election as well going on. And that is the end date of that is the 27th of February. So I would also say to Councillors and to council, we should not also forget the priorities of the city.

You know, that’s, that’s things that we need to bring for the province that’s health care, that’s housing. And those are the basically the things that we’re always talking about here. So, you know, in that time, I would say, please do not forget that we should also be really kind of promoting and advocating for the needs of the city and the needs of the province as well. I understand we have an existential threat that has popped up on the other side of the border.

And I also understand that as the mayor said, and I totally agree with him that, you know, the actors on the other side may not really care about the rules. And they may just be, you know, using this as a negotiating tactic or they may be using this as something else. But in the end, if we shouldn’t lose our focus on the priorities of the city, we need to focus on what the province needs, we need to understand and we need to advocate for that. Any type of any type of face time that we have with our provincial leaders, if we have that face time and we’re right face to face, we need to be advocating for those priorities of the city because those aren’t going to go away.

And this is the time, the most critical time to be advocating for that. So we should use that time. We should use this time because we do have an end date and we need to ensure that the province hears what we need and the province hears what we’re saying. So in addition to protecting our local economy, to protecting our value supply chain, to protecting our integration in the North American economy, we also need to remember that there are priorities for the city.

There are priorities for the province and we need to advocate for those priorities. Thank you, Councillor Ferrera, and looking for other speakers. Mayor Morgan, do we’re you back on the main motion as amended? Yeah, I’m going to speak to the as amended motion now since it’s a new, it’s a new motion.

Okay, go ahead. I’m going to start the timer on you this time though. Yeah, I want to add something that I didn’t add before because it’s pretty important. First, let me comment briefly through the chair on Councillor Ferrera’s comment.

Yes, this motion is very important to the team Canada approach. I can tell you I met with the Premier this morning and I always take the opportunity when I have a chance to meet with the Premier to advocate for our other priorities within our city. So when there’s an ability for a side conversation, the types of things that we need beyond this to continue to grow the city effectively to support our work on homelessness, housing affordability, all of those things I raised this morning with the Premier when I had the chance. So make no mistake, we’re not going to just because we’re on a big team doesn’t mean we’re not going to advocate for the things that we need.

What I want to say to the main as amended motion that I want to make very clear from my engagements this morning with the US Chamber of Commerce and American business leaders is Americans are on our side just because we need to protect ourselves just because we need to take some actions and support a team Canada approach does not mean that Americans and Canadians are not very close allies, very closely economically integrated and we have carved out something that is the envy of the world from an economic perspective. What we have to do is continue to protect that and the best way to do that is we are not against Americans in this, in fact here advocating alongside of Americans to the Trump administration that this is a bad idea. It’s a bad idea for Canadians, it’s a bad idea for Americans, it’s a bad idea for both of our businesses, it’s a bad idea for the residents who are going in, it’s a bad idea for people who want to buy fire trucks because they’re made in the US, it’s a bad idea all around and we just need to convince one administration, one person at the top that is going to involve not only a team Canada approach but also a strategic alliance with key American influencers which is part of the work here, so the work of municipal councils, the past resolutions of these are really important to the actual on the ground advocacy that’s happening here today, I can tell you the mayor of Kitchener who I spoke with this morning passed a resolution at his council yesterday, we appreciate the work that municipal councils are doing and I appreciate your support for this motion, I wish I could be there with you guys, but I appreciate the work that you have to use today as well. Thank you, your worship and you’re well under your five minutes, so however it’s council you only get to speak once, so I won’t be coming back to you on this one looking for any other speakers before we call the vote and seeing none I will ask the clerk to open the vote.

Mayor Morgan is in favor. Frozen the vote, motion carries 13 to 0. Thank you colleagues, so that dispenses with our notice of motion, moving on our next item is review of confidential matters to be considered in public. There are none.

Chair. Yes, Mayor. As per our procedure by live informing you that I won’t be returning to the meeting, I have to go into another meeting here. Okay.

Thank you and I’m sure on behalf of council, everyone wishes you the best of luck in this afternoon’s meetings and we hope they’re productive. Moving along the review of confidential matters to be considered in public. There are none. That brings us to our closed session, so I will need a motion to move in camera, moved by Councillor Hopkins and seconded by Councillor Hillier and we’ll ask the clerk to open the vote on that.

Councillor Troso noted closing the vote, motion carries 12 to 0. Thank you colleagues. We will move to committee room five for our in-camera session and for those in the gallery we will return when we’re done with our confidential matters. Okay colleagues, moving on with our agenda, the next item is confirmation and signing of the minutes of the previous meetings.

Look for a mover and a seconder, moved by Councillor Ferrera, seconded by Councillor Van Meerbergen. Looking for any questions, comments, seeing none, we will ask the clerk to open the vote on that. Councillor Stevenson. Councillor Stevenson votes yes.

noted, thank you. Closing the vote, motion carries 11 to 0. Thank you colleagues. Moving on, the next item is communications and petitions of which there are several.

I’m going to look for a motion to refer them all to the appropriate agenda items, moved by Councillor Hillier and seconded by Councillor Cuddy and I will ask the clerk to open the vote on that. The vote is in the vote, motion carries 11 to 0. Thank you everyone. On.

We have already dealt with motions of which notice is given. That brings us to committee reports and the first item is the third report of the community and protective services committee. I will look to Councillor Ferrera. I know you have some items that you need to pull so if you can indicate which ones you’re going to put on the floor first and then we’ll deal with those that are pulled.

Thank you acting there, pleased to put the third report of the community and protective services committee on the floor. I have requests, I know that there’s some motions for item 6, 2.5 that’s unsheltered homelessness encampment initiative and incremental reaching home funding allocations. So I’ll pull that. I also have a declaration of interest for item 8, that’s 4.1 Bob Award YMCA at 1050 Hamilton Road.

So I’ll pull that too. I haven’t had any other pull requests. Councillor Stevenson. Thank you.

I’d like to pull 8.15. So that would be item 5, Councillor Ferrera, so if you can have that one pulled from your first motion. Okay. I can pull that as well.

Okay. So I, as long as there’s no other pull requests, I will move items 1 through 4, item 7 and item 9. Okay. So that’s on the floor.

We’re looking for any discussion on those items, seeing none, then I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Opposing the vote. Motion carries 12 to 0. Councillor Ferrera.

Thank you. Acting there. Okay. So that leaves me with item 5.

Councillor, that’s 2.4. The whole community system response queue for quarterly report. Okay. So that’s on the floor.

Looking for any speakers. Councillor ramen. Thank you. And through you.

So I have circulated a few amendments to this item. Just one. Councillor, I’m just going to stop you there. You circulated amendments on item 6.

This is item 5. The whole of community quarterly. Okay. Then I have Councillor Stevenson next.

Thank you. I just pulled this to vote against it. I just want to be consistent with what I’ve been saying pretty much since the start of this whole community response that I needed myself there. Sorry.

Go ahead. Okay. I don’t know where I left off there, but I’m going to be voting against this to be consistent with what I’ve been saying pretty much since the beginning of the whole community response two years ago that the reports for me aren’t giving me and what I’m hearing from the public what they want to see. The AMO homelessness report talked about functional zero where homelessness is rare, brief and non recurring.

And I’d love to see a report that tells us how we’re doing in terms of getting there. What are the local successes because the report I saw says that five were increasing by 5% per year. We have no warming centers. We have no shelter guidelines.

We have no guidelines for resting spaces. I see other cities with reports on occupancy, length of stay calls for fire police and ambulance. I don’t see financial projections on the funding for centers that we have and what’s going to be coming due. There’s no reporting of the number of deaths.

No plan to address the increasing numbers. There’s no plan to address the safety concerns in our shelters that we talked about in our strategic plan. And there’s no plan to address the oversaturation in all these village in the core area. We are, we’re talking here about expanding the arcade footprint in the core area.

There’s a new unity shelter that’s planned to come across from Aolan Hall. And it just doesn’t seem to be in alignment with what has been recognized over the last five years or so in terms of the oversaturation in the downtown in the core areas and what that is doing to businesses and neighborhoods that don’t have options to escape and they don’t have support services available to deal with their issues and concerns. So I’ll be voting no to receiving this. Thank you, Councilor, looking for any others, seeing none, then I will ask the clerk to open the vote.

Those in the vote. Motion carries. 11 to 1. Thank you, Councilor Ferreira.

I’m going to go to you to put item six on the floor. I will advise colleagues a number of Councillors have reached out asking for things to be voted on separately, some amendments have been circulated, I’m going to deal with those as efficiently as we can. We will block those that can be dealt with in a block. We will deal with those separately that need to be dealt with separately.

I will go in the order that they were forwarded to me as requested by the chair. So I’m going to start with Councillor Ferreira. If you could put item six on the floor and then we’ll go from there. I can.

All right. Item six, 2.5 on sheltered homelessness encampment initiative and incremental reaching home funding allocations. I’ll put that on the floor. Thank you.

So I will now advise colleagues in terms of proceeding on this item. We have a couple of items that relate to funding for at LOSA. We will deal with those in a block unless people want them dealt with separately. We have motions from Councillor ramen to amend clauses D and clause H, I believe, and Councillors will correct me if I’m wrong on this as we go.

Councillor Layman wants clause E dealt with separately and I believe Councillor Ferreira, you also have a change that you want to make with clause B. So I’m going to start with Councillor ramen. We will deal with your proposals first, then we will move to Councillor Layman’s request and then we will move to Councillor Ferreira’s request and then we will deal with the main motion as amended with however that works out as we proceed through our debate and decision making here. So Councillor ramen, I will go to you first.

Thank you and through you. So what I’ve circulated to members of council is the following actions be taken with respect to unsheltered homelessness and can’t been initiatives UHEI and incremental reaching home funding allocations in this report as outlined. So this is amendments to the following that part D related to an amendment to the existing municipal purchase of service agreement with the arcade street mission for the period of April 1st, 2025 to March 31st, 2026 be referred to civic administration to examine options for beds in place of day spaces with any service provider who can provide the beds without subcontracting. That part H be amended to read the use of housing stability services budget for a total of up to 1.4 million be approved to support costs associated with the provision of basic human needs using the UHEI and reaching home incremental funding from January 1st, 2025 through March 31st, 2026.

So that was just to amend the language to read provisions of basic human needs. And the last part and those are the two parts for that motion that I’m bringing forward as a change and I don’t know if I can hold to speak to them at the end if I have a seconder. You can. I’m going to just see because people may want to vote differently on your amendment to D and your amendment to H.

So I’m going to see if we can deal with those as separate amendments. So excuse me, I will just have you read your amendment to D again. Look for a seconder, we’ll dispense with that and then we’ll move to your amendment for H. Sure.

So D is relating to an amendment to the existing municipal purchase of service agreement with the arcade street mission for the period of April 1st, 2025 to March 31st, 2026. Be referred to civic administration to examine options for beds in place of day drop in spaces with any service provider who can provide the beds without subcontracting. And is there a seconder for that? Councillor Layman, do you want me to go to you for your rationale now or do you want me to open it to the floor?

OK, so we’ll open that to the floor first and Councillor Ramen is going to reserve her right to come back and speak to her rationale. So if I don’t have anyone, oh, Councillor Stevenson. Thank you. I just wanted to say that I’m going to be supporting this and I appreciate this amendment.

This funding is to go until March 31st of 2026, so through until next winter. And I really do want us to focus on beds, not the indoor spaces. That’s the priority. We have cities around us that are able to bring their people indoors during the winter.

And that is what I hear from people all of the time, that we should not have London or sleeping outside in this kind of weather. And I’ve been saying that consistently. I appreciate this motion. I will absolutely be supporting it.

Anything that focuses and brings London with a commitment to bring all people indoors in the cold winter weather months is going to have my support. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Stevenson. Looking for other speakers.

Councillor Trussow. The point of order I’d like to make is I received these amendments just maybe an hour before the meeting. And it’s really hard for me to evaluate this and understand whether I want to support this or not when the proponent reserves their rationale until afterwards. So I just so long as I can reserve my response to her rationale, I’m okay with that.

But this sort of puts me in a bad position from the point of view of being able to argue this. So Councillor, I’m going to rule that’s not really a point of order. A Councillor can introduce amendments on the floor. It’s certainly encouraged that we don’t.

And it was circulated in advance, although I will grant you not with a lot of notice. But it is within any Councillor’s right to move an amendment even on the floor. The Councillor can also introduce a motion but choose not to speak to it. We can’t play who’s going to wait for their turn to speak forever.

They’re going to have to get their name on a speaker’s list one way or the other and decide when it’s their opportunity to speak or not. So that’s the decision of each individual Councillor. There’s no procedural rules that I can apply to require people to speak in a certain order. In which case, I’ll reserve my comments.

Okay. So I’m looking for other speakers to the amendment. Councillor Palosa. Thank you and through you to the appropriate staff looking to see if they have any comments on the potential impacts or changes we would see of day use space versus beds if this decision moves forward.

