January 26, 2026, at 1:00 PM

Original link

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That Items 2.1, 2.4 and 2.5 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

2.1   8th Report of the Environmental Stewardship and Action Community Advisory Committee

2025-11-27 - ESACAC Report

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the following actions be taken with respect to the 8th Report of the Environmental Stewardship and Action Community Advisory Committee, from the meeting held on November 27, 2025:

a)    the following actions be taken with respect to the Committee Workplan (June - December 2025) items:

i)     the Civic Administration BE REQUESTED to attend a future meeting of the Environmental Stewardship and Action Community Advisory Committee (ESACAC) to discuss Schedule 14 - Pet Shops, of the Business Licensing By-law - L.-131-16; 

ii)     it BE NOTED that the ESACAC heard a verbal update from E. Williamson, Manager, Environmental Planning, related to information for property owners about occupancy of buildings with Chimney Swifts; 

iii)    it BE NOTED that the ESACAC heard a verbal update from B. Samuels, ESACAC Member, related to the implementation of the Naturalization of Boulevards and bring forward to the 2026 Workplan; and, 

iv)    it BE NOTED that the ESACAC heard a verbal update from N. Karsch, Chair, ESACAC, related to education brochures about invasive plants and decided to pause this item from the Committee Workplan; and,

b)    clauses 1.1, 2.1, 3.1, 4.1 and 5.2 BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

2.4   Urgent Replacement of End-of-Life London Fire Department Hoists

2026-01-26 SR Urgent Replacement of End of Life London Fire Dept Hoists - Part 1

2026-01-26 SR Urgent Replacement of End of Life London Fire Dept Hoists - Part 2

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report dated January 26, 2026, related to the Urgent Replacement of End-of-Life London Fire Department Hoists:

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

b)    the approval above BE CONDITIONAL upon The Corporation of the City of London entering into a formal contract with K&L Construction Ltd.,1615 N Routledge Park #27, London, ON, N6H 5N5, pursuant to a Request for Tender process, 26006-RFT-2025-215, to perform the work described above;

c)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all administrative acts necessary to carry out the authorizations set out in parts a) and b) above; and,

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

Motion Passed

2.5   London Fire Protection Grant 2025-2026 Transfer Payment Agreement

2026-01-26 SR London Fire Protection Grant 2025-2026 TPA - Part 1

2026-01-26 SR London Fire Protection Grant 2025-2026 TPA - Part 2

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, the attached proposed by-law, as appended to the staff report dated January 26, 2026, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting on February 10, 2026, to:

a)    approve the Ontario Transfer Payment Agreement (‘TPA’) 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, as appended to the above-noted by-law;

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

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 Agreement; and,

d)    authorize the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services to approve any future Ontario Transfer Payment Agreements 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 as well as execute any reports required by the province under this Agreement.

Motion Passed

2.2   Good Neighbour Agreements

2026-01-26 SR Good Neighbour Agreements - Part 1

2026-01-26 SR Good Neighbour Agreements - Part 2

2026-01-26 SR Good Neighbour Agreements - Part 3

That the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report dated January 26, 2026 related to the Housing, Stability Framework and Good Neighbour Clause:

a)    the proposed system transformation approach and multi-year Housing Stability Services procurement framework as, outlined in the December 1, 2025 staff report, BE ENDORSED;

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to explore other funding options for basic needs;

c)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back at a future meeting of the Community and Protective Services Committee with an information report describing the execution of service agreements associated with each procurement process; and,

d)    the above-noted staff report BE RECEIVED;

it being noted that the communications, as appended to the Added Agenda, from Councillor S. Stevenson, Deputy Mayor S. Lewis, Councillor J. Pribil, Councillor S. Lehman, D. Brown and W. Thomas, Midtown Community Organization and M. Cassidy, Pillar Nonprofit Network, with respect to this matter, were received;

it being further noted that verbal delegations from C. Lazenby, Unity Project, S. Campbell, Ark Aid Mission, C. Moss, London Cares and M. Cassidy, Pillar Nonprofit Network, with respect to this matter, were received.

Additional Votes:

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by S. Lewis (Acting Mayor)

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development and the Deputy City Manager, Legal Services, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report dated January 26, 2026 related to the Housing Stability Service Procurement Framework:

a)    the proposed system transformation approach and multi-year Housing Stability Services procurement framework as, outlined in the December 1, 2025 staff report, BE ENDORSED;

b)    the Homeless Prevention Service Standards regarding Good Neighbour and Community Relations, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE APPROVED;

c)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to explore other funding options for basic needs;

d)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back at a future meeting of the Community and Protective Services Committee with an information report describing the execution of service agreements associated with each procurement process; and,

e)    the above-noted staff report BE RECEIVED.

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That the delegation requests from C. Lazenby, Unity Project, S. Campbell, Ark Aid Mission, C. Moss, London Cares and M. Cassidy, Pillar Nonprofit Network BE APPROVED and the communications, as appended to the Agenda and the Added Agenda, with respect to this matter, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

Moved by S. Lewis (Acting Mayor)

Seconded by J. Pribil

That part a) of the motion BE AMENDED as follows:

i)     the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to provide a one year contract renewal for the procurement framework  with an option to renew for one year; and,

ii)     that Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to review existing housing stability contracts to assess alignment with current operational needs, including transitions from emergency and highly supportive environments, and to report back to Council on any recommended amendments or procurement actions required, consistent with policy-compliant procurement processes

Motion Failed (2 to 4)

Moved by S. Lewis (Acting Mayor)

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That pursuant to section 33.8 of the Council Procedure by-law, the Committee BE PERMITTED to proceed beyond 6:00 PM.

Motion Passed (5 to 1)

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by S. Lewis (Acting Mayor)

That part a) of the motion BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (4 to 2)

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by S. Lewis (Acting Mayor)

That part b) of the motion BE APPROVED.

Motion Failed (1 to 5)

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by S. Lewis (Acting Mayor)

That part c) of the motion BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by S. Lewis (Acting Mayor)

That part d) of the motion BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by S. Lewis (Acting Mayor)

That part e) of the motion BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

2.3   System Area Update: Supports for Those Living Unsheltered: Basic Needs and Pathway Options

2026-01-26 SR System Area Update - Supports for Those Living Unsheltered - Part 1

2026-01-26 SR System Area Update - Supports for Those Living Unsheltered - Part 2

2026-01-26 SR System Area Update - Supports for Those Living Unsheltered - Part 3

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by S. Lewis (Acting Mayor)

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, the staff report dated January 26, 2026 with respect to the System Area Update: Supports for Those Living Unsheltered: Basic Needs and Pathway Options, BE RECEIVED;

it being noted that a verbal delegation from S. Campbell, Ark Aid Street Mission, with respect to this matter, was received.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

Additional Votes:

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by S. Lewis (Acting Mayor)

That the delegation request from S. Campbell, Ark Aid Street Mission, with respect to this matter, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

3.1   New London Children’s Museum Update

2026-01-26 Sub. London Childrens Museum - K. Ledgley

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by J. Pribil

That the presentation, as appended to the agenda, from K. Ledgley, London Children’s Museum, with respect to a New London Children’s Museum Update, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

4.1   Allocating the City of London Community Grants Annual Stream to Fund Capital Projects Only in the 2026 and 2027 Budget Cycles

2026-01-26 Sub. London Community Grants Annual Program - C. Rahman

Moved by S. Lewis (Acting Mayor)

Seconded by E. Peloza

That the communication, as appended to the Agenda, from Councillor Rahman, Deputy Mayor S. Lewis and Councillor E. Peloza, with respect to Allocating the City of London Community Grants Annual Stream to Fund Capital Projects Only in the 2026 and 2027 Budget Cycles, BE RECEIVED;

it being noted that a communication, as appended to the Added Agenda, and a verbal delegation from M. Cassidy, Pillar Nonprofit Network, with respect to this matter, were received.

Motion Passed (5 to 1)

Additional Votes:

Moved by S. Lewis (Acting Mayor)

Seconded by E. Peloza

That the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to limit the City of London Community Grants Annual Program to the capital funding category, as defined in the City of London Community Grants Policy for 2026 and 2027;

it being noted that a communication, as appended to the Added Agenda, as well as a verbal delegation from M. Cassidy, Pillar Nonprofit Network, with respect to this matter, were received.

Motion Failed (3 to 3)

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by S. Trosow

That the request for delegation from M. Cassidy, Pillar Nonprofit Network BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

4.2   Temporary Warming Centres

That the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to take the following actions with respect to the Temporary Warming Centre Framework:

a)    APPROVE a maximum of $250,000 from the Social Services Reserve Fund for currently funded local agencies to open at the discretion of the agency based on staffing, safety and programming needs when the temperature drops below -5 overnight until April 30th, 2026, to offer net-new overnight warming spaces and that, notwithstanding previous Council direction, spaces on a main street BIA shall be considered as part of this initiative until April 30, 2026;

b)    ACTIVATE the Tier 3 Surge Response whenever it is -15 OR -20 with windchill OR when Environment Canada issues an extreme weather alert for London with the funding to be pulled from the Social Services Reserve Fund up to a maximum of $290,000;

c)    POST on the City of London website the rules, recommendations and supports available for unhoused individuals looking to stay warm during subzero temperatures;

d)    ADJUST the morning closing time of the Boyle Memorial Community Centre (Tier 3 Surge Response) to address concerns about the overlap with elementary school bus pick-up times and provide additional garbage and CIR support as needed;

e)    INVESTIGATE AND REPORT BACK to a future meeting of the Community and Protective Services Committee, by the end of Q2 2026, with respect to options for the 2026-2027 winter season and enhanced Tier 3 plan, in addition to existing Tier 1 and Tier 2 extreme cold response options, including the following costed scenarios:

i)    establishing one overnight warming centre operating from December 1, 2026 to March 31, 2027, open between 9:00 PM and 9:00 AM; or

ii)    establishing one 24/7 warming centre operating from December 1, 2026 to March 31, 2027; or

iii)    providing a minimum of 100 warming centre spaces across two to four locations from December 1, 2026 to March 31, 2027, between 9:00 PM and 9:00 AM.

iv)    explore potential service partners to provide these warming spaces; and,

v)    provide the cost to amend the temperature upon which the Tier 3 Surge Response is activated to -10C (from -15C with -20C windchill);

it being noted that communications from the following individuals, as appended to the Agenda and the Added Agenda, with respect to this matter, were received:

  •    Councillors S. Trosow and D. Ferreira;

  •    Councillor S. Stevenson;

  •    S. Mcfarlane, London ACORN East of Adelaide Chapter;

  •    Councillors D. Ferreira, S. Stevenson, S. Trosow and S. Franke;

  •    L. Cardinal;

  •    P. Puhringer;

  •    C. Kuijpers;

  •    C. Blanchard, Chair, London Homeless Coalition;

  •    R. Bentley-Ponikvar Thuss.

it being noted that verbal delegations from S. Campbell, Ark Aid Street Mission, V. Brown, C. McDonald, London Cares, M. Kolls, R. Klemm and T. Davies, with respect to this matter, were received.

Additional Votes:

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by S. Trosow

That the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to take the following actions with respect to the Temporary Warming Centre Framework:

a)    APPROVE a maximum of $250,000 from the Social Services Reserve Fund for local agencies to open at the discretion of the agency based on staffing, safety and programming needs when the temperature drops below -5 overnight until April 30th, 2026, to offer net-new overnight warming spaces;

b)    ACTIVATE the Tier 3 Surge Response whenever it is -15 OR -20 with windchill OR when Environment Canada issues an extreme weather alert for London;

c)    POST on the City of London website the rules, recommendations and supports available for unhoused individuals looking to stay warm during subzero temperatures;

d)    ADJUST the morning closing time of the Boyle Memorial Community Centre (Tier 3 Surge Response) to address concerns about the overlap with elementary school bus pick-up times and provide additional garbage and CIR support as needed;

e)    INVESTIGATE AND REPORT BACK to a future meeting of the Community and Protective Services Committee, by the end of Q2 2026, with respect to options for the 2026-2027 winter season and enhanced Tier 3 plan, in addition to existing Tier 1 and Tier 2 extreme cold response options, including the following costed scenarios:

i)    establishing one overnight warming centre operating from December 1, 2026 to March 31, 2027, open between 9:00 PM and 9:00 AM; or

ii)    establishing one 24/7 warming centre operating from December 1, 2026 to March 31, 2027; or

iii)    providing a minimum of 100 warming centre spaces across two to four locations from December 1, 2026 to March 31, 2027, between 9:00 PM and 9:00 AM.

iv)    explore potential service partners to provide these warming spaces; 

v)    provide the cost to amend the temperature upon which the Tier 3 Surge Response is activated to -10C (from -15C with -20C windchill); and

vi)    provide the cost to amend the Tier 2 Surge Response to open the 50 additional warming spaces through existing service providers at a temperature of -5C.

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That it being noted that communications from the following individuals, as appended to the Agenda and the Added Agenda, with respect to this matter, were received:

  •    Councillors S. Trosow and D. Ferreira;

  •    Councillor S. Stevenson;

  •    S. Mcfarlane, London ACORN East of Adelaide Chapter;

  •    Councillors D. Ferreira, S. Stevenson, S. Trosow and S. Franke;

  •    L. Cardinal;

  •    P. Puhringer;

  •    C. Kuijpers;

  •    C. Blanchard, Chair, London Homeless Coalition;

  •    R. Bentley-Ponikvar Thuss.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the delegation requests from S. Campbell, Ark Aid Mission, V. Brown, C. McDonald, London Cares, M. Kolls, R. Klemm and T. Davies BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by S. Trosow

That pursuant to section 35.7 of the Council Procedure by-law, the Council decision with respect to the Temporary Warming Centre Framework for Winter 2025/2026 and Winter 2026/2027 having to do with the September 29, 2025 Staff Report – Proposed Temporary Warming Centre Framework BE RECONSIDERED to provide for amendments to the Temporary Warming Centre Framework and Tiered Response Model.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by E. Peloza

That part a) of the motion BE AMENDED to read as follows:

a)    APPROVE a maximum of $250,000 from the Social Services Reserve Fund for currently funded local agencies to open at the discretion of the agency based on staffing, safety and programming needs when the temperature drops below -5 overnight until April 30th, 2026, to offer net-new overnight warming spaces

Moved by S. Lewis (Acting Mayor)

Seconded by E. Peloza

That the amendment to part a) BE FURTHER AMENDED to add the following:

and that notwithstanding previous council direction spaces on a BIA main street shall be considered as part of this initiative until April 30, 2026

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the amendment to part a), as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Moved by S. Lewis (Acting Mayor)

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That part b) BE AMENDED to provide for the financing to be pulled from the Social Services Reserve Fund up to a maximum of $290,000.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That parts a), b) and c) of the main motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That part d) of the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (4 to 2)

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That part e) i) of the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That part e) ii) of the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (4 to 2)

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That part e) iii) of the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (4 to 2)

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That part e) iv) of the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That part e) v) of the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (5 to 1)

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That part e) vi) of the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Failed (3 to 3)

None.

Moved by S. Lewis (Acting Mayor)

Seconded by S. Trosow

That the meeting BE ADJOURNED.

Motion Passed

The meeting adjourned at 7:24 PM.

Votes

25 substantive votes at this meeting (10 contested, 15 unanimous). Procedural motions excluded.

That Items 2.1, 2.4 and 2.5 BE APPROVED.

✅ Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Unanimous (6-0)

2.2. Good Neighbour Agreements

That part a) of the motion BE AMENDED as follows: i)     the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to provide a one year contract renewal for the procurement framework  with an option to renew for one year; and, ii)     that Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to review existing housing stability contrac…

❌ Motion Failed (2 to 4) 🔥

View roll call

Yea (2): Shawn Lewis, Jerry Pribil

Nay (4): Sam Trosow, Anna Hopkins, Elizabeth Peloza, David Ferreira

2.2. Good Neighbour Agreements

That pursuant to section 33.8 of the Council Procedure by-law, the Committee BE PERMITTED to proceed beyond 6:00 PM.

✅ Motion Passed (5 to 1)

View roll call

Yea (5): Shawn Lewis, Jerry Pribil, Anna Hopkins, Elizabeth Peloza, David Ferreira

Nay (1): Sam Trosow

2.2. Good Neighbour Agreements

That part a) of the motion BE APPROVED.

✅ Motion Passed (4 to 2) 🔥

View roll call

Yea (4): Sam Trosow, Anna Hopkins, Elizabeth Peloza, David Ferreira

Nay (2): Shawn Lewis, Jerry Pribil

2.2. Good Neighbour Agreements

That part b) of the motion BE APPROVED.

❌ Motion Failed (1 to 5)

View roll call

Yea (1): Shawn Lewis

Nay (5): Jerry Pribil, Sam Trosow, Anna Hopkins, Elizabeth Peloza, David Ferreira

2.2. Good Neighbour Agreements

That part c) of the motion BE APPROVED.

✅ Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Unanimous (6-0)

2.2. Good Neighbour Agreements

That part d) of the motion BE APPROVED.

✅ Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Unanimous (6-0)

2.2. Good Neighbour Agreements

That part e) of the motion BE APPROVED.

✅ Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Unanimous (6-0)

2.3. System Area Update: Supports for Those Living Unsheltered: Basic Needs and Pathway Options

That the delegation request from S. Campbell, Ark Aid Street Mission, with respect to this matter, BE APPROVED.

✅ Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Unanimous (6-0)

4.1. Allocating the City of London Community Grants Annual Stream to Fund Capital Projects Only in the 2026 and 2027 Budget Cycles

That the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to limit the City of London Community Grants Annual Program to the capital funding category, as defined in the City of London Community Grants Policy for 2026 and 2027; it being noted that a communication, as appended to the Added Agenda, as well as a ver…

❌ Motion Failed (3 to 3) 🔥

View roll call

Yea (3): Shawn Lewis, Jerry Pribil, Elizabeth Peloza

Nay (3): Sam Trosow, Anna Hopkins, David Ferreira

4.1. Allocating the City of London Community Grants Annual Stream to Fund Capital Projects Only in the 2026 and 2027 Budget Cycles

That the request for delegation from M. Cassidy, Pillar Nonprofit Network BE APPROVED.

✅ Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Unanimous (6-0)

4.2. Temporary Warming Centres

That it being noted that communications from the following individuals, as appended to the Agenda and the Added Agenda, with respect to this matter, were received: -    Councillors S. Trosow and D. Ferreira; -    Councillor S. Stevenson; -    S. Mcfarlane, London ACORN East of Adelaide Chapter;…

✅ Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Unanimous (6-0)

4.2. Temporary Warming Centres

That the delegation requests from S. Campbell, Ark Aid Mission, V. Brown, C. McDonald, London Cares, M. Kolls, R. Klemm and T. Davies BE APPROVED.

✅ Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Unanimous (6-0)

4.2. Temporary Warming Centres

That pursuant to section 35.7 of the Council Procedure by-law, the Council decision with respect to the Temporary Warming Centre Framework for Winter 2025/2026 and Winter 2026/2027 having to do with the September 29, 2025 Staff Report – Proposed Temporary Warming Centre Framework BE RECONSIDERED …

✅ Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Unanimous (6-0)

4.2. Temporary Warming Centres

That the amendment to part a) BE FURTHER AMENDED to add the following: and that notwithstanding previous council direction spaces on a BIA main street shall be considered as part of this initiative until April 30, 2026

✅ Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Unanimous (6-0)

4.2. Temporary Warming Centres

That the amendment to part a), as amended, BE APPROVED.

✅ Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Unanimous (6-0)

4.2. Temporary Warming Centres

That part b) BE AMENDED to provide for the financing to be pulled from the Social Services Reserve Fund up to a maximum of $290,000.

✅ Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Unanimous (6-0)

4.2. Temporary Warming Centres

That parts a), b) and c) of the main motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

✅ Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Unanimous (6-0)

4.2. Temporary Warming Centres

That part d) of the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

✅ Motion Passed (4 to 2) 🔥

View roll call

Yea (4): Shawn Lewis, Jerry Pribil, Sam Trosow, David Ferreira

Nay (2): Anna Hopkins, Elizabeth Peloza

4.2. Temporary Warming Centres

That part e) i) of the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

✅ Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Unanimous (6-0)

4.2. Temporary Warming Centres

That part e) ii) of the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

✅ Motion Passed (4 to 2) 🔥

View roll call

Yea (4): Sam Trosow, Anna Hopkins, Elizabeth Peloza, David Ferreira

Nay (2): Shawn Lewis, Jerry Pribil

4.2. Temporary Warming Centres

That part e) iii) of the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

✅ Motion Passed (4 to 2) 🔥

View roll call

Yea (4): Jerry Pribil, Sam Trosow, Anna Hopkins, David Ferreira

Nay (2): Shawn Lewis, Elizabeth Peloza

4.2. Temporary Warming Centres

That part e) iv) of the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

✅ Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Unanimous (6-0)

4.2. Temporary Warming Centres

That part e) v) of the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

✅ Motion Passed (5 to 1)

View roll call

Yea (5): Jerry Pribil, Sam Trosow, Anna Hopkins, Elizabeth Peloza, David Ferreira

Nay (1): Shawn Lewis

4.2. Temporary Warming Centres

That part e) vi) of the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

❌ Motion Failed (3 to 3) 🔥

View roll call

Yea (3): Sam Trosow, Anna Hopkins, David Ferreira

Nay (3): Shawn Lewis, Jerry Pribil, Elizabeth Peloza

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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 (6 hours, 42 minutes)

Every one, we’re gonna get started in a moment if we can just find our spots. I think this is the second meeting in the community and protected services committee. The city of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anashbak, Hotoshone, Anapawak, and Adawandran. We honor and respect the history, language, and culture, the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home.

The city of London is currently home to many First Nation, May, T, and Inuit today. As represent the people of the city of London, we are grateful to have the opportunity to work and live in this territory. Okay, we have a full house today, so I’m gonna take a little bit longer going through process and procedure stuff before we get going. Let everyone know that the members of this committee who are voting members are myself.

We have Councillor Pribble, Councillor Trousow, Councillor Hopkins, Councillor Ferreira. The mayor has the ability to vote at any committee which he intends. The mayor is currently away. Acting Mayor, Deputy Mayor Lewis would have those powers in his stead and are with us today and will be recognized as a voting member of the committee today as we go through things.

So a little bit different there, just letting you know that Deputy Mayor Lewis is acting mayor at this moment. The city of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for meeting upon request. To make a request specific to this meeting, please contact CPSC at London.ca or 519-661-2489. Extension 2425.

I’ll let the public know that they’re, do we have any more? Councillor Hillier, Cuddy, and McAllister are online with us, Councillor Frank, Councillor ramen, Councillor Stevenson. Also in chambers, virtually or in person, they will be able to participate in any questions or debate just they can’t vote today. Every member of council will have February 10th as a council meeting that anything out of this comes to and everyone can have their actual vote at that time.

Looking to members of committee for disclosures of procuring interest. Seeing none, we have consent items. We have 2.1 to 2.5. We have a couple delegation requests in on some of those.

So if we would like to hear our delegates, we would need to pull those. So if you’re looking at 2.2 and 2.3 to be pulled. Looking to see if we’re gonna hear those delegates. If I can look for a move in a seconder to have 2.1, 2.4 and 2.5 on the floor at this time, this is the environment stewardship and action community advisory committee, communication, and the end of life for the fire deployment voice and the transfer payment agreement.

Okay, we have a move of those three items by Councillor Hopkins, seconded by Councillor Ferrera. So those three items are on the floor. Looking to see if there’s any questions or comments on those items. And I will note that Cheryl’s away and we have JP, John Paul’s with us.

So we still have everyone available to answer those questions and he’ll be taking the ones for fire today. Councillor Hopkins, I’ll start my speakers list with you. Yeah, thank you, no questions, but just a quick comment on 2.4, which is the urgent replacement of end-of-life London fire department voice. I just wanna say, given the uncertainty of tariffs and trades and there’s good that there’s a contingency fund that we have with this equipment and given that we really don’t know what the costs will be.

So just wanna give my thanks to staff. Thank you, would staff like to come on there? Just a smile and a thank you, it was perfect. Looking for anything else for comments?

Councillor Pribble. Thank you, sir, the chair to the staff on 2.1. I just have a question. There were questions to ask and actually one of our staff were managing just the way Geoffrey, he answered those questions.

But then there was a follow-up with the updates from the group. I was just wondering if these updates after the questions were answered, if they will be considered or if there’s gonna be a response to either the group or the committee, thank you. Thank you. To staff recognizing also the committee had asked the staff person go to answer some more questions in person, Mr.

Mathers, are you the one for this? Through the chair, yes, there will be a response that’s provided back to the committee for Mr. Geoffrey and it’ll be at that response prior to council. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor, follow-up. Thank you very much, no more questions? Thank you. All note to that, Councillor Layman has entered the meeting virtually and for the Councillor’s information, 2.1, 2.4 and 2.5 are currently in the floor being discussed.

Looking further for questions or comments? Okay, calling the question on 2.1, 2.4 and 2.5. Closing the vote, the motion carries, six to zero. Thank you, procedurally as 2.2 and 2.3 have been pulled, they will go further down the agenda.

We will get to them. Scheduled at 1 p.m. was also a delegation. So looking for a vote to have that delegation.

Now we have missed allegedly from London Children’s Museum providing an update. I have a mover in Councillor Pribble, a seconder in Councillor Hopkins to have that now. So we’re gonna call that question first and then I’ll tell you where to go, okay, just a second. Perfect, it was on the agenda.

So we actually don’t need to vote on it just yet. So missed allegedly is with us to IT. It’s gonna be the top mic on this phone. If you wanna approach the microphone, we’ll make sure, yeah, you can just take it off or move it up your call how you wanna wrangle it.

We’ll do, if we can’t hear you okay, I will let you know and you have up to five minutes. And then after your presentation, I will go to members of committee and visiting members of council for any questions they might have for you about your update of the Children’s Museum. So welcome and the floor is yours. Thank you, can you hear me?

Okay, I know you have a busy agenda today. So I will be quick, I will speak quickly. Really the purpose of me being here today is just to report back on the investment the city of London made in the building of the new London Children’s Museum at 100 Kellogg Lane. At the time that we provided our final report, we didn’t have a year of operation under our belt.

So wanted to come back and report back on that investment. As a refresher, the city of London approved a contribution to the building of the new London Children’s Museum back in 2019. That funding came through the economic reserve fund and the tourism infrastructure reserve fund. So the following is just an overview of the impact of that funding.

The benefits of the new space moving to 100 Kellogg, we’ve been able to double our exhibit square footage, build custom exhibits to meet the needs and interests of today’s children and families, expand our program offerings and audience, vastly improve accessibility. We’ve expanded our collection, we are a museum, and we’ve accepted Canada’s largest vintage toy collection. We’re now part of a cultural and entertainment destination in our city. We’ve been able to increase our sustainability, reduced funding, scarce resources was part of the reason for this move.

And we’ve increased tourism and visitors to the city. So since opening at 100 Kellogg Lane, we are happy to report that we have had over 250,000 visitors to the new London Children’s Museum. This is compared to about 100,000 in the same time period in our former location, about 140% increase, which has exceeded even our own expectations. That includes students on field trips, our free family fun nights, community partner nights, sensory friendly evenings, subsidized memberships.