Mr. Dickens. Thank you and through the chair. With this amended motion, we would need to go out and seek participation from organizations that can operationalize beds.

So in the absence or in place of the daytime resting space, we would first need to confirm if there are folks that have indoor spaces or indoor beds. We would want to do that as quick as possible to make sure we can come back and ratify any agreements by the end of March to have this in place by April 1st. My understanding and speaking to the Councillor that has moved this motion is that in the absence of finding organizations that can actually mobilize beds, that we would still be in a position to perhaps pursue the day drop in spaces. Councillor Palosa, you’re good looking for other speakers.

Councillor Ferriera. Thank you chair. Hopefully I can ask questions while I’m reporting as the chair of the committee. So like the way I see this motion is like it’s being referred back and we are going to get another report back to committee.

So I guess my first question would be what is the feasibility to actually have that report back before the April 1st deadline here because I do see that the funding is supposed to go from April 1st to March 31st, April 1st 2025 to March 31st, 2026. So I just want to make sure that we don’t have any gaps of any services. So I just wanted to go to staff and kind of get, I guess, I know I might be crystal balling in here, but if you could just come back and let us know what is the likelihood that we’ll have this report back to work done and we won’t have any gaps. Mr.

Dickens, if I can get you to pause for just one moment, please. Sorry, I just wanted to check with your question, Councillor, in terms of the number of council meetings between now and April 1st, there is one on March the 4th and then the following one is April 1st. Mr. Dickens, if you’d like to go ahead now with your response.

Thank you through the chair. So we would, again, would look to move as quick as possible to determine what’s available in the community. We have understanding and following whatever procurement process we can in terms of some sort of expression of interest or some sort of call out to organizations to be able to do this, the business case that was endorsed by council from the arc was a direct solicitation. So that was a procurement process that we followed.

This would require us to embark on some form of procurement process to go out and find vendors to deliver some type of beds within this budget. To be able to hit the CAHPS meeting that is coming up later this month, I think, would be outside the realm of possibility, so we would, at best, be targeting the March 17th CAHPS. Now, if we go out with the support of the procurement team and find the best avenue to go and find partners that might be able to participate in this and we find that there aren’t any, we may be able to update you at the February CAHPS to say that, but if there is an interest, we’d have to follow that process to get it back here. That being said, we have been in contact with organizations throughout the cold weather events asking for people with available space.

And again, last week and again this morning, asking organizations, “Can you offer beds? Do you have available space? Have you indicated this to any member of council that you have available space?” And so far, the responses have been, “No, they do not,” but that being said, we have not heard from every provider yet, so we’ll wait to see what we hear back. Councilor Ferra.

All right, thank you for that. So like I’m just concerned with the potential gap that may arise, but I do want to pursue this because I do see what the councilor is saying. I’m just worried about any lack of contingency that we might have in that situation. So if we were to miss that next CAHPS deadline, and I’m sorry, through the chair, when was the two council meetings that you said?

So one is on March the 4th, which the February CAHPS would report into. The other is on April 1st, which the March CAHPS would report into. So we would be able to ratify something on the 1st of April, potentially. Okay, that’s where I was going with that.

What would be the windup from that ratification at council to actually provide the funding? Is there any time space between the April 1st, or my question basically is, I’m just worried about that gap in funding again, and I do know it takes time on the administrative side to provide the funding. So I guess not asking the agency if they can float the cash, but is there any concern that you see for the windup to be able to provide that funding after the April 1st council meeting? Mr.

Dickens. Through the chair, thank you. I mean, there is going to be some time to execute agreements and to negotiate those contracts and have those signed and in place by both parties. That being said, if there is some agreement in place that council passes this on April 1st that perhaps services can commence, and we would just take the time to ratify those agreements and proceed, they’re fairly standard agreements.

I think one of the risks here is understanding the impact that if the day space is no longer something that’s being pursued, that I would need to better understand what the impact that is to the arc and their ability to operate the beds, the 70 beds at Crona Warner and what that means for their ability to support people. And if those two things are linked, which I expect they would be, there may be impacts in those operational services as well. Councillor Ferrera. Thank you, Chair.

Okay. Appreciate that answer. I just want to make sure that we find a solution, find funding that works. And I do feel like myself personally, I do need more time to do this work.

I’m really adverse to doing committee work at council, so I do like the referral back. And I would also say that if we find ourselves during a time between a couple of meetings, and if I can, as Chair, maybe call a special meeting, if you need to, I will do that for the committee so we can hit that April 1st deadline. So I would say to the Deputy City Manager, just know that you don’t have to follow. The deadline for the CAHPS committee is not a deadline for you.

I can be flexible and I’ll call a special meeting, and I will support the motion. Thank you, Councillor Ferrera, looking for other speakers. Councillor ramen. Thank you, and through you.

So the reason the rationale for my motion, and I’m only speaking to the amended portion of this time, it relates to the communication we received on January 21st, 2025. So council received an open letter, and that open letter came from our GAID, London Cares, Unity Project, and other organizations, and they were asking us at that time to take a different approach. Just a few days later, this report comes to CAHPS and asks us to provide the same supports that don’t align with the approach that they’ve now requested support for. And I understand one was related to cold weather and extreme weather, but what I saw in front of us was a request to use funds, and so at the time that we’re seeing these kinds of requests come forward, my concern is that we have limited resources.

And so if there are other approaches that are needed, if there are other solutions that we need to be discussing, then we need to be having those conversations while we’re making these kinds of decisions. The decision we made in November to support the arc in the day spaces, at that time for me included overnight spaces, and so I was more inclined to support both those activities at the same time. And now I’m hearing, again, reading this report and this moment in time, again, we’re going to see another increase in the amount of folks that are living unsheltered in our community in up to 5% every year. And with that, we have to keep asking ourselves, is this the best way to use our resources?

And going back out to partners in the community to say, are there any avenues that we haven’t explored, any beds available, that we haven’t materialized yet, although this funding would start April 1st to March 2026. Part of that was our decision making. We were the ones that created that timeline to say we wanted to make sure that there were ongoing spaces, day spaces, but we’re hearing overwhelmingly from organizations that we need to get people inside and we need to get them out of the cold. While cold weather is here now, and it will hit again in November or October and November of next year again.

So are we going to continue down the path where we continue to put money into solutions and then the community comes back to us and says this isn’t working? So I want to take us to a different place in this conversation, explore all avenues, let any, perhaps, stones that haven’t been unturned at this point be turned and have those discussions with the possibility of that 1.4 million on the table. And I’ll speak to some other portions of the rest of the motion later, which I think also intertwined with this. But that’s my rationale for that component of this motion in front of us.

I will also say that, again, I want to be very clear that I’m supportive of basic supports, basic needs, and I’m supportive of beds. And those are the two amendments that I’ve put forward today for that reason. We need to peel back some of the layers and see what we’re doing and make sure that we’re providing and meeting people’s needs as much as possible with the limited dollars we have. Thank you, Councillor.

Councillor Trussell. Thank you very much, and through the chair, I’m going to be opposing this amendment, and I would urge other Councillors to oppose the amendment. I really would have valued very much having had the opportunity to see this earlier, ideally on the out of agenda so other people could react to it, too. I have very serious concerns about, once again, things unravel between committee time and council time.

Here we are not only doing committee work at council but talking about deferring it so we can do more committee work. And I think we really had a fulsome discussion of this at the committee. Furthermore, I would very much like to get a better analysis with less uncertainty about whether or not there is a gap and how many meetings we have to schedule, and yes, we can call a special meeting, but that would be unusual, and our calendar is pretty full as it is anyway. So I’m going to vote no on this amendment, and I’m going to support the motion that came from committee as it is, and if something needs to be fixed later, we can do that.

But I don’t like doing this level of committee work at the City Council. Thank you. Thank you for indulging me. Thank you, Councillor Trussell.

Thank you for any others, Councillor Layman. Thank you. I share the Councillor’s frustration. And I think what was referred to originally is before, you know, an hour before council, we received a letter from a number of our providers, including one that we’re discussing here, outlining concern that we were addressing extreme cold weather response.

We have been told that we need to direct resources for our response throughout the year. And so we did, we allocated resources and plans to allow for more spots throughout the year, and then we hear back, well, what about clean cold weather? So you know, I’m supporting this, and because I’ve kind of changed my focus, it is beds. You know, when it gets cold out, the concern is for people that are unsheltered to be out in the extreme environment.

Unfortunately, we have limited resources, both in money and both with staff and agencies, et cetera. Where do we focus those limited resources? I think we got to get back to focusing more on those that have provided shelter, an extreme and extreme environment. And the other thing, you know, with the Councillor’s concern about last minute is between the committee and now all sorts of numbers were being presented to us that were, it kind of was in flux.

So you know, I share those concerns. We need more time to study financial implications, staffing implications, direction that we’re going. So this particular amendment, I support, because I truly believe what I’ve experienced in the last, well, during this winter, which has been unusually, well, maybe usually harsh, but over the past few winters, maybe unusually mild, which has maybe taken our eye off the ball of that, we have to really focus on what’s truly dangerous out there with extreme cold and getting those folks as possible in shelter. Councillor Hopkins.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Residing Mayor, I would like to maybe just speak to A, have no concerns with B, but… So we’re not on the main motion, Councillor, right now, we’re just on the amendment to D from Councillor Raman, which is the referral. On D, I’m sorry, I’ve got A’s and B’s and D’s floating by.

And I just want to make comments about these changes that are going on here. And I know we all want to provide the best care for our vulnerable population, but I do have some concerns here. When we make decisions here at Council, the consequences of those decisions, I don’t think we really truly understand. I gather now that we’re going to be referring this back to look at another possible provider and have that reported back to us.

I do appreciate staff’s comments about they’d have to work on this right away. And I wonder if the Councillor would be open to a friendly amendment to allow that this information come back to us for March the 4th. I think if we wait until April the 1st, we’re really cutting it short. When I hear concerns, and again, it gets back to the implications of these decisions.

We’re making here this afternoon, I haven’t fully grasped. And so not really understanding the day spaces and what that will happen at ARK aid, I really feel we need a little bit of time for us as a council to understand what we’re doing. So having said that, I would like to maybe ask that this come back to whatever that CAHPS meeting is before March the 4th. I assume it was March the 4th council meeting that was made.

So Councillor, I think it’s important to point out that Mr. Dickens has already indicated they would not be able to meet that March 4th council meeting, that they might be able to provide an update at the February CAHPS, but that update would not be necessarily service agreements in place that would have to follow that. Mr. Dickens, I’m going to go back to you to confirm that, because I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but I think I heard you say you cannot meet the March 4th council meeting deadline.

Thank you through you chair. Next week from today is the CAHPS in February that precedes the March 4th council committee. So as we have been, we’ll continue to speak to some of these service providers. But if there’s action we need to take in terms of any type of procurement or opening that up to solicit bids or budgets or proposals, there’s, I don’t see how we can get to you by next Tuesday with all of that information.

We may be able to rule out this as an option by next Tuesday and we can provide that update. Councillor. I appreciate knowing that because as much as I wanted to support the referral going back to really look at opportunities, I do think I’ve got some concerns about the tight timelines here and the implications, so I won’t be supporting it. Thank you.

Looking for any other speakers? Seeing none, Councillor Plowsley, can I ask you to take the chair? Thank you. I have the chair and I am timing.

Excellent. I won’t time myself. I am rising to indicate I will support the referral here. I know that there’s a number of amendments, I think this is the time for me to say my piece and it will relate to sort of all of them, but it’s relevant to this one.

And I’m going to repeat a little bit of what other Councillors have said. Last year we listened to our providers, we listened to our whole of community response that said you need to move to an all-year response. And we had one provider who was willing to provide up to 90 additional overnight beds year round. It’s a great staff go explore that, see what works out.

We floated some interim funding so that that could happen until we were able to get funding from senior levels of government, get that in place. But to Councillor ramen’s point, last month we then received a letter from eight service providers in the city saying you’re not doing enough in a cold weather alert. After having said when we approved the 90 overnight beds to be year round that this was our winter response, that the winter response was simply not going to end. It was going to continue all year round.

And we are constantly told we need to listen to those working in the sector, but we’re hearing that what’s been committed is not working. I however agree with a number of my council colleagues that for me, I want my priority to be on overnight beds. That’s where the priority is for me. And to underscore what Councillor Layman was saying in the last week, I received three different sets of numbers.

I don’t know which one is actually valid anymore. And I’m not prepared to prove things that I’m not certain of at this point in time. So I’m going to support the referral. This is for services moving on in April.

I will be supporting the other clause that speaks to the funding until the end of March, because I don’t want to lose services in that gap. I do think, and we’ve seen it before on other contracts, if the contracts aren’t ratified until April 8th or 9th, they can be retroactive to April 1st. And those service providers can still be paid for the services rendered. So while the timelines are tight, and I know our staff are going to have to do a lot of work in a very short order to reach out to the potential providers and see if beds, additional beds can be secured, then I hope that they can come back with something.