It’s been amazing. In addition to that, we’re proud to report the economic impact. We have contributed to job creation adding 30 staff members. That’s a combination of full and part time jobs.

Over the course of the project, $16 million was invested locally to local trades, builders, artists, architects, and engineers. We’ve now contributed about $12 million to the local economy through tourism and direct and indirect expenditures through hotel stays, contributions to local businesses. Research tells us that every dollar invested in early childhood contributes to $6 in economic impact in the future, and we have proven that. We hope that it is a source of pride for London.

We’re one of only six standalone Children’s Museums in Canada, one of only two in Ontario. The United States has over 500 Children’s Museums. They’re much bigger part of the social fabric of their communities. We’re so fortunate to have this in London.

We become a case study in community and child engagement in space design. People have sought out our engagement process. We hope is a symbol of how our community values children, creating a more child and family-friendly city. We also hope it attracts new families.

It makes London a great place for families to live and to visit. So overall, the contribution has been an impact, has been multi-dimensional, social, educational, economic, cultural, building community. And I want to emphasize that that 250,000 doesn’t just represent a number. That’s more children that have had an opportunity to play.

Play is critical. I know we face a lot of adult problems. We want to nurture our next generation and provide children with these critical opportunities to play, to deepen their learning outside of the classroom. We also benefit from the community grants program for operational funding.

We truly could not do this without this support. Over the next several years, we’ll be finalizing our strategic plan. We have a continued commitment to accessibility and inclusion, expanding programs in STEM, introducing children to skilled trades, things like woodworking, building our local partnerships, continuing to expand our reach and tourism. And next year, we will be celebrating our 50th birthday in the community.

So thank you again to City Council, to City staff, not only for this contribution and this impact in investing in children and community. And again, I think this is a testament to what happens when we do invest in children and community spaces such as the Children’s Museum. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Ms. Ledgley, you stayed put. You’re doing amazing. And you were only three minutes and 40 seconds.

So thank you. For our friends in the gallery today, absolutely adore the Children’s Museum when they’re doing the community. Just we don’t clap or boo, so no audible thing. Sometimes people use the silent clapping.

It’s just going to be intimidating and realizing so people have different opinions. Just making sure that it’s decorum and as safe as we can. I will turn. So it was going to be a motion just to receive.

Kate had her slide deck in with us today and just to receive the presentation. So Councillor Hopkins and Councillor Pribble for that. And then the floor is open for questions or comments to the Children’s Museum. Councillor Hopkins will start us off.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I would agree, I think the Children’s Museum has become the source of pride here in our city. So thank you very much for all the work. Over 250,000 visitors is quite remarkable.

I also notice the free family nights as well. The attendance is quite high there. So congratulations with that. My question through Madam Chair is about the local partnership.

I wonder if you can speak a little bit more on how the museum is reaching out for the partnerships to keep this facility going. Thank you, Ms. Leslie. Thank you.

Yeah, partnerships come in many, many forms. So one of the ways we work with the community, again, we wanna make sure that every child, every family has a chance to visit and play. So we work with local organizations to make sure that we are able to welcome all families into our space and sometimes that looks in different ways for different families. So we work with local social service agencies to create time and space to play where it feels safe.

Also working with local partners in terms of introducing to children to things they may not otherwise experience. So different cultural groups, different organizations in the city. Again, the Children’s Museum is viewed as a safe space, hopefully, for children and their families where sometimes it’s early exposure and early engagement with different faces and things that are different to what they might experience at home. So working with organizations within the city to bring new experiences to the Children’s Museum, working with local trades, like I said, to introduce children to things like woodworking and that children are naturally curious.

So building on those programs, we work with Western University students, we have a lot of student placements. I could probably, the list goes on and on, but beyond just a Children’s Museum, again, building a community space where community partners can come in and deliver programs and also engage in programs in a safe space. Councillor? Yeah, and maybe a quick follow-up to that as well.

I know partnerships are also important when it comes to finances and fundraising and if you could just give a little bit more information there as well. Absolutely, again, the Children’s Museum, we are a registered charity and on profit, we aim to be sustain ourselves in every way that we can, but we cannot do that without input and support from grants, organizations, individuals, corporations, things like Canada Summer Jobs, those types of things. So on an ongoing basis, at least 30% of our budget does come from fundraising and community support. So we work with community partners to support in ways that are meaningful to them.

Hopefully that answers your question. It does, and thank you. Further questions or comments? Okay, if you just pull up your hands for one second, I’m gonna make my speaker’s list and then I can, okay.

So we got Jerry, Sam, Councillor Troso, you had your hand up too? Okay, so I’m gonna go Councillor Troso and then Councillor Pribble and then I’ll look to visiting members, including Councillor Stevenson on that list. Thank you so much to the chair for your presentation. And I’ve been to the facility on a number of occasions now and I just have to say that this is just amazing what you’ve done there.

It is such a credit to your organization that you were able to put together such a world-class facility. And this really puts the city of London on the international map in terms of being a museum city. Maybe we should think about that sometimes, the museum city. I wanna just say that a number of people have said to me, “Sam, I’m really sorry I don’t have children “because this really sounds good.” And I just wanna say to everybody, you still have to go to this museum.

I mean, yeah, great if you can take some children with you, but it’s not part of the admission requirement. And whether you wanna go with your own inner child or whether you wanna go with somebody who’s into library archives and museum studies or whether you just wanna go to see how we’re spending our tax money, you have to go to this museum. And while you’re there, you’re in this wonderfully emerging cultural center with all sorts of other things to do. So again, congratulations.

You’ve done such a fine job with this. And I just can go on for five minutes, but I’m not. So that’s it. Councilor Pribble.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And a very similar way. Kudos to your entire team.

I had a chance to visit a few times as well. Talk to many visitors and you have exceeded the expectations of all of them and ours as well. So in terms of view, tourism, London, McLaughlin, Leech family, you have already provided for our city venue that truly makes us even stronger destination in southwestern Ontario, 365 days a year and the economic impact is tremendous. So thank you and to your team and kudos to all.

Thank you. Councilor Stevenson. Thank you. We were missed not to say thank you very much for all that you do.

I loved the previous location, but this one of course is even way better. And it’s a privilege to have it in Ward 4. Hear nothing but great things. Loved it when I’m there.

It’s always good to play. And so just wanted to say thank you because it really is an exciting. It does put us on the map and it is a great thing for Londoners and for those who live in the region. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Councilor Raman, did you want on the list? Oh, okay. Checking online.

Okay. Miss Legally, I’ll go back to you for closing comments. I did just want to say thank you. I know at the time it was the council prior to this that it was the $2 million commitment.

It’s a lot of money, but it’s even for what we’re doing for our youth and our families or our in a child and we’re seeing high rate of returns and 140% increase in business or ship that site. So thank you, traditionally I don’t. But if in your closing comments, you can just tell residents how to get a ticket. I know that you’re very busy and some days you’re sold out at capacity and I just don’t want anyone showing up with children to be disappointed, especially as we come up to family day and March break is coming, just how would we come?

Yes, if anyone is hoping to visit, best thing is to register online. At the same time, if anyone is having trouble visiting, again, it is our goal to be able to accommodate families. So please reach out directly if you are having trouble. In any way, we want to make sure we are as accessible as possible.

Thank you again for the comments. If I could just say in closing, as well, I want to acknowledge that this early investment in the Children’s Museum Project allowed us to leverage these funds. Often funders are looking for city investment first and we were able to leverage those funds. So just what Councillor Hopkins was asking before about partnerships.

This was a very critical partnership for us. I also just want to very quickly mention that the success of the Children’s Museum, we truly need to acknowledge the children that were involved. We had a lot of consultation and children told us what they wanted. And so I think it is a testament as well to what happens when we involve children in decisions that affect them.

They are youngest citizens, but they are equal voices and listening to them and building what we built. Again, it is to their credit that they told us what we wanted and hopefully we fulfilled their wishes. So thank you very much. Thank you again for being here today.

We appreciate it and good luck. Thank you. - Thank you. Hey, so calling the question, that was a motion to receive the presentation and the correspondence has submitted.

Opening that vote in E-Scribe. Closing the vote, the motion carries six to zero. Thank you. Items for direction will be the next item.

This is a correspondence revolving community grants. I’ll also note there’s a delegation request from Miss Cassidy. I believe she’s here in the gallery. Yes, in the corner, thank you.

So looking to see for a mover and a seconder to get this item on the floor, Deputy Mayor Lewis, would you move it? He would move it, I would second it. And then also a motion to take the delegation. At this time, I have a mover and counselor Hopkins, a seconder, they’re fighting over it.

I’ll use Councilor Trousa on this one. So Deputy Mayor Lewis, I don’t know if you want to lay out the premise of the motion, or you want to hear from the delegate first. It’s both fine. No, we can hear from the delegate first.

Okay, perfect. So to IT, sorry, we’re going to have to vote on it. I’ll just get us queued up. It’s going to be whichever microphone Miss Cassidy picks.

She’s going to pick the lower one. IT can get that ready. We’re calling the vote. I’ve just to take the delegation at this time.

Up to five minutes. Closing the vote, the motion carries six to zero. Thank you, welcome. The floor is yours.

Up to five minutes, please proceed. Thank you, thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, members of committee for hearing my delegation today. My name is Maureen Cassidy.

I’m the CEO of Pillar Nonprofit Network. And I’m speaking on behalf of London’s nonprofit sector. I’m here to share concerns about the proposed changes to the community grants program and the unintended impacts those changes could have on frontline services in our community. Community grants program, as you heard, so eloquently described by Ms.

Ledgley, is often the first line for a nonprofit organization to use as leverage to access other funding. It’s a modest program. As you know, it’s provided small amounts of grant funding to grassroots organizations in London, Ontario, and nonprofits and charities of all sizes. As I said, it’s often used as leverage to attract additional funding from other governments and from foundations, private donors, and things like that.

It supports programs that strengthen communities and they reach Londoners who are most vulnerable often and most in need. In 2024, the city reduced the program by half and those changes took effect in 2025. At a time of shrinking funding from multiple sources and skyrocketing demand for services, this reduction has exacerbated existing pressures and further limited nonprofits’ ability to sustain and expand programs. The current proposal to fund only capital projects significantly narrows the program’s reach.

Most nonprofits do not own property, particularly frontline grassroots and equity-serving organizations. Limiting grants to capital excludes those organizations from funding that supports program delivery, innovation, and sustainability. We understand the proposal may allow funding for leasehold improvements for nonprofits that lease space. While this could help some organizations, many nonprofits share spaces, rent small units, or lack long-term leases, meaning they still cannot access that funding.

Capital-only eligibility continues to exclude organizations doing essential work in our community. We support improving the program to better serve the sector, but improvements should provide seed funding to leverage additional investments. It should support growth and improvement of existing programs. We need to stop focusing on creating something new or pressing nonprofits to be increasingly innovative.

Most nonprofits are innovative simply by continuing to deliver the programs that they deliver in an increasingly challenging environment. And we think that improvements should include capital funding where appropriate without restricting access only to property owners or specific leaseholders. So on behalf of the nonprofit sector, we respectfully urge a pause on this capital-only approach, consult nonprofits on equity and operational impacts. We ask that you maintain flexibility so grants can support both program delivery and limited capital needs.

We ask that you reconsider criteria to ensure equitable access for organizations delivering essential services and explore restoring the funding that was cut in 2024. This would help to strengthen nonprofit sustainability and broaden community impact. The Community Grants Program is critical for building resilient, equitable, and well-served neighborhoods. Community Grants Program is widely known for supporting organizations like the Children’s Museum, like growing chefs, and other really important programs that are happening in our city, supporting not just children and youth, but our broader community.

The program, we want you to ensure that it remains flexible and accessible, and it benefits not only nonprofits, but the city and all Londoners who rely on these services. 50 seconds. Taylor looks forward to working with this committee and with city staff to strengthen the program rather than limit its reach. Thank you.

Thank you. Looking for speakers on it, I have a comments with Deputy Mayor Lewis. I’m not gonna call you Acting Mayor if you’re fine with Deputy Mayor. Perfect, amazing, it’s all yours.

Yep, whatever is convenient for you, Madam Chair. Yes, so first of all, I think it’s really important to underline something that was just said. The community grants stream that we are talking about today did not fund the Children’s Museum move. That was a separate decision by Council because it well exceeded the threshold of these innovation grants.

So, and I supported the Children’s Museum grant. In fact, Councilor Ploughs and I were the two that brought it forward in the last term. So very supportive of what the Children’s Museum has done, but that is not tied to the community grants program that we are speaking to today. We are speaking to looking at changing the stream that is the one-time funding.

And again, important to understand that this is not about the multi-year funding stream, which sees a number of not-for-profits in the city run multi-year programs. Organizations like Reforestation London, London Abuse Women’s Center and others who benefit from and come forward with a plan for a long-term project that they initiate and run for up to four years. That is not the stream that we’re talking about. What we are talking about is what I’m going to call the startup stream that’s used for one-time-off projects.

And the reason that myself and the others who were signatories to this are looking to move to the capital grants program. First of all, the metrics are much more measurable. And we’ve seen multiple examples of funding go out and not getting adequate metrics back on the results that were provided or that came from that funding. Capital is easy to track when we say, here’s your money for Project X or for equipment B, you go out, you provide the receipts, the equipment’s there, it’s done, we know where the money’s been spent.

We don’t know that with respect to the one-time program grants. The other thing I would say is that, and I know Ms. Cassidy and I’ve had this discussion back and forth and we agree to disagree, perhaps on the value, but we both recognize that there’s some value in the fact that capital grants means that not-for-profit operators do not need to pull their operational staff away to fundraise for capital projects. Their staff can actually focus on the delivery of the services that they’re trying to offer rather than going out to fundraise for capital needs in a project.

Again, wouldn’t be related to this particular stream, I think, but I’m aware that and I see that Ms. Campbell’s in the gallery, and I know that they’re raising some money for some kitchen renovations. If they didn’t have to fundraise for that, they could provide attention to their frontline services. This is why, to me, capital grants is the way to go with this.

And I think it’s important to note again that this is until the end of the MIB process. So this is a two-year change to see how it goes. Doesn’t mean a forever, but it does mean for now, for the rest of the multi-year budget cycle, this would be the approach that we would take. So I’m really going to encourage colleagues to support this today and at council.

We have limited funds. We’re gonna have a lot of discussion today about the limited funds and resources on a number of issues. This is one of those areas where we have limited funds and it’s my position that those funds are best spent in a way that provides equipment and leasehold improvements and property improvements to the not-for-profits so that they can focus actually on their services rather than on fundraising for capital needs. Thank you, you’ve used four minutes.

I will continue with my speakers list. I’ll just note the person touching that mic was IT. They were okay, they will come back ‘cause it’s been a problem for us for some time. If more people come into the room, we just had to scoot over to make more room for our friends.

If more space is needed, we will shuffle or open a meeting room to make sure that we can accommodate those who wanna come in person. As always, you have up to five minutes. It’s committee, you can speak multiple times to try to be efficient today. I will commence with members of the committee then visiting counselors so I’m gonna go to the counselor for our next and then I’ll go from there.

Thanks, Chair. Thanks to the delegate who spoke. So I do agree with the non-profit of non-profits and what they’re saying. I do believe that when it comes to any kind of community grants, we need to have that program delivery component.

We need to have the programming as a part of that and not just as capital portion because it does preclude those grassroots non-profits. It does preclude a lot of the lower tier level support that we can see when it comes to that. I know that, and I voted against this, but for the 2024 discussion, when we reduced the program funding by half, which took effect in 2025, I do remember that that was a pause for that community grants program. So I wonder if this is the response to the pause because as a response to that pause, it is a change from the pause.

And I was under the impression that we would have a pause come back and then the program come back the way it was because of that and this is not the full breadth of the program as we saw before. And because I do think that improvement should provide seed funding and just any types of initiatives that would support the more grassroots level of support. I don’t think that this is the way to go. I think we should restore the funding from that 2024 reduction.

I’ve heard a lot of members of the community come back and say how that’s negatively impacted them. And if we’re just funding the capital portion of that, that’s limiting our options, that’s limiting our scope of what we can really do. So I guess I’ll cut my time for now and I know I have time to go so I might chime back in, but I’m not really in support of this. I do think that we need to bring back the paused funding that we have for the community grants program in full.

Thank you, Councillor Hopkins, did you indicate? Sorry, you flinched. It’s the mum and purview of you. Also gonna note Councillor Stephens and I texted you something, do you want the floor?

If not, I will go to the same person. I do have a question. I would, I know I’m on the committee, but I’d like to know a little bit more from the movers of this motion, why this is in front of us today. It’s council business and we brought it to committee for consideration.

If you would like more information, perhaps I’ll go to Councillor Ramen next, is the signatory in the letter, and then we can circle back to committee members and then others. Hey, I have a nod from committee members in Greens to go on a visiting councilor. Welcome Councillor Rong, the floor is yours. And Councillor Ferri, you used two minutes.

Thank you and through you much appreciated for the opportunity to speak to the letter that’s in front of you. Thank you to Ms. Cassidy for her comments today and her representation for nonprofits in our community. So here’s a few things.

I want to share anecdotally I’ve heard from a number of nonprofits in the community that are looking to make some capital improvements, but find limiting the amount that the city can contribute to those ventures before they go out to the public or go to other levels of government for funding. So when looking at what the tools are in our toolbox, I saw that we have the community grants available and we had the three streams. The three streams that we had, two of them are innovation and grassroots and then the other being capital. So now we have $250,000, not a lot of money, especially when you’re doing capital improvements in the community.

And we’re looking at how can we best utilize those dollars to support and leverage them for projects which benefit the wider community. And when I look at that, I see that there’s real opportunity to fund some projects in the capital stream like things that we funded in the past. So I look at 2024 where we funded organizations like the Boys and Girls Club of London, Jet Aircraft Museum, Veterans Services in the city with enhancements to their facilities for the Royal Canadian Legion, Urban Roots, which we funded through the capital stream a number of times. And you can see the significant impact they can make because larger dollars are able to be leveraged.

So this isn’t about removing opportunity, it’s actually about creating it. In the Northwest part of the city, which I represent, we have a real demand and need for recreational facilities. We have a real demand and need for programming. And I’ve had a lot of people come to me and say, “Look, I want to do something.

“I want to be able to use a building “for the purpose of serving our community, “but we can’t get the funds together “to be able to enhance that or move that forward.” And those are conversations that are happening quite often. And you’ll also see that there’s a number of previous funding opportunities that were aligned with providing space that could then be larger gathering spaces and space for community to get together. Again, a growing city needs more places to get together and they need more spaces that we as a city can’t ourselves provide all the time. So this is a way for us to leverage that to find opportunities to move these organizations forward and to use our dollars in the most effective way by being able to allow organizations to leverage them further.

I’m not interested in funding organizations right now that are non-incorporated or haven’t gotten to the place where they’re more established because I see that as a potential risk for us. And we saw that come back in some of the audit committee recommendations as well. So I’ll leave it at that for now. And I hope my colleagues will consider supporting what’s in front of you.

Thank you, Councilor Roman. That was three and a half minutes. Looking to see if Councilor Hopkins won back on the list now. If not, I will continue around the speaker’s list.

Okay, Councilor Frank, I had you next. And if anyone online would like it, just indicate such. Thank you. I did see Councilor Trasso.

Councilor Trasso, do you wanna go now then in Skyler? Just as a member of committee? Okay, your mic wasn’t on, but we’ll still go to, he would love to hear from Councilor Frank first. So we will do that instead.

Apologies, I saw his hand go up. So I just wanna say thank you to Ms. Cassidy for her presentation. I do wanna clarify.

I do know that the Children’s Museum was here today to talk about the capital grant. They actually have received one time funding. So Ms. Cassidy was correct in her comments.

It was in 2023, the Limber Loss Road Initiative, which helps funding for low-income underserved communities with the letting community chaplaincy for hands-on steam activities. So just wanted to highlight that. And though I’m not a member of this committee, I won’t be sparring this. I’ve spoken with some executive directors in the community and they’ve let me know that for them, although funding, funding, funding anywhere is difficult, it is easier actually to find capital funding than operational.

So I don’t wanna cut another source of operational funding for local non-profits. So I won’t be supporting it at council. Thank you, Councilor Frank. You’ve used one minute.

Councilor Trosso, hold tight. Anyone in the room who we’re a little bit too intimate and crowded, if you want, we have opened an overflow meeting room. It’s live streamed in there too. And you could still have an opportunity to fully view, just if it’s too crowded and you’re not comfortable, or more friends join, there isn’t our meeting room open just for, you know.

Councilor Trosso, the floor is yours. Thank you very much. And through the chair, I’m vehemently post to this motion. The non-profit sector has already suffered enough cuts.

And this is just a de facto cut. It’s just another way of saying unless you can rise to the level of being able to have a big enough leasehold interest or own property where you’re even in the ballpark to be talking about capital improvements, don’t bother applying. That runs counter to all of the things that this council has been saying to equity around diversity, around improving the situation for people without access to a lot of funds. If indeed there’s the need for more support for capital projects, which I’m sure there is, I don’t want to pit non-profits that are able to engage in capital spending versus those who aren’t.

I want the pie to be bigger. And I think that we have to reverse what we did to the entire grants program last time. And we need to be providing those capital funds but not at the expense of the very needed and sometimes the only thing that an organization can do operating funds. So I really hope that council votes this down.

I don’t want to get into a situation where we say something along the lines of he with the capital gets the grant because that’s the direction we’re going with this motion. So I say, vote it down. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Trossa, that’s been two minutes looking to see if there’s other speakers for first and then I’ll come back in seconds.

Councilor for ICU, just checking online. Everyone’s still okay there. Councilor for the floor is yours. Thank you.

I agree with the last two comments as you probably are aware from my last comments. This council should be about deeds, not words. And our deeds are the way we vote and our deeds are the motions we bring. And what I saw from the original cut and a cut in the funding and now what I see a cutting of the scope I would be interested in what’s next.

This is one step after the other. And again, this is not the way to go. We are a growing city and as a growing city we need to support the growth of the city. We don’t support the already grown.

So a motion like this is not in the interest of the city. It’s not what we say here all the time. And as the last two speakers said, I think very well put, you know, I would like to actually discuss the realities of this, you know. These droids aren’t the ones you’re looking for, doesn’t work anymore.

So I’m not supporting this. And I would ask, I guess, is this an appropriate time that I could put a motion to restore the full community grants program? Is that something that I can do here? Sorry, just a second.

It’d be contrary to what’s on the floor and not procedurally in order at this time. Thank you. How about moving a motion to bring this to the budget process as a business case? The budget committee procedurally, I’m saying no.

Budget was just wrapped up in December. This is a reallocation of allocated funds versus new funds and enhancement are withdrawing funds. ‘Cause I think the one thing we really have coming is monitoring updates in mid-year which would go to the infrastructure committee. So you can certainly draft something to put it in for like the next budget update which would occur right after the election that it be a business case formed to restore funding to the levels that you wanna see.

But procedurally, I’m saying not at this time. So there’s no way I could submit to request for the next multi-year budget or the next budget update in the next term to take a look at restoring the community grants program in full? You can, just not right now at this time. ‘Cause we still have one more annual update first and then we roll back into the next MYB which would be the whole community partners coming forward with what the industries need.

So it can be done just not in this exact moment. Okay, well in that case, I’m gonna be not supporting this motion and I’m gonna be working with nonprofits or whoever that is willing to support and give information. And I’m gonna bring a motion at the appropriate committee to restore the community grants program in full. Thank you, you’re about four minutes.

Other speakers on the list? Okay, Councillor Hopkins? Yeah, thank you. And I really appreciate the conversation here and thank you to Ms.

Cassidy for your delegation. I think it is important that we hear from the community. And again, I thank you for being here. I think it is really clear and I’ve been trying to listen to my colleagues here to convince me to support this.

And Councillor Roman spoke about leveraging. And when I think of 250,000 for capital, I don’t know if anyone has done a renovation these days, but it’s not gonna go very far. So the leveraging part is important, but it does not outweigh the process that we are having to deal with 250,000. We have not really demonstrated a clear path on how this is gonna move forward.

And I always feel uncomfortable when we have asks here without going through a budget process. Increasing the grants program is where we have to go with this. There’s no other way. We’ve taken money out of that.

And now we’re trying to make things work over here, but not really understand the consequences to these decisions. And when I’m not sure where this is gonna go and how it’s gonna unfold, I’m not convinced to support the request. So I’ll leave it at that. I know this is gonna come to council and we’ll have a conversation, but I am not convinced at all today.

Thank you. That was about two minutes. Councillor Perly, could you take the chair for I could just make a couple of requests. I have the chair and I recognize Councillor Palosa.

Thank you ever so briefly as a signatory on the letter was in support of it, looking to see those larger impacts through capital that we could do. Realizing it’s just for 2026 and 2027. So a limited timeframe. So we could see the impact on what projects are coming forward and those streams and what work is being done in the community.

Also realizing sometimes it’s those capital dollars that the city put saying that can leverage other levels of government or other donors and get some excitement going for those projects in a very tangible aspect that they would see with those dollars. So that’s why I signed on and I’ll leave my comments there. Thank you and I’m returning the chair to you and I put myself on the list as an expert. Oh, you then Councillor Perly.

Thank you. I’ll say a specific example. I have a local organization that I think that would be tremendous for our community. This organization that I would say there are more grassroots than established.

When this came forward to me is that I said to myself, if I do not support it, I’m actually not supporting this organization, that I’m actually feeling that they’ll be very, as I said, very positive for our community. Then when I looked at it and when I looked at the amounts, when I looked at the capital, when I looked at what’s, are we gonna support more of the grassroots? Are we gonna make the existing ones even stronger with leveraging and bringing more success to our city? And I actually came to the conclusion that I will support what’s in front of us and the organization that, for example, the one that I feel will be very beneficial.

I’m going out to the private sector and I’m hoping to help them out funding for them to establish themselves and to grow and prosper in our city. So I will be supporting the motion that’s in front of us. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Rama.

Thank you and through you. I’m just wondering if staff might be able to comment if this was approved, how would it be rolled out to staff? Thank you for the question and through the chair. If this motion was approved, we would roll out the community grants program within the next couple of weeks, should council also approve.

And we would limit the funding to capital only so we would be communicating that. There was approved through the 2025 budget update process, a cap on the allocation for all grants. So $50,000 is a cap. If we received an application that was over the total approved budget of $250,000, the community review panel would review that.

If it was reviewed favorably, it would come forward through the budget update process per the city’s city of London community grants policy. Thank you. Councillor Roman. Thank you.

I just wanted to ensure that people were aware that there is a process in place. Should we approve this and move this forward and that we would be able to do so within the timelines that we typically would roll out our grant program? I have no further hands up online or in chambers. Call on the question.

Closing the vote, the motion fails on a tie three to three. Thank you. That moves us on my own motion. So since it’s a motion to receive at this time, we still need the correspondence to make its way to council.

Moved by Deputy Mayor Lewis, I’ll just second it. So call on the question on a motion to receive the correspondence. Closing the vote, the motion carries five to one. So as we move into the next few topics, very similar in content.

So we’re on 4.2, just for everyone who doesn’t have the agenda in front of us, this is what 4.2 looks like. We’re gonna be doing a motion to receive all the correspondence we have. I will be looking for a motion to receive the delegates. I don’t have anyone online, so either they’re in chambers or they’re not with us today.

And then if someone moves 4.2D, which was the communication from Councillors Ferrer as Stevenson Trauss out and Councillor Frank, there are a couple portions and not just for your notification before we go into it, that there’s B and D in it would actually need motion to reconsider. So the clerks have suggested that we have obviously received our correspondence, get the motion on the floor, go to our delegates, and then procedurally get into pulling apart and doing things. I will also note that there was, if you’re looking at 4.2, there was a communication from an A and B, one from Councillor, the first one being Councillor Trauss and Ferrer, the second one being Councillor Stevenson, they actually worked together and are jointly doing D, so nothing else is coming that I’m aware of. Everyone had submitted a joint communication in D, and that would be the premise of our starting point today.

Okay, and if you need extra explanation as we go, happy to do it, as there’s a lot going on this afternoon. This is not a public participation meeting, and we cannot take extra delegates today. I know some people wrote in and called in asking. We would need a two third majority of all a council, so that can’t happen at a committee like this, it could only happen at SPPC.

I checked with the clerks beforehand, so it’s only the delegates who have preregistered. I checked procedurally, not in order. Our friends in the gallery, again, no clapping, no booing. The seats are uncomfortable, I apologize, but you are allowed to eat, drink, wash them’s out there, you need to leave and come back, you want to try a meeting room, it’s fine.

Your signs are fine, just don’t intimidate anyone with them, or put them in front of them else’s face, but we’re good there. So, okay, so looking for a motion from members of committee to put D on the floor. That would be moved by Councillor Ferreira, seconded by Councillor Trafseau. So looking to committee to see we have, really we have six delegation requests for us today, looking for a motion if committee would like to hear those six delegations at this time.

Moved by Councillor Hopkins, seconded by Councillor Ferreira. So that would be the six delegates at UC delegate request on the document, and I would go in order calling them out, and then I kind of do a last call on case they stepped to the washroom. So opening the vote on just our delegates at this time. Closing the vote, the motion carries, six to zero.

Thank you, so we’re gonna take those delegates at this time. Wherever you are, you can pick a mic. Is the top mic working over here? Okay, so all four mics are working today, which is nice.

You have up to five minutes, you can only speak once. Any questions you ask us need to be rhetorical, we’re not gonna actually answer you. And it’s only those ones who appear on the agenda. I was going in order as you appear, so you can prepare yourself mentally and find a microphone when it approaches your turn.

So I would start off, and we were just talking about 4.2 at this time. You can see if it references other things, but just try and keep it tight, ‘cause some of our delegates today have multiple requests, and that will likely hear from them multiple times today. So that would commence with Ms. Campbell.

You can pick your favorite mic, and the floor will be yours for up to, yup, that’s it. So just IT to this one, lower bowl. Welcome, and you have up to five minutes. Thank you, and through the chair, I’m pleased to see this item on the agenda.

It’s been a very cold winter. The last time I was here speaking about winter with you, I was saying thank you for having a plan that there had been some review of past plans, and that there was a strategy put in place, the tiered response. I think we’re here because there was a little bit of confusion, or perhaps we need to refine, because there was some challenges around when a cold weather response would be called when we could activate those tiers as service providers, but then also the city itself activating, and the challenges of the community themselves in terms of spaces to go to. So I just wanted to come and share a little update on what we’re seeing on the ground, what we’re experiencing in community is that people are certainly finding places to go in the very cold weather.

Boil being open is very helpful. We are noticing that between the organizations and Boil, we are getting people to warmth, and I just wanna be very grateful for that. At the same time, not having that clarity on when to open has meant that we’ve sort of taken some risks along the way as organizations to say, hey, we gotta get started here. People are suffering, there isn’t enough room.

London cares in ourselves. Did you make that decision? And we’ve since talked to city staff, and I think this report is part of that response and how we can work together moving forward. Also, having been part of winter response for five years, this is the longest cold snap we’ve actually experienced in a number of years.

So the capacity issues across organizations, and I’m sure city staff are also feeling it, are very real. And I just wanna talk about the infrastructure necessary to respond to emergencies. I think that is the theme actually, that you will hear over and over through the different elements that are gonna be discussed today. Effectively between funding changing, structures changing, and then really looking at the different mechanisms we have to respond in a crisis.

If we don’t have a basic infrastructure of services, service providers, spaces, and the ability to surge, and having a plan for that surge, like you do with an emergency room, or any triage system, policing or EMS, you have to have a base of human beings trained and ready to go in order to do this. And I think what we’re seeing this year with some prolonged need, is that we haven’t done a great job of investing in that infrastructure. And there’s some risk throughout today’s agenda, that actually could further make that a challenge for the city of London against a backdrop of a growth in people experiencing homelessness as stated in the AMO report last week. So there’s a lot of reasons that we need to really be thinking strategically about how we respond to these particular items in the agenda.

I know that it’s hard to not want to be reactive. I certainly do on those cold weather nights, myself getting my vehicle with a volunteer or a staff member and try to do everything I can to help people get in out of the cold. It’s not my everyday job. That’s not what I do nine to five.

But it’s what I do on those cold nights because we need to make sure people have access. It becomes really devastating when it’s difficult to get people to those places. This weekend I spent time speaking with many of you. And yesterday I was on the southwest corner of the city, which is an area that is familiar to me.

And just by happenstance found a person who was in deep distress, eight o’clock at night, was able to help them get them to boil. That was great. In the process it took me to get a bus ticket and a way to get them over there. A second person on that very southwest corner of the city, very far from any of the services or places you could go to get warm.

There was a second person. So just during that time I was then able to get the two of them off on on their way. And I thought to myself, today we’re gonna be talking about outreach services and whether or not they are part of that process. When we look at this whole community response, the ways that we together, volunteers, organizations, city staff, our spaces and places get utilized, it is a continuum of care.

Each role has a part to play. And if we want to do this well, we don’t think in the reactive. We think about the proactive planning of having those base things existing so that we can activate, not based on temperature or based on something that we think we can manage. We respond based on best practices and what we know needs to happen to keep people safe and alive, thank you.

That’s right, thank you Ms. Campbell. Just in our speakers, I’m gonna get close to like a minute. I try and wave, I try not to verbally interrupt and can throw up your thought process.

So I apologize, it’s not a rude necessarily process. Looking for a V Brown. Perfect, your choice of microphone. Give me the lower one again.

You have welcome, you have up to five minutes. My name’s not Vanessa. Not Vanessa Brown. My wife had to take my stepson to the doctors.

So I asked the committee’s blessing to read what she had written to read today. Is that okay? I’ll deem that okay. It is her written word.

And I trust you’re doing on her behalf. Yes. - Thank you. We’re good.

Okay, I see no objections, please proceed. Thank you. What is your name? My name’s Jason.

Nice to meet you. Please proceed. Nice to meet you too, Jason Dixon. I’m the co-owner of Brown and Dixon Bookstore.

We share a space with three other retailers at 1025 Elias Street, around the corner from the Boyle Community Center. Part of our business, we operate a Bookmobile out of a converted school bus. In the summer, we drive around this mobile used bookstore to markets and festivals. However, in the winter, our Bookmobile is parked at 1025 Elias.

Usually this parking lot is locked, right over the winter, we have left the gate open to allow for snow plowing. On New Year’s Eve, there was a low of negative 19 degrees with the wind chill, according to Environment Canada. The next day, we discovered that someone in need of shelter had found a way into our Bookmobile to use it to keep warm. At first, we were alarmed, but we realized quickly that our little bus may have saved someone’s life that night.

What we found were remnants of survival. Someone had resourcefully used our book stock to plug up drafts in the bus and use other supplies there to make the bus as warm a shelter as possible in frigid temperatures. They used our sun shelter as a blanket and tried in vain to get the engine started just to stay alive. You see, despite the alarming low temperatures, the Boyle Community Center Warming Center was not open that night.

Otherwise, there’s not much down our end of Elias for the unhoused population when it comes to resources. We’ve had very few experiences. We’ve had very few experiences with people living rough while working at our shop. It was easy to draw the obvious conclusion that the only reason someone would come down our way after hours would be to find shelter at the Boyle Community Center.

We are not strangers to the challenges of running a business adjacent to social services and dealing with unhoused individuals that have acute problems. In fact, we were in the news when our business left our location on Richmond Street because the challenges in our neighborhood led to customer traffic simply drying up. While some people labeled us as hating the homeless, the truth was very much the opposite. We saw that our neighborhood was simply no longer a retail district that had become a place of people in need and those needs weren’t being met.

Our business did not have to relocate because of encampments or because of those dealing with addiction and mental health issues in a very public way. And our business had to relocate because the provincial government and neglected addiction services, mental health care, and housing to the point that our unhoused population skyrocketed in a business like ours can no longer be accommodated downtown. Blain lies firmly at the feet of the government bodies who are supposed to protect us and do not. So I speak from experience when I say that the neighbors and businesses who might resist extending the Boyle Community Center’s hours for warming are coming at this from exactly the wrong angle.

But we need our more services, not less, more compassion, not less. I’m the cone over a business that has been directly affected by this issue in detrimental ways. On many occasions, my family has suffered financial consequences. Still, I am standing here today to tell you that we need to open the doors and bring people in from the cold, sooner with better communication and more care.

Thank you, Mr. Brown. Looking for C. MacDonald, leave here with London Cares.

Perfect. So to IT, it’s gonna be, I believe, lower ball on this side. Perfect. Yeah, just wrangle that mic to a height that’s comfortable.

Lower. - Yeah. Perfect. So welcome, and you have up to five minutes.

Good afternoon, chair and members of council. My name is Chantelle MacDonald, and I’m here on behalf of Letting Cares’ Homeless Response Programs. To speak to the media and dangerous realities, people are facing during the extreme cold. First, I wanna acknowledge the work that has been done around cold weather in this community and thank you for your support.

Over the past two weeks, however, London has experienced temperatures that no human body can safely withstand without access to indoor spaces. Yet many of the people we support, some of the most medically fragile members of our community had nowhere to go. I want to be clear, this isn’t a seasonal challenge. This is a life and limb emergency.

And our indoor resources are not enough to keep people safe. Inside our drop-in and outreach programs, the situation has been desperate. People have arrived soaked, shaking, crying, and terrified. In conditions like this, survival instincts take over, and we can see property damage caused by desperation, escalation, and distress, as people struggle to regulate to the cold, staff calling EMS for weather-related injuries, people presenting with severe frostbite, individuals nearing hyperthermia.

I’ve watched people lose finger, feet, and their lives to the outdoors. This is preventable. January 15th showed the clearest possible contrast between having housing and not having it. At 602 Queens, cries of pain echo through three floors of the building as staff tried to warm frozen limbs and allow people to come in from the cold.

Staff were triaging frostbite, calming panic, and working strategically with community partners. At the same time, our outreach team was in the community, conducting wellness checks, digging people out of snow-covered tents, and physically assisting those with mobility challenges to move through deep snow, just to reach safety. People were stuck, people were trapped, and people were freezing. The level of human suffering inside and outside our building was overwhelming.

And at that very same moment, inside our supportive housing program, the atmosphere was completely different. There, people were safe, and they were warm. It felt like a snow day. Residents indoors cooking, watching old movies, chatting, experiencing the winter the way house Londoners do.

One city, one day, two completely different realities. The only difference was housing. London is a caring community. We’re also a winter city, and we know how deadly the cold can be.

No one should lose limbs because they didn’t have a warm place to go. No one should be dug out of a collapsed tent in freezing temperatures. No member of our staff should have to carry this level of trauma while trying to keep people alive. This is preventable suffering, and we have the ability to address it.

Today, I’m asking Council to recognize the severity of the crisis and act in partnership with frontline organizations. Consider activating additional indoor spaces during extreme weather and weather conditions, including shifting tear practices to support additional surge. And continue funding and standing up support of housing, because January 15th showed us, in real time, that housing is what stops emergency level suffering. Our staff are exhausted and carrying trauma.

The people we serve are at serious risk. We acknowledge and commend the efforts of our municipality in responding to homelessness. However, this challenge extends beyond local capacity and requires coordinated provincial action. In Ontario, no one should have to endure this level of preventable harm.

We know the solutions. What we need now is partnership and action. Thank you for your time. I’m happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Ms. McDonald. Not available from questions from the floor at this time, but available offline. If you’d like to reach out directly with a question, that resource is available to you.

M. Coles, perfect. I believe we’re going lower side. This side, perfect.

So welcome, you have up to five minutes, and if something happens, we can’t hear you, I will let you know. Sounds good. Thank you to council members and folks who are listening and speaking today. I’m an Old East neighbour, mother of two, teacher and board member of the newly reforming Old East Village neighbourhood association.

Though my involvement in the neighbourhood association informs my perspective, I am speaking today to represent my own views on what I have heard from the community members and neighbours. The topic of homelessness has been a constant conversation at my dinner table in our home for the last four or five years, as we are faced with the issue on a daily basis. It is particularly unique to us in Old East, while a large portion of the city is unaffected and unaware. We know firsthand that the growth in homelessness has been exceptional.

Though we are aware that not all pieces can be handled within the municipal government alone, we wonder why with this exponential growth and the coming of winter that does return every year, the planning and preparation cannot be made further ahead. This winter has sustained some extreme lows, and the tier system requires some amendments to allow folks into a warming centre well before meeting the activation of tier three of minus 15 degrees and minus 20 wind chill cold requirements. If we consider the cold extreme warnings put out by the Middlesex Health Unit, where the children are not permitted to go outside for recess due to the cold, how are we expected to tell our kids at the dinner table that even though they can’t go outside to play, the unhoused are expected to sleep outside, let alone find other options during the day. Specifically regarding the Boyle Community Centre, lowering the temperature threshold will mean that community spaces like this will be open more frequently, which has understandably raised some concerns for people.

However, it’s also recognized as a necessary lifeline because the city does not have a proactive winter shelter strategy, but its current operation is unsustainable. We are asking that it be managed safely. There is a need for strength and security on site with trained professionals, staff handling intake and care rather than relying on last minute approach that the city and local staff have been trying to manage. We are aware that there are overarching issues that make emergency shelters difficult to staff, maintain and keep safe.

But this is not year one. At a time when we are all aware that things are not going back to anything normal, I urge the city to consider the importance of leading by example, beyond the need for affordable housing, 24-hour shelter systems and mental health resources. While we wait for things to catch up to the reality of 2026, can we at the very least provide space for folks to sleep or just be somewhere and not only when the temperatures have reached minus 15 and a minus wind chill of 20, minus 20? It is important to note that this homelessness crisis is not going away.

It stands to reason that we must rely on the folks who have been doing the groundwork for the last number of decades. Long before mental health was a recognized term, please take the time to work with these organizations, use their expertise, their experience and data to help us determine better solutions for maintaining safer communities for all of us. Thank you. Thank you.

Looking for our clam. Perfect. So IT, bottom side on the side. So welcome.

If you just want to say hello, make sure that we’re picking up the mic, okay? Hello. We’re good. If it’s not comfortable, just fight with it.

You have up to five minutes. Yes, ma’am. Through the chair, I would like to start by telling you a story of my lived experience. When I was homeless, I was arrested on the morning, on the morning after the coldest night of 2022.

I had broken into an uninhabited house to escape the elements. The charge laid against me was criminal trespass, and I served almost eight months in the MDC, where my cell mates were up on murder assault and drug charges. A man died in my cell during my first week, and I’d been asking for medical attention for him, and I was ignored. I was assaulted by a correctional officer for speaking to another inmate.

He shattered my eardrum and put me in segregation for a week. I thought that I would be deaf to my left ear forever. In the provincial jail system, you served two-thirds of your sentence. For me, that equated to a 12-month sentence, but that wasn’t enough for my crime.

When I finally got into sentencing, I was given time served with 18 months of probation on top for trespassing. In the Yukon, there’s a term for the crime I committed. They call it taking shelter, and it’s not a crime, it’s considered an act of survival. During my incarceration, although I feared for my safety, I never feared for my life the way that I did that night I committed my crime.

And if I was ever caught in the same circumstances, I would commit the same crime. Do I know the cost of not having shelter? Yes, I do. Never mind the cost of my court proceedings, my lawyer, my incarceration, my probation to the taxpayer, but the trauma I carry from the physical and mental damage I endured during my incarceration will be with me for life.

Because there was no place for me to go, I committed the crime of trespassing that probably saved my life, and I was punished for it. Do you remember my friend Olivia, who burned alive trying to stay warm in a tent? Do you remember my friend Blue, who fell asleep in the cold and woke up with his leg amputated? Or how about the girl who froze to death in front of our library last year?

Those in many other lives have been lost to the cold. These are all consequences of not having shelter and the city not meeting emergency needs. In reference to the report to community and protective services committee, proposed temporary warming center framework dated September 29th, 2025. The recommendations from the Middlesex Health Unit impact report recommends a temperature-based threshold of minus five degrees Celsius.

Cold-related injury can happen at milder temperature. The report concludes that waiting until minus 15 degrees Celsius will not adequately protect people from cold-related injury. But the city decided not to accept this recommendation and decided to risk people’s lives by implementing a temperature-based criteria of both a temperature of negative 15 degrees Celsius and a wind chill of minus 20 degrees Celsius, knowing full well that this cold-related injuries to people that have no way to protect themselves. I wonder what this decision was based on.

When the warming center at Boyle did not open, even though the conditions were met, I asked why. And the response I was given was that the Middlesex Health Unit had not issued a cold weather alert in time to activate, but a cold weather alert was never part of suggested criteria for activation of the warming center. The city needs to accept accountability for this. This report also suggests utilizing our already over-extended and underfunded organizations and volunteers to assist with emergency operation of warming spaces.

Why wouldn’t the city employ Expira, a company that specializes in emergency services to run emergency services at our emergency warming center at Boyle Community Center? On Tuesday evening, I had the pleasure of visiting the warming center at Boyle. My girlfriend and I were out from seven until about 11.30 at night, driving around, picking up people, bringing them to Boyle. And what I saw there were amazing people doing great work.

I was impressed with the hospitality and compassion that I saw people being treated with. The emergency warming center is supposed to be a life-saving measure, and that’s exactly what I witnessed. Emergency situations need proper emergency response. That means clear policies on when services will be open, clear communication between the city and people without access to cell phones or internet.

And most importantly, making the threshold reasonable by reducing the temperature requirements and also including all extreme weather conditions. 30 seconds. I would like to remind you that this warming center is neither a want or a need. It’s a half-two situation.

It should not come at the expense of others. Abe’s letter to the council outlines reasons for this clearly. Services like the warming center should also not stop investment in housing solutions. This funding should come directly from the city’s reserve fund.

In closing, I ask that whoever is responsible for the warming center not opening on the nights where criteria were met be held accountable. I also ask that council takes a decisive action to address the problems of the current warming center framework to protect their constituents and my friends. People’s lives depend on the decisions you make. Thank you.

Silent clapping, thank you. Thank you for that in such a personal story and bearing that publicly with us today. It is appreciated. Our final delegate for the day is on this item, not our final delegate of the day, T Davies.

Perfect to the IT lower mic on this side please and welcome you up to five minutes. Hi, good afternoon everyone. Thank you to the committee members, community members and others here today to speak and listen. My name is Tara Davies.

I’m a board member of the OAV Neighborhood Association, a board member of the OAV BIA, a small business owner on Dundas Street in the OAVs Village and a community member of OAVs Village where I currently live with my husband and two children. Today I’m coming to you as a community member and small business owner to discuss changing our current tier system and threshold levels of the city’s cold weather response. Specifically tier three, the activation of Boyle Community Center as an overnight resting space. The current tier three requirements as written have been confusing to many community members.

I know that many people thought the requirement was minus 15 or minus 20 with the wind chill, not minus 15 and minus 20 with the wind chill. Even if one of these thresholds is met, it’s exceptionally cold outside. Requiring both to be met with no exceptions for other extreme weather events have left people outside during intolerable conditions. When people are ill-informed on the activation of overnight spaces, they walk to Boyle with hope that it will be open.

Often discovering it isn’t activated by no one showing up to open it. This has led to increased negative impacts on the unhoused population as well as the Dundas Street small business community and others who live in OAV. Multiple days this winter, we have had freezing rain, lizard conditions and cold weather that didn’t meet the tier three threshold by one to two degrees. On these days, I have had multiple people waiting outside of my cafe for us to open.

We are one of the first businesses open in the morning. The people waiting outside were in shocking condition. They needed to warm up. They would offer whatever they had in trade for coffee and use our phone to call lending cares.

They cried. Grown men and women crying in our donut shop because of the trauma of being outside all night after walking to Boyle. Our staff and myself are also traumatized from seeing people left in this state. We gave them food and hot beverages that our small business can’t afford because it’s the right thing to do, the human thing to do.

Gotta pick my daughter up from school. By 9 a.m., most of the day’s warming spaces are full and so with no other place to go, people walk to Central Library for the day. I’m tired and my staff is tired. Seeing people freezing to death takes a toll mentally and financially, which is just one more negative impact of our city’s current winter response.

When the municipality doesn’t fund or plan a winter response for the unhoused, these shortfalls are downloaded onto our community and our businesses. We cannot continue to make up for the city’s shortfalls and the unhoused cannot continue to die because of these shortfalls. Politics are very divisive these days, but I will not believe that people freezing to death is a divisive issue. I support the change in temperature thresholds for activating tier three, the activation of Boyle Community Center for overnight resting space, but with a caveat.

This cannot be the city of London’s long-term winter response plan. Boyle is a community space used for multiple purposes by our community along with the library. These are not spaces designed to respond to the housing crisis. The staff in these spaces is not properly trained, leading to negative outcomes for those that have no choice but to access these services.

We have a recreation staff trying to manage a space with people that may have many acute comorbidities. I would like to thank Councillor Frank, Councillor Ferrera, Councillor Trossau, and Councillor Stevenson for suggesting that the city make changes for the 2027 winter response and begin planning now. It gives me hope that next year may be different. I would also like to remind committee members that extreme weather is a year-round issue and doesn’t only happen during the winter.

I would also like to state that to reduce or reallocate funding to any of the current services for the unhoused during the throes of winter seems ill-advised and will no doubt cause more issues. I support 602 Queens known as the Commons to be open for extended hours, but only in addition to the services they currently provide and not as an alternative. Thank you, and basically five minutes from the dot, even with your daughter’s school alarm going off. So thank you for that.

I know there’s no questions or comments back and forth, but if Ms. Davies, if you could reach out directly, Tara, if you could reach out directly, we just don’t have your email address. I’d like to follow up offline about a couple things. Just the clerks don’t have it for me.

That concludes our delegations. That takes us back to the deliberations at this point. As noted, section B and D would need a motion to reconsider those sections, just ‘cause it was a decided matter of council. We can pull things apart in different manners for this conversation.

I know some colleagues have been asking staff behind the scenes various questions. So I will highlight that we’re going into this conversation with different information available to different counselors that has not been shared publicly or amounts council behind the scenes. Our key staff contacts today onsite to help answer these questions, just so you know where you’re looking, is Mr. Dickens, Ms.

Dater is there, and Mr. McDonald. So that’s our key ones that I’ll be turning to. Others can get tagged in as needed.

Okay, so procedure list. Just take up care of, we’ve had our delegates, a motion to receive all the communications. We’ll take care of that administratively first. So just a motion to receive all the communications on the agenda, and then we’ll start pulling apart the other motions.

So just the communications, receipt of them, councilor Ferre, councilor Hawkins, so calling the question on just the receipt of all those different communications we had come in. Posing the vote, the motion carries six to zero. The clerks have requested that we procedurally do the motions to reconsider. Next, which would be B and D.

We can certainly pull these apart and do them separate when it comes time to a vote. Councilor Ferre, is that you moving reconsideration of portion B and D of the motion? Councilor Troso was seconding reconsideration. So there’s no debate on this.

It is a simple majority for reconsideration. Does anyone want B or D called separate, or can I call them together? Okay, so we’re good with them together. Opening the question on reconsideration, simple majority.

Posing the vote, the motion carries six to zero. Okay, so procedure will be good to go. The entire motion is on the floor. When it comes time to voting, we can pull it apart if anyone wishes, not a problem.

I’ll just let you know, section A states a maximum of 250,000 from the Social Services Reserve Fund. Staff have confirmed that money is there and available. Staff are prepared to speak on any questions we have as always, but specific breakdowns, if you want numbers done differently. As I said, there was questions behind the scenes.

Speaking to staff in advance of this, realizing this item, same theme as potentially 2.2 and 2.3, that if we get to a decision point, my intention is to go to the appropriate staff person and just say, is this correct? Is there anything else that we should know before making this consideration? Similar, what we do at budget with Mr. Murray, as we’re at that point, anything else to know, realizing these three reports are very interconnected and might accidentally cause an issue in the next one.

So that is my intention. If at any point you don’t like it, feel free to challenge the chair. So everything else on the floor, happy to start the speakers list with members of committee, maybe the mover and seconder of it to get us started before it’s all opened up. It is committee you’re allowed to speak more than once versus at council.

Okay, is there anyone online? I’m not seeing anybody in chambers. Okay, ‘cause if not, we’re gonna, okay, Councilor Farrah. Thanks, Chair.

I’m gonna keep really brief on the first part. I just wanna open this up, but in my opinion, people are cold at zero and even above zero or above zero. And I was having, I had long conversations with staff on really what are the barriers and what are the issues. And I did hear one of the delegates talk about the infrastructure required was one of the big barriers and where is that located and where the capacity is.

And they’re right on the money with that one. I do wanna see some changes. I do feel like we have consent on changes. So I’d like to hear what other speakers have to say.

I am gonna chime in after, but I’m just gonna, I’m just starting the conversation, but I wanna see these changes as we see it. I wanna see that before it back, get investigated. I wanna see better conditions laid up are more akin to the human body and not to necessarily capacity resources or anything of that nature. So I’ll leave it for there, I’ll come back.

Thank you. Sorry, I’m timing for a moment as well. Next speaker is Councillor Hopkins, go ahead. I would just like to ask the Councillors that are on this motion to go to them to speak first.

Okay, at no time is any sanitary on any letter required. I have a list of my own questions for staff. I was trying to let other people go first as we share space. Does anybody else who signed the letter wanna speak to it first?

That’s on Sam, go ahead. Just. Councillor Trio said that I did not. That’s fine.

Through the chair, I just was really pleased to work on this and I thought that the process that we used, Councillor Ferrari and I had something on the original agenda as did Councillor Stevenson. And I think we all, we rose to the occasion of working together and I sense that there’s gonna be a unanimous vote on this and it just really makes me feel very happy to see that this council can work together on some things when it’s necessary. And yeah, we needed to make a change and we’re making a change. And I think going forward, we’re gonna have to look at what to do next in terms of permanent things.