I am encouraged by the fact that during the cold weather alert, there were before we even operationalized our emergency response of chalk. My understanding is the previous night, 44 additional beds were operationalized by service providers in the community. I don’t know what that means in terms of their ability to provide those on a longer-term timeframe, but I think that that has to be part of this discussion. So I’m going to support the referral.

I will say I’m going to disagree slightly with Councillor Stevenson. I don’t envision or I don’t foresee how we’re ever going to have a night where every single person is inside. And I saw that on my ride along, frankly, there are people who will still refuse to come inside, even when there is a bed. That is not everybody, but there are those who will refuse, and I saw that on my ride along too.

So I’m going to support this because I want to explore other options for overnight beds. If those do not materialize, then I think the daytime resting spaces are a good fall back, but they’re not where my priority is. My priority is on the overnight times when other places are closed and there aren’t opportunities to go into a library, into a community center, into another space and be out of the cold and warm up for half an hour or an hour at a time at one o’clock, two o’clock in the morning when those opportunities don’t exist. That’s when I’d like to see if we can operationalize some more beds.

So I appreciate the Councillor bringing this forward. I’ve been saying this consistently for a few months now. I set it at committee as well. If it means that we have to decrease the number of beds that are operating in July so that we are operating more overnight spaces when it’s minus 20 out, then that’s a direction and a discussion that I want to have.

Thank you. Your performance in 27 seconds. I have no other hands I’ve seen in the interim and returning chair to you. Thank you, Councillor.

Looking for any other speakers before we call the vote, seeing none, I will ask the clerk to open the vote then. On the amendment. Close in the vote. Motion carries.

10 to 2. Councillor ramen, I’m going to ask you to remain standing and now introduce your motion on part H. And then once you’ve introduced it, we’ll see if there’s a seconder. Once there is, I will see whether you wish to speak to it or yield to other speakers.

Thank you and through you. So I did provide the language and spoke to the language earlier. It is again to support basic provision of needs and that’s the amendment that I’m putting forward. You’ve got a seconder for that, Councillor Layman, Councillor ramen, did you want to speak to it now?

No? Okay. We’ll look to see other speakers. Councillor Palosa.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a question through you to staff. Realizing the main change noted here is the removal of the world transactional outreach.

Just looking through you to staff to see if we do do this wording change of removing transactional outreach, if it affects any of the provisions outlined for the funding that we’re receiving. Well, let’s ask that of Mr. Dickens or Mr. Cooper, whichever one wants to take that response.

Through you, Chair. So this report is how we propose using the federal funding that Council directed us to go and apply for and directed us to go and seek out certain types of services to use this money for. So we went to the community and said, we’ve got Council direction, we’ve got a federal encampment fund. These are the types of things we’re looking for.

What would it look like to operationalize it? These are the types of initiatives that came back to us. If we remove the reference to transactional outreach, which infers, we don’t assign any funding to transactional outreach, we would need to look to somehow still provide that service or cease that service altogether. So the provision of basic human needs can take many shapes or forms.

It could include daytime drop-in spaces, for example. It could look at showers, laundry, and access to meals, and direct care. Without transactional outreach, that would mean that we wouldn’t have a source of funding through this report, at least, to be able to fund outreach workers going out and actually checking on people that are living unsheltered or living outdoors and be able to meet their basic needs where they’re at. So it would require a rethink of how we support people living outdoors.

Mr. Palosa. Thank you. I just thought it was important to note, as we go through this conversation, how we define the provision of basic human needs.

Thank you. Looking for other speakers. Mr. Trossa.

I’ll keep this very brief, and we’re speaking to the amendment. Right now? Yes. I just cannot support the idea of not going forward with these types of services.

I think once again, we need to have a better understanding of what the implications of this amendment are, and my response to that is not to further delay it, but to approve what came through the committee. So I’ll be voting, though, on this, and I’ll leave it at that. Thank you. Looking for other speakers on the amendment, and Councillor Stevenson, you have your hand up.

Yes. Thank you. Again, I’m going to be supporting this. In the report, I had seen it said, talked about outreach workers where possible will use assertive engagement and motivational interviewing that support individuals in achieving their goals.

And if this is included under transactional outreach, I really, I want to support outreach that finds people in the parks and brings them inside. And I know when I read Windsor’s proposal, that’s what their outreach workers do. They create new shelter spaces and they send people out to encourage and to bring people indoors. When I sent an email asking for some details on this, it said that it was just general direction, the 1.4 million, that the encampment group must manage the 1.4 million over a 15 month period, knowing that the actual needs are greater than the funding available.

I don’t know who the encampment group is, but it also said that we didn’t know who the providers were going to be for the outreach. So it’s just not enough detail in this for me to agree to what the 1.4 million, I guess the amendment is just about changing it down to basic needs. So I’m going to be supporting that. When we talk about wellness checks and that kind of thing, I mean, people aren’t okay out there.

I don’t think we need to go out there to realize that they’re not okay. And I want the outreach to, I want all the money focused on indoor spaces that we’re bringing people to and basic needs would be things like washrooms, which I think everybody is for in terms of food. We need to remember that our unhoused population gets the same amount per month that the people in our social housing and people on Ontario works and ODSP get. Is it enough?

No, but we don’t try to solve that issue and there’s tons and tons of resources out there for that. When we talked about arcade and these day spaces, I mean, arcade’s been on Dundas East for 40 years, but they’ve been a soup kitchen, they didn’t need a million for a year to do that. So I like the idea of the wording change and I’ll be bringing forward an amendment later about referring this and I think some of my comments ventured onto that, but I’ll be supporting this amendment. Thank you, Councillor Stevenson, Councillor Ferriero.

Thank you, Chair. So from the comments from Councillor Palosa and from kind of what I was looking at too, I do see that the transactional outreach has been removed from this motion. So I just want to go to staff and you can give me a definition of what transactional outreach means. Councillor Dickens.

Through you, Chair, we have a definition of transactional outreach that was in a council endorsed encampment plan, it outlines it there. We also have had workers doing a lot of what Councillor Stevenson described as transformational outreach, which is what Windsor does is go out, work with people, get them on the pathway to housing, bring them indoors. We were directed by Council not to include that, transformational outreach is part of our submission to the federal government. So we focus on transactional outreach, which was meet their basic human needs.

That is a requirement of the federal funding that we do move people indoors. It’s something that with this source of funding and UHEI, we actually have to report on outcomes to the federal government of how many people did we move from encampments to indoor spaces. But solely a focus of what transactional outreach is is to support people where they’re at and get them indoors into hubs, into housing, into shelters, into wherever we can. And so that would continue.

And I think as far as a broad definition of transactional outreach, it is we’re going out meeting people where they’re at, trying to sustain their basic human needs and move them indoors so they can be safe. Councillor Ferrer. Thank you, Chair. So transactional reach, food, clothes, blankets, basic provisions that people need to survive out in the cold.

Is that a fair, maybe, summary of transactional reach? Okay. So the way I see it is like I am fully in support of transformational reach as well. And I know that’s bringing people inside, and that’s what we should be doing.

The truth is it takes time to do that. And we have items on the floor that are showing that, you know, it will take time to make those initiatives actually a physical reality. And in the meantime, people are going to need these basic provisions. So we need to make sure that people are going to make it until we get to that transformational component.

So that’s why I wouldn’t be able to support this one. We need both the transactional and the transformational. Apologies for asking you for the definition, Mr. Dickens.

I know what it was. I just wanted to see, I just wanted to point out that these are basic provisions that will sustain human life. Basic provisions that will help people survive or outside unsheltered with no protections or supports like that. So we need to, we need to supply the transactional outreach.

So because of that, I wouldn’t be able to support this motion. Speaking for other speakers, Councillor Ramen. Thank you and through you. So I want to speak to why I was making this update into the language for this particular amendment.

The way that I read this amendment as connected to the report was an additional hiring of others for transactional work. And my concern is we hear that we have, again, limited funds. We have increased need and we have to figure out how to best utilize that money. This idea that the federal government won’t support this change from using the word transactional to basic human needs doesn’t, in my perspective, align with what I heard, how this money could be used.

I heard that we had the ability to use this money to provide basic human needs. If that’s not clear to me, I’m seeking clarity, which is why I did seek that clarification from staff as well. I’m not trying to parse words here. I’m trying to make it very clear what it is we have the capacity to do, where our funds should be used, and that we’re very clear about that difference between transformational and transactional when we have limited funding.

I’ll speak to some of those funding challenges, again, as we enter into the conversation on the main motion. The federal government provided us with money, but that money has its own limitations, including backdating that money. That money actually applies from September 2024 to March 2025 in its first installment, which means it’s for programming that we already provided. The community hears, “Oh, there’s two and a half million dollars,” and guess what?

You can use it, and it’s new money and new dollars that you can use towards programming, but that is not the reality that we are facing. The community thinks we have more money to do more, and unfortunately, we do not. We have to draw a line. We have to say what we can provide, and we have to think about things like Maslow, and what are those hierarchy of needs for people, and what are those basic needs?

This is not to, in any way, limit people from getting resources they need. It’s to make sure that they have the resources that are going to make them survive, and I think that that is part of what we have to start refocusing on. Again, I go back to the letter. These organizations wrote us and said that we have to look at new ways forward.

How do we do that if all of our funds are tied up? Looking for other speakers. Councillor McAllister. Thank you through the chair.

I apologize. I might be a bit horsey today when I’m getting over a cold. I appreciate the discussion that’s gone on. I know it’s very difficult.

I found this very challenging committee to deal with. It’s a lot to unpack, so I can completely understand my council colleagues, even between the time between committee and council, it’s a lot to unpack. I supported the last amendment. I also think I’ll support this one, and I agree.

I think what the council described just now is what I really struggle with. We have limited resources. We’re trying to allocate them appropriately. What I found difficult with this one was services and supports.

I’m constantly trying to do this juggling act in my head in terms of are we funding the workers? Are we funding the services? I’m hearing all the time. People want the beds.

People need these basic needs to survive, but we’re also, we have this large machine that’s also operating with these funds, and where do we want to allocate the limited funds we have? I want to see those basic needs continue. I’m very happy that with the federal funding, we have to have that reporting in terms of how that outreach would work, so I guess my question to staff, and apologies if this again sounds like something that Councillor Ferrett asked, but if the transactional is not included, and we do just have basic needs, the way you described it was essentially we would still operationalize that, but I would still like a better understanding of how the basic needs would be provided. What does that look like?

Let’s go to Mr. Dickens. Through you, Chair, I would cautiously say we’re not entirely certain at this point. The provision of basic human needs, it takes so many different shapes and forms.

It doesn’t come with a definition. I would welcome one if we want to be very specific, but we have been talking about providing access to washrooms, to food, to water, to direct care, to pathways indoors, and pathways to wraparound service. That is the provision of basic human needs. There’s a specific format that Council wishes to see that delivered in, a specific location, or we avoid a certain daytime drop-in space, provides access to social workers, bathrooms, showers, laundry.

Those are basic human needs. So again, I’m sort of in your hands here in terms of what it is Council could be specific about directing us to do so that we don’t miss that. Councillor McAllister. Yeah.

So, I mean, that’s the issue that I’m constantly having with this. I don’t know if there’s a possibility. I would be more comfortable referring this back, so I’m willing to move a referral. Because again, I’m just not comfortable with making the decision today.

So I’d like to put a referral. Okay. Well, a referral takes precedence. So please remain standing because your referral is on the floor.

And Councillor Stevenson, were you indicating a second for that? Okay. So that’s a referral has been moved and seconded. Councillor, I just want to get clarification on your referral.

Do you want to provide direction to staff on what you want them to come back with in the referral? And when you would like a referral to return to us because if we’re referring it, we do need to provide some direction. Yeah. And my referral, I guess, would come with that monumental ask that Mr.

Dickens just described, which was I would like to see an operational plan for providing the basic needs, what that looks like. Because where my confusion lies is I’ve seen a number of plans, whether it be the camera response or depots, like I have no idea at this point how we’re going to be providing basic needs. It’s great that we have the funding available, but I want a plan before I prove something as to how these will be distributed to the community members who need it. So my referral is to have this referred back and to have some options as to how we can provide basic human needs.

Okay. I’m going to ask you to just hold there. I just need to confer with the clerk for a moment. Councillor, you’re looking for this to be a referral back to CAHPS with this operationalization report and then to come back to council after that.

So let’s just give the clerk a moment to get that clerked up so we know specifically what we’re voting on and specifically for any questions that colleagues may want to post to staff about what’s in this referral. Okay. So I’m going to read what the clerk has here, Councillor McAllister. But I’m also going to use a little bit of chair’s prerogative to direct a question to staff to help as it may impact the language of this referral motion.

So the referral motion would read that part HB referred and to read as follows, the use of the housing stability services budget for the total amount of $1.4 million be referred to a future meeting of community protective services committee for civic administration to provide an operational plan on how to provide basic human needs using the UHEI and reaching home incremental funding from January 1, 2025 through March 31, 2026. So okay, a thumbs up on that. Now I’m going to take a little bit of leeway here to go to our staff on this funding piece. This the original motion was funding applicable as of January 1.