But I think for now, that’s all I wanna say. I particularly wanna thank Councillor Frank who’s not a member of this committee for helping us out with some of the heavy lifting in terms of contacting staff members to get details. And it’s very difficult given our poor limit limitations to have a robust conversation between Councillors. So we have to figure out these paths where we’re not violating the rules.

And I think we did that. And it was nice to have Councillor Stevenson and Councillor Frank who aren’t on this committee because they didn’t count towards this quorum. And so yeah, let’s do this and just celebrate the fact that we were able to work together on something. Anyway, thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Pribble. Can you take the chair? Thank you, the chair. And I recognize Councillor Palazzo.

Thank you, Mr. Chair or Mr. Presoning Officer. I guess more pragmatic, though appreciating where we’re going with things.

I’ll have a series of questions through you to staff. Happy to do them in order as we go. In regards to A, which is the proof and maximum of the quarter million dollars of the social services reserve fund for the agencies to use based on minus five overnight until August of this year. Looking through you to staff to understand if we need a new application process for this, like if everyone starts opening, they’re not going to know when the money runs out and certainly would be expecting to be made whole if they delivered this service of just what could the intake and application process look like for that one?

The question to the staff? Through you, Mr. Presoning Officer, the way the motion is worded, it would be making the funding available for local agencies. So it doesn’t specify currently funded agencies.

So we would have to work with procurement on what I would look like from perhaps an unsolicited proposal perspective, should we receive local organizations. Looking for reimbursement from the city, we would want to make sure we enter into those contractual agreements if they’re not already in place. For those that are currently funded, this would be identifying a funding source to fund the operations that we’re currently funding at tier three A. If that criteria lowers to negative five, then we would just be in voice more often through the regular process.

Councillor. Thank you. So potentially opening things to unsolicited proposals and people trying to build us later is part of my concern with that. I’m just making sure that everyone knows the application process and how that would work.

It could staff speak to our current criteria at in this moment, realizing throughout these conversations that might change, but the city’s criteria is minus 15, part A is minus five, just if there’s concerns of two systems operating on very different parameters of what could open at any given time since we’ve heard from members today of it just to be very clear of who’s helping and when. Going through staff? Thank you. And through the presiding officer, I think as indicated in the report brought forward in September of 2025, there is a three-tier model.

And it’s important to note that council approved a plan with tier one for the winter readiness tier. Tier two was activation at minus five, creating 70 beds at Cronin Warner. And then we have our three A and three B tiers. It is important to note that our criteria is indicated in that report was minus 15 with a wind chill of minus 20.

That is what we have followed to date, recognizing there’s a conversation here today. It’s also important to note that as part of that report, we provided what we considered the average amount of days historically where minus 15 with a wind chill of minus 20 was hit and that was expressed in the report for about 10 days based on historical averages. Should temperature thresholds for activations be adjusted by council to the minus 15 or the minus 20? I will just indicate that based on historical data, that could be anywhere from 30 plus activations in a year.

Minus five historically is around 75 to 90 days, activation in a year. So I just wanted to provide a little bit of quantum on the conversations for the thresholds related to minus 15 or minus 20. And I also just want to indicate, I recognize that there is the public health unit extreme cold alerts that are issued. Those are issued at minus 15 or minus 20.

I think it’s important to note that we have many things in tier one and tier two that happened before the health unit issues an extreme cold alert. So I appreciate that it seems out of, it has seemed out of sync on the back end, but I think it’s important to remember all of the effort and work that is done before we even get to the health unit releasing a cold weather alert. So hopefully that provides some helpful context. And thank you.

Thank you, Councilor. Thank you. So for clarification, as I did have a list, are you asking me that the change in the word of B to from and to or would add about an additional potential 10 days of opening the community center per year per winter response. Good stuff.

Thank you. And through the presiding officer, I would indicate that it’s likely 20 or 20 plus more activations from the original 10 that was on the with and not the or criteria. Thank you, Councilor. Thank you.

On to see looking to see what the city currently does post on the city’s website before we get into how the city puts out communications when something is opening, is that more of the website that gets updated versus just the social media and we notify community partners through you, Mr. Presiding Officer. Good stuff. Thank you.

And through the presiding officer, I think it’s really important to recognize that that is why we try and make decisions well ahead of activations at 24 hour and 12 hour gates. One is to get our staff teams prepared and ready for overnight, recognizing they do play other roles in the corporation. So we do post it online. We obviously do post it on socials, but I think the most important component is our direct 24 hour and 12 hour notices to our community partners and our organizations and agencies who are doing incredible work in this space as well.

And their outreach teams continue to assist with individuals and making them aware that oil is activated for that evening. Thank you, Councilor. Thank you. So my understanding is Steve wouldn’t really change the workload we’re already doing it, just for clarification stuff.

Thank you. And through the presiding officer, we may seek a little more clarity related to the rules and recommendations and what that may entail in the motion, but in terms of notifications related to cold weather activation, the previous vehicles that I’ve talked about are what we use consistently every day. Thank you, Councilor. Thank you.

I’ll circle back to that clarification piece before we call a vote, just to make sure we all know exactly what we’re voting for, but continuing with questions at this time. Part D, looking for a change in, I know we’re nine to nine. I know that’s also school bus time, school’s going through it and we exit people from services. So looking for staff’s interpretation of D, of, you know, what else we want to the movers and seconders of are they really saying extend the hours to like 10 a.m.

or release people earlier from program. So just looking at staff further input of what procedurally if that’s the intent of how that would be operationalized and going through the stuff. Through the presiding officer, I think it’s a great question. It’s a difficult clause recognizing that Londoners can come in and out of our spaces across our 24 facilities anytime that they wish.

And so we do not keep them in there. There is not a way that individuals are locked in behind closed doors. So I think all I could say here today is we certainly recognize the concerns and we are happy to continue to work on our strategies related to individuals exiting the building and what time that may exit. But I will just indicate that we are not looking to create any points of escalation with individuals who may be looking to exit in our space for the reasons that they’re looking to exit our space.

Councillor. Thank you. When we get to it, my intention would be then from what I just heard to call de-separate and happy to call them all separate when we get to it, but just hearing that concern, D is a concern laying staff manage that as well on de-escalation. And people do come and go as they will sometimes in groups, sometimes individually.

Question through you based on a comment from B and Mr. McGonagall’s comments that he’d anticipate an extra 20 days of operating of the change the word and/or. Is there a source of funding that’s been identified anywhere, we need to do that today through you. Through you Mr.

Presiding Officer, we would have to work with finance to our operations team at this site and through our human resources to understand what the impact might be if it’s an increase in days. We just want to make sure we understand what the financial impact would be so that we can appropriately find a source of funding. Thank you, Councillor. Thank you, because I’ll highlight for the public and the members of the committee that that one is under staff will go do this, not the staff will report back with how we will do this and where it will be funded from and who will staff it portion.

Under E had a question regarding IV, which is explore potential service partners to provide these warming spaces. I know staff has gotten different questions than me. If it could be a question for the mover and seconders of is it, I’m looking to like define explore. Is it from the current service providers who can step up and do more work, if more funds are available, or are we looking at changing procurement and more unsolicited proposals?

Just looking through that for staff, if there’s a comment. Thank you to the staff and Councillor, you have 30 seconds left. Through you Mr. Presenting Officer for item E, IV, I think staff would have to be doing a lot of work to find out what item I and I look like.

First, to understand what a procurement would look like for an operator. Given the size and magnitude, December 1st to March 31st, 2027, we would want to make sure we are doing an appropriate procurement process, given the financial implications involved in this. But again, once we were able to find a space that could accommodate in either I or II and meet the objectives of the third item there, then we would understand better what it is we’re looking to procure. Thank you, Councillor.

Thank you. Realizing section E calls for a report back by the end of Q2 2026. Can staff make those timelines? Realizing staff is doing the work right now and a lot of resources are deployed to the warming centers.

Staff? Through you Mr. Presenting Officer, we understand this is a great priority and it is for us as well. So we would endeavor to meet those timelines.

Councillor, thank you, Councillor. Right there in the chair and I don’t have anyone else on the list currently. Thank you, I had like two seconds left. So had to save some time just in case.

Okay, so I’ll progress to members of committee and then so that puts us to Councillor Hopkins and then Deputy Mayor Lewis and then I will note Councillor Frank. If you can tell me, I just have a couple questions now and with a through you, Madam Chair, it says 250,000, it’s great that we’ve got some money for that and it’s going to be for this year. I just wanna understand the temperature here that it drops below minus five overnight. Usually we have a wind chill associated with that.

How important is that or is it just minus five, no matter what? Staff? Through you Madam Chair, I believe the movers would be able to answer that question. And I will ask them and my other question was regarding B which again, we heard from a community member, the importance of clarification when it comes to temperatures and understanding what they mean.

And when I look at B, I am not exactly sure what temperature we’re looking at and how minus five or minus 20 can be quite different. Are we not making decisions on temperature right now for the tier three? And I appreciate Mr. McGognell’s comments about a lot of work is already done in tier one and tier two as well before we get to three, but it’s just wanna have a clear idea of the numbers, what we’re talking about when it comes to be.

Mr. McGognell. How you would interpret that? Yeah, Mr.

McGognell. Thank you and through the chair, I believe how we are interpreting it at the moment. Is it that it is a change from a minus 15 with a wind chill of minus 20 to a change to minus 15 or a wind chill of minus 20? And we know how to clearly identify those in the weather forecasts and both are generally provided.

Councillor? You are the professionals, I appreciate that. I am Madam Chair, I would like to be pulled and not exactly convinced that we need to change and adjust the time at boil. I do realize that people can come and go and it’s very, very hard to sort of purr a holler, keep people where they should be so other people can move.

I would rather have it open to people just moving around safely. Security questions for you, Madam Chair, last one to staff. Security, how, when you see this motion in front of you, will there be need for costs for security and if it can have a better idea of as we move forward, what are the implications when it comes to security? Thank you, to staff.

Through the chair. Yes, we currently have security over at boil going through this process for the warming centers. Any adjustments, whether it’s different locations, different times and whatnot, we’ll have to take that back and talk to our Director of Emergency Management and Security and see how he’s gonna staff those changes. Deputy Mayor Lewis.

How you’ll do Councillor Frank, she’s one of the signatories, I’ll hear from her before I ask my questions. Okay, in that case, you’re gonna wait a little bit ‘cause we’re gonna go to Councillor Frank then and then Councillor Stevenson has the two signatories. I’ll highlight as they move through comments having obviously heard the discussions today if they would also like to maybe address Councillor Hopkins unanswered question in regards to A of minus five, if you’re gonna throw in a wind chill or not, and then we’ll go from there, Councillor Frank. Thank you and appreciate being recognized at committee.

So I just wanna walk through folks this motion and kind of maybe the logic that arrived at it and I just wanted to thank Councillors Ferra, Chasa and Stevenson for working on this, again, some of the language in here is directly pulled from Councillor Stevenson’s submission. So it was definitely a joint effort to bring all of these ideas into one spot to debate. In regards to the first item, approve a maximum of 250,000 from the Reserve Fund for local agencies to open at their discretion and when they have their staffing, safety and programming needs, when the temperature drops below negative five overnight from essentially February 10th, because that’s when this would be passed at council if it passes, so February 10th until April 30th to offer net new overnight warming spaces. We have heard today in the news as well as in our inboxes that folks want us to have spaces opened earlier.

And so this would offer at least, well, we’ll see how many local agencies wanna participate, but further opportunities for spaces to be open at negative five. Again, we’ve heard that obviously any time outside is too much, but negative 15 or negative 20 with wind chill is a significantly cold time. So negative five seems to hopefully alleviate some of the need and that’s just a straight negative five. There’s no extra parameters around that.

And in regards to the 250K, I did run some numbers. So from February 10th, April 30th on a usual winter, that negative five would be triggered between 20 to 30 nights, but now seeing how cold this winter has been, it’s about 50 to 70 nights for a colder than usual winter would hit negative five overnight. So essentially running with some of the numbers from some of the agencies that already provide this service that would provide if we did 70 nights about 40 spots per person for those 70 nights. So that’s at the very upper range.

That adds up to 250,000. If it’s less than 70 nights, we probably won’t hit that number, but I think I want to provide a number that was both realistic and based on some logic, as well as an affordable amount of money. For item number two, or B, activate the tier three surge response when it’s negative 15 or negative 20, or when environment Canada issues an extreme weather alert that would offer more conditions and opportunities, again, for us to open up. I will add that when environment Canada issues an extreme weather alert, that is not only due to extreme cold, so there are two weather alerts in December that were in regards to the ice storm.

We did not have the thresholds to open for negative 15 or negative 20, but I do think there are a lot of people in the community that thought we should be opening our warming centers during an ice storm, and so that would provide the discretion to staff to also open under extreme weather alerts. So I wanted to highlight that. And then in regards to the following items, those also were collaboratively put together pulling from Councillor Stevenson’s item, and then for item E, investigate and report back. Again, we’ve heard from the community and our inboxes in here, people want us already to plan, well, people want us to plan out this winter earlier, but looking forward to next winter, this would give direction to staff to look at a variety of different options.

Again, some that we’ve heard from the community, including a 24/7 warming center, as well as perhaps multiple locations across the area and multiple spaces. So having staff look at those, discuss with local agencies and see what’s possible to bring back by the end of Q2 20/26, so that hopefully we have those agreements and funding in place to open by winter. So yeah, that’s some of the rationale for myself behind why I’m supportive of this motion. Again, I don’t sit on this committee, but at council, I’ll be sharing, again, similar thoughts as to why I’m supportive of this, but I am open to any further questions and just want to share that background.

And again, thank you to the community for coming out and advocating for us to do a better job. Thank you, Councillor Frank, that was four minutes. Councillor Stevenson. Thank you and I’ll reiterate, it was great to collaborate with my colleagues on this.

I was hoping when I sent this submission in that it wasn’t the only one going in. So for me, with A, it sounds like it might be better to change it from local agencies to currently funded, especially given the short timeline, to make it easier for staff, I’d be open to that change. B was really about clarity for the public too, that when the Middlesex Health Unit issues at an extreme cold alert that we are opening up are warming spaces. For C, it’s about just providing clarity around how it’s best for people to stay warm in the winter overnights and how people can support people in staying warm in a way that obeys our bylaws and regulations.

So I wondered through you to staff if they could share with us because there was some confusion to the Western Gazette article that was talking about fires and that kind of thing. So could we get an update from staff as to what are the outreach workers guiding people? We did set up, it was advised to us that we switch from opening temporary indoor winter spaces to providing encampment outreach. And so in that outreach, what is the guidance for people to spend their overnight outdoors?

Thank you. I’ll turn this over to staff or staff members, multiple, if it spans several departments. Thank you, and through you, the chair, could you just clarify your question? Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you, when we go out to the encampments, what are the rules and what are the suggestions to people for their overnight in the winter? Thank you, staff. Thank you, and again, through you, the chair. We have the encampment safety protocols.

Those are the rules and regulations, but as far as well-being and support services from our outreach teams, we’re consistently informing them of the cold weather. For example, if flooding is coming, if we’re expected to have an extensive cold spell, and all the indoor services that are provided for them, or how they could possibly get to those indoor services, outreach is consistently informing folks on a regular basis that are residing in encampments on how they can access those systems. Councillor? Thank you, but again, we switched from indoor spaces to supporting people all seasons in the encampments.

And so there’s a lot of people who are wondering, like how are people staying warm overnight in their tents? I see requests for hand warmers and things like that. Like what, how are we helping people who aren’t coming inside on these cold nights? Staff, thank you, and through the chair.

We do provide winter gear, so blankets, hand warmers, emergency blankets, anything that we can do to help support an individual who’s choosing to stay in location. And then of course, we still, through our mobile depots, provide their meals and do check-ins and have outreach attend on a regular basis. Again, during every one of these interactions, we do provide information on where they can go indoors because of the cold. Councillor?

Thank you, I’ll maybe follow up on this more offline because as I said, we closed indoor spaces to do the all year all season encampment strategy. And I know people aren’t, or my understanding is there’s no fires allowed. So if it’s just warm clothing and tents and that’s the only support or the only way people are staying warm, I just, it makes the rules here a little bit less clear. But I think there’s people who are maybe providing firewood or doing things and if they know that’s not allowed, it would be good to have it clear on a site so that people know what they can do.

In terms of adjusting the morning closing time, I do totally understand that we can’t keep people inside and it wouldn’t be my intention. We have three elementary school buses that are picking up elementary school aged children in that area. Last night, a Boyle Community Centre were told had 103 people there who are coming out at a time when we’ve got parents and very young children there. They’re also using the park to play waiting for the bus and it’s creating some safety concerns.

And I think that’s legitimate given the concerns in front of London Cares and other issues when we’ve got large groups of people like that leaving. So I assumed that it would be an earlier closing and that people would be asked to move along towards the meals and the openings. I believe what time to 602 Queens open, I heard that it was seven or 730. To staff, if you happen to know.

Thank you and through the presiding officer, my understanding is it’s 9 a.m. Thank you. Can I see a head nod from London Cares in the audience? Yep.

Okay, thank you. I thought the hours had been opened earlier after the issues that we had recently but maybe we could coordinate that and have a place for people to go because having 103 people exiting at a time when we’ve got very young children waiting for the bus is problematic. One minute. And then I also wanted, there’s some confusion around the minus five.

You know, Toronto has minus five. We heard about this before. There was a consultant report. I think it was $30,000 was spent on that report that helped guide this warming framework.

I wondered if that might be able to be provided even just to council to help us understand how this framework came about prior to voting at council. To staff, if you can just circulate it behind the scenes as relation to the CAHPS agenda in advance of council. Through you, Madam Chair, I’ll have to go back to the report that staff did submit. There was an attachment from the consultant attached to that.

So we’ll have to take a look at that. Councilor. Thanks, the other request would be that we could see the full report. That would be great.

And I also wanted to confirm the extra spaces. My understanding was in the shelter contracts, there were 12 extra spaces in cold weather, and then we’ve got these 50 spaces. In terms of the 50 spaces, if we could find out where those are, that would be great. Staff, for a reply.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We do have community partners already providing additional spaces. Our gate, for example, London Cares, as we know, Mission Services, Center of Hope, Youth Opportunities Unlimited. Even places like the Unity Project, while they don’t typically do walk-in, they’re seeing large numbers of walk-ins.

Even the spaces that people are creating overnight, they’re taking on more and more each night, and over exceeding those capacities. We benefit greatly from the outreach workers that helped coordinate that work, that update HIFAS, that were on site last night with us at Boyle and helping transfer folks as well. And we know through conversations with those organizations, that those beds are full each night. So we know where those additional spaces are.

That’s not the challenge. We just know that they’re all over prescribed, as we’ve indicated, they are at Boyle as well. Thank you. It was the 50 spaces in tier three that I was looking for the locations for those.

You know, give staff a time to pull that up. Counselor, you have 20 seconds of this original five minutes remaining, staff when you’re ready, and then I’ll have something else for you, Councillor Stevenson. Thank you, and through you, Madam Chair. I do have that information.

To the Councillor, tier three, we had seven beds identified at men’s mission, two beds at Center of Hope, four beds at YOU, and then 25 spaces for drop-in tables and chairs at London Cares, and 15 to 20 spaces for drop-in tables and chairs at Arcade Street Mission. I believe it was the Cronum Warner location. Councillor. So, but I’ve been seeing mattresses on the floor at, on social media.

Are there no mattresses or cots in those 50 beds? Yeah, excuse me, through you, Madam Chair. They were identified as spaces. So areas where people could go as in tables and chairs is what I understand from the procurement or the framework.

Thank you. I see a nod from Mr. Dickens as well. Councillor Stevenson, that question’s actually exceeded your five minutes ever so slightly, but if I see your screen, Jerry.

We had took note of the emotion you spoke to at the beginning of your speaking time. I just don’t want to interrupt ‘cause we were in a nice flow of Q and A and making some progress, but we had captured it, it’s not correct, that you’d want to make a motion change to A, that we approve a maximum of $250,000 from the Social Services Reserve fund four, and it was just strictly changing to currently funded local agencies that we weren’t looking for new procurement and other things, it was just current local providers. Okay, that’s a nod. Would I have a seconder for, oh, sorry, you can’t do it.

So Anna’s moving it, sorry, Councillor Hopkins is moving it. I’m happy to second it. The clerk is just putting it into the e-scribe. And then if we debate is in process for this, but if we just keep it really tight, we still have a really long way to go.

So I’ll start with Councillor Hopkins, Councillor Ferriero, Deputy Mayor Lewis. Yeah. - Just on the amendment. Happy to support the amendment.

I understood though, it was to that the reserve fund would go to currently funded agencies, not local agencies. I don’t know if that makes a difference, but happy to do it either way. I just want to be clear that the Councillor had just said currently funded agencies. Wasn’t that the change from locally local agencies to currently funded agencies?

It was originally fund local agencies to currently funded local agencies. So we just really added in currently funded. If you, is it in the, is it up? I just wanted to make sure the council was aware.

Yeah, no, excellent point. I could see it obviously. I’m changing off somebody else’s screen. The wording’s now up in e-scribe and on the screen on the gallery for our guests to view as well and those online.

Okay, Councillor Ferriero. Thank you, Chair. I would hope that committee does not support this amendment. And I’ll tell you why.

We had a long discussion on whether it was currently funded or going to agencies to see what’s available. But the main thing is, is we’re trying to bring in a framework that is not so rigid. We’re trying to make it activate with more ability. And I would say let’s not be rigid in our thinking because this motion in our warming spaces doesn’t just happen in isolation.

It happens within a broader system. And that broader system is lacking in capacity. And what I mean by that is, when we’re talking about the infrastructure part, when a comment was made about infrastructure, which is not necessarily available, the way I took that comment was we at this council, not me, I didn’t vote for it, but we have reduced our capacity of infrastructure. We have shut down spaces, resting spaces at 696.

We shut down other resting spaces in the area as well. It’s 45. So when we’re talking about capacity, we need to also understand that there’s other capacities that would mitigate some of the pressures on this cold warming weather framework. If we had those capacities available, you wouldn’t see so much of pressure when it comes to here.

This motion, this amendment, the way I see it, is to ensure that spaces that are available are the ones that are to be used. And we’re using those spaces already. If we were to have this amendment right now, we would not be able to find any additional spaces ‘cause they’re already being used. The Cronin Warner location at William and Queens is a location that has taken up capacity that was lost previously.

And this motion is something to just to ensure that this amendment. I’m not gonna support this amendment at all whatsoever because that will not allow us to broaden our scope to find that infrastructure. So I guess question would be is from our last direction, from this council, I don’t know, a year ago, about no resting spaces at the 696 Dundas location. Would this motion mean that we are not gonna be able to look at those resting spaces, that capacity?

Would this motion be a motion that goes with those previous council directions? This motion is not gonna give us that extra space. You know, we have additional surge capacity that is hitting 90 people or above at the Boyle Memorial Community Center because we don’t have the other capacity that we’ve shut down previously. If we had those spaces, we wouldn’t have 90 people there.

We would have 50. And if we had those spaces, the other tier capacities that come before this wouldn’t be so pressed either. So I would ask committee, don’t support this amendment. Thank you, I just, I noted Councillor Hopkins.

I had Deputy Mayor Lewis next. I’m somewhere in that, and then I see others. Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Madam Chair.

And through you, Mr. Dickens mentioned this earlier. So through you to staff, given that we would have to go through procurement processes, et cetera, bring back contract awards. What is the standard lead time on a procurement process like this, and then given our council cycles?

We already heard Councillor Frank reference, even if council passes this on February 10th, that’s when it would come into effect. But if we have to go out to procurement roughly, ‘cause I know you have to deal with council cycles as well, but what kind of lead time are we talking about? Mr. Dickens.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Through you, Ms. Aurora is online, our procurement officer, and is able to answer that question. Okay, online, we should be able to, your call if you want to use just audio versus video.

Perfect, welcome. Thank you, Mr. Chair. To the point, I just want to say that the motion should be grounded to use cities existing facilities or other requirements as per the procurement policy.

The requirements or assessing service delivery model should be grounded in the procurement policy. So whatever tools, whatever requirements are to be given, we will find process compliant ways to meet this expectation. But then a little bit wording change of to explore, to assess what service delivery is required that we are planning to do. Thank you.

I’m not so sure that capsulates the actual question that was answered or asked nor answered. What’s the lead time on those policies you just outlined was more the question. If we go with this and someone new comes to the table, how long is it going to take to get the money out the door and people in bets? If you want to hand it back to staff and chambers, that’s okay too.

Through you, Madam Chair, I will try to step in. So as procurement is advised earlier and as Mr. Roar has indicated, we would want to make sure we have a procurement mechanism in place first. So if it’s a non-funded organization, so an organization we don’t currently have a funding agreement with.

We cannot just receive invoices in the mail. The city, as much as I would like to do that, this is why they don’t leave me in charge of the funding. The city cannot just receive an invoice from an organization saying at minus five, we used our discretion, we opened, here’s a bill. Procurement will require that we have some form of legal agreement in place.

So to answer the question of how much time will that take, it will depend on what the most appropriate avenue might be. So that could be a limited tendering project. It could be under emergency procurement, for example. And those things may fluctuate in time.

And I can’t speak on behalf of procurement. I know our teams will prioritize this work as well, but there will have to be some formal process. If there’s any checks and balances that need to be put in place, like this organization has insurance and the proper level of insurance that the city would require. ‘Cause heaven knows, I do not want to be in front of this committee and we’ve sent money to an organization that does not have the proper liability insurance or there’s some sort of risk that we’ve exposed the city to.

So we need to follow the steps we need to follow in this bureaucratic system that we exist, while also prioritizing how we can create the spaces that are needed. And just to an earlier question from Councilor Ferreira, the question about the arcade in their 696 location, that is one we would confer with legal on. The arcade is currently funded, they’re currently funded organization. However, Council has passed a previous motion of no overnight resting spaces on a BIA Main Street.

So those two things are at odds. Thank you. Thank you. Deputy Mayor, you’re satisfied?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate that, Mr. Dickens, because this is absolutely why I’m gonna support this motion. We have to follow a procurement process.

We can amend a contract that we have with London Cares or with the arcade very quickly. The motion would allow for that because those key components are already in place. If we have to go out for procurement, if Council were to pass this on February 10th, the next time Council meets is March the 3rd to approve any other procurement processes that would be let. You’re not putting people in beds if you’re going out to procurement process in February or in March, because you’re not even bringing it back to Council until March the 3rd.

So more than willing to support something like this, although I’m concerned that we don’t have a target about net new beds and where we go on how we cap the spending, ‘cause we’ve got a dollar amount in here. So if the dollars get all used up, then I’m assuming through you, Madam Chair, that at that point staff would advise those agencies that the additional funding is used up and that there’s no more activations. And if I can just get staff to confirm that, please. To staff.

Through you, Madam Chair, that would be my understanding with a maximum upset limit of $250,000. We would not be able to exceed that amount without seeking Council direction. Deputy Mayor. Thank you.

So I know Councilor Trussa I said earlier, oh, we might have unanimous support. Sorry to disappoint you, Councilor. Looks like we’re gonna deal with a number of these clauses separately with differences of opinion on some things, but I can support this based on the already funded local agencies and working with our existing partners who already have contracts with them to amend. Those boxes are checked.

I know both Ms. Maz and Ms. Campbell are in the gallery. They might already be thinking about how they might want to develop a plan for that.

I know Ms. Lazimby’s in the gallery too. I know that they don’t always have the walk-in, but we’ve got some service providers here who could start to contemplate how they could work with us on those things now. To me, that is the path forward.

Not looking for unsolicited proposals or letting new procurements in the short timeline we have between now and April 30th. Thank you, Vice Chair. Could you please take the chair? Taking the chair and recognizing Councilor Palosa.

Thank you. In brief, Deputy Mayor and I seem to be on the same page today. I am in support of A with the change that’s been made to it. I appreciate where Councilor Faire is raising these concerns, but the motion before us is just strictly to April 30th, really concerned about the timelines that absolutely would love to open the door to other people who could use this money as their faith-based organizations who have space that this money would allow them to open their doors.

But for me, it’s partly the procurement policy and also recognizing if they’re already vetted in and doing it. They’re already have trained staff. They’re already familiar with the clients in need in the city services that on such a short timeline, it really is emergency funding to get people off the streets and into care. And that’s why I’d be supportive of it.

And absolutely, I think it’s a great point of next steps, next year’s response of just how to start working on those other people who aren’t part of the system of care and getting them on board. Thank you for turning the chair and on the list, Councilor Trossa and Councilor Faire. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah, I’m still doing first, first. So I’m gonna recognize Councilor Trossa and then I also have noted to Councilor Faire and Councilor Hoffman’s are waiting for seconds and Councilor Frank’s waiting for first. Just once again, if we keep the comments really tight, we still have the main motion as amended and plus other things still from consent with us, not that everyone doesn’t enjoy hanging up the day and at some point probably need a bio break, just warning people now. Councilor.

On the procurement issue, which is part of the amendment discussion, is there a provision in a procurement policy that exempts expenditures under a certain amount? For you, Madam Chair, I go to Ms. Aurora for that question. Thank you, through the chair.

Within the approved budget, so as it says, 250 within the approved budget would be correct terminology. Thank you. Thank you, I’m a little confused, but if there was another agency that had insurance, and we could use one of the churches that we’ve worked with in the past as an example, and the anticipated invoice was less than the threshold amount, wouldn’t that deal with the problem of having to go through the procurement policy if it’s under the de minimis exception? No, thank you, through the chair.

No, Councilor. Well, when you’re under the de minimis exception, how is that operationalized? And would organizations who may want to take advantage of that de minimis exception be able to sort of pre-register with the city, saying we may come in under this provision? I’m gonna interject again to reiterate, by time this passes that Council, it’s already February 10th, with an end date of this clause of April 30th.

And that’s once we approve it on the 10th of how fast, we can actually make the current agreements, but if staff want to chime in, very mindful this question was already answered by procurement, but for any last minute clarity in chambers, seeing some nos. So Mr. Dickens, I believe that he’s in agreement with what the procurement staff online had said. Is there a follow-up?

Well, no, no, I thought that was a reasonable question to ask. And I guess the other question I have is, if we find ourselves in a position where we have to go beyond the already funded agencies and go into that additional realm of local agencies for that short period of a month or so, would the existing approved service providers have any latitude to subcontract with another agency if they were going to take responsibility? Subcontract by partnering? Yes.

Okay, to staff you can answer it, like maybe one of our providers that are currently local providers have a complement of train people available and a church offers space. Is that an allowable agreement of operations since we don’t stipulate where they have to operate outside of the main street of the BIA? To staff, go ahead. I was just smiling to everyone in general, go ahead.

Thank you and through you. We would have to look at each agreement that we have with the service providers to see if they have the ability to subcontract under those agreements. So we would have to look at it on a case-by-case basis. Thank you, Councillor.

In which case would you be able to provide that information for us before the council meeting or as soon as possible after this meeting? Thank you. Each current provided local service provider, Councillor versus everyone on the books in general or? For the relevant local service providers who have been approved who are offering this service.

I don’t think they’re more than three or four of them. Staff, thank you and through you. That could be a significant number of providers. I don’t know what that is.

I think it’s more than three or four. That could be a large volume of work. Councillor? I’m just at a loss, but I don’t have anything further.

I just— Thank you. Councillor ramen. Thank you and through you. So just on the amendment, with respect to the language, as it currently is being amended to, I just wanna clarify again, we have very limited providers that can open.

We have limited providers that can ensure that they’re adequately staffed, that they can get the information out to folks to come into reliable, trusted space. And so my question to all of us in the room is, can we consider waiving the exception of on a BIA? And I don’t know if that is procedurally something that can be done here, as I just heard for this exact motion, we were allowed to ask for leave in consideration for parts B and D of this motion, because they were previous council decisions. So I know that that’s, I guess, procedural question at this time, if it’s in order.

I’m not a member of the committee, so I can’t move it myself. But I’m wondering if you can answer my procedural question. I can’t allow the clerk to do it, as they will know the timelines they need to bring that back. Through the chair, we can certainly have that response to you back before council.

And then just making sure it would still procedurally be in an order at council, ‘cause we potentially tried to do it at committee would not be ruled out through the clerks, just if we’re all going through this in good faith, just looking for clarification verbally. Okay, I have a yes. Okay, thank you and through you. But at council, it would be two thirds of council versus the procedural ruling here.

Through the chair, the recommendation to reconsider that we just passed would also still need to be supported by two thirds at council. Okay, so for clarification, we need a simple majority at committee to reconsider parts B and D. And council, we will need two thirds majority of whatever we hash out here to continue on with those conversations of B and D. So the two thirds for this BIA opportunity would still have the same threshold.

Thank you and through you, and so a second procedural question. So being that the decision around the not, or sorry, the BIA motion was actually more than a year out from the decision of council, does it still require consideration? We’d have to dig into that. If it’s like the simple majority versus, ‘cause if it’s just the normal movement and amendment at council versus the timelines, the clerk just needs time.

How much time? A response by council. Thank you and through you. So my hope is because it’s in our procedure bylaw that my and my understanding as far as I know it to be, true, is that if it was made within a year, then, or sorry, exceeding a year, then it is just a simple amendment, which could then be introduced on the floor today.

So I’m just wondering if you might, if it has to be done at a break, I’m fine with that, but I’m wondering because we’re talking about timelines, we’re talking about a February 10th date, and I’m just trying to ensure that we have the ability to make a decision that could potentially open these spaces and allow for this $250,000 to be in lock to its full potential, which I think was the intention of the movers of motion. Okay, so that’s noted. Okay, so we’re not sure if a clerk is available upstairs, in addition to the clerk that’s currently sitting with us doing the work at hand. So I’m happy to pass down my procedural biology, if you want, okay.

So there’s something they just need to pull up the votes of how and when it actually passed at council to check the timeline on it, to be advisable to us for next steps forward. Okay, I have nods from Councillor ramen. Think I had Councillor Frank, I got a list, guys, and we’re gonna be here till I’m predicting 6 p.m. Sorry, I’m just the amendment.

Councillor Frank, Councillor Stevenson, Councillor Ferrera, and then I also have a speaker’s list for the new motion as amended when we eventually get there, should this pass. Flora is yours. Thank you, I’ll be quick. I don’t mind this amendment because I think that it won’t materially impact what we’re deciding right now.

The agencies that we currently have contracts with will be still able to go out and find net new spaces if they have the staffing availability for it at other locations. So I don’t think it materially impacts our ability to go out and look. It’d impact who we have the contracts with, but at this point, I’d rather get this out the door at February 10th, I’d rather it earlier, but I understand it has to go through Council, but I don’t think this materially impacts what we’re deciding right now, and if it just gets us through then at Council, I am fine to change the slight wording. Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you, my understanding when I read this was that the intent was to expand the 50 surge beds to activate at a lower temperature. So I didn’t know there were other ideas for this short period of time. I thought it was just, hey, like, why don’t we allow the 50 spaces to open up when it gets colder than minus five and allow the funding for that? So I would encourage committee to support this amendment and allow that to go forward.

Councillor Ferra. Thank you. That motion for the BIA was in November 24, so we’re beyond the decided matter of council. The motion can be moved now, and I do intend to move that.

Now, if we’re talking about the emergency response and how we have to move quickly and nimbly, and we’re talking about the procurement process and how the language was worded before, which we worded it in a way, because we wanted to find at the discretion of the agency based on staffing and their capacity, the motion, the amendment, how it is now, constricts that ability. And if this is truly an emergency, I really think that we should start looking into some of the capacities that we shut down previously in Council. I saw, when I saw that amendment come through, I started thinking, you know, the goodwill from this motion is waning, for sure. And it’s just being a little too politicized for me.

And I think that if this is a true emergency, we need to start considering opening up all available spaces. There are people on the street in OEV because they can’t go inside. Why don’t we open the doors and let them in? One minute.

I wanna move that motion. I would like to move in a motion. Okay, Councillor, I appreciate that. The clerks are still trying to research.

I know that Jerry passed around a nice piece of paper, but the clerks are still procedurally getting it in order. I appreciate that you’re interested in it. Councillor ramen’s interested in it. Councillor ramen’s not on the committee.

So just come back to me, and hopefully we can now move it when it’s ready. Councillor Stevenson. Thank you. I just wanna say, you know, if there’s an amendment here to allow the resting spaces to open on the main street of a BIA in the winter, up until April 30th, I can support that.

I always have supported bringing people indoors, overrides everything else. So as long as it’s limited to this time period and it’s a winter thing, then you’ve got the support of the Ward Councillor for that. So at this point, if I can make a suggestion, we vote on this as it is, and that’s the main motion as amended. We can continue our conversations, and when the clerks have an answer for us, before we dispose of this item, we can go back to the BIA and do a separate motion then that Part A be amended to add in, notwithstanding for this time part only, the BIA main street’s okay, Councillor Ferra.

I can’t vote on this motion until we vote on the other one. Okay, then maybe you vote no in. I would call for a motion to recess for 10 minutes. We need a bio break anyways.

I don’t think 10 minutes is gonna be enough at this moment. How much time do you— Okay, so there’s too many voices at once. We have a long agenda. Honestly, we’re gonna be here till six.

We still have delegates waiting in the gallery for the other items. So procedurally, my recommendation is vote no or yes, as you will. Council’s always the final deciding vote when we get there. The clerks are waiting upstairs, they’re doing their stuff, ‘cause they’re gonna have to clerk that motion to make sure the wording’s right, that it’s only this timeframe.

But BIA area only is only notwithstanding clause. So they’re working on it. Is there further questions or speakers list per this amendment only? I would request that we move a 15 minute recess.

I do need to vote on an amendment for me to support this amendment. And I just, it’s just procedurally, it’s how it— Yeah, so procedurally, how long did you want? 15 minutes. 15, so when we come back in 15 minutes, we don’t have a vote yet or an answer.

How long would the clerks need? She does not know. Okay. Councilor, I’m trying.

15 minutes. Okay, a seconder for 15 minute break right now. Councilor Trousa, that’s you seconding 15 minutes. So our friends in the gallery, we have to vote on a break.

You’re welcome to take leave at any time, just let you know. Okay, so calling the vote on 15 minute break right now for members of committee only can vote on this. I mean, she said the clerks have to do a hand vote, although I’m gonna do in favor and a post of a 15 minute break in favor, a post. Bales on a tie vote, this conversation will consider it.

Let’s continue it this time. Okay, Councilor Ramos, next on my speakers list. And I will let you know as soon as the BIA answer comes back on the clerks. Thank you and through you.

So is it in order to still amend an amendment if you’re a member of committee? So a member could amend an amendment, could they do it so that it addresses the language in this amendment so that the Councilor doesn’t have to look to move a different amendment. Can it be tagged onto this? Like notwithstanding Council’s previous direction November, 2024, that this matter be considered in order based on the language that’s here.

So this approve a maximum of 250, could apply. I’m trying to find a way so that the Councilor doesn’t have to move a second motion. I appreciate that. The other way forward was just to vote on this mole.

Deal if it wouldn’t get back to it. Deputy Mayor Lewis. Yes, to simplify this, a two thirds majority, whether we need it or not, addresses the reconsideration. So I’m prepared to amend the amendment to include a not withstanding prior council direction that these— Could be clearly, sorry, I wasn’t clearly, it was a slowly issue.

Yeah, I’m trying to speak slowly. You’re just pointing at the screen. So just one second, there’s screens are screening. Okay, from the top and super slow.

Okay, from the top and super slow. And that not withstanding previous council direction spaces on a BIA Main Street shall be considered as part of this initiative until April 30th, 2026. So if you refresh, it’s in there. It’s up on the screen.

And the Parks Department has said that we don’t need not the reconsideration stuff and the not withstanding stuff gets us there. Deputy Mayor’s head nod, had myself down as the seconder. So this is the amendment of amendment of the main motion. There’s no more amendments from here until it’s voted on.

Speakers only on the BIA section. You’ve already heard from the word counselor that they’re in support of it, looking for final comments before Councilor Ferra. Just briefly, I will support this. I knew we didn’t need a reconsideration.

This could be a potential thing that we see in other years, depending on where staff land on additional capacity, but it’s an emergency situation and people are already there. So bringing people inside is a much better direction. So this is close. So I’ll support it.

Okay, further speakers. Seeing none, calling the question on just the BIA portion. That’s on the screen before you at this time. Opposing the vote, the motion carries six to zero.

So now we’re on the amendment as amended. Hoping we’ve clarified a lot of those questions. That’s just the amendment that was the BIA without just passed and the local service provider. We’ve had extensive conversation and I think further on that, if not, we need a new mover and a seconder on that.

Okay, we’ll need a new mover and a seconder ‘cause it’s been amended. Councilor Hopkins, Councilor Ferra, Frantic Clerking going on. I have no hands online. I have no hands in chamber, calling the question.

This is just on the amendments and then we’ll get back to the whole thing as amended. Opposing the vote, the motion carries. Okay, so now we’re back on the main motion as amended. So this is everything from A through E’s on the floor.

I’ve had Councilor Hopkins weighing patiently on the list. Your timing starts anew ‘cause it’s been amended, but still really hoping we can keep it tight as we still have consent items that we have not yet to deal with and delegations meeting. I’ll keep it tight. I wanna thank the community for coming out.

Great, Councilor Anna Mooten, sorry, Councilor Hopkins moved it. I thought David seconded it. No, that was the last one. Did he, this one?

Councilor Ferra, are you still seconding this one? Yeah, yeah. We’re just making sure on the same page before you have two different conversations. So Councilor Hopkins moved it.

Councilor Ferra seconded it. Everything on the floor, A to E, as all amended and pretty. Councilor Hopkins, the floor is yours, five minutes. I wanna thank the community for coming out and sharing your stories.

I wanna thank the Councilors for working together. It really was a good thing that we were able to come together. I also wanna thank Ms. Smith, Ms.

McGognell’s team and staff for the work that they’re doing at the Boyle Community Center. I am very pleased to be part of this committee to bring this forward. I would like to have a D pulled. I won’t be supporting that.

E, we’re gonna have a report back and thanks again. Question. Clerk asked me who’s next, that’s like great question. Also, as we move through this conversation, I’ll pose it now that we had a conversation back-ish of part B.

We have not identified a funding source yet. Would staff prefer that we have something prepared at Council of where that source is gonna come from? Or Mr. Dickens, you have another, what is our path forward that staff would need at this time from us?

Through you, Madam Chair, in quick conversation with members of the finance team, we would, at this time, feel like the identified source of funding in A would be appropriate for any additional activations of Boyle. There are some stipulations in that funding, but we feel we can make it fit. And myself and Ms. Barbone have the ability to make some of those decisions.

So for clarity, that source of funding has been identified as appropriate from finance. You would automatically use that source of financing or you want direction from this committee at this time to use that source of funding. Through you, Madam Chair, if it makes things nice and clean, we can take Council direction to use that source of funding. Deputy Mayor Lewis, are you moving that?

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I put my hand up to say I’d like to amend B to direct the source of financing to be the Social Services Reserve Fund. One second as we do the parking stuff. Deputy Mayor, is there a certain amount that you want to use up to from that fund, like drain it, drain it, or leave a certain reserve in there should something else come of urgent need?

Either through you, or I’m happy to ask Mr. Dickens, I don’t know what this is potentially going to cost. Deputy Mayor. Well, if you’ll allow a question through to staff to perhaps assist with clarifying that, can our civic administration provide us with, because we’ve been given a number of days talking about potentially 30 additional, between 20 and 30 additional activations, what is a per night activation?

Approximately, I know there’s a little bit of variation, but what is the ballpark on a per night activation? Mr. Dickens, no, not him. Mr.

McGonagall, in the back. Thank you, and through the chair, in the original report that was submitted in September of 2025, we identified a cost of $145,000 for a planned 10 event activation based on the previous or current thresholds. So that approximately was estimated at about 14,500 per activation. Our actuals are probably closer to 12.

Deputy Mayor. Okay, so that does assist. I do wonder if a second question on this, just to probably and hopefully nail this on the first landing on the amendment, do we have a current balance that can be provided to counselors in the social assistance or social services? It’s 2.8 million, recognizing we’re already looking at pulling of 250,000 out from party.

Perfect. So yes, so I am going to say, so the amendment would be the source of funding be from the social services reserve fund up to a maximum of $290,000. I’m just gonna air on the side of 145, recognizing that we’ve been less, but sticking with the original projection just to leave a buffer in the contingency. So 290,000 would be the upper limit.

Two staff, knowing our intention, throwing it back to staff, any concerns with this number, not being adequate for this winter only. As Deputy Mayor said, just trying to get ahead of any potential, whoops, deserves concerns before we get to a vote. Ms. Dater’s fair.

Thank you, through the chair. I just wanna be clear that, well, I hope for less cold weather. I think we would like to reserve the ability to say that, should this become a situation where we require more, that we have the ability to come back? I don’t, I think we’ve had a very full some discussion today about how to best support individuals.

We will do our best to try to keep them within that budget, but also wanna respect the fact that we aren’t in control of the one element that puts us in this place. Do we need wording on staff will come back? Or if the money runs out, staff does automatically come back? Deputy Mayor, your preference?

If the city manager is just indicating the staff will come back if they’re going to exceed that. I don’t need wording to tell them to come back. If they hit that and they have to come back, then come back. If that’s amenable to staff, I don’t feel we need that direction to come back.

When the money’s gone, they will just come back. Okay, so the seconder is fine with the $290,000 number being input. We all seem fine with Ms. Dater’s bear that they will let us know if our snow friends stay with us in the weather longer.

So just on the amendment that we’re gonna fund this from the social services reserve fund up to $290,000. Any further conversation before calling the question? Councilor Pribble. Thank you, sir, Chair, to the staff.

I just wanna clarification on the September 25 report, the 145,000 10 days, of course, divided by 10, 14,500. We are looking more like 12,000. What was that report from September? What did it include in terms of the facilities by space beds?

What did it include in that report? Thank you. Councilor, I assume that you wanna know clarification on that number and time to inform your vote on just the amendment of the source of funding and the amount? Well, it really has to do with 290 because I just wanna know what it, because I just wanna know was that report based only on, was it only boil or because I just wanna make sure that we are looking at our facilities and others potentially as well.

So I just wanna know the amount, if I’m voting for 90 to 90, what did it cover based on September? Okay, thank you, Mr. McGonkall, we got you. Thank you and through the chair, that money is indicated in the September 2025 report was related to the city’s response for 3B, which was the activation of 60 warming spaces at Boyle Memorial Community Center.

So that is correct, Councilor Kerbal, thank you to the chair. Okay, satisfied. I have, thank you for the clarification. I see no further hands calling the question on just the amendment for the social services found up to 290 K.

Closing the vote, the motion carries six to zero. Thank you. Looking, Deputy Mayor, the floor was still yours. I think that was the last of my amendments that staff have noted that they needed specific direction for.

So the speaker’s list once again, everything is as amended. So it’s a new speaker’s list, your time is restored. I’m hoping for conciseness. Deputy Mayor, anything further?

And it’s been noted that we’re gonna pull D separate for sure. Yes, so Councilor Trussa, I will be happy to hear we’re getting closer to unanimously on this. So I’m just gonna say where we are now, A, B, C, and D, I’m okay with, I know we’re gonna call D separately, I’m okay with staff operationalizing D without getting into the weeds of operations today. So I’m actually okay with D, so I’m gonna use my time now to speak specifically to E and then report back.

And Madam Chair, you’re going to want to throttle me, I’m sure, but I’m gonna need to make sure from you that we can actually call some of these clauses separately because I can support some, but I cannot support all. So can I just get your clarification on that? Absolutely. Thank you.

I will provide a list of the ones that I want to call separate and there are some that I said as I said I’m fine with. So I’m gonna focus on how the warming center’s operationalized and the timeline here a little bit because I think it’s really important to review this. Few years ago, we started this whole of community response. We were told move away from winter response, add more 365 day year indoor spaces.

And we did. We added the bed’s at Cronin Warner that have been funded. We’ve got a micro shelter that is about to receive tenants before the end of this week. We have done those things and more.

We have opened two hubs providing roughly 60 spaces through the hub system. And as a result of the hubs plan, the province has funded a heart hub. Now it’s only just opened. It was months overdue.

And I think every one of us feels the frustration with that reality. But that represents 240 net new indoor spaces since this council took office. That’s not nothing. And that doesn’t even start to count the highly supportive housing spaces that have been opened by Inwell.

London cares with the House of Hope. And then we get into the affordable housing, the results we’ve had with opening a new building at LMCH. There are now two buildings in the Vision Soho rebuild that have tenants living there. And another one is about start welcoming tenants.

Inwell has another project on the way at Elmwood Place. So there’s lots been going on here. But then we were told no, we still have to do a winter response. So we did.

So we’ve been adding these things. Then we went to last year we’d need a winter response. So staff put together winter response. The winter response we have right now was what we all agreed on in September.

And in order to operationalize the warming centers, staff had to be canvassed to volunteer to work shifts in these spaces. And I think we’ve got about between 60 and 80, I’m not sure the exact number, but somewhere around the 80 mark of municipal staff who when notified make themselves available to work overnight shifts in these warming centers. What does that mean? This is not their regular job.

Their regular job is actually going on hold while they do this, including stuff that might be due that week, but now we’re activating the warming center. So that’s got to go on hold. And we are essentially shutting down a community center in a neighborhood for a portion of the day because we don’t have leases on property to do this with. We have limited options of spaces in our own land that works.

So yes, it is a challenge to stand these up. And I think it’s now nine of the last 10 days that staff have been doing that work consecutively. And there were a couple of days before that. One minute warning.

That’s not sustainable. So when we look at clause E, things like explore potential service partners to provide warming spaces, I can support that. Establish one 24/7 warming center operated December one to March 31st, I can’t support that. We can barely run the one warming center we’ve got now dependent on staff volunteering.

So I’m going to ask for clause two and three and five and six to be called separately, please. Because when we look at the surge tier two response with the 50 at minus five, well, we just heard what the and ors of environment Canada do with moving from 10 approximately to 30 approximately. I could get to if clause six said minus 10, I could get there, but I can’t get there at minus five. I don’t think it’s responsible to ask staff to come back and do reports on things that we know a 24/7 and the cost of these is what it is.

So that’s why I’m asking for those to be called separately. So I since blanked your past your time. So my understanding was one and four can be called together the rest separate. Okay, so we heard that, right?

And then to staff to answer the question, please. If he needs to repeat it, he needs to repeat it. That’s fine, but. My apologies and through the chair.

I may just ask him to repeat the question. Thank you. So specifically, the clerks got the point of one and two, Mr. McGongle to restate your question.

The only question that was really in there was the, we had the 70, 90 days at minus five. We had the additional 20 days at minus 15 with the and ors. The question was, what’s the days at minus 10? To staff.

Thank you, historically, minus 10 is 35 to 45 days a year. Thank you. Councilor Frank was next. Thank you.

I just want to clarify under E for part I, B or four. Words has explored potential service partners to provide these warming spaces. So that would be looking at service partners to provide the one overnight one, the 24/7 one or the minimum 100 warming center spaces, understanding that staff that we have are not necessarily, we know we’re applying for more parks and rec team and other areas. So I don’t think that’s long term a sustainable solution for our surge response.

And I would actually like to see service partners be providing that. So that’s actually what that report back is intended to have. So I just want to provide clarity ‘cause I think I heard something different. Thank you for that.

I also assumed it was something different. I thought it was more tying into Councilor Faire as comments earlier about we need more hands doing this work and more partners at the table. I had a question, I can save it. There’s other hands and I forget who.

Deputy Mayor Lewis, having heard Councilor Frank’s interpretation, I’m sure it would change how staff still, might interpret it something or different. Did you have a follow up question just based on the mover signer’s comments? Sorry, after this wraps up, we’re gonna take a really short bio break ‘cause clearly your chair needs a moment to reconnect. Actually, Councilor Frank’s comments has confused the issue further for me ‘cause now I’m really not sure what the intent is here and what I heard you say, you’ve taken a different intent as well.

So I don’t think it’s clear what’s being asked for here. So I don’t have any— - We’re gonna call it one separate then ‘cause we all— Yeah, I want them so-called separate ‘cause I don’t think staff can answer the questions about who else might be out there to run these things. Okay, the clerk’s just gonna do them all separate at this point in her day. Councilor Stevenson, are you next to my list?

I think I answered. Sorry, just one second, what? Okay, sorry, time out, sorry, I’m so sorry. You’re still on my list, I will write it down.

For clarity, I’m going to the city manager and I know that staff still have an outstanding question that I want answered and I still have a speaker’s list. Ms. Dator’s Bear. Thank you, Madam Chair.

We would like some clarity on what EI versus EII means. The difference between establishing one overnight warming center for that period of time and then providing a minimum of 100 warming center spaces across two to four locations for the same period of time. So if we get some clarity about what the difference between what I and III is, so that we’re clear about that from our perspective in order for us to answer questions appropriately. Councilor Frank was the first one with her hand up, so it’s all yours.

Thank you, I’m happy to hop on and maybe some of the other co-signers if they have a different interpretation can share it. But so for that, for the first one, given that we’re seeing about 100 people at Boyle, the first one to be one large overnight, and I guess I should have put that in one large overnight warming center location, and then versus the minimum of 100 different ones spread across two to four, that would reduce them down to let’s say 25, 30, 40, so it’d just be smaller amounts of people at two to four locations, which is smaller many locations or one larger location. Ms. Dator’s Bear.

Thank you very much through you. To be clear, are you asking for a maximum of 100 warming center spaces? Councilor Frank. For part IIIS.

And for part I was just, ‘cause there’s no numerical value in there, like Boyle’s been running around 100, so. Yeah, I mean, I could start adding numbers if that would be better, but again. No, I see no, Ms. Dator’s Bear.