So there are, I’m going to hazard a guess, some operational measures ongoing processes we have that are currently being funded by this and there was the desire to seek approval to continue through to March 2026. If you are asked to report back with an operational plan moving forward, what does that do in terms of the impact of the current work being done? I think if you can provide Council a perhaps an oversight or a quick overview on that, it may assist on understanding where the referral is going. Thank you.

And through you, Mr. Chair, last fall council had extended the basic needs or the depots until the end of February. So there will be a gap from that end of February to whenever we can bring a report back. So if we can get some leeway to continue those kinds of services until we can bring that more fulsome report back, that would be appreciated.

But as it is since today, those services would look to end February 28. So with that in mind, I’m going to go back to you, Councillor, and see if you want to change any language in there that provides any opportunity for them to continue doing what they’re doing until they bring back something for approval. Yeah. So I would be comfortable to continue till March, recognizing that when we get to some better temperatures.

But yeah, I mean, the big concern for me and I was just mentioned is the depots and I need to better understand where that’s going and what that looks like because I have one of them and I don’t know what the future of this looks like. Okay, so we’re going to try this. In addition to what’s been read out, there would be an and that civic administration be directed to continue to provide existing service provisions, utilizing these funds until March 31st, 2025, seeing a nod from Councillor McAllister, Councillor Stevenson as the seconder, seeing a thumbs up there. Let’s just give the clerk a moment to get that into eScribe before we move to debate the referral.

If you refresh your eScribe, the language for the referral is in there and that would be number six. Sorry, the clerk just advised me, she’s moving this to vote number four, rather things preloaded, but we’re going to move this one up to deal with the referral. So that language is in there now, I’ll give everyone an opportunity to read it quickly and I’ll look for something on the referral, looking for any speakers. Councillor Ferrero.

Chair. So I’m looking at this referral and I would also kind of caution, I’m not going to, I’m going to be in support of the referral, but I would also caution that we are kind of laying in a lot of work onto staff right now and there’s some other amendments that are coming as well. They’re all on a tight timeframe, so just let’s consider that as well. And I’d also say, you know, we are really diving into the committee work at Council here as well.

And that is obviously something that I know all of us don’t necessarily like, but just kind of considering the report and then, you know, we had a placeholder for this report on the original committee agenda. It was added to the added and we have seen a whole bunch of changes. This is why we’re in this situation. So this is a different circumstance right now, but this is something that I don’t want to be seeing at Council.

And I know other Councillors are saying the same thing to that. I do like to see that this referral is going to include those provisions until we get something back and it is going to bring it till March 31st, I believe, yeah, March 31st, 2025. So so long as we do kind of continue those transactional supports, just so we can kind of maintain just help people that don’t actually have the shelter, just because we can, we don’t actually have the capacity, that’s why I’d be supporting this. So with that, you know, and I can see the conversation is really kind of coming up again and again that, you know, we need some more time.

We need some more time to discuss. We need to bring it back to committee. And just because of the different circumstances that we’re in right now, I can see just kind of why we’re here. But I would just say to Council with other amendments and I have one too.

So I know I’m kind of going against what I’m saying, but just consider staff because there’s a lot of extra work that we’re piling onto them. And we’re also giving them a very tight timeframe. But with that, also we need to do this right. We don’t have that much money.

We’re running on a municipal budget. We have extra funds from federal government. And that is a limited amount of funds. So we are trying to be as efficient as prudent as we can and just make those dollars stretch as far as we can.

So that’s why we’re here. But just considering those, that’s kind of why I’m saying what I’m saying. But at this point, this referral is something that I would support. Thank you, Councillor.

I’ve got Councillor Trussow and then Councillor Hock. Thank you. And through the chair, I rise to oppose this referral. Yet again, we can’t reach a decision.

We received a very detailed report back in June of last year that talked about the differences between transformational and transactional assistance. And does Council approve that? Does Council approve everything that was in that report except the matter of how many meters things would have to be set back? Everything else was approved without any debate that people won’t say that.

I hope that people really digested what was in that report and what it meant for the provision of transactional as well as transformational services. And if those are big words, they were all set forth in great detail in that report. And I would like to suggest that basically what we’re doing is we’re spinning our wheels, we’re backtracking, we’re going back to decisions that I thought we had made nine months ago. And there’s just so much opposition to moving forward with this plan that here we are again, here we are again with a referral.

At some point, this Council needs to have a review of where we’ve been, I’m not even going to bother doing the point of order saying this is a decided matter of Council because we had this discussion about what trans out because I know that’s not going to go anywhere. So I won’t bother with that. And I have a feeling that there’s support on the floor for this referral. But I am standing firm and I am not going to support this referral because we have to move along.

And once again, once again, we’re doing the kind of committee work at this Council that should have been done actually even before the committee, and I really object to that. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Trussell. I have Councillor Hopkins and Councillor Stevenson next before I go to you, Councillor Hopkins.

Ms. Dator’s beer, you wanted to raise a staff response on the referral. Thank you through you, Deputy Mayor, I appreciate the desire to consider a referral. You didn’t fight to us that the challenge is, and we’ve identified to you the challenges of getting this information back to you.

If the referral is to go forward, we might suggest that you extend the March 31 date to April 30th of 2025. I appreciate civic administration indicating perhaps the timeline that might work for them unless there’s an objection from members of Council. I’m going to give the mover and seconder an opportunity to change there. I’m seeing a thumbs up from Councillor Stevenson, Councillor McAllister.

Are you okay given Ms. Dator’s beer’s comments if the extension goes to April 30th? I will, but I’m going to be grudgingly, and I have to say this because something was said before, which really annoyed me. I’m the one who’s been dealing with the depot through all of this, so I’m sorry, Councillor, but you’re not dealing with these issues, okay?

So my issue is I have to have these constant conversations with my residents about our response. So, yes, I will make this extension again because that is what I’m being told we have to do. But I’m getting very frustrated because I’m being told, oh no, like we have these plans. We’ve discussed something, but operations, I haven’t seen it.

Councillor, I’m probably intervening on the reason for the point of order, so I will ask colleagues to hold their points of order for a moment. Councillor, I appreciate your passion and your frustration, but if we can debate the item and not cross debate with each other, that would be perhaps just a better way to proceed. I don’t want to discourage your passion for your ward, but if we can direct, prime direct our debate to the referral, and I think your points around, you’re the ward that’s dealing with it until April 30th is fair. I just don’t want us to get into what might be felt as personally combative comments back and forth.

Well, I felt it was personally combative. That’s why I’m responding. Your time’s not up. You can continue if you want to address why you’re supporting this, or if you’re satisfied, that’s okay too.

As I said, I will support it, but begrudgingly, and my apologies to my ward once again for this extension, which I have done on a number of occasions, by the way. Looking for other speakers, sorry, I did have a speakers list. Councillor Hopkins, you’re next. Yeah, thank you, and I will be supporting the referral.

I think it’s really, really important that we understand the implications of our decisions that are being made here at Council. I think this is committee work. It should go back, so I will be supporting the referral. Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you, and yes, obviously I’m going to support it as well as I seconded it. I actually had sent this in looking to refer it, so thank you to Councillor McAllister. Just as a clarification, Council did approve, this is to my recollection, Council did approve the encampment strategy, but we did not fund it, so we only did a short stop gap because we had not approved the funding of the full strategy, and I believe it was because we could not agree on the service depot locations, and that is critical to the public that they understand where they’re going to be, what they can expect there, what the supports are. The sheet that I found said that the proposed service depots for consideration include Evergreen Park, Fairmont School, Gwanis Central South Park, McCormick Park, of which I get many, many, many concerns and complaints about that.

Parking lot number 12, which is Horton and Rideout, and Thompson Park, and it says these are just suggested there may be others. I do think we owe it to the public to be open and transparent about where these depots are going to be, so I will support the referral back to talk about this at committee. Thank you, Councillor, looking for further speakers. Councillor McAllister, haven’t spoken on the referral.

One moment, I just got to check my list. I understand folks are feeling strongly about this issue. People may disagree with my ruling on this, but I’m going to try and allow a little leeway here. Councillor McAllister, you did speak for a couple of minutes, but I’m deeming that as a, essentially you are raising a point of order with regard to comments you heard from another Councillor.

So I’m going to deem that you can speak to the substantive opponents of the referral, but I’m going to ask, since what I do feel was within the boundaries of an extended point of order, you did use up a little bit more than two minutes. So I’m going to ask you to try and stay within a three-minute time frame for your substantive comments on the motion, and that’s going to be my ruling unless I’m challenged. I’ll see anyone challenging, so please go ahead. Thank you, Chair, and I appreciate.

I know this is a difficult topic. Sorry, I get very passionate about this. I don’t know. A few of us have dealt with the lion’s share of this, to be fair.

I know as a council, we have to make decisions, but when it personally impacts you and the work you do, it’s hard not to take a lot of this personal. I will say a number of comments have also been made about, you know, leave it to the committee. We’re a committee of three right now, so I would also encourage my colleagues. If you can come to these CAHPS meetings because we are making very big decisions, and your input at those would be appreciated.

I know you’d be visiting councillors, but it’s very challenging. This was a massive package to go through, so apologies to everyone. I know staff. This was a lot to take on as well, so I’m sorry, but these are huge decisions, and we need more time to unpack them and do it correctly.

Yes, past decisions have been made, but there are substantive ones to still be made moving forward, locations, operations. There’s a lot of big things that always charge people, and I get that. We need to make those decisions, but for me personally, this is a plan that will take us into 2026, and I need to seek some concrete operational plans. I don’t care if there are options, but before us, I love options.

I don’t like it when we just have one thing, but before us, if we can have a few things in front of us and talk that through committee council, that’s greatly appreciated, but I think we need some time, and thank you for the input that we need a little bit more time to take this to April, and I’m willing to do that. But again, and I say this to my council and to my ward, that I’m very much trying to work with people here, but I’m also trying to convey the reality of what people are also going through in the community. I know we have people who are living in very tough situations, but we also have communities that are dealing with it as well, and we need to come up with a plan that works for everyone, and I hope we can get there, but I would ask that we take some more time and try to do this right. So thank you, and please support the referral.

Thank you, Councillor McAllister. I don’t have any other speakers on the list. Seeing none, I will ask the clerk to open the vote on the referral on clause H. As I said at the outset, we had a number of requests trying to deal with them by chunking out components of this report as in order that the request came in.

The next request I had was from Councillor Layman to have clause E pulled and dealt with separately. Councillor Layman. Thank you, Chair. We see a number of similar type requests have come before Council with various types of housing operations.

I think Council considers a number of things when giving the go-ahead type of service that’s being offered, who’s the operator, where’s the funding coming from, and where’s the location, and I’m going to find deal specifically with the location aspect of this. This Council has approved a number of locations, but we’ve also had a number of locations that were deemed not suitable. This location is not the right fit. When we discuss proposed locations, a lot of it’s done talking about hypotheticals, what could happen, what’s envisioned that the area would change, or possibilities of actions that might come as a result of that operation.

This particular location, which is in the Oak Ridge neighborhood between two high schools and a stone’s throw from an elementary school was actually in operation about three years ago. There are no hypotheticals here. From its inception, we were inundated with emails, phone calls about from various concerned residents and people were in the area about activity. City staff got them, I got them, police got them, and I think what’s best here, I can’t go through them all because there are a lot of them.

I want to give a few examples of what was experienced, and I want to make it clear I’m not attributing this to anyone or a particular individual. This is just what happened in the area. Nearby drugstore, where many seniors shop, they were accosted by folks in front of that shopping area. A woman was sprayed in the face with WD-40.

Mom and dads were calling, and me and police was examples of their kids walking by either on the way to school or on errands to the stores, going by open drug use with needle injection. In fact, a known drug dealer set up shop right behind these houses in the bushes behind, causing, again, concerns from parents that their high school students were having easier access to drugs. Mom and pop shops nearby had to lock their doors during day time because of activity happening in their stores and out in front. Our customers would have to knock on the door to be allowed in.

We had complaints about guys exposing themselves at a nearby intersection. Many women, girls, seniors did not feel safe in this neighborhood. These properties had to be monitored, increased numbers by special offers by police and city bylaw officers. The hardest call to take was from a neighbor right next door.

A Ukrainian woman who was working hard to pay her rent there. She called me in tears begging for help, and she did not feel safe leaving the vote to front door of her residence. There is uncontrolled access by many through the back of the property through the front of the property. Eventually, these homes were shut down after five months of these experiences.

And the call from a roast was when that same Ukrainian woman gave me a call. Again, in tears, but these were tears of joy. So happy when she heard that this operation would cease and she could enjoy her property again. I can say in no uncertain terms that this is the wrong location for this operation.

And asking you my colleagues to not support this motion. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. I’m just clarifying from the clerk here, process wise.