Through you Madam Chair, understanding Councilor Committee’s direction and Council’s support will be very clear and required for us in order to determine the costing you’re looking for. In the absence of that, I would not want to bring back information that you’re not specifically asking for. So I appreciate that you’re suggesting that I currently, at Boyle, is varying between 80 to 100 per night. What I’m trying to clarify is if you’re asking for us to do I, and so II is well at the same time, and that’s what you’re asking us to cost out.

Okay, so your question is, are we doing Boyle at 180 to 100 people and 100 other warming centers or beds amongst service providers in town? Councilor Frank. Thank you, yes, I’m looking for a menu. So how much it costs to do I?

How much it costs to do II? How much it costs to do II? And then I believe it would be up to Council to decide which ones they would like to fund. If somebody wants to do all three, that’d be, I think, very expensive and incredible.

But I’m just looking for what is the cost and logistics of doing each of those different scenarios? I think I appreciate that our staff, I think is trying to ascertain that if all their staff is at Boyle, they won’t have staff to run 100 beds elsewhere and the staff could look very different based on capacity of the system. Ms. Dater’s Bear, having heard the Councilor’s menu request, any questions or answers that could be of assistance to formulate the report?

Thank you, thank you, Madam Chair. So as I’m understanding it, I says establish one overnight warming center. I’m assuming consistent with what we have been doing. Then two is to make it 24/7.

Three is to consider doing the same thing but in two to four locations, which would mean smaller centers, but not concurrently a larger center. Like you would be, you’re not asking for three, sorry, I to happen at the same time, I happens, or I happens, sorry, apologies. We just need to get this clarity in order for us to bring the right information back. Yeah, I believe that each of those options had an or next to it, so just Councillor Frank, if that is your intent of the or.

We have some nods, we have a couple more nods. Are we, okay, I will also, yeah, I’m gonna, so Councillor Stevenson also still have not forgotten about you, just Mr. Dickens, before we, Miles will do it now, since everyone’s talking before we have to talk again. Your question was part B, when we activate the tier three, or, and we say environment Canada, you had a question around that piece.

If you wanna pose it, then we can go to the movers and see what their intent was for clarification. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, we were just looking for an opportunity, as we started to put a bow on this conversation that we are fully clear on the same things. With the reference to the 250,000, we appreciate that’s been passed as part of this amendment.

It is our interpretation of staff that those are operating dollars, that we would not interpret that as a capital ask, that someone says, I can provide you some overnight spaces, I need 50 or 75,000 for washroom kitchens upgrades, that it’s strictly operating dollars, we wanna make sure we’re on the same page as that, and not make any assumptions on our end. As for the reference to environment Canada, significant weather alerts, we know environment Canada has recently, post our staff report in September, changed the weather alert system, the extreme weather alert system, to this color coded system. So we’re just looking for some clarifications on, are we tying this to a yellow snow squall, are we tying this to orange, or is it just the extreme, there’s a red urgent matter happening, and that’s when we would look to use that, or are we tying it to something else? So it’s, I appreciate we’re trying to get granular, but we would welcome it.

Okay, so I’ll give committee members an opportunity to the Googles of the different colors, before you give an answer. Looking for consensus, though, that our understanding, for the first part of Mr. Dickens’ question, was that these funds are to be used for operating dollars, and not capital upgrades. Is anyone not in agreement with it being operating?

Is it Councilor Freire? Sorry, I just, maybe I’ll try to clarify this part. When it comes to the investment, we would anticipate it would be operating, but at the same time, if we were to find a location, and operate out of the location, if there are cots, or anything available, I guess I would ask staff, just, I guess, getting granular into it. If I am, I’m gonna pose this to the committee, too.

Sorry, timeout, Councilor, former Councilor Cassidy. Marine, sorry. Do you want us to, can we call our friends if she needs to leave? You’re gonna come back, okay, sorry.

I know we’re dragging, and there’s some delegates still in the audience. We will see you back. Sorry, I just didn’t want to miss anyone after you’ve sat so far long, sorry. Go ahead, sorry, David.

If there’s like a requirement to purchase a cop, or something that would be considered capital on that respect. I guess the first question would be, is do we have those available that we could provide if we were to operate any of these spaces? And if not, then potentially would include. To staff, I think the question was, is it, if they need to purchase a cop, is it operating versus capital?

And then, if not, is there a surplus of cots in storage somewhere, or other supplies that an agency could tap into? Think that captured it, I don’t hear otherwise. I’ll start with Mr. McGongle, and then go to others if needed.

Thank you, and through the chair, I think what’s important is making sure that we’re all on the same page related to warming spaces versus beds. They are different. To answer the question related to cots, the city of London cot inventory is for emergency management purposes. We do not have additional inventory to supply to the community.

Thank you. And Councillor, I think you need a question of if they needed to purchase cots, if it’s a capital, or they could actually use the operating dollars to purchase a cot as well. Was that part of your question? My question, yeah, I’m just wondering if we were to have everything available and any kind of things that would be required when we operationalize this.

So whether it’s a cot, whether it’s other, I don’t know what else but chair, or other things that we would need, if we don’t have those items and we’re operationalizing this, there potentially could be a capital component to this. That’s the only, I guess the question that I’m posing and just before we kind of clarify that. So I would look to colleagues to chime in. And that was as related to part B of the motion that’s on the floor.

Just ‘cause that one deals with like, it’s our staff and our belongings versus friends. It was, yeah, it was a response to if this is operational or capital. Mr. McConan.

Thank you and through the chair, I never thought I’d be taking a shot at operating in capital expenditures without Ms. Barbahn here. So certainly she will correct me if I’m wrong at council. I think when you get down to tables and chairs and other items like that, certainly could be considered an operating expense.

It’s not a, there’s not an exact scientific line on where that lies, but there generally is some discretion in charging capital replacement to operating costs. Thank you. Councillor you satisfied and I’ll go back to it. I am with that.

I would think it would be operational then in that regard. Councillor Frank, we’re still haven’t forgotten. Councillor Stevenson. Councillor Frank about the colors.

Love the colors. I can answer that if you’d like. Okay, so when this was drafted, I was looking at the colors, the three different ranges. And at the time of drafting it, there had been four extreme weather alerts.

Two of them coincided with our extreme cold, so that those opened anyway, a boil. And then the other two in regards to the ice storm. And so if you look at it, it goes yellow, orange, red. Yellow is still pretty severe, it’s not green.

And so this, in my opinion, would be for any yellow, orange or red, because yellow is already a nice storm, negative 30, negative over negative 20 with a wind chill. Yellow does not mean it’s, you know, you should still be outside. Yellow means you should be inside. So that being said, it doesn’t seem to be that there are too many more than our extreme ones.

Like the ones for January have all been in regards to the extreme weather, which we are opening in the last couple of days anyway. So that already gets ticked off under negative 15 or negative 20 with wind chill. Mr. Dickens.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that provides us a lot of clarity on both the operating versus capital and the weather conditions. Before we, to Councillor Stevenson, anyone that had something different in mind as an understanding of the colors and environment Canada versus what Councillor Frank outlined for us. Seeing none, I think both of those staff questions have been resolved, moving on, still timing to some degree, main motion, everything on the floor.

Councillor Stevenson, you have your full five minutes. Thank you. I’m really happy that we’ve come forward and come together here with a path to move forward. I do just want to address the confusion that seems to have happened the last couple of years.

We have a whole community system response. Council has been asked to defer to the experts to take the recommendations as they’re given. For the most part, we have done that. And then we have agencies saying, it’s winter, you should be bringing people inside, which creates this frustration in the public.

And I’m just wondering if, what is getting lost in the way, how those voices aren’t being heard earlier, or are the voices changing? I’m not sure where the miscommunication is, but when we were asked to stop temporary winter indoor spaces and fund the all season, all year long encampment strategy, my understanding was there was an agreement there that we had the support of the experts to do that and that there were ideas or systems in place to help people live outdoors all year round. And that’s why I put the sea on here, that we get those rules, recommendations and supports because we’ve got people wanting to purchase propane tanks for people and firewood and all these things. And the public wants to help, but they need to know what supplies are needed, what to do to help people.

And we need to be of one voice. If we’re gonna have this whole of community system response, making recommendations to council, then there should be some sort of unanimous consent around what it is that we’re doing. We had that Western Gazette article talking about how people were allowed to do fires and we were teaching them how to do fires safer, that was confirmed with staff that was incorrect, but that was the CHRESI group that was speaking again differently than what staff was saying. And so to have it publicly available on the website, I think just provides that clarity.

And I just wanna really acknowledge staff for being able to do as many warming center evenings as they have. We’ve got 80 to 100 people, we’re not funding it, but we’re serving people with untrained staff for the most part. And we’re making it work and we’re bringing people indoors and that’s a really beautiful thing for our city to show that that can be done. I think it does put a little pressure also though on some of the agencies that this is their work.

Because we had the Bob Hayward Y available to us just a couple of years ago that could have brought 100 people in for some reason. We weren’t able to utilize that building and bring people indoors. So I’d love to understand that better. I’d love to know how Council could come on side and be more supportive to ensure that we don’t have to give up community centers.

Okay, sorry, Councilor, we paused your time. Thank you, Councilor Busou. I think this shows a little bit about what’s possible when we’re committed to bringing people indoors and to be able to use spaces that aren’t shutting down community spaces, I think would be great when we have an opportunity like we had for the Bob Hayward. We do, I think it to look a little more closely too and it comes into the further amendment or the other motion that we’ll be talking about today is we’ve got taxpayer-funded buildings or taxpayer contributions going towards properties that are sitting empty or are closed when there’s such a dire need and we’ve got an emergency.

So how can we utilize some of those assets to address this emergency? Councilor, can you just keep it really tight? The other assets isn’t on the floor right now, just really wrapping this up. Just really tight in your head.

Well, I think we’re in four minutes. Yeah, when we’re talking about the warming centers and being able to bring people indoors, it’s part of E and some of its other things. Where are we gonna find these warming centers? And when we have agencies that own property that have been sitting vacant for a number of years or that are closed for the majority part of the day while taxpayer funds pay for the heat and air conditioning, how can we utilize and maximize to ensure that we’re bringing as many people indoors as we can?

Speakers list before calling the final question. I don’t have anybody online. I don’t see any chambers. To reiterate, we will call A, B, and C together.

Then we’re gonna call D. It’s several people wanted to call it separate. And then when we get to E, we’re just gonna pull it apart and vote it on it one by one. Seeing nothing further.

Anything from staff that needs to be clarified before we commence the vote. We can fix anything at Council, we can move amendments at Council, but in this moment, are we good? Opening the vote on A, B, and C together. Closing the vote, the motion carries six to zero.

Thank you, D’s coming up next. This was to adjust the closing time of the Boyle Memorial Community Center. Closing the vote, the motion carries four to two. This moves us into E.

This was the investigate and report back request. Coming in Q2, it had six parts. All six parts would be called individually, realizing some of them had the war at the end of the line. Just gonna open them in numerically as they appear.

Okay. Closing the vote, the motion carries six to zero. Councillor Trassell? I’m sorry if I missed that, I will guess.

Closing the vote, the motion carries four to two. Closing the vote, the motion carries four to two. Councillor Trassell? Councillor votes yes.

It’s just coming up now. Closing the vote, the motion carries six to zero. Closing the vote, the motion carries. Closing the vote, the motion fails on a tie three to three.

Thank you, that concludes items for direction, which would dare put us back into items for consent, which was the 2.2 of the good neighbor agreement and 2.3 being the system area updates for those unsheltered and basic needs pathway options. Before we get into those, we have been sitting for longer than I normally allow us to sit for before we have a brief file break. Councillor Ferrell and Trassell, you tried to move one earlier, any interest in a break at this point? - Yes.

How long? Can we do it in 15? - Yes. Okay, 15, you can get upstairs in 15.

Okay, clerks can have a chance. 15, hand vote, all in favor, okay, all in favor? Motion carries. Okay, so we’re gonna be back in 15 minutes.

We’ll commence with the rest of the delegations and the two items remaining. Okay, if everyone can settle in. Okay, as we settle back down, we’re going back into consent and that puts us back on to 2.2, which was the good neighbor’s agreement. There was, so looking to see for 2.2, if there would be a mover and a seconder of the motion, that was circulated in the Councillor Committee package.

Councillor Pribbles moving. Deputy Mayor Lewis is seconding. And with that motion, you’re putting it in there. It’s always, okay, friends, procedurally, I need a mover and a seconder to put the original staff recommendation on the floor and then the amendments that were circulated ‘cause those amendments reference the staff report, but without the staff report on the floor, I don’t have what you’re referring to to amend it as advised by the clerks.

So are you okay with that, Deputy Mayor? Yes, okay. So we could put the original wording of A through E on the floor. It was moved by Councillor Pribbles seconded by Deputy Mayor Lewis.

So looking to committee, there’s a couple different paths forward. So the original staff recommendation is, and the report is what’s on the floor. Deputy Mayor Lewis, can I have eye contact? Just, I can’t read your mind if you don’t look at me.

Do we want to do your amendment now and then hear delegations or hear delegations first and then get into your amendment? There’s two ways. We hear delegations first, I’m fine with that. I’m actually kind of informing the chair.

I need to step out of the room for just a minute and call home. Perfect. Okay, so I need a mover and a seconder to receive the delegates at this time. And I think there was four or five for this item to receive everyone who wrote in.

I have a mover and a Councillor for a seconder and Councillor Hawkins. So we’ll have to do that vote first of receiving the delegations at this time. Councillor Ferriero and Hopkins, are you okay that we just received the correspondence at this time too? Okay, there’s the delegates corresponds and then one from a community organization as well that we just make sure that we receive all the correspondence that came in.

I just don’t want to forget it when we get to the end. Vote to receive the delegations now and the correspondence is the vote that’s up in East Scribe. So call on the question. Closing the vote, the motion carries five to zero.

Thank you. So again, I’m gonna go in numerical order as you appeared on the agenda that’s up there. Could IT just put it back to the 2.2 just so they can know when they’re gonna come up and organize themselves accordingly. So all our speakers again, you have up to five minutes and as it’s already been circulated and you’re aware of the amendment that’s likely to come, that’s in order to speak to it as well if you wish ‘cause it’s part of this agenda item, everything that’s prior to point to staff’s report and the other communications.

We’re just gonna wait for IT to get back ‘cause yes, put your microphones on for you. And Unity Project will be up first. Welcome and please proceed. Great, thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee today about good neighbor agreements.

I think what is before you is of quite significant consequence and there’s really no realistic way for me to address all of the impacts within the timeframe available. So really strongly encourage any counselors to speak with me after today’s meeting if you want to continue the conversation. And I wanna start to be clear that I support the goal of stronger neighborhood integration and good neighbor commitments. I really do wanna work towards meaningful relationships between social services and their neighbors.

And I think when done well, this work can improve communication, reduce conflict, strengthen collaboration and improve quality of life for entire communities. But this is not what this suggested framework does. The framework before you set service providers up for failure before implementation even begins. It demands significant new responsibilities without providing the resources required to meet them.

And at a time when there’s no new commitment to funding or increased funding for at least the next two years, Unity Project is already operating under severe strain. HPB covers only 65% of our operations. The remaining 35% must be fundraised simply to keep the doors open. We do not have excess capacity.

We don’t have administrative staff, let alone time of theirs to spare. And yet this framework assumes we do. It assumes time, staff and funding that we simply do don’t have. And I think that some expectations are not unrealistic considering the access to resources, but they’re also inappropriate.

For example, the framework calls for a community liaison committee that meets quarterly and is open to the public with delegations. That’s not a committee meeting. That’s a town hall that would be held four times a year. A committee meeting would be quite reasonable.

As city councilors, you’re not even required to hold town halls with that frequency or at all is my understanding. And when you do, you have a budget, you have security, you have meeting space and administrative support available to you, we don’t. This part of the framework demands a higher level of public accountability for service providers than is asked from elected officials with without access to any comparable resources. And another good example in the plan is the requirement for litter and sharps clean up twice daily within a hundred meter perimeter.

Maybe that’s typo? ‘Cause that’s a whole city block, a hundred meters, a hundred meter perimeter, a whole city block, twice daily. We could do that with a whole other full-time staff. And we don’t have any funding attached to be able to do so.

These are operationally significant obligations. And the same is true for data tracking and reporting requirements. Once again, we don’t have admin staff. Our frontline workers are already stretched to capacity responding to crisis, keeping people alive, supporting pathways to housing and every new reporting obligation pulls time away from direct service delivery.

And if the goal is healthier neighborhoods, council needs to engage with server providers to understand the real impacts in the real resources needed before imposing obligations that cannot be fulfilled and set us up for failure from the first place. There is a lot more to say about the good neighbor agreement framework. And I welcome those conversations, but I do want to address the amendment that was added on Friday regarding London Cares. It is not an overreaction to conclude that the motion in front of you would decimate London Cares program and compromise the system’s ability to respond to people living unsheltered.

It is explicit in its intent to direct civic administration to work with London Cares on a contract that reallocates outreach and housing stability funding to expand basic needs. There’s no interpretation required of that. It’s very direct. Eliminating housing stability funding for London Cares compromises housing for nearly 100 people, maybe even more, including dozens of veterans, eliminating outreach devastates a system that depends on it.

Outreach teams build trust, connect people to services, respond to urgent health needs, and support agencies who are without outreach capacity. They are so often the connective tissue that holds our system together. And yes, we absolutely need access to more basic needs. We need more 24/7 spaces and more affordable housing, but we can’t do it like this.

This will cause a significant more harm, not less. In addition, concentrating services at 602— 30 seconds. Queens will further undermine any attempt to get a good neighbor agreement by intensifying neighborhood impacts. Further, I just wanna say that high acuity doesn’t mean supportive housing.

We have dozens of people in the community who are highly acute when they move into housing and being supported by housing stability workers in the private market do very well there. So there’s not a direct correlation and just wanted to make that clarity within the motion. I urge you to consult with us to build a framework that can actually be realized for contracts and to vote no to that amended motion. Thank you, and thank you for your patience and waiting for us to get to this item today.

Next up is Ms. Campbell. Thank you again through the chair. My second time speaking to you today and it’s not going to be that far off of the first messaging.

It’s critically important that we look at the system impacts of the various motions that are coming to council. We just spent time talking about 24/7 spaces, how very important they are and how lifesaving they can be. But it is not appropriate for us to be looking at holding organizations or people who will stand up to fill those types of services accountable for the behavior of people who may or may not actually receive those services come to those doors within an entire neighborhood. Being a good neighbor is actually the basis of a lot of care and service in our community and our organizations rely on good neighbors.

Certainly at Arcade Street Mission, we have hundreds of volunteers who we consider neighbors, donors who we consider neighbors and the people who live in our area who we heard from earlier today and those businesses and they are all good neighbors, good neighbors to us and we try to be a good neighbor to them. I think the contents within this contract language is what’s of concern. I asked the question, is it necessary to have this level of scrutiny on the organizations as my previous speaker has already talked about. This is a high level of accountability.

Is it meaningful? So like, if we all agree to this kind of a contract, can we truly actually do what we say? One of the principles the Arc lives by is not to over promise and under deliver and this right in the contract would be a gross overstatement of what we were able to manage within our own purview. And then finally, does it have unintended consequences?

And I really would ask council to take a moment to reflect on what are the consequences of having such language to the public in our contracts, really isolating service providers that do this type of work. Is it going to create more community frustration by setting an unrealistic expectation? Will there be less direct or open services because we don’t want the consequences that come with that kind of care? Is there more bureaucracy, further barriers to people who already have so many barriers to access care and service?

And what about the stigmatization? We are talking about wanting to maybe open more spaces or where else could we do the service? Who else will step up and help when there’s a crisis? But when we put this kind of language into our contracts, we are actually saying step up so we can hit you, so we can put you down, so we can actually further stigmatize this population.

It’s not appropriate. To this point, what the amendment suggests is that we would take one organization’s funding away from some critically needed pieces of our systems response to homelessness, outreach and supportive housing away in favor of the 24/7 spaces. And I couldn’t be up here without saying, we need 24/7 spaces. We ourselves as an organization with only four hours of funding, work diligently to fundraise and work with volunteers and do all the things to provide as close to 24/7 services as we can.

We are one of the only operators that perform services on the weekend, finding ourselves at risk many times because we are the only open door to people. And so I appreciate the sentiment behind this. But we are undermining a system response where we rely upon one another. I can tell you that we work very closely with London Cares and the outreach team is essential to communicating key messages, getting basic needs to where people are because guess what, our doors are full.

We aren’t inviting all those people inside, no matter how much we want to, the space is at capacity. And if we fund another 25 spaces even on rotation, we see up to 400 people through the arc doors on a weekend. Even on rotation, people wait outside. The neighborhood doesn’t really love that.

We’ve moved from our front door to our back door to the front door, tried to mitigate as much as we can, put up fencing, which I really dislike, but does provide some security to the neighborhood. And it’s really not the most humane way to work together. We do need more spaces, but we cannot manage our system in this way. I would encourage council and civic administration to work with service providers to really ask ourselves a tough question.

And you know, there’s another item coming up. How are we going to do what we need to do in this community with the less funds that are available to us? I know we’re in a constrained environment. I get why we’re driving in this way, but we have to look at all the solutions and actually bring the players to the table to have these important conversations.

We can’t be putting out a good neighbor agreement without the consultation of those who would have to follow through with that agreement. We can’t be putting a system change on the table without engaging with the system itself. And so my request to council is that you would consider how you will engage, how we hear the voice of the people who require these services in their day-to-day struggle of life before you go and make these types of changes. Thank you.

Thank you. London Cares, please approach and mic. Welcome and you have up to five minutes. Thank you, chair and valued committee members.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Chris Moss and I’m the executive director of London Cares Homeless Response Services. I’m here to speak to the motion brought forward by Councillor Stevenson, Deputy Mayor Lewis and Councillor Pribill and Lehman regarding a proposed shift in how London Cares is funded. At its core, I’m respectfully asking that this motion be referred back for further consultation, includes social services so that we can work together through these issues.

While the municipality has taken meaningful action, the scale of homelessness far exceeds what any single community can sustainably manage, I want to acknowledge the leadership of our mayor and council alongside 28 other municipal leaders in calling for homelessness to be recognized as a state of emergency. Their advocacy rightly frames this as a province-wide crisis requiring coordinated provincial leadership and sustained funding. Not one of the municipalities or frontline organizations can absorb this alone. Across Ontario, homelessness is worsening.

Nearly 85,000 Ontarians experience hopelessness last year, up 8% in a single year and nearly 50% since 2021. Those are close to 2,000 encampments, province-wide, 300,000 households remain on social assistance or social housing wait lists. We all know that OWODSP, OAS and CPPR are not enough for people to live on. These are not local pressures.

They reflect a system at a breaking point. Shifting this burden onto an already strained frontline service will not solve this crisis. Let me be clear, we share your goals. We all want reduced visibility, homelessness, fewer encampments, stabilized neighbourhoods, restored public order, and most importantly, people housed safely and with dignity.

Our community is hurting in two directions at once. Businesses, neighbourhoods, and families are all exhausted by the scale and visibility of homelessness, and people living outside are sick, untreated, traumatized, and unsheltered, and they’re suffering deeply. Both are true, both matter, and we cannot solve this crisis by choosing one over the other. As our part of recent week, recently took part in strategic planning process, letting Cares Engage Pillar Nonprofit Network, and intentionally invited Councillor Stevenson in the mid-time district group to share their perspective so that community concerns can be reflected in our future direction, neither responded.

If we want real change, we need to be able to talk to one another and work together. London Cares Outreach provides citywide 24/7 on-call non-enforcement response, one number that businesses, neighbours, hospitals, and police rely on when a human response is the right tool. We attend alongside London Police within approximately 30 minutes to support de-escalation, direct thousands of non-criminal non-emergency situations away from 911, so police can be freed up to do their important work. When police referrals are declined, it’s not about need.

It’s about trusting and timing. Police often engage during moments of crisis, while outreach builds long-term relationships without enforcement. That’s why outreach complements policing and reduces repeated calls. In 2025 alone, London Cares Outreach responded to 26,000 calls from the public, businesses, hospitals, police, and community partners.

Conducted more than 9,500 street-based interactions connecting people to treatment, detox, shelter, housing, and medical care. Supported 2,100 encampment visits, assessing safety, supporting cleanups, de-escalating crisis, and assisting people into services. Completed 3,600 system navigation interventions, including housing applications, ID replacement, income supports, and pre-work for housing first in supportive housing. Responded to 200 hospital requests preventing unsafe discharge back to the street.

We support funding the commons at 602 Queens Ave. It’s a valuable space, but extending its hours at the expense of outreach and housing first will create serious unintended consequences. If this motion proceeds as written, 602 Queens Ave will become a bottleneck for thousands of people. And sharing program space that’s 3,670 square feet and capacity for 20 people at a time, 25 people at a time.

It cannot replace five mobile outreach teams serving hundreds of people across the city. Pressure on woodfield neighbors would intensify. Housing movement will stall outreach as the part of the system that moves people from street into housing. Non-urgent wellness calls will revert to police and crisis teams increasing cost and strain.

Restricting housing first access raises human rights concerns. Eliminating housing first would destabilize 90 housed individuals, including 41 veterans. More people will become homeless, not fewer. Literally $3 million invested in the commons alone is not cost effective.

The commons is not housing or a shelter. It has no beds and limited capacity. We understand physical pressure. We understand community frustration and we support bringing more people indoors.

As I’ve just illustrated, outreach teams do not simply deliver sandwiches to encampments. If outreach needs to evolve, let’s talk about it. But we must be at the table. I’m respectfully asking that this motion be referred back for collaborative consultation so we can find solutions that are cost effective fair and do not remove lifesaving services from the people and neighborhoods across the entire city who need them the most.

Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you again for waiting today. Our final delegation is at the top mic on the same side. Ms.

Cassidy, floor is yours. Thank you, kind of book ending, I guess, say. So thank you again, Madam Chair and Committee for hearing my delegation today. Pillar nonprofit network represents usually broad issues that affect the entire nonprofit sector.

We generally don’t pick sub-sectors unless it’s something of dire importance, which we feel this is. We know that homelessness, the housing crisis, mental health crises, and addictions issues affect our entire city, and especially affect our downtown. And Pillar is an active and involved member of the downtown community. So I want to speak, obviously, today about the proposed good neighbor agreements and the potential impacts on the front line agencies that some of whom you’ve heard from today.

First, I want to be clear that we recognize and share the concerns of families and residents living in neighborhoods affected by homelessness, mental health challenges, and substance use. Everyone deserves safe, welcoming, and well-functioning communities. Many nonprofits in London provide frontline services for people experiencing homelessness, mental health crises, and substance use, which are often referred to as the triple crisis. These are not problems that nonprofits created.

They are the result of longstanding gaps in provincial funding and policy, particularly in housing, mental health care, and addictions treatment. Nonprofits step in out of necessity. They are responding to urgent human need in the absence of adequate provincial systems. In many cases, they are applying short-term supports, effectively band-aids, to a deep and growing wound created by decades of under-investment.

The proposed good neighbor agreements risk shifting responsibilities for these systemic failures onto nonprofit service providers. Many of the proposed requirements, including additional compliance, monitoring, and reporting, would introduce new administrative and financial burdens without accompanying funding or support. Nonprofits are already stretched to their limits. They are facing increasing demand, workforce shortages, and rising operating costs.

Adding new obligations without resources risks undermining service delivery rather than improving community outcomes. If these frontline serving agencies are forced to scale back services or relocate due to increased burden, the impact will not disappear. They will simply shift. Pressure will increase on hospitals, emergency services, public spaces, and neighborhoods.

The very outcomes these agreements aim to prevent. We are also concerned that these agreements may unintentionally reinforce the stigmatization of organizations serving vulnerable populations, framing essential services as neighborhood problems rather than as community assets responding to crisis. On behalf of London’s nonprofit sector, we respectfully ask this committee to pause the proposed good neighbor agreements in their current form. Undertake meaningful consultation with the frontline agencies that are doing this important work and the affected communities as well as people with lived and living experience.

Assess the financial and operational impacts on nonprofits and the downstream impacts on vulnerable residents. Ensure responsibility for systemic gaps is not shifted onto the frontline serving agencies without commensurate support. And explore collaborative systems-based approaches that align municipal action with upstream investments in housing, mental health, and addictions care. You’ve heard today from only three organizations.

There are many more in London doing this work. Nonprofits like these are committed partners in building safe and caring communities, but true partnership requires policies that recognize the reality’s nonprofits face rather than adding further strain to a sector already responding to crisis conditions. Again, we empathize deeply with families and residents living in affected neighborhoods. And we want solutions that support both community well-being and the organizations providing essential care.

Excellent. Thank you. ‘Cause you’re right at your 30-second morning. It’s like you’ve done this before.

Thank you. So that concludes our delegations. We’ve received all the correspondence. That leaves us just with the actual motion.

I was thinking discourse that follows, but thank you. So the original staff one’s on the floor. Not yet. So I know we have an amendment for sure that’s been circulated.

So Councillor Trusso. I would like to talk about making a motion to refer with this being an appropriate time to do that. So referral takes present. And you just need to be very specific.

Like you try and put it all back or just really specific portions of the report. And then we can certainly check with staff to see if there’s any timeline implications. So what are you thinking? Yes, in light of the request that was made by the speakers that we just heard, we specifically asked for a referral.

I would move that the matter be referred back to staff for a report be circulated to a subsequent meeting of the CPSC in order to provide for further consultation with the affected agencies and the broader community on the good neighbor agreement, including consideration of costs and potential unanticipated consequences of the agreements. So Councillor, you’re talking about just section B. Is my understanding? Yes, it’s with respect to the based on what’s on the floor so far.

It’s the good neighbor agreements. Hold tight. They’re going to see what they captured. Read it back and then we can go from there.

Clarify what? Hold up. They’re going to read you what they have. And this would include any amendments that come to the good.

Okay, but that’s not on the floor yet. Okay. Yeah, because we haven’t had any amendments or discussion. You’re looking to refer it back first thing off.

So they’re going to read what they have as it pertains to part B. And the audience who is still with us at this point in the day, you are welcome to stay. All these meetings are also live streamed and recorded and perpetuity and you can watch them at your leisure if you need to take your leave completely understand. If you refresh or on the big screen is there, the clerk is about to read it out.

But just in case you want to visually see it as you hear it, we are there. Through the chair, the amendment that I have is that part B of the motion be referred back to the civic administration to report back to a future meeting of the caps in order to provide further consultation with organizations with respect to the good neighbor agreements and associated financing. Not from Councillor Traussell. Is there a seconder?

Is there a clarification question? Deputy Mayor. Yes, so I heard Councillor Traussell and this is what I heard. And if I missed except that clarification, but what I heard was a referral, including potential amendments, which would refer the communication that was received from the other Councillors for consideration in these discussions moving forward.

But this is tied to clause B and there that communication spoke as well to an amendment to clause A. So I’m just trying to figure out procedurally and staff may have some feedback in terms of timing and cycles and stuff as well. Exactly how we’re capturing everything because there’s other components of this, like the direct direction to explore other funding needs or other funding for basic needs. And like there’s multiple clauses here.

I’m trying to understand if the Councillor was only referring to clause B or if he wants to send the whole thing back and what timelines that may have as an impact to staff. By the whole thing, you meant A through essentially E. The Councillor didn’t indicate earlier who’s just referring to B with a good neighbour stuff. Councillor, if you need to clarify.

In saying that it was my understanding that in referring to good neighbour agreements back, that would take off the table purpose of the amendments that came later so those would be mooted for today. If that needs to be included in the referral. So be it. But I didn’t think that was necessary.

Okay. So my understanding is you’re actually trying to refer the entire report on 2.2. Yes. Okay.

We are re-clicking that and then I will. If we refresh, the new one is up. We will commence again with any clarification points as the hour does grow long. Your tears, not 100%, just 99.9.

Just a point of order. Are we speaking about vote four in e-scribe now? Yes, sir. Okay, so I’m just looking to see if the Councillors, because I’m willing to second it for the Councillors, amenable to including the communication received from the Councillors.

Like it just speaks to the whole package, but I want to make sure that we’re including the items, including the submissions from our service partners, that the communications are part of the referral so that everything goes together. Yes, under the circumstances, I think it would make sense for the entire package to be referred, because my position, which I’ll take later, is we don’t really have enough information to proceed on any of this. And the purpose of my referral is to provide for further consultation with the organizations with respect to the neighbor agreements, associated financing, and unanticipated consequences. What I said before was costs and unanticipated consequences.

Chair, can I have a clarification question as well? It’s the clerk’s already trying to clarify something in the meantime. I will get to you in one second. Councillor Ferri, your quailer clarification question, please.

Thank you with respect to the referral or a potential referral. I do see that part A is from the original service procurement framework that was brought to committee by December. So additional time may impact that procurement framework, because it won’t be going into force and effect. So I would go to staff and I would ask, are we even able to do a referral with that clause specifically?

Is that your only clarification point? Because potentially, potentially. OK, so it’s not wordsmithed yet. I don’t have a seconder yet.

So just hold tight. OK, if we refresh one more time, this may or may not capture what we’re hoping to capture while you’re looking at it, looking for a nod to see if we’re getting there. So I’m seeing knows that this isn’t it. You know what?

Councillor Trousa, I will recognize you. Go ahead. I’m just going to withdraw this, because I don’t want to go down another two-hour procedural rabbit hole on what the referral is. I think that would be arguing the merits.

I’m just going to withdraw it and speak against the motions. That’s all. OK, you didn’t have a seconder. It does not belong to committee yet.

It’s not on the floor. That’s been withdrawn. We’re back, too. The original staff is on the floor.

If we have questions about timelines, Mr. Dickens— Mr. Dickens, since it was already asked, and this was a staff report from December 1st that came. Now we’re commencing into February.

Is it how timely is this for guidance as we move through these conversations today? Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, if there’s a referral, if there’s a delay, then everything that was part of that framework, all the timelines, Q1, 2026, doing a housing first review, having those findings published at CAPS, establishing a procurement approach for System Area 3, and everything subsequent to that, would get bumped further down the road. OK, so good clarification point to help us with considerations today, as we move through decision-making timelines.

Deputy Mayor Lewis, realizing I’m going to start timing. If we’re through procedural questions, we can have some more at any time, but looking to actually get into discussion at this point, I will start a speaker’s list, which we are timing, Deputy Mayor Lewis. I’m going to frustrate you a little bit, because it is a procedural question to Mr. Dickens.

I’m going to refer to one of the clauses that was in the proposed amendment, which was a one year with an option to renew for a year. Hearing the timeline constraint, procedurally, could we move the approval of a one year, and refer everything else for additional consultation, and allow staff a longer runtime, and allow community partners a longer runtime, for more thorough discussion in this. So procedurally, and I know Mr. Dickens has asked to look at the framework that was presented, but procedurally, would a one renewal and everything be referred, because the framework was originally a two year, would that be an order, and would it be functional from his perspective?

We’ll give staff a moment to concur. I realize the amendment’s not on the floor yet, but just looking for a procedural to guide us before we get too far down the path. Staff’s going to answer, I’m asking the flag. We’ll be looking forward at, we’ll say after Mr.

Dickens’ answer, we’re going to need a motion to extend past six. Which is what we’re discussing, Mr. Dickens. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Through you, in our quick case conference, yes, the short answer is yes. We could extend contracts to do the one year renewal. We would be doing that at the existing budget dollars. So there’d be no new money.

We would just be rolling over existing agreements. Deputy Mayor. So appreciate that clarification. Appreciate you practicing your pre-superbowl huddle with the team there, to get some back and forth with both legal and finance.

So having heard that, what I’m going to propose is an amendment to the motion that was on the floor, which was, bear with me here, that Part A, be amended, provide a one year contract renewal of the procurement framework, and that all other items and communications be referred to a future meeting of CPSC following additional community and agency engagement. If there’s a seconder for that, I’ll speak to it. If we refresh, it should be an e-scribe. Councillor Trousa, I need you at your spot.

Or if you’re leaving, take me with you. Refreshment should be there, colleagues, or? I think I captured that. Like, and I think the clerks have captured my intent, but I do need to ask through you, Mr.

Dickens, for a piece of clarification. Yeah, I got some clarification questions to you before I actually accept a seconder. So you can start. So my question through you, Chair, to Mr.

Dickens, and I will say, the reason I’m asking this is my big concern, is around project home process that we have right now. So I want to make sure if we’re doing the one year contract renewal, that we’re approving the London CARES contract for a year, but the framework that you referred to in your earlier comments, that you’re reporting back on anyway, would not mean that the project home situation is going to continue as is for an entire year, that when you report back on the framework piece that you were bringing back this spring anyway, that that would be an opportunity to modify at that point, some of the project homes parameters rather than. So we allowed the London, like the London CARES piece continues. It’s the project home piece and not altering the parameters that I’m concerned about.

I’m not concerned about continuing the London CARES contract with the outreach and housing stability as much. I think that Ms. Moss talked about outreach needing to evolve. And I agree with that.

And I think I’m happy to sit down with her and have that conversation. But with the project home, I’ve with a report back on how we’re approaching these things already in the offing. I want to make sure that we’re going to have an opportunity to address the project home situation in a more timely, matter than be here next year at this time talking about it. Mr.

Dickens. Thank you, Madam Chair. We’ll never to keep this understandable. So we would be looking to enter into new one-year agreements for all agreements that are expiring March 31st.

So we would look to enter into those one-year agreements. That would include all of those contracted services. What we can do is those services all have an exit clause. So there’s a termination period, there’s a notice period.

In the framework that Council received, there were timelines where we would do specific reviews. We would review the efficacy and effectiveness and the costing of certain aspects of the entire system and report back to Council. So what we would look to do for simplicity’s sake is give us the ability to enter into new one-year agreements for everyone with an expiring agreement. Direct us to continue to do the work that was in the framework, recognizing some of it’s already been delayed with this referral, but continue to do that work and then come back to Council with the findings.

When we come back with those reviews, we were coming back seeking direction at which time Council can say, yes, make changes, yes, keep going status quo or no change it all together or end it. So we would seek to, everybody gets a contract that’s losing one, it’s a one-year agreement, and then we continue to do our reviews and assessments and we bring those findings back to you if that would appease the committee. To prepare loose, contemplating, thinking, you can keep thinking. While we’re contemplating, we’re going to do the motion to extend past six while we are…

Yeah, I’ll move the motion to extend past six. Seconded by Councillor Hopkins, just give us a moment. May the vote’s opening in East crime, but the motion to extend past six. As a reminder, we just go till it’s done and there’s no more motions to extend past this one.

Closing the vote, the motion carries five to one. Thank you. It’s a couple of things. One, there was whatever snacks are in that room, there’s not dinner tonight or more anything.

You can have a break, but the cafeteria, that vending machine upstairs is all you got on site to eat. Secondly, the clerks are asking if we can deal with this separately, that you’ve got a motion to refer mixed in with the motion to do something, and it’s procedurally cleaner if we deal with them individually. That’s why I suggested the main motion was put on the floor, so now I’m amending it with amendment A for one year and a referral on the rest. So if you want to split it into two votes, point of order.

Sorry, the clerks were clerking and then I’ll get to you one second in case this doesn’t answer it. We would suggest dealing with amending part A first and disposing of that, and then if a referral was moved to move the remainder of the parts, we would deal with that separately and then approve part A as amended, if it was amended. Deputy Mayor, you pause for that per second. I had a point of order from Councillor Ferri recognizing you.

Thank you. Does a referral not take precedence over the motion? We split it up? I don’t think we can.

A referral does take priority. Only part of what’s before us is up for a referral. Part has something to be done with it, which is the confusion that’s being caused. Deputy Mayor is looking for clarification.

Deputy Mayor. Yeah, complicated, but I hear what Mr. Dickon said about what they can continue the work. I’m also mindful of we are trying to open a micro shelter site.

We just tasked them with coming up with a different warming center menu of options for next year. We put a ton of things on their plate and I’m not sure where the framework report back or and I know you said we can just direct you, but your human beings, you’re trying to run a warming center, create a framework for the next one, and do the micro shelters. There’s only so much bandwidth in your time. I’m trying to figure out from a timeline perspective, recognizing that we have had contracts renewed late in the past.

I recognize that London Cares certainly would like to have some surety for the next year, but I have serious reservations about what we’re project home is and I’m trying to figure out if there’s a way to divide these and it’s sounding increasingly like there’s not. And so I’m trying to seek from staff any advice they can provide in terms of how to pull those things apart. So we’re going to pause you there. We’re still appreciating the aspect of just dealing with A first because it’s the A from the original staff report, not anything else that was circulated, just to make sure that we’re on the same page.

And currently it’s the staff report A, instead of being multi-year, it was just a singular year to get the money out the door because some of it’s already been delayed. We could always deal with the referral later and get into that and pull it apart, but just to start making some progress. Councilor Rahman, you had a procedural question as well. I do and through you, I have two actually.

The first is to the mover of the motion. In the original circulated motion, it said issue one, your contracts with an option to renew for an additional year and that language is different from what’s in front of us. So that’s my first question. It’s different.

Okay. Thank you. Just want a clarification. My second question is related to, so this report in front of us is connected to the December 2025 report.

In the December 2025 report, staff had listed the direction from February 2024, which was included in it that staff had delegated authority to go in for two times to your contracts. So that would mean that staff had the ability to do that up until this year. And my understanding of the way I interpreted that was staff actually had delegated authority, and we agreed to it because it’s council direction from February 2024 to actually go in and do another two-year extension and delegated authority. So is this removing the delegated authority that staff could have used to put in the two-year contract extension?

Procedural question indeed. Thank you. I will note that we have Mr. Dickens and his team here today, Ms.

Paulette and her team here today, and should we have items that need to be considered for discussion and confidential session, as it relates to any of the issues before us today, that is optional as well. And Ms. Paulette and her team would be able to walk us through that. So Ms.

Paulette, I know Kevin was, Mr. Dickens was talking. I know. Did you catch Councilor Romans questions about how you had delegated authority in 2024 for two-year terms?

So technically speaking, you had two terms for two years that this potentially would actually already have delegated authority, and we’re contributing councils already direction as delegated authority to staff. I believe it was the scope of it. If you have an answer, that’s great. And then I’ll go back to Councilor Romans.

If I could just have a moment, I’ll get an answer for you. You have a couple moments. You go ahead. Okay.

So we’re going to get an answer on that. And we have two different questions on the go on the floor at a time. Councilor Farr, I see you and I will circle back in case it’s something different than these two. I’m, yeah, but you voted to go past six, and we’re here.

Neither we get it right here, or we’re all 15 of us at a council. So we suffer. And where it’s processed, because maybe it’s already, can staff have the delegated authority, and it’s not even really, it’s a weird, it’s weird. Is staff prepared with an answer before I fill this empty space and just someone saved me?

Ms. Paulette, Mr. Dickens, the floor is yours. Thank you and through you.

So there was a bylaw that delegated that authority. Council can amend that bylaw to remove that delegation and replace it with this one year. Delegated authority, but it may require an amendment to that bylaw. I believe that assures me, she doesn’t have a committee clerk who assures me she has no bylaw ready today, but we could always do something in time for council.

But that’s the answer. The question, that answer comes from Councillor Ramen. The floor is yours for a follow-up, should you have one. Thank you and through you to the clerk, does it require any sort of reconsideration since it’s a standing bylaw that delegated the authority?

Ms. Paulette, would you have an answer on that follow-up? Through you, I think this is the same issue we dealt with before where we concluded that there was no reconsideration involved. Clerk’s following that answer.

Is there a follow-up? There is no follow-up. Okay. So procedurally, for delegate authority, we can.

Deputy Mayor Lewis, the original one was yours and we were discussing just dealing with A to get us going and moving and then deal with the referral separate. And then Councillor for a, do you have a procedural question? I know you want to get going. Councillor, okay, you go ahead.

Okay, with thanks to staff who’ve been working diligently to try and help address and pull this apart in a way that makes some sense. And I’m going to see if Mr. Dickens’ guidance might be needed on this to make sure I’m capturing it right. So that clause A would still provide a one-year renewal.

You can find to say with an option to renew for another year to keep the language consistent. And then a clause two, okay, they got that. Go ahead. Okay.

And then I forwarded to the committee clerk the following part two that civic administration be directed to review existing housing stability contracts to assess alignment with current operational needs, including transitions from emergency and highly supportive environments, and to report back to Council on any recommended amendments or procurement actions required consistent with policy, compliance, procurement to processes. Can you refresh? It’s an ascribe. We’re on number four.

That’s caught. I think that’s capturing my intent. If we need the part three, this says communications be referred into this process or not. No, the referrals, not now.

Leave that to the clerks too. And we’re going to, I believe you said that an option to renew for one year? Yes. Okay, so we’re just going to add the one year in there versus just options to renew.

Refresh again, still number four. Deputy Mayor. So one last question to staff on the part two, because it was raised with delegated authority and by-law. So when you report back, that doesn’t prohibit us from directing you to then make changes based on your report back.

It’s not, it’s not a delegated authority. At that point, you’re reporting back and we can make a direction on that. Staff, thank you and through Madam Chair, that’s correct. W.

Mayor. Okay. So if there’s a seconder, I’ll speak to it. If not, then I guess we don’t have anything, but that’s what I’m prepared to put on the floor right now.

Council are probably seconding it. It’s on the floor starting my speaker’s list. So I’ll speak to it now that we’ve got something actually moved and seconded. So I do have serious reservations about the impact we’re getting for dollars and we’ve had a long discussion today about resources and limited resources.

I heard Ms. Campbell, I heard Ms. Moss, I heard Ms. Cassidy all referring to, you know, decades of provincial underfunding and undercutting that, community stability.

And that’s true. And I’ve been saying this to people all weekend, the municipality cannot possibly backfill provincial and federal policy decisions on the property tax time. It’s not fiscally possible. Municipality is received about nine cents of every total tax dollar collected in this country.

The other 91 goes to the senior levels of government. We talk about housing as healthcare. It’s very clear constitutionally that the division of powers puts healthcare squarely in the seat of the provincial government, not the municipality, not the feds. Feds pay for some funding provinces to deliver services.

I heard the desire to and the recognition that perhaps we do need some changes and to have a discussion about that. I’ve heard very clearly for more than a year now from Ms. Campbell, and we talked about this again on the weekend, the need for more indoor spaces on the weekends. And that was part of the intent of putting this forward.

Let’s have that discussion. What matters more outreach or indoor spaces seven days a week because we have limited resources. We can only cover so much. I also alluded this to this already, and I know that it’s shared by other colleagues who should sign this letter.

I have serious reservations, serious reservations about Project Home and the selection of tenants under that program and the level of support provided based on the level of acuity. And while we can discuss whether high acuity people can succeed without highly supportive wraparound services, and there can be differences of opinion on that, but that has been the message that has been repeated to this council for the last two years, is that high acuity folks need highly supportive housing, and we’ve supported that. Project Home may provide some support services. It is not, however, highly supportive housing, not the way I understand it.

And I’ve seen what’s happened with some of the placement processes that have been used, that place people at 122 baseline. And we know that that situation, frankly, was a failure. And there have been multiple steps taken to correct that since then at some significant cost, both capital and changes in operating and who’s there doing what. But that’s the reality is there are some serious situations.

Councillor Stevenson has repeatedly raised concerns about some of the project home placements in her work. And I hear her, and I’ve seen the photos, and I’ve heard some of the stories from some of her residents. And I agree, it is a serious challenge. So we have to ask ourselves, if we are using money to house people, are we going to be using it to house people who can succeed and sustain that?

Or are we going to pursue another revolving door, a door that I have seen at London housing even, where we house people without the supports that they need to thrive? And then we end up with tens of thousands of dollars in property damage. We have landlords who aren’t willing to renew contracts there and fiving people, they’re moving people out, and they have no confidence in being a partner with city anymore. And that has the effect of taking units of housing out of the market for those who might have been housed in them.

So I think we do need to have a discussion about this. And I think we can’t be afraid of it. And that’s got to come from both sides. And I heard some of our agency partners up there today say they’re willing to have that discussion.

So I’m willing to have that discussion. But we have to change how we are placing people in some of these units because it is not always working. There are some really serious and bad failures. There may be some successes, but it’s the serious and bad failures that are really causing a lack of confidence in how this program is working.

So I think we have to talk about a lot of these things, but I’m willing to talk about them. And I’m willing to sit down with people and have that discussion. But I’m not willing today to just say the status quo two more years, we’re going to take that. And so I hope this is achieving it.

And I’ve had to do this without consulting really with the other people who signed the letter and they may not agree with me and they may not be happy with me for that. But that’s why I’m doing this today is to try and create some runway for some further discussion. Okay, that’s your five minutes on the dot. We’re about to find out.

Councilor Farrah. Thanks. Well, I’m not going to take up on this runway. You know, project home.

I see the work that’s been going on in the last 15, 20 minutes. It’s a very significant item. It’s a very significant stability service that we provide here. There’s people’s housing that’s involved.

There’s the city involved. There’s liabilities involved. I don’t think we should be making something this significant on the fly on the floor. I hear that there’s been no consulting with the letter writers of the original amendment.

I don’t know where they’re going to stand on that, but I think that this is kind of this, you know, back of the napkin motion work and this is not going to lead us anywhere. I hear Councillor Stevenson is worried about project home placement in our ward. Is this another motion to move people out of Councillor Stevenson’s ward or if displaced people? I have all these questions.

I’m just not going to be supportive of this. The only item I will support that I see here is the original stability services framework that we got in December. Everything else, I am not in support. I feel like we’ve wasted a lot of time as it is now.

I want to get home. So I want to get on to the voting, get on to the discussion. I would ask you to vote this down. Let’s get to the original motion.

Let’s vote the way we feel on that motion. Let’s get to the amendment and I’d ask you to vote that down too. Next speaker, Councillor Hopkins. If anyone else is interested if you just kind of indicate beforehand, it just expedites things.

I would be interested in listening to the other names on the motion. But for now, I’m very — I’m not sure that this is the way forward. I have a reservation here. I think we’re trying to do this compromise and I really don’t understand what we’re achieving here.

So for now, I won’t be supporting this. Councillor Permeau. Thank you. I am in support of what’s in front of us and there were a couple of things that were mentioned here and I just want to maybe repeat part of it sorry if it’s falling apart in my computer.

Anyways, we know that there are certain issues where we saw pictures, we saw videos. Yes, I think that if I remember correctly about 90 people under these programs, I believe there are not 90 issues or 90 units that we have issues with. On the other hand, there are. Should there be a review?

Absolutely. As we heard, we have limited funds and yes, the motion that came and I’m actually glad, you know what, I’m very glad that we brought it today that it didn’t go to the council because at least there are individuals and organizations that have a chance to give us their feedback and account at the council. They wouldn’t be able to. Do I think that there is a room for improvement?

Absolutely, there is. And this what’s in front of us is it’s review of the part that we have heard from our residents then there is an issue. And I think that us that we should be directing our staff to look into it and give us these statistics back. So let’s say if it’s 90, how many there are issues and this and we really need to review this.

Based on this review, if the percentile is high, then yeah, then we have to look at the look if it’s our procedure is correct in terms of housing these individuals. But should we review it? What’s in front of us? I heard comments here that what’s in front of us, it’s not looking into a deep road, it’s not resolving anything.

It might not be resolving anything now, but it will be once the review is completed. So I disagree with it that is not forward and that we are, I do believe what’s in front of us, it’s making us do the more higher due diligence. And again, the one-year contract renewals, yes, it’s not the two-year, but it’s the one-year that there is the funding that the funding doesn’t stop. And we are not waiting for one whole year to come back and to review this again.

It’s going to be during that it’s going to be earlier. So I will support what’s in front of us. Thank you. Looking for other speakers before me.

I’m going to do Councilor Troso first, is he done committing to Councilor Stevenson. Just to be very brief, I’m also not going to be supporting this. And rather than go through all the reasons, I think they’ve already been stated by Councillor Rarren Hopkins. So that’s where I think this is going to land tonight.

Thank you. Councilor Stevenson. Thank you. I’m not likely to support this at Council, although I do appreciate the Deputy Mayor’s willingness to get involved here and take it this far.

And I understand some of the reasonings and maybe there’s still work to do between now and Council. But in terms of project home, it isn’t just project home. I mean, the apartment that was on the CTV News article was London Cares Housing First Stability Program. So we know that these programs are causing problems.

We had LMCH come and tell us, please stop putting these people in our buildings. We’ve heard from staff, we learned our mistake around 122 baseline. And yet, the more and more people I talk to, they do not understand how we ever made that mistake in the first place. I’m new here, but these problems go back more than a decade from what I understand.

This advice has been given. We know there is these problems. We have an addiction crisis in the city that is causing public safety issues. And when we house people with severe mental health and addictions.

Councillor, please just speak to just strictly A. Well, A is the referral of this and signing another contract for a year. There’s no referral. For signing the contracts for a year is A, correct?

I don’t want to use my time of clarifying whether or not. That’s fine. It stops. There’s just no referral this time.

You said in a referral. Okay, but my point is, what we’ve got here is the signing of one year contracts, which continues the placing of potentially very risky, dangerous behavior into buildings where families are trying to survive. People are in affordable housing. They’re in buildings.

And we are placing people with severe addictions, untreated potentially, in these apartments. At that point, they are having to be involved with illegal activity. They are trying to make money to feed an addiction that is not covered by O.W. and O.D.S.P.

And so we’ve got these very dangerous apartments throughout. I don’t know where there’s several of them in Old East Village. I walked through four of them. Taxpayer funded, taxpayer supported apartments where they were incredibly unsafe.

Smoke alarms missing, damaged apartments, evidence of tons of drug use, doors to the outside that didn’t lock. We’ve got women in here. We’ve got women and children living below. So to say status quo is okay for another year is just not acceptable to me.

In January of July of 2023, we were brought the contract amendments for April 1st, 23 to March 31st, 24. So what is the rush? Why do we need to sign these one year contracts right now? When it can wait, most of the contracts are signed late in the last couple of years.