You’re asking for clause E to be voted on separately, to be defeated. There was no change to clause E. So sorry, we’re falling out of process just a little bit here. But I also want to note you are speaking specifically to the Oxford Street location.

This clause also references CMHA beds at my sister’s place, which we’ve heard from a communication from the service provider is no longer part of the motion as those beds are now being allocated to the provincial heart hub stand up. So you’re asking for clause E to be defeated. I’m trying to do this so that when we get back to the main motion as amended, we’re not speaking twice to the same thing. Sorry, this is the challenge with some of these complicated ones where we pull apart all of the different clauses in different directions.

So I’m going to just see if anyone wants to do anything different to clause E or if we’re prepared to just vote up or down on clause E. So I’m depending on where folks want to go. There’s no alternate motion. So right now it’s just been split for a separate vote.

And that’s partly on me getting into these complicated process weeds. But we’ll see if Councillor McAllister just a point of order. I don’t know if it’s a point of order. Good question.

So with the CMHA beds, is that something that we have to acknowledge or is it just being done outside of this process? Or do we have to have something in this to acknowledge that? So if we voted this down, then we don’t have to do anything with it because the CMHA beds come off the table. If someone wants to still entertain the alternate Oxford Street beds, then I need an alternate motion.

So what I’m deeming is that the Councillor has essentially asked us to call the question on E. If somebody wants to move an alternate motion that somehow supports the Oxford Street beds, then they would have to do that before we vote. So now’s the time. If somebody wants to put something else on the floor, they do that.

Otherwise the way I’m dealing with this is that the question has been called just on clause E. So looking for speakers on clause E only, Councillor Trussow? I’ll do this as a point of order through the chair. I think for clarity, there are a couple of different parts in E.

And I would have, I know that this was put together in a hurry, so I’m not criticizing anybody. But I do think that the different components need to be pulled out even by a semicolon and voted on separately. Part of my point of order goes to the fact that it’s not clear from reading this. When you take out the Oxford Street properties, which are not referred to whether the Knoxford Street and address might be helpful, is there anything else in this sub clause that is left after what has already been taken out in Oxford Street?

So those, I think those are reasonable points to raise as an order. And I’ll reserve my comments on the merits of the Oxford Street, Doug, question, because I do have questions for staff on that. So I’m going to ask you to stay standing for a moment just while I confer with the clerks here. So here’s our challenge with splitting it, Councillor, is we have one clause from a staff report, which speaks to two locations with funding, with a total funding without a source of funding, as well as referrals to shortfalls in a daytime drop in space, which has now been referred by a previous decision.

And then the 10 spaces at Oxford Street with an estimated cost, but we don’t know what that reflects in terms of number changes. So the first thing I have to do is go to Mr. Dickens and Mr. Cooper, either one, whichever one wants to field this one.

So we have three different numbers in here. We have a CMHA withdrawal of their beds, but we don’t know how that changes the other numbers. And we’ve had a communication from the arcade, but we have no idea whether that’s been run through and vetted by staff and what those are. So Mr.

Cooper, I’m looking for some guidance on this from you. Thank you. And through you, Mr. Chair, I’ll attempt to provide some guidance.

Mr. Dickens always says that I don’t provide the clearest of guidance, but we’ll see what I can do today. So the arcade street mission, the 12 women’s beds, that has been withdrawn by the agency. So really no longer needs to be considered by Council.

That $360,000 annual shortfall was for the day drop in spaces, which now has been referred back to staff. So we can deal with that at a later date should an annual shortfall be identified based on what we bring back to Council. So what Council would be voting on is though, are the 10 spaces at Oxford Street, that would be the only provision left in clause E that needs a decision. And the cost of the 157, 860 is not going to change, nor would it change any of the other clauses.

Okay. So that’s actually kind of helpful, because I think what what I can provide for Council trust out for some direction is you could amend clause E to delete the reference to my sister’s place and the arcade street mission estimated shortfall and simply leave the clause as the funding for the Oxford Street locations, which then could be voted on just as those. So you would delete. So that would mean that you would be amending it to read civic administration be directed to find a source of funding for an estimated total of 157,860 dollars to provide 10 spaces at their Oxford Street supported housing locations.

Yes, if I may to the chair that would provide a measure of clarity taking out that redundant language. And I think it’s always a good idea to remove redundant language. So I would request that that that be done. I don’t know procedurally how to do that.

I do want to reserve my ability to talk about the 10 units on Oxford, though, before I stop talking. So I’m going to get you to keep standing. What I’m deeming this is that you’re moving an amendment to clause E to delete the redundant language. We need a we need a seconder for the amendment that Councillor Layman’s happy to amend second for you.

So now we can deal with the vote to delete that language. And then we’re back to clause E just with those Oxford Street beds. And then we can then I can come back to you to get your comments on that. And we can have a vote on that.

So I should I’m done for now. So we’re going to vote on the amendment. So stay standing for that. Okay, we’re all sort of noted on the clerking side.

So there’s amendment now to delete the language regarding my sister’s space, my sister’s place and the day space shortfall, which earlier in our meeting in clause D, we referred with a direction to review for nighttime beds rather than daytime spaces. So we’ll get that into eScribe. This is just changing the language of the clause. So hopefully we don’t have to have a very long debate about deleting my sister’s place when CMHA has already said they’re not doing it anymore.

But we’re just going to give the clerk a minute to get that into eScribe. Okay, so the language is in eScribe. It’s vote number six on this item. Just read it out for those following along.

Vote number six that the motion be amended to delete references to funding for the annual shortfall of daytime drop in space and the arcade street mission to provide 12 women’s only beds at CMHA my sister’s place. And to read as follows that civic at E that civic administration be directed to find a source of funding for an estimated $157,860 for the arcade street mission to provide 10 spaces at their Oxford Street supported housing location. Councillor McAllister. Sorry, this is just to amend.

And then we’ll still have a vote on E as amended. Yes, this is just amending the motion first as Councillor Trust I’ll point it out because we had that redundant language in there. The only way to deal with not having two votes or one vote on two items was to delete the item that CMHA has taken off the table. So it’s only amending the language right now.

And then we will have another vote on that clause if this language is approved. Any speakers to the amendment? So Ferrera? Thanks, Chair.

So I just wanted to take a tally before we kind of move forward on this one and just maybe get some clarification. Originally, the arc came forward with a budget update for the 2025 budget update for 90 resting spaces. And with the I guess the directions from Council, we weren’t going to be supply municipal funding for the 696 Dundas location. So I just wanted to take some tallying here before I kind of move forward.

I just wanted to know, I do see that in the report, the arc has pulled in kind funding from the two locations. I believe a big portion from the 696 and then a smaller portion from the Cronin Warner. I just wanted to know if staff happens to know, is the arc going to be still running resting spaces at night on their own dollar, on fundraise dollars at the 696 location? Because I was under the impression that they were an originally a committee.

I thought this to be 90 plus 30 or sorry 32 with the extra stuff from my sister’s place and with the 10 beds at the Oxford location and the 10 beds at Cronin Warner. So I just wanted to know if staff happened to know how that operation is going to be. Because I just would like to see potentially how many resting spaces or overnight beds we’re going to lose with some of the items that we have here. So before I go to Mr.

Cooper, I just want to keep us focused on this is on amending the language and clause E. This does not speak to Cronin Warner or other parts. Those are still to be dealt with in other clauses. I’m going to allow Mr.

Cooper to respond only with respect to the fact that we are deleting a clause or deleting language that speaks to the arc’s funding shortfall for resting spaces. So the impact on this and what that might mean for resting spaces that the arc is or is not offering on their own dollar gets to be a little complicated. So I want to focus us just on this amendment right now. So Mr.

Cooper, by removing the funding for the funding shortfall, do you know how that impacts or given the referral earlier, is that a to be determined? Thank you. And through the chair, the funding shortfall is a to be determined at a later date as we have conversations with other agencies or do our due diligence on those potential overnight spaces. The arc did send a letter noting that their 696 Dundas Street spaces are operating on fundraise dollars.

Beyond that, I don’t have any further details. Thank you, Chair. The reason I asked is I just wanted to know what is going to be the total amount of spaces that we may be opening or may not be opening. So I hear the concerns with the Oxford location.

I’d be very hard pressed to vote it down because I’m concerned on what will be the final number, what will come out of this. Because from what I see, there’s a potential that we could go from the 90 to 70. I’m totally okay with the 10 extra beds that Croton and Warner. I do have a referral for that.

I won’t speak to that right now. But I just wanted to know what the number really lands at. So if maybe we could make a friendly amendment and just decide, because I don’t want to see this voted down, I kind of see, I’m kind of trying to gauge council here. And if we vote that down, we could potentially lose an extra 10 spaces.

And if you really look at the cost breakdown of this, this is some of the most cost efficient beds that we have here. It’s like 15, I believe these costs are annually. So that would make one bed resting space around $15,000 per year, which is lower comparatively speaking when we see, when we compare it to other resting spaces. So I’m just a little hesitant to lose that potential resting space, even though it’s 10, we need all the beds we can get.

But these ones are very cost efficient as well. So if we were to maybe put some language in there to have staff seek out alternative locations, so we don’t necessarily lose this chance here to increase our capacity. Yes, Councillor Ploza, your point of order. Sorry, Mr.

Chair, I know it’s been a long committee report. Just for clarification, is this just an amendment to remove the wording that’s no longer in play? And then we can enter into debate once we clean up the language into such questions that Councillor Faire is asking, that’s procedurally where we’re at. Yes, so thank you for raising that point of order because I was having a side conversation with the clerk about the relevance to the motion that’s on the floor.

Councillor Faire, I have to say, I think you are moving into speculative territory about items that relate to other clauses in this report and not to the motion that’s on the floor. I think you have to come back to the motion on the floor, which right now is just changing the language and need. Thank you, Chair. I missed that one.

I apologize. Thank you to Councillor Ploza for pointing that one out. So I guess if we’re just removing my sister’s place portion of this, which has already been noted by the proponent, that is no longer going to be funded, then I support it. And I will, I guess, come back and I won’t ask the questions again, but I’ll just kind of go to staff and hopefully get the answers.

Thank you. Thank you. So any other speakers on the amendment to the language in Clause E? Councillor Layman.

That’s the point of order. I just want to make sure we’re clear. So what I’m asking is to the specific referral or reference to Oxford Street, I’m asking that to be voted against. If we, because that’s what’s brought before us, right, that’s Committee referral or any recommendation I’m adding to vote against, is this amendment to that, to he?

Because then I don’t want to vote against this amendment. Okay, so I am going to respond to that as a point of order. So you still can vote against the Oxford Street locations after we change this language. What we are doing to clean things up is we have a clause that’s no longer valid because CMHA is no longer part of the equation.

Councillor Trussow has very accurately identified that problem and proposed new language to delete that. Once this is deleted, then we have what’s left that civic administration be directed to find a source of funding for the Oxford Street supported housing, which you can then vote against. Just going to do a check to make sure we’re all clear on this. Seeing some nodding of heads, I’m going to ask the clerk to open the vote.

This is amending the language on Clause E. Opposed in the vote motion carries 12 to 0. Thank you colleagues. So now moving the procedural rules around a little bit here, we’re kind of bending them to deal with Clause E as it’s now been amended.

So we’re now speaking to Clause E, the 10 supported housing spaces at the Oxford Street location. So that is now on the floor as amended looking for speakers. Hopefully we’re not going to repeat questions we’ve already asked of civic administration. Chair, Councillor, with respect to your comments, can I at least get the answer and not ask the questions?

Is that a possibility from my last question that I spoke to out of order? So I think Mr. Cooper did answer that the arcs indicated in their letter that they’re providing those resting spaces on their own dollars because they’re providing it on their own dollars. They have not provided any additional information to staff.

So your earlier comment about your understanding was it was 70 plus 30 plus these other 22 for 122 total. Based on the communication we all receive from the arc is accurate that they are still providing those spaces on their own dollar at 696 Dundas. That’s what we have in writing that was submitted to all Councillors by email. Clarifies things for me.

Thank you. So sorry, I just needed a clarification from the clerk. I’m going to Councillor Stevenson. She’s got her hand up.

Councillor Ferrera, thank you. You’ve had an opportunity to speak on this. We’re now almost to four o’clock. If it is informational to staff, it is not a debate, though.

We have an amendment on the floor. You’ve had your chance to speak. So it’s out of order for you to now try and come back and amend the amendment because you’ve spoken to the motion. If it was just a point of order on a clarification, I would come back to that.

But you have spoken on what’s on the floor as amended by Councillor Truss out. Sorry, but we’ve got a we’ve got to try and stick to our rules and not very too far from them. Councillor Stevenson, I have you next on the speaker’s list. Okay, thank you.

I was planning to vote no to this because there was no budget for it. And I didn’t know how much was rent supplement, how much was wages. I didn’t have the details to be able to approve the funding. I did listen to my colleague talk about the impacts of the housing in his ward back a little while ago.

And I’m a little surprised to hear like this, this is 10 beds for people who are houseable and who have a 24 hour space. And so all of those stories, I get them every week. And I guess if we’re going to be saying no to this on the basis of this isn’t a good neighborhood for it, please know that all these village isn’t the right neighborhood either. You know what I mean?

Like what neighborhood? I was looking at the ammo report and it talks about the unequal effects of homelessness. And they were talking about various areas in Canada, but it talks about systemic inequities are experienced at the individual level and are deeply tied to where people live. And I’m really asking my colleagues that as we address this homelessness issue, which we get to address and we get to bring people inside, that we get to find locations that are a good place for people to be and to say no to 10 supported living spaces in a neighborhood and then potentially maybe later say yes to arcades day space looks after like 150 people a day for just a few hours and then they’re at night sleeping in doorways and parks and in the neighborhood.

So please, please just keep that in mind. I’m going to say no to this for my own reasons because there was no budget applied. But I’m just trying to say if this is the kind of impact that comes from this service, then there isn’t a good neighborhood for it. The East End is not the right place for it either.

It’s not something we’ve talked about. This is going to come up in the encampments. Why is it that one area of our city where it who pays the same amount of property tax as everyone else? The people that live in old East Village, many of them do not have cars and they are losing all the little businesses that are right there.

They have to stand and take the bus and the area is not safe. And a lot of it is because of the over saturation of services, which was identified as far back as 2019. So I’m asking my colleagues to hear Councillor Layman. But remember what I said to and what you’ve heard some of the other Councillors say.

We get to find places in the city that doesn’t one set of people to the detriment of others and that there’s a way to do this such that the whole community is improved. Okay. Thank you, Councillor. I’m going to pause everyone here.

The clerk and I were, although I was listening, Councillor Stevenson. So I had to get a procedural update from the clerk. I will own this colleagues. I’ve gone too far in allowing some leeway.

Clause E has been amended. What we actually have right now, what we should be discussing is the main motion as amended because we’ve had a number of clauses amended, but we are not on, so we can still vote on E separately. But we do have to, on the advice of the clerk, deal with the other clauses and then we can still vote on individual clauses separately. But we have to deal with any other amendments before we call the main motion as amended.

Hearing Councillor Layman’s objection and willingness or desire to defeat E when we get to the main motion as amended, we would then vote on E separately to vote it down. So I’m, I’m owning my own mistake here procedurally. And so we’re not going to move directly to a vote on E just yet. We’ve had clause E amended to remove the my sister’s place components.

Now we have all of these other clauses to still deal with. And, and here’s where the problem arises. If I continue to allow the leeway that I’ve allowed, we will be voting will be debating five minutes on every single clause in this report without making any amendments to it. And that’s not the intent of trying to let colleagues express their desire to deal with individual things differently.

The intent is to have a debate on substantive debate on any changes we want to make, then vote on the clauses separately and get to a decision point. So that being said, with the discussion we’ve had so far, I’m going to ask colleagues to come back to what we have on the floor right now is a main motion as amended. Do colleagues have any more amendments they want to put forward? And I know Councillor Ferrera does.

So I’m going to go to him first. We’ll let you move any amendments that you want to move Councillor. I’ll look for any other changes that colleagues want to make. And then we will proceed devoting on those clauses that people want voted on separately.

We will pull those out on those that can remain as a block. We will treat them as a block. And because we’ve made amendments, we need a seconder for the main as amended, even though there are more amendments to come. Is somebody willing to second whatever the main motion as amended ends up as?

Councillor Cuddy, thank you. Just procedurally, that makes things easier for us. Councillor Ferrera, to you for your amendment. Thank you, Chair.

So like others and just the debate that we’ve had here, it’s just the timing and the time to kind of settle that in and kind of have that conversation and really kind of things things through before we make decisions and direct staff to do anything. I want to bring an amendment for clause B. And that’s just an amendment to refer back to civic administration. And that’s simply because we did see some changes come in through the weekend with respect to the removal of my sister’s place.

And we did see kind of just some shifts with funding. And I did see that there were some components of the capital, the capital cost that would go to Corona and Warner House. But I didn’t see a breakdown of that capital of that capital cost. And it would just be, sorry, I’m just trying to get to my notes here.

So yeah, so I would just like to have some more information on kind of where the funds are going. And that would, and I should also clarify, sorry, that would be from the April 1st, 2025 to the March 31st, 2026. So it’s a motion that’s just referring it back so we can get some more time and actually do the work of committee and kind of hash things out. But I do, I am seeking a little bit more information on what is the capital component for those, for those funds going to the Croton Warner.

And also, I wanted to get some more information on the withdrawal of the in kind monies as well and kind of if we can get some information on where the allocations for that is. Just, it’s basically, there’s some unanswered questions and I don’t necessarily feel comfortable voting on and directing staff to go in a particular direction when I don’t necessarily have the questions that I have answered. So I figured considering that that is April 1st as well. I know we’re piling on these referrals and these amendments, but I would just would like to have a little bit more time and I believe that there is more time to have that discussion at committee and get a report back from staff on that.

So I can read, actually the motion was circulated, but I can read the motion as well if the chair would like. Yes, if you’d please. So that part B relating to an amendment to the existing municipal purchase of service agreement with the Arc Aid Street mission to a total estimated increase of up to 3,068,348 excluding HST for the period of April 1st 2025 to March 31st, 2026 to continue 70 emergency shelter spaces to utilize the unsheltered homelessness encampment initiative funding and the reaching home incremental funding as per the Corporation of the City of London Procurement Policy Section 20.3E be referred to civic administration to report back regarding the potential emergency shelter and drop in spaces. So that’s the motion that I’d like to move.

I’m hoping for a seconder and that would be having staff report back to see the potential for emergency shelter and drop in spaces and it would also be I’m hoping to have more information on kind of the breakdown of the funding and that’s specific to the changes that we did see come throughout on the weekend from the arc. Councillor Stevenson, I see your hand. Are you willing to second that? Okay, seeing the thumbs up there.

So that’s been moved and seconded and we’ll look for speakers on the referral. Councillor Truss, I’ll thank you through the chair in order to be consistent with the other things that I’ve said at this meeting. I’m not going to support the referral. We dealt with this at our meeting in the time and the time to ask these questions was at our committee meeting and I say this with all due respect because I know this was a complex motion with a lot of different moving parts and maybe we should break these down into smaller bits for people but I just feel to be consistent I’m going to have to vote against the referral and I say that with all due respect to everybody who endured this meeting and are in our committee meeting.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. I’m sorry I’m going to come back to you for a moment. Right now the motion for the referral is in eScribe.

The direction is to be referred to administration to report back regarding potential emergency shelter and drop in spaces. There is no date and I recognize that you referenced the concern about work piling onto staff but as this is specific to the 70 emergency shelter spaces at Cronin Warner, I wondered if you want to indicate which cycle of caps you wish this to report back to. Thank you, Chair. That’s a good question.

I would hope that it would come back to the same cycle as the other amendments but I do understand that that is extra work and we’re asking staff to bring it all back but I would hope that it would fit into that cycle just so we can have that full-sum report and we can have and I understand breaking the motion down a little bit more and I do believe that we’ve broken it down a little bit but I was hoping to have it back by that for the April 1st, Council cycle. Okay, so that would be coming back to the March community and protective services committee meeting. Going to actually go to Mr. Dickens to provide comment on whether he can and his team can return to you on that timeline.

Through you, Chair and thank you to Council for indulging us with some attempts at clarity just so we know with these timelines that we are in fact reporting back on the right things. And so you had indicated, the Council had indicated looking for information on the minor capital that might be required in some of the high-level expenditures or those buckets of funding that are required to operate the 70 beds at this site. Just wanted to seek clarity though, is there anything else that we’re expecting or that you’re looking to have as part of that report back as we start to mention drop-in spaces as well? So, Councilor, you’ve heard what civic administration feels is the intent of your direction.

Is there any other components that you want to convey your intent to them? So that is correct and it would basically, the reason I bring that referral is because we did have some changes and I feel like it would be prudent to have a little bit more time doing that. But in the motion specifically, we do see reporting back regarding the potential emergency shelter and drop-in spaces there as well. So there is that component as well, but I do want to see the breakdown of the capital side and just the funding breakdown to know where the money is going and just to ensure that we have a false of knowledge and understanding of this motion.

So that’s the intent. So Mr. Dickens is correct and I would just also include that bottom part of the motion as well where it says the potential emergency shelter and drop-in spaces. Yes, and that is in the language of the motion.

So that’s there for staff’s review. I’m looking for any other speakers on this. I am just going to touch base with Mr. Dickens and Mr.

Cooper. Does that provide you the clarity you need for what you’re coming back to us with? Thank you and through you, Mr. Chair, sorry, just to, I guess, another point of clarity I’m trying to understand is the Council are looking for us to consider adding drop-in spaces at that Chrono Warner location.

The agencies indicated there can expand to 70 potential beds at that location for the current 60. So is that what you’re looking for is to add drop-in potential drop-in location at that space? Councillor Ferrera. Drop-in location at the space would be something that I would seek to find in an report, but also the additional 10 on the 60 is also something that I would like to see as well.

There’s no change to the amount of beds that the location would be providing. And I guess just to keep it simple, that’s what I would say. Any other speakers? Councillor Trussau, this is on the referral, which you spoke against already.

Seeing none, I will ask the clerk to open the vote on the referral on B. Opposed in the vote. Motion carries 8, 4. So colleagues, that brings us back to the main motion as amended.

That means there are still some clauses in there around the funding for at Losa. There is the funding for the Chrono Warner beds until the end of March. There is currently the come back with a source of funding for beds on Oxford Street, which Councillor Layman wants called separately to vote against. Are there any other clauses?

Colleagues want to make amendments to, before we move to the main motion as amended. So we’re on the main motion as amended, Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, I do have a question for clarification as I did not support a number of the items, can they be pulled? So I can vote on them separately and that would be D, B, and E has already been pulled from what I understand.

So D and B were both referrals, which means they’re no longer part of the main motion. Those clauses have been referred back to staff. So only the clauses that have not been referred would be dealt within the main motion as amended. Okay, thank you.

So just to help and I appreciate you raising that, Councillor Hopkins, I’ll be a little more clear. So Clause A, which is the 70 beds at Chrono Warner January 1 to March 31 of this year. Clause B has been referred, so that is not being voted on. That has been sent back to civic administration.

Clause C would be in the main motion as amended. This is the increase for arcade for the continued day drop in spaces to utilize the reaching home and UHEI funding. Clause D has been referred back, so is no longer on the table for the main motion as amended. Clause E has been amended, but we will be voting on that separately.

Clause F, which is the purchase of service with Atlosa, remains on the floor. Clause G, which is also a purchase of service with Atlosa, remains on the floor. Clause H has been referred back. Clause I remains.

So we will be voting on A, C, F, G, and I. And Clause E has been called separately. And we will deal with that one first because that impacts other components of the motion if it’s defeated. Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you. I’d like to vote on G. Let me just check here. F and G briefly from the rest of it.

I know there’s not much left, but those are both related to Atlosa. Can we vote on them together so we can call F and G together separate from the other clauses? Understood. Gotcha.

On the main motion as amended, so everything that’s been referred is off the floor. On the main motion as amended, any comments? Councillor Truss. Thank you for clarifying that and simplifying this on the bus motion into a couple of usable parts.

I want to address the 10 bedrooms on Oxford Street. And I want to preface my comments by saying this really sounded like a horrible situation. And whenever I hear complaints like that, I say to myself, what kind of internal management did the landlord have in place? Who was managing?

So my first question is, who was managing those units? And I guess more to the point is, what’s going to come forward in the future? Is it going to be a different management structure? Is it going to be a different type of tenant in terms of the level of acuity?

How is what’s being proposed for these 10 units going to be different from what the Councillor described as a bad situation? Because the very same situation that he described sounds very familiar in many of our public housing units routinely. So what’s going to be different about this and how are these 10 units selected? Super.

Thank you through you, Mr. Chair. I think what we look at mostly is where the client is on their housing journey. And so what I understand in conversations with the arc is this, the space is utilized for individuals who are coming out of their Cronin Warner location who have already stabilized and stayed in that space for an extra amount of time.

The previous spaces, I guess, were utilized to support a higher needs individual. And so they are fundamentally different. Councillor. Thank you.

And I’ll speak quickly because I know I must be running out of time. So what I’m hearing is there’s a different clientele here and it’s going to be under a different management. Is that the case? Who was managing those units before?

Mr. Dickens. Through the chair, as indicated, has been operating these spaces now for several months. They’ve been self-funding this.

We don’t have a contractual obligation in place for these properties. So who the specific clientele are, the staffing ratios and the supports that are in place, we wouldn’t be able to comment on. What we was proposed was the arcades attempt to try and fulfill those 30 beds that had to relocate. And they were looking to use 10 of those spaces out in these properties.