I have copies of them. Let’s just take our time and make some small changes which could stop creating problems that are causing public safety issues. The drug crisis is real. It involves criminal activity, engulfs drugs and crime and drug trafficking and all kinds of other things.

And we are perpetuating it potentially and we have the ability to start to make changes. So I’m really struggling here. I also want to mention Ms. Moss said that I didn’t respond to a strategic planning invitation.

She is fully aware of a confidential matter. I’m not because Ms. Moss is a gallery and can’t defend herself. I wasn’t able to defend myself when she said I didn’t respond.

There’s a confidential matter she’s fully aware of that makes it inadvisable for me to be meeting. I’m not getting to confidential matters in open session and who said why? So respectfully, you’re down to one minute left if you want to finish speaking to A. I will allow that.

So my point is that we have serious problems and to say that we ask the province to declare a state of emergency and yet we’re saying status quo is okay for another year is unfair to the neighborhoods who are under siege. It’s unfair to the residents when I find out that these drug dens that are terrorizing neighborhoods are taxpayer funded and taxpayer supported with three times a week check-ins. I’ve got text messages from the people. I don’t see where this motion goes into taxpayer funded drug dens that are before us on A.

So just strictly again, just on A is put forward by the deputy mayor. If we sign another contract which places high acuity people who we say have particularly severe mental health and severe addictions, a severe addiction costs sometimes $300 a day. People have to make the money to survive. They are selling their bodies, they’re selling drugs, they’re stealing things and they’re buying drugs from illegal activity.

Okay, that’s your five minutes. Thank you. Next speaker on the list was Councillor, you’ve had first? Yes?

Yes? Okay. I’m going to go first. Jerry’s going to, Councillor Per bevel’s going to take the chair and then you can be the, if that’s adequate.

I have the chair and I recognize Councillor Proulosa. Sorry. Thank you. I appreciate being who asked who’s next and the clerk reminds me it’s me on my list.

I appreciate we’re trying to get to you. I have no problem with the second, the second portion reporting back. Things change, that’s fine. My concern is still the first one with the one year contract.

I know that there’s some of the contracts are already lapsed and needing to be renewed, apart from the providers that one year funding doesn’t allow for stability in the sector of employees, turnover, care of the individuals we’re trying to help. One year seems like a lot but it’s not that many months before they’re back wondering if the next contract is going to come up and renewed. So, a question to you, Mr. Provlying Chair, to Mr.

Dickens and his team. If the wording is that we have, and this is maybe the semantics of politics, that we’re giving a one-year contract renewal for the procurement framework with an option to renew for an additional year. Could staff just implement a two-year renewal up front if they deem it necessary as a council director priority when renewing? The Mr.

Dickens sort of staff. Through you, Mr. Presiding Officer, yes we could. Under the current all-gate authority.

Councillor. Thank you. I was intended to vote no on it for stability of the sector but knowing if it’s a key aspect that staff with the delegated authority they could have could do those two-year extensions up front versus one based on the provider and the need and the direction of council leaves me inclined at this time to support both as perhaps a way forward to get those contracts out the door that people have been waiting for and knowing that staff could do two years if that was the priority that we’d already set at this council. I’ll leave my comments there.

Getting the chair back. You don’t have currently anyone else on the list. We have Councillor Ferra and I forget what time you said you need to just leave that or if this means you’re just staying. I’m gonna forgo my trivia night because it’s important.

Thank you. So there’s a trivia night for Councillor Ferra and we will have to make it up to him somehow. The floor is yours and you’ve used, I don’t know what you’ve used. Oh, you’ve used a minute 20.

Okay. First questions first. The proposed system transformation, the framework that we have. What was that based on?

Was that based on what works? Is that based on experience for clause A? When we got that original report back can staff just give me a overview of is this based on experience? Is this based on what we know what works?

What doesn’t work? And the resources we have available, the housing we have available and everything like that. Can I just get a brief description on that? Mr.

Dickens and team. Thank you, Madam Chair. And through you, I’ll start the response and pass it on to the team members. If there’s anything I miss.

What was presented is the procurement framework was a fundamental shift from where we’ve done things in the past. And we set out just to categorically review the entire system to do that in chunks that were reasonable, manageable, afforded us timelines that would align with new provincial fiscal year funding that would overlap with new council that would align with a new or future multi year budget process so that we weren’t turning the entire system upside down at the same time. The comments shared today by committee, the questions, the presumptions. Those are the things that we set out to highlight in the framework as part of the review.

We wanted to do a review of the housing first program to identify what works and what doesn’t work. What are those ratios and percentages of people that would be deemed difficult tenants? Understand why those situations become the way they are, a lack of resources, perhaps other mitigating circumstances outside of everyone’s control, perhaps, bad landlords, perhaps. So that is the work we set out to do in a methodical way.

It was well thought out. It afforded council the opportunity to receive information in digestible chunks. It allowed for community organizations to participate in those reviews and allowed us to put the people that were desperately trying that we’ve discussed at length today, desperately try to support in house at the center of this work to ensure that we’re not creating yet more barriers and more obstacles that inadvertently other all the populations were trying to help. Through conversations that have arisen from community organizations tied to some of these amendments, those organizations listed that have not been consulted and their name is in here as being part of a referring program.

There’s a lot of work we had set out to do that has been sort of scrambled, I guess, in terms of the timelines. But what we proposed to you originally was a well thought out plan that provided a reasonable set of time to do deep dives, to come back with a very professional report and seek council’s direction every step of the way so that at the conclusion of this, you as council have created the system you want to see. Councilor. Thank you for that.

So from what I gathered and I know that we had this conversation before but it was well thought out, it was well vetted. All these ideas were discussed and the procurement framework that was presented to us in December was the one that had a lot of minds thinking together, working together and coming with the best possible framework that we could possibly have. Is that safe to say? Mr.

Dickens or team? Thank you Madam Chair. That’s how the council member interprets it then I agree with that. Councilor.

Thank you. So I don’t understand why we need to make changes here on the fly. Like come on, I think we’re departing from something that we know works. We are departing from staffs, I don’t know how many hours of work you put into it but lots, we’re departing from that and we’re focusing on different agencies and service agencies and we’re focusing on these little things that are just pulling it apart and departing from what we know works and the framework that we have and the resources that we have available.

So I don’t know why we want to move away from the work that our great staff have provided to us who have experience. They know what they’re talking about. All of this, I’m just, I’m tired of this mess. We have serious problems.

Those serious problems may not just be outside and social service agencies, they’re not police and police are not social service agencies. So I think we’ve heard enough. I’ve heard me plus two other Councillors say we’re not going to support it. So let’s just vote this down and move on.

Councillor Frank. Thank you. Yes, I’ll be quick because I’m not on the committee. I’m supportive of the staff direction and on the amendments I haven’t really heard anything compelling that would make me vote for them at council.

I also have heard many comments in regards to some of the work that we’re being done is causing problems or being absolute failures. I just want to say that anytime that we house people and work through the problems that might arise throughout their tendency, that’s a step in the right direction. They’re good tenants. They’re bad tenants.

They’re good landlords. There’s bad landlords. And I think it’s important that we continue to do our best work that we’re trying to do to make these decisions for trying to house people. And I do think some of the comments made today are deeply offensive.

So I just want to thank the service providers for continuing to do the work to try to find people housing and to do the work that we are actually desperately in need of in this community in regards to smoke alarms not working and exterior doors not locking. That is a landlord problem, not a tenant problem. Further speakers who have not exhausted their time. Councillor Pribble, you’ve used two minutes.

So a brief is appreciated, but you do have time. Thank you. I do want to thank all the agencies committee organizations and social agencies as well for helping us with this situation. As we know, there’s not an issue for London.

It’s for Ontario. It’s actually for most part of the world. Having said that, I always say even if it’s in the entire part of the world, it doesn’t mean that we cannot be the best and we should be always trying to be the best. What’s in front of us?

And we can always be better. Everyone. We can be better. Organizations can better.

Staff can be better. And what’s in front of us? I honestly don’t see anything that would be counterproductive. Actually, I’m hoping that this, if this was to pass, that we are going to work more together and trying to, as it says, review, review.

And from review, their potential will come up certain improvements. And I think that’s what it’s about. We need to strive always to do better. And even if it’s only one case, that’s going to come out, that there was only one case of issue.

How could we prevent? How can we learn from it so it doesn’t happen again? So I don’t see this as counterproductive. I think that we are trying to go review and evaluate afterwards and make conclusions and potentially implementation plan based on that.

Thank you. Furthers comments before opening. Councilor Raman, one second. Okay, go ahead.

Thank you and through you. So I want to go into this with a different approach, I guess, in this conversation. First, this came in under item 2.2, which was a good neighbor agreement. And yes, it was connected to a report that was from December.

But if you are a service provider, if you were not named maybe in some of the communication that’s been flying around, do you even know that we are having a conversation today that could change what we had initially come to you and consulted on, which was a two-year agreement? Yes, it says one year and one year, but it does feel a little bit different than a one year and a one year. So I’m wondering how does that or has that been adequately communicated? I’m wondering if I can ask staff that question.

Mr. Cooper. Thank you. And through you, Madam Chair, I’ll give Mr.

Dickens a bit of a break here. So we have had constant communications with our organizations. We have been getting a lot of questions around what are the next steps. And we have advised them a lot of the next steps really are resulting in today’s conversation as well as council’s discussion.

So we have continued to reach out to organizations to ask for budgets for 26, 27, and 27, 28 just in case. We’ve started to schedule our meetings with agencies to meet and talk about contracts just in case. So the work is still happening behind the scenes and agencies are likely aware and following closely on YouTube or the council stream. Councilor Raman.

Thank you. And I appreciate that. But at the same time, we’re in the middle of a crisis. What we call an emergency, but we’re saying, please stay tuned on YouTube for the decisions that we’re making today.

Decisions that we say that we’re in a state of an emergency. So a state of emergency to me doesn’t say that we make these decisions at a pace and in a way that everyone cannot be engaged and consulted. And I think the procurement framework that was in front of us was that opportunity for engagement. It happened.

Service providers were under the impression that the procurement was coming forward through that way. Then we had this discussion around the good neighbor agreement. Now, if I’m a provider, I’ve been a nonprofit provider, I wouldn’t have thought that this is now about changing the direction of the contract negotiation. I would have thought that this had minor tweaks to the contract and that those minor tweaks have to do with things that are happening in the community and around the organization.

This is different. So for me, that’s a bit of a red flag because a lot of these providers have been very, very overwhelmed, especially in the last few weeks because of weather considerations, because of other things that are going on. And I do feel like I want to make sure everybody’s well aware. They wouldn’t have had time to put to come to delegate.

They wouldn’t have time to have provided a letter. They would now not have time to talk to us before counsel other than communication that they submit. But I do think it’s important because if we’re talking about a partnership, if we’re talking about improving the system, you don’t do that by having one-way conversations. Others online.

Do we even say one left online with us? So you have two counselors, a counselor, a counselor, a counselor. Online with us still, their hands are not up. So in chambers.

Oh, you’re just looking so happy at home counseling. Hanging on every word. Okay, perfect. So his hand is not up.

He is still here, not a voting member. So I’m going to move past counselor, a healer. Anyone else in chambers? Okay, call on the question.

Just that A part. Yeah, just the amendment to A that civic administration directed. That’s what I was reading out to you, Councillor Trousa. What’s an e-scribe?

Yes. Just a no referrals, nothing fancier. Just a bit different language. Closing the vote, the motion fails two to four.

It leaves us with the main motion. No amendments, no referrals yet. I did have one procedural question to staff, and I’ll get to it. Should a referral come forward as it relates to the internet connectedness of this report and the next one that we have not got to you yet.

Councillor Trousa, was that you in the speaker’s list? Is the main motion that’s the original staff recommendation that was on the floor? The original in the beginning, your blue sheet was on page 14 originally called the good neighbor agreement A through E is on the floor. That’s okay.

We’ve been here a while. Also known as about one in e-scribe, if the clerks or IT, somebody put on the big screen, if it helps. There we go. Okay, that’s what we’re on.

So currently a technical question, Councillor Perai, because everything’s on the floor. Everything as in the original recommended motion. The staff’s one, yes. No.

Okay. Just staffs, blue papers, page 14 of the regular. So at any point, I know it depends sometimes what’s inside the room you sit on, but it’s in e-scribe. And if you always put your little toggle screen button, if you really need conciseness, what your screen will show for sure is that one.

Okay. I have Councillor Ferrer and Councillor Hopkins. Councillor Hopkins had her hand up first if that was okay. Or yours is a procedural question.

Was it procedural? Is that where we’re at? Is it a trivia question? No.

Okay. Councillor Hopkins, you’re going to, oh, she said, you guys are so freaking nice to each other. Councillor Ferrer, then Councillor Hopkins, and then I’ll look this way. Thank you.

I’ll keep it brief. From what we heard delegates say with the good neighbor agreement and the clause and recommendations, I agree wholeheartedly with them. I’m going to keep this brief because I might have to do some rebuttals, but I am going to be voting for clause A. I am not going to be, oh, sorry, I’m looking at the wrong one.

I’m going to be voting for clause A to endorse the services to procurement framework as it was outlined in December 1st. I’m not voting for clause B. I’m not voting. I am voting for clause C.

I’m not voting for D, and I will vote for E. So I’m going A, D, and E. Okay. So we can certainly call these separate as well because I had someone else as well looking to call B separate.

So knowing that point in the night when it comes to voting, we’re just going to do each one individually. We’re just going to do each one individually at this point in our day. Councillor Hopkins. Thank you.

I’m just looking for clarification here. I know the service agreements and the changes and the service agreements was a big conversation that we heard from the community here. That is in B, the changes that are being suggested in the recommendation. I just want clarification where that lies because I am not supportive of the agreements.

To the, sorry, the good neighbor agreement. So I just want clarification where that lies. It is in B. And I, again, I appreciate the work.

There was a working group and the community getting together. But I think we’ve heard loud and clear from our service providers, the implications and the consequences to these changes that are being recommended. I also have concerns when it comes to even most of them are voluntary. But the ability to even have the legal binding on both parties, it becomes a very heavy process.

I don’t think we should go there. And for me, more important, we do have these good neighbor provisions already existing in a lot of our contracts. So with that, I will not be supporting the good neighbor agreement. And in the beginning of that, it was a look for clarification from staff that it was, in fact, B was the section of the good neighbor clause.

Specifically, that was my understanding. Staff have noted yes, and it will be called separate. David has his hand, Councilor Ferra has his hand up again, but I’m still doing first before I go back for seconds. That’s true.

Councilor Ferra, you’re on committee. I have other speakers, but go ahead. I might have to correct what I was saying. D, just sorry to go back.

I just need to make sure I get this right. Clause D is the direction that’s associated with clause A. That’s correct. Okay.

So I’m doing A, C, D, and E. Okay. Everyone’s being pulled separate. I think you’re meeting.

You’re supporting the following ones, which excluded me. Okay. I have a nod. Councilor Ferra is good.

Councilor Stevenson. Thank you. Back February 2024, what was brought to us was stabilizing the sector while we moved forward with the whole of community system response. At the time, there was $4 million shortfall in the funding that was needed for those two-year contracts, and it was to come out of the operating budget contingency reserve.

I asked at the time, how were we allowed to do that for operating revenue? And I was told, oh, well, we’re not going to continue on with this because we’re changing the whole system. I said, well, why does it say two more two-year renewals? And they said, oh, well, that’s just the way it is.

So the fact that that was put into bylaws, and we had two years of delegated authority where staff could just renew those contracts without council approval, to me goes against what was said in that committee. It goes against being able to the reasons for which we were able to dip into the operating budget contingency reserve fund. We have had no reporting publicly or to council regarding the shelters and any statistics since March of 2023. So it’ll be almost three years where we don’t see anymore the number of beds that are used.

We don’t know how many people are banned. We don’t know how many people are asylum seekers. We don’t know anything, even with the housing stability contracts. We don’t know what the issues are.

I know that people are dying in these taxpayer funded units. It’s not reported. I know that the contract says critical incidents are reported, but it doesn’t come to council. It doesn’t come publicly.

In terms of a good neighbor agreement, we’ve got the House of Hope on Dundas Street. We had four apartment buildings send us petitions pleading with us to do something that hasn’t come public. We’ve got businesses who are really, really struggling. We’ve got negative hotel reviews explicitly saying that it’s the street problem.

I’ve got emails where people are identifying that it’s our taxpayer funded highly supportive housing that is the magnet for the problems. And yet we’re not talking about it. There was an overdose death there. We don’t know about it.

We don’t hear about it. There needs to be a mechanism for which we can address the issues of what’s not working. It’s not about canceling things. It’s about fine tuning them, making them better, acknowledging what isn’t working.

So we had a report for the highly supportive housing with glowing reviews, never even mentioned all of the problems and the written documentation that we have saying that the neighbors are really, really struggling. So and we have a strategic plan that commits to safe walkable neighborhoods in a vibrant downtown. We had our downtown study say it’s the social issues downtown that are the key problem. And yet we would just want to renew contracts for two years.

We want to keep all of the policies that are potentially failing our city. They’re failing in BC. They’re failing on the west coast in California. Even they are turning around and turning more towards a change.

Our whole of community system response is a basically a support for decriminalization of drugs. That’s what it says right in our in our things. We’re not addressing the problem of failed policies. We’re not willing to change.

We’re not willing to look at it. We’re not even willing to have the discussion. And so one minute, the reason that I moved the motion in December to say, can we look at amendments to the contracts? What can we do to change what we’re doing so that a year from now, our city is better.

Our people are safer. Our emergency frontline responders and our frontline workers are not as dealing with all everyone is saying they’re suffering. And yet we’re saying, oh, we just need more. We just need more.

The province is looking at bill 10, which is going to make landlords liable for the criminal activity that happens in their apartment specifically around drugs. But we’re going to sign contracts where we specifically asking agencies to place high acuity people as quickly as possible. We have a real problem here. And people can say, oh, well, we shouldn’t have one sided conversations.

We haven’t been invited to the table. We don’t hear from the whole community system response. We’re just given stuff that says just roll it forward. We’re going to do it.

Well, you know what? I heard that in 2024, things were going to be different. This is incumbent upon this council. I ran on this issue.

We put it in our strategic plan. So I really between now and February 10th, I’m going to be doing whatever I can do to get this council and to get some of the agencies to say, what is it that we can do different? Just a few things to course correct and make things better here in London, Ontario. I had myself on the list looking for further speakers before me.

I’ll recognize Deputy Mayor Lewis first and then Councillor Per the whole take the chair and I can have a comment. Deputy Mayor Flores. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, you know, as much as I attempted, I’m not going to put the original amendment that was circulated on the floor because I think we’ve all expressed a frustration about that.

But it’s not about whether my fellow councillors agree with what was in the letter or not. It’s because I listen to what was said by the service providers about having a more thorough conversation with them and I’m willing to do that. And so I’m, you know, I’m happy to say right now from the floor and I’ll do the follow-ups. I’ll sit down with Ms.

Moss. I’ll sit down with Ms. Campbell. I’ll sit down with Ms.

Lazzamy and the others. Happy to do that and talk about how we move this forward. But I actually, and I know she’s left the room, and I’m just saying this, you know, not to be engaging across debate, but I actually disagree with Councillor Frank when she says, every time we get someone housed, it’s a step forward. Not if that housing destabilizes the tenants on the units on either side of them or the three tenants immediately across the hall from them or the tenants on the entire floor of their building.

That’s a step backward when we do that because it destabilizes the housing of other people. So, and that is happening. So, I hear your frustration, Councillor Stevenson, and I acknowledge that what we are doing right now. There are some successes, there are some failures, and we all have to be willing to discuss that.

So, for me, on this moving forward, I won’t support part A because I don’t think two years is the way to go, and that’s why I put forward an amendment earlier. I think that a year and discussion to change the second year, to look at something different, that would have been the path forward, that’s failed, so I can’t support two years either. I don’t think that that is the path either. You know, I heard colleagues expressing outside of this chamber over the last couple of days how this was cutting off public debate, and it was a last minute motion.

Unfortunately, this is the mechanism we have to work with. We got our agendas last Tuesday. We had two days to talk to each other and get amendments in for the added agenda, and four other Councillors did the same thing, and we do that at every committee agenda. We have a couple of days to talk, hopefully find a seconder, write something up, get it in, and then have a discussion about it.

So, when Councillor ramen talks about is everybody aware of what’s going on, is our communications going out, and I appreciate Mr. Cooper saying, you know, we’re trying to keep all of our partners informed, but we actually have a process by which this is the process, and it’s not ideal. So, I appreciate earlier, Councillor, trust out trying to figure out a way to maybe do a referral and give us some more time, because it is a lot of, I mean, we look at the time we spent about how do we pull things apart. It’s very complex, and when we look at programs that have multiple providers layered into them, it becomes even more complex, because maybe one provider is doing a really good job with project home, and another provider isn’t.

So, pulling those apart is a frustration, and it’s something that I think, and I hope, and I’m sure they are, but I hope staff’s hearing when we bring this forward again, we need to have those in separate silos, so that we’re not just deciding on project home, but we’re deciding on each component of that, because there are folks who are doing a good job, and folks who are doing not so good a job, and maybe not all of the contracts should be extended, and maybe only some of them should be extended, but this is the position that we’re in today. We’ve decided that we’re going to either do a two-year renewal of the status quo. I’m hearing colleagues expressing that they’re not going to support the good neighbor clause, so it’s definitely two years of the status quo without a good neighbor clause, and that’s fine. You’ve got your views on that, and I’ve got mine, and the service providers have a different view, and people in the public have another view, and business owners out there on the BIA streets have yet a different view.

All of that is okay. Thirty seconds. What we can’t do is shy away from the conversation. That’s why I’m not prepared to support two years, because I think it just pushes the conversation down the road further.

I think we need to continue to have the conversation today, and so I’m making the commitment that I just made that I will reach out and speak with you all, and do that as soon as possible, but I won’t support clause A today. Thank you, Councillor Pribble, if you could take the chair. I have the chair, and I recognize Councillor Palosa. Thank you.

I appreciate what I was trying to get to. I do. I felt disingenuous when I was asking staff the politics of politics, and could they actually implement the two-year realizing some colleagues actually intend it to be one. I felt it was a workaround and not fair to vote in favor, even though it could work, just it wasn’t transparent, and I couldn’t do it, and that was the terms of why, because I was still trying to actually get to the original motion.

I was fine with it. Part B for the good neighbor. It sounds good. It’s standards that we don’t even hit the city, and that’s part of my problem, that we don’t even do that level when we’re holding others to that account.

I had felt that, as much as we call like a public liaison committee, that’s really not a committee. It is a town hall every quarter in realizing that that would be at least one full-time person for each of those organizations that we’ve contracted with to run those meetings. I’ve heard our own staff talk about public liaison committee saying it’s an administrative burden, and that’s that was city staff saying that, in addition to garbage and refuge in an area that wasn’t necessarily a year people, just it’s people who live there, people passing through. I recognize we also have an illegal dumping problem in certain areas of the city that we see.

Sometimes it’s just people moving out, it’s their mattresses. It’s not on-house mattresses, so I didn’t like how we were putting that on us on our service providers, especially if it was not financially backed, that it was money coming out of frontline service to do more administrative back-end. In discussions with staff, it was also money that if we wanted to help with some of that administrative burden, it couldn’t be provincial and federal dollars that were earmarked for a program. It had to be London taxpayer off the property tax base funds going to it, which isn’t what I’ve heard from Londoners of we want to spend more money for administration, so I can’t support that in its entirety.

I was not, I read through it in great detail, was not going to get into pulling apart different subsections of it because I am fine with just this report. Respectfully, it’s a lot. It was referred from December. References staff prior.

Now it’s here. It was just trying to find the way through, but for me, like I said, part of the good neighbor thing I was fine with was not pulling all apart, and I recognized that it was a council request of telling staff to bring us some information and options. It wasn’t actually staff’s recommendation of best practices, so mindful of that as well. My question through you, Mr.

Chair, when I am timing myself and she will do something to me when I get close, as we get to the part of C, that civic administration be directed to explore other funding options for basic needs. And when we’re, when that our word came up earlier, referral, my concern is the next report has highlights of a 4.2 million gap in funding and what that’s going to mean for service providers. So before we get to the next item, is that part of this motion going to also look at basic needs and identify some gaps that might be left in our community if funding is not found in the next, in the basic needs and pathway option report? Question to the staff.

Thank you, and through you, Mr. Presiding Officer, I understand the question correctly. I think the next report looks at some of the acute challenges we’re seeing right now with the ending of the funding. The framework was looking at the broader need in the community over the longer term and would look at options available to Council and into community to try and address some of those needs longer term, but also recognizing that we’re running into some funding shortages in the next month, two months, and some of those items need to be brought to Council’s attention as well.

Council. Thank you, and I appreciate that we’re looking and identifying the gaps that are left and looking at Council an opportunity to have a discussion if we want to try and fill some of those, let them go, or what other providers can help up. Not just the ones we deal with currently, but there’s many helpful hands in the community who might be able to be of assistance. My final question, part D that civic administration be reported to report back to a future meeting describing the execution of service agreements associated with each procurement process.

What is that? What does that look like? Like what are you digging into and how big of a task is that realizing every hour staff spent on more reports back is less time out at the micromoderal shelter around in community or out of oil. Looking through the staff for response.

Thank you, and through you, Mr. Presiding Officer. I think the original procurement framework had built in a number of touch points back with Council. I feel like D might be a little redundant as we work through the procurement framework.

We will be bringing obviously some information back to Council seeking Council’s policy direction on and a variety of different services. And then as part of that framework, we would be bringing any new bylaws, contracts, budgets, anything that was necessary for Council to make an informed decision on at that time. So in this case, if Council is interested in seeing what the renewal contracts look like or copies of those that could be considered, but I do feel it’s redundant when we look at the broader framework. Thank you, Council.

We’re going to chair to you and I put myself next. Okay. Thank you. I recognize the hour that grows late.

I’m not sure if there’s any staff in this room or virtual that would need to take leave at some point to help with the community warming center tonight. If you do, by all means, I can tell you can take your leave, but I know I’m not your, might be up to somebody else, but that’s the priority. And the next one is Mr. Cooper and Mr.

Dickens. So Councilor Pivol, you’ve used zero. Go ahead. Thank you.

And I’m just, I’m just going to comment on what’s in front of us. I will be even though I just heard that D is kind of, I heard the word for redundancy from staff. I will still vote for CDE. I will vote yes for B, I will not be supporting it this time, what I heard.

And I do want for, I do want the opportunity to do to the people, organizations and agencies involved to have their feedback and input into what was presented to us. A, I do love strategically, multi-year plans, visions. It gives us a bigger vision, bigger stability. Having said that, I will not support it because I do believe that right now we need to, I believe that if we go, if we were to go with one year, we are going to be more at the table and dealing with the organizations and coming up with improving, improving our initiatives, some of them.

And there was the motion that was before, which we didn’t vote for, but when it was the review. And I believe that if we go less than two years that we will be more, more forced, I hate to use force because it shouldn’t be forced, it should be us wanting to improve things. So anyways, I just want to comment