I think there would be some difference from previous occupants of this space and previous staffing models, but we wouldn’t have those particulars at this time. Councillor. Through the chair, when would we want occupancy to begin? Which is another way of asking, do we have any timeline that would allow us a little bit more space to get that question answered?

Or are these people who are ready to move in from one of the facilities, Cronin, into this other facility? What’s the implication of the way in this? Through the chair, there are individuals currently housed in these spaces. They would look as part of their proposal to try and fulfill those 30 beds that had to relocate.

They would be taking people out of Cronin Warner that are deemed or assessed to be more ready for some level of independent living. So a little bit of a different take on the emergency shelter beds that was originally proposed as the agency attempted to try and recreate those 30 beds elsewhere in the community. Thank you. That answers my question.

So I’ll just make my comment very quickly. And this is, in all due respect to the word, Councillor, who has, I think, quite well put forward some of the problems that we face. But I guess I had my poor moment today. Now I have to have my Susan moment.

And that is, we need to not put all of these units in the same neighborhood. We’ve made that point many, many, many, many times. And I don’t want to create other problems for people in other parts of the city. But I don’t want to frame this in terms of this is the wrong and I don’t want to put words in anybody’s mouth.

But we can’t say this is the wrong area to put it in. I mean, if the units are there and if we have a plan, it’s the right area to put it. And I’m not sure, I’m not sure what the right area to put these units is, if we can’t put them here, because I just don’t want to go back to this council has already said, we don’t want the concentration here. And I hear the Councillor saying that.

So unless I hear more, and especially in light of the fact that I have a lot of confidence that the tenants who are going to be going into these Oxford units are at now a lower level of acuity and that they have demonstrated some ability to live independently. And I take the service providers at their word. Having said that, I am going to assume that there’s going to be a strict sort of set of house rules and codes of conduct. And I also assume that the service provider is going to do some outreach to the immediate neighbourhood, hopefully through the word Councillor.

I assume through the word Councillor to talk about how the situation is not going to repeat itself and what measures are being taken to improve the fit between this badly needed resource and the neighbourhood. So I’m not willing to take those units out. I would like to see them go forward. And I just hope I’m not offending anybody by saying that.

So thank you very much. On the speakers list. And I will remind everybody we are on the main motion as amended now. And we will be calling E separate.

Then I’ve had a request to call F&G separate. Then we’ll go to what’s left. Here, I’m going to ask Councillor Ploza to take the chair. I have myself on the speakers list next.

Then Councillor Stevenson, then Councillor Hopkins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I recognize the chair just for clarity.

When you’re done speaking, would you like me to go to Councillor Stevenson next and give you a moment to get ready? Okay. So I will maintain chair until you tell me otherwise. I will recognize Deputy Mayor Lewis.

Thank you, Madam Presiding Officer. So I’m going to try and speak to the main motion as amended. I am going to focus a bit on on clause E. But I’m going to speak to some of the other things.

I supported some referrals today because I’m frustrated with the fact that in the last week, we’ve had three different sets of numbers come before us. And I don’t know what we’re spending money on where? And my priority is for on overnight beds. I will say on clause and I will say with the basic needs support, I hear Councillor McAllister’s frustration loud and clear.

And I want to be really, really clear myself. I’m not going to support any further funding extension beyond April 30th. I need to see an operational plan and I need to see how things are going to proceed, not just a give us more money to continue till we figure it out. I need that plan by the end of April on clause E.

I was here the last time the arc was operating these spaces more as shelter beds. And it was quite honestly, folks, an unmitigated disaster. I heard the neighborhood complaints too. And I will not support putting more beds back in these locations.

And we heard from staff, they’re already being operationalized to move residents from Cronan Warner into these units to put 10 more beds in these units now that we didn’t ask for. And this comes back to Councillor Ferreira’s earlier question. The original proposal for 90 beds included the arc making donations to support that. And then the arc decided, no, we’re going to take that money and we’re going to use it for our own storefront at 696 Dundas and offer the resting spaces that Council said they won’t fund on a main street BIA anyway.

So we’re going to do it ourselves. But those beds still exist. So to me, it’s still, it’s actually 100 beds now because we’re moving Cronan Warner from 60 to 70. So we’re not 90 beds now, we’re 100 beds.

Before the my sister’s place beds, which have come off the table, before the Oxford Street beds, which are actually already units providing some housing to some low acuity folks. I’m not taking on the funding for the arc for those houses because we didn’t ask for that. And I’m not increasing any density there because they think that they can feed a couple more beds in each home because I saw what happened there. And while it is okay to say that the the and I agree, we want location spread out.

But when we’ve had a location that has been tried and failed and to say that we’re just going to go back and hope that this time they do a better job is not something I can get behind. I would be saying the same thing. Quite honestly, if we were talking about operationalizing First Baptist Church on Richmond Street, as we did in the past, which was also managed in a way that was an unmitigated disaster. And I had reservations about Cronan Warner.

Now I was proven wrong on that one and I’m glad I was. But I’m not going to just keep expanding funding for the arc to run projects all over the city that we didn’t ask them for. This is not what we talked about when we asked for the 90 beds. While the way back in June, there’s an opportunity to do 100 and I’m willing to do 100 because I think 70 at Cronan Warner, if that can work, I’m okay to do that.

It’s been proven a success. But these locations on Oxford Street, I’m familiar with them. I will not support that. I’m absolutely voting against it.

And I think the bigger reason we’ve had a longer debate today is because as Councilor Ferrer referenced as the chair, we got a very complicated motion with multiple service providers involved coming on an added agenda at committee. And then since then, we’ve seen the numbers change multiple times. And part of that is the service provider changing the numbers. I can’t operate on a email on a Friday afternoon and then another email on a Monday morning telling me that the numbers are changing.

So I’m supporting the referrals so that they go back, come back to us with fresh numbers. I’m not supporting these beds on Oxford Street. I will support the additional 10 beds at Cronan Warner until the end of March. And hopefully we can support those moving in for another whole year and keep those 70 beds going.

But I’m not going beyond the 90 bed proposal that we had in June other than to give the extra 10 at Cronan Warner. Thank you. That was your 20 second warning. Councilor Stevenson on the main motion as amended.

Thanks. I feel like I have a lot to say when I listen to my colleagues. I’m going to keep it short. When we talk about unmitigated disaster, there is an unmitigated disaster at 696 done that strain.

And it wasn’t an unmitigated disaster when it was being funded $10,000 from the city. And it was a soup kitchen. It’s fine. Arcade can stay there.

They own the property. They can run their soup kitchen. But when this city funds them 1.4 million to operate their day spaces, it is an unmitigated disaster. And we run the potential of losing the palace theater.

Clay works. It’s damaging to but Banting House. And you know, a only in whole is very concerned, especially when we have another shelter that unity project is going to be running across from them that has not yet come before council. So I don’t mean to rant, but this is how we’re not going to continue funding an unmitigated disaster.

I’m going to expect my colleagues to please honor that in old East Village as well. So for me, when I talk about this, the overarching amendment, when I go to the news release from December 13, 2024, where we got this funding, it says that under this agreement, London will contribute 6.425 million while the federal government will provide more than 5 million over two years. So I didn’t find it very clear in this report that we had actually anted up more than the 5 million that the federal government was going to give us, nor was it really clear that how exactly that was going to go. I added up a bunch of numbers and it looked like it came to two years at that.

But it also says that through this agreement, 30 to 35 temporary low barrier emergency shelter beds will also be made available for people leaving encampments. And I didn’t find that very clear in the report either as to what commitments that we had made in terms of getting this funding. I am going to support the unmitigated disaster on at 696 Dentistry until the end of March because it’s winter and we get to look after people in the winter. And I’ve said that before to the detriment of my ward.

I will continue to support the beds in the winter time trusting that this city is capable of finding a more appropriate location for arcade to offer their drop-in center. I am hearing all kinds of rumors as to why they haven’t found another location. I don’t want to listen to the rumors. I want to hear from the whole community response and from civic administration as to why we can’t find a better location for this one that honors other parts of our strategic plan in terms of a business improvement area.

And then I’m going to be voting no to FNG for the Atlosa outreach. We added $900,000 a year in ongoing money that I still haven’t seen a budget for the strategic plan and did 2023. I still don’t know where that money’s going. And again, the outreach to me is only good if we’re bringing people inside.

And do we have the spaces? Otherwise, what is it that we’re doing and and how much indigenous outreach do we already have already? I would just like to be able to explain why we’re funding the outreach for the same reason that we referred the other outreach. So this has been a complicated report personally.

I’m not like I liked it when this kind of important work that affects the entire city came to SPPC. Having it go to a small community and protective services, I hear Councillor Ferreira attending it would be good and we don’t get to vote. So I don’t know, we may end up doing a lot of this at council if this continues. Thank you, Mr.

President, I have to take the, okay, I returned the chair to Deputy Mayor Lewis. And we have Councillor Hopkins on the speaker’s list next. Was there anyone else that was well on the speaker’s list while I was collecting my process thoughts here? So Councillor Hopkins, please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you for recognizing me. I would like to just speak to E, which is the 10 spaces on Oxford Street. I have not had an opportunity to speak to that. And I’d like to first of all start off with my colleague right next to me with the work that he does in his community and the respect that I have for him as a Councillor for the ward.

But I will be supporting those 10 spaces on Oxford Street. And I’d like to give reasons why. And I think to some extent we as a council have created some of the complexities around where we put people in our city. We did support a motion here not to allow agencies that get municipal funding to be in BIA areas.

So where do we put people? We just shuffle them around. And I think we really seriously have to look at how we can no longer do that. We have to put them in places.

I also want to just make a comment. It was mentioned here about the AMO housing report that was done. AMOS collecting quite a bit of data on homelessness in our country. 80,000 people are unhoused live on the streets.

Those numbers are huge. And it’s just not in our city. But I do think it is important that we reflect on those numbers and try to understand and have a place for these people. We need to put them somewhere.

And it is up to us to protect our vulnerable population. So I will be supporting the 10 spaces. And at the end of the day here, I just hope we have improved this motion. But I guess we’ll wait and see.

Thank you. Okay. I have no one else on the speakers list. Councilor, oh, I do have Councillor McAllister.

I was just going to say, I’m pretty sure you’re going to win the award for standing the longest today. But Councillor McAllister wants to extend your time a little bit. So Councillor McAllister, my apologies, Councillor, I’ll be as quick as I can. And thank you through the chair.

I’ve already said a lot. So I don’t want to go over the sections we already have. I will say in terms of the ones we will be addressing, I think we need to continue in terms of what’s been started at Cronin Warner. In terms of F&G, Indigenous are vastly overrepresented in our homeless population.

And I think we do need to allocate resources appropriately for that. And I know Alossa is doing good work with that. I would like to, with the point of E, and as we did already change it, one of the things I also wanted to mention was I had a number of conversations with CMHA before Council. And one of the things I’ve found interesting in the time between committee and Council is there seems to be a bit of a gap in terms of conversations that we can have with agencies and then what’s coming before us.

One of the things I find very unfortunate is my discussions with CMHA is I think there are opportunities to be found where we don’t have to go the subcontracting route. And that’s exactly what happened. I applaud them for putting forward their applications. It’s great.

We got the hard hub. But I do find it interesting that there are agencies that I think maybe are a bit leery but might have the capacity. And I think in having those conversations prior to some of these things coming forward, we can actually find some spaces. And on E, that actually speaks to why I won’t be supporting the Oxford location.

And for me personally, in my conversations, I am not 100% convinced that the ARC can do everything it’s promised. I think they have reached a point where they’re stretching themselves a bit thin. All agencies will talk to us all the time about capacity issues. And I applaud what the ARC does.

I think they do good work. As the deputy mayor said, I think a number of us were very happy to be proven wrong with Toronto Warner. They were very operationalized. I do very good work.

But I think right now they’re throwing darts at a board and just hoping something will hit. I know they’re doing their best. They’re trying to find spaces. But my worry is when we stretch ourselves too thin, that we put ourselves in a tough spot.

And that’s going to, I think, hurt the community in the long run. So my suggestion moving forward, I think if we can spread out some of these services a little bit, I know we don’t always have an option. But I do think if we have those conversations with some of our providers, we can find some spaces. So I would say, thank you for the discussion today.

Apologies for getting a bit heated, but very passionate about this. It’s something that I deal with on a regular basis. And I know Londoners are looking for more details. And they really want a plan in place.

And so I appreciate staff, all the work they’re doing. I know it’s a lot of work. And I look forward to what comes back to us future committee meetings. Council, thank you.

Thank you, Councilor McAllister. I have Council Raman next. Council Raman, just before I go to you, I’ll advise colleagues, when we are finished this item, when we are through these votes, we will look to take a short bio break. But we’re going to get through the votes on this item before we break.

Councilor Raman. Thank you and through you. So I just want to speak to two items. One is from the CAPS report specific to this report and all these amendments that came forward.

There was mention of an additional $526,550 that would be used and allocated between January 1st and March 2025. I’m just wondering if staff can speak to that, how that money is planned to be used, why it is in that short window again, federal component funding surprise, and if they can perhaps give us more information. Mr. Dickens or Mr.

Cooper. Yes, thank you. Through you, Mr. Chair.

So this, that $526,000 is part of the additional incremental funding received from reaching home. We received that indication late late November, operationalized our contract in December, have to have that money spent by March 31st, 2025. So there are typically what we would do in those instances is we would look at municipal contributions to eligible programs that we could apply this funding to to then create that municipal surplus. That’s typically the process is what we’re planning to do here unless there are other items or directions from Council.

Councilor Raman. Thank you. And then what could that surplus be used for? Mr.

Cooper. Thank you. And through you, Mr. Chair, there are a number of items in the reaching home directive.

So basic needs, additional sheltering beds, housing supports, again, realizing it’s a short-term window to utilize that funding. So many of the agencies are trying to operationalize those spaces to then just wind them down in March 31st, wouldn’t be really a viable option. But we do have existing programs, excuse me, through the multi-year budget that was recently funded that we could look to fund this on a short-term basis. There’s a broad list of items in the directive.

So I can’t go through them all. Councilor Raman. Thank you. And will we receive a report back to CAPS on how that money was then allocated?

Mr. Cooper. Thank you. And through you, Mr.

Chair, I should remain standing. Generally, if it creates a surplus, I would look to finance to see how that is reported back on the municipal surplus piece. But we wouldn’t seek direction from Council in that regard because we apply it to an existing approved program that allows for usage of the housing stability services dollars, whether it be provincial, federal, or municipal. Councillor.

Thank you. That satisfies my questions on that matter. I just want to briefly speak to Part E specifically on the additional housing housing spaces that would be fall under the category of supportive housing. So I just want to speak directly to this particular allocation.

I am a bit at a loss right now in terms of how we’re applying Council’s direction on this BIA matter around not having resting spaces within the BIA. Because it’s as if, and I said this at committee, we agreed to a direction of which we really do not have control. All we could control was the funding component of that aspect. So at the time when we made that decision and that funding component then was no longer applicable to those spaces, then this kind of unfolded since.

And so, yes, I agree, the numbers change in kind donations came out of the amounts and the service provider tried to find an opportunity to satisfy what they had said they would do to us. And that was why we’re getting these additional 10 beds. I’ll say I think it’s great that these are already operational. I think there was a bit of a disconnect here because it says beds are on Oxford Street and yet we’ve received information that they’re at multiple locations.

But I don’t think it satisfies what the original intent was. So my preference would be that if we’re saying what I’m hearing being said today is that we’re okay with those resting spaces continuing until March 31st, let’s put some money back into them because they’re operational. And otherwise we’re basically closing our eyes to the fact that they exist and that they are doing the work that we’re asking to be done in the community. Supportive housing is really important as well.

I don’t have enough information on how that supportive housing that they’re providing is currently modeled. What would be that transition of people into those spaces? Is it 10? Is it not?

Who would be operationalizing that is it just the arc? What kind of supports are provided? What the overall budget is? Why are they able to do it for 157,000?

Where typically those supportive houses beds are a lot more? So I have a lot of unanswered questions, which is why I can’t support it today. The fact that it’s not allocated, I would have liked to have seen this come back to us in a different way because I think it’s worthy of a discussion, especially when we’re seeing the per bed cost at the amount that it is. So I won’t support it today.

I do hope that we’ll have further discussion as many of these items were referred, which means we’ll come back to committee. Thank you, Councilor. If that has exhausted my speaker’s list, so if we are ready, I’m going to start calling the vote. On the main motion as amended, we are going to start with clause E.

Then we will go to F and G as those could impact the rest of the main motion as amended, but we will start with clause E, which is the Oxford Street beds. And I’ll ask the clerk to open the vote on that. Councillor Stevenson votes no. Thank you, closing the vote.

Motion fails three to nine. Okay, the next two clauses we are going to call together. These are F and G and are both related to the at LOSA purchase of service agreements. That’s the clerk to open the vote on those.

So the Stevenson votes no. The vote motion carries nine to three. Hey, and now unless anyone wants anything else voted on separately, I will call the balance of the clauses. So the Stevenson votes yes.

Was in the vote motion carries 12 to 0. Colleagues, that completes that item. I did indicate we are going to have a bio break. I do want to see if there is a willingness to simply deal with the last item of community protective services.

So Councillor Ferrer can sit down. This was only pulled because of a caring interest by Councillor Palosa who has to abstain. This is with respect to the direction to staff to investigate the YMCA Bob Hayward location real estate. So unless there’s objection, Councillor Ferrer, are you prepared to put that on the floor?

Thank you, Chair. I’m putting on the floor. Item 8, 4.1, Bob Hayward YMCA at 1050 Hamilton Road. Hey, that’s on the floor.

Looking for any speakers, Councillor McAllister. Even through the chair, I’ll be very brief because Councillor Ferrer has been standing a while. I just want to reiterate what I said at committee. I want to thank Mr.

Felberg for meeting with me. I think this is a great opportunity. I hope those discussions with the Y are very fruitful and that we can find something in the near future. I was a big supporter of the city acquiring Fairmont Public School.

I think that whole property, especially with the adjacent Y, if you can redevelop that site, get some more affordable housing online. Obviously, that would benefit everyone in the city. So I’m looking for support on this. So thank you.

Thank you for any other speakers. Seeing none, we’ll ask the clerk to open the vote on that. Mr. Stevenson votes yes.

Mr. Trussell noted, thank you. Close in the vote. Motion carries 11 to 0 with one more.

Colleagues, at this point in our agenda, I’m going to look to see if there’s a motion for a brief recess, 10 minutes, 10 minute recess, moved by Councillor Trussell, seconded by Councillor Hopkins. We can do this one by hand. All those in favour? Motion carries.

Hey, it’s 4.35, so please. Okay, Colleagues, we’re going to call this meeting back to order. Up next is the third report of the Planning and Environment Committee. I will turn to Councillor Layman.

Noting Councillor Layman, there’s been a request to have item 7 pulled to be dealt with separately. Thank you. I’ve had no request for items to be pulled right back to the chair. So we have had a request for item 7 to be voted on separately.

So we’d be looking for you to craft a motion that excludes item 7. Yeah, so even though there are no other items to be pulled out, I will put everything excluding item 7 on the floor. Okay, so the Planning and Environment Committee items 1 through 6 and 8 are on the floor. Any questions or comments?

Seeing none, I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Councillor votes yes. noted, thank you. Close in the vote.

Motion carries 11 to 0. And Councillor Layman, I will look to you to put item 7 on the floor now. Yes, I’ll put item 7 on. Okay, and that was asked to be pulled for a separate vote by Councillor Trussau.

So Councillor Trussau, I will go to you. Thank you very much to the chair. I’m pulling this just so I could register a no vote on this demolition. I was particularly impressed by the submission from Ms.

McClure. I thought she did an excellent job laying out why we should save this portion of the property. I’m not going to try to try to reiterate her very articulate statement in five minutes. Clearly, I’m not my most articulate now.

But I thought she made a lot of really good points, and I do want to just register a no vote on this. So I’ll leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor.

Councillor Ferriero. Chair, I should make a comment on this. This is in my ward, and I did come to PEC, Planning and Environment Committee to speak to it too. And I would also say that I did appreciate Ms.

McClure’s delegation or the written submission that she had into on this item. And I would say, you know, this was a very tough thing for me too. I do see like the history of everything and the new owner that has it now who is not involved in the neglect of the building itself. I do see that, you know, that that new owner has been trying to work with staff and trying to bring something forward that does work.

But at the same time, I have consulted with Heritage pretty thoroughly on this one. And just kind of going through the details, like, you know, the place is designated part four or sorry, part five designation, which is within the Heritage Conservation District. And it has to have heritage attributes for that from facing for the neighborhood. So the neighborhood can keep that district and the heritage component in effect.

But at the same time, a lot of those heritage components were lost on the property as well. So, you know, I don’t I do understand Ms. McClure’s statements between the tree versus the house. That was another conversation I had with staff as well.

And just with the removal, if we did have to remove the property, which is this for the demolition request, how do we save the tree and the foundation of the property is going to be intact. And it’s all going to be done by hand with no heavy machinery as well. So there are different aspects that we’re going to be bringing into that just to ensure that we do save that tree. And just kind of consulting with the community or with the neighborhood itself.

I do see that, you know, this is a very tough call by myself and by people in the neighborhood. They understand just kind of the state of things. And they understand that just where we are right now, there’s a potential if we were to refuse this demolition request, we may just have a property sitting at that corner of the neighborhood that may sit as the state that it’s in. So I don’t, this is not one that’s likely for me at all, because I do think that this is a pretty good example of demolition by neglect.

It’s just the fact that the owner who actually was holding the property during that time is not the owner right now. And the owner right now is an owner that’s trying to work with us to, you know, bring something back to that corner of the neighborhood and is also bringing that commemorative there as well for the heritage attribute. So I do recognize that. And I do see that this is something that I’d like to see moving forward, but at the same time as my comments at the planning and environment committee, you know, I, when it comes to heritage, you’re going to see me very, very protective of all heritage attributes in my ward.

This one is just that specific case, but the other one’s coming forward, which I know they are, you’re going to see me taking a different stance on that. But it’s just, it’s just the case and it’s just the details of the case of why you’re going to see me support this, but it is not being supported, you know, easily for me. It’s with a very heavy heart because I, you know, I see that that corner and that property, it’s one of the only existing Ontario heritage, Ontario cottage style houses in the Conservation District yourself. And I do see that there’s other individuals that might be watching and thinking that this is a means, this is a way to get around the heritage designation status.

And I’m going to tell you right now, it’s not because I’m going to be watching pretty closely. And if I see something like this come again, and if I actually see the same case where, you know, someone’s owning it, they see it go into disrepair and then it gets sold again, you know, you’re not going to get me twice on this one. So this is the last case for me. It’s a hard one for me.

I don’t like it at all, but I trying to recognize that the new property or the new owner of the property, I do recognize that they’re working with us. But any other cases, you know, I just don’t want to see that. I think the property standards and just kind of following that and focusing on that would be a way to circumvent something like this. But yeah, those are those, that’s just the my position right now on the property.

It’s it’s a hard one for me. But I am going to be supporting it just because of what I spoke to it is a new owner. They’re trying to work with us. And I worry that if we don’t approve this, you’re going to see this property stay as it is.

So I do appreciate Ms. McClure sending in her submission. I have spoken with her. I know how she feels about my position on this.

And it’s not it’s not an easy one. It’s a hard one for me. So thank you, Councilor. I have no one else on the speakers list.

I’m going to ask the clerk to open the vote. closing the vote. Motion carries 10 to 1. Sorry.

Thank you. That concludes the third report of playing environment committee. At this time, I like to inform the chair. Unfortunately, I must leave the meeting.

Why am I going to get to thank you for letting us know. I will advise committee or sorry, advise Council that Councilor Van Mirbergen has also indicated he will not be returning. And that brings us to the third report of the infrastructure and corporate services committee. So I will turn it over to Councilor ramen.

Thank you. And through you, I would look to put all items on the floor as I have not heard from anyone to pull anything at this time. And they were all unions. Looking very quickly to see if anyone wants anything dealt with separately.

Seeing none. Any questions or comments? Seeing none. And I will ask the clerk to open the vote.

Opposed in the vote. Motion carries 10 to 0. Councilor ramen. Congratulations on the most efficient committee report today.

And we will move on under item nine. There are no add-eds. So the next thing we need to do is Councilor ramen report out from closed session. If you would please.

Thank you. Your council in closed session report that progress was made with respect to items 4.14.24.3 as noted on the public agenda as 6.13 ICSC, 6.23 ICSC and 6.33 ICSC. Thank you for reporting out on those. We have no deferred matters.

I am not aware of any inquiries. We have no emergent motions. That brings us to bylaws. So we have bylaws to be read.

We have two bylaws in third reading that only need a third reading. Those are with respect to the providing of drainage works by the municipality. The other bylaws do need full per second and third readings. So I’m going to look for a mover and a seconder.

Councilor Hopkins will use the same mover and seconder for all three readings. This will be for the introduction and first reading of bills 73 through 77. We will now move to the second reading of bills number 73 through 77 using the same mover and seconder looking for any discussion or debate. See none.

I will ask the question. Yes, for our votes. Yes, close in the vote. Motion carries 10 to 0.

And finally with the same mover and seconder the third reading and enactment of bills number 73 to 77 and bills number 297 and 379 be approved. And I will ask the clerk to open the vote. For our votes. Yes, close in the vote.

Motion carries 10 to 0. And that brings us colleagues to the final item on our agenda. That is a motion to adjourn. Oh, sorry.

Sorry, just a minor glitch. We’re good looking for a motion to adjourn. Councilor Hillier and Councilor Ferreira. We can do that one by hand.

All those in favor. Thank you, everyone. We are adjourned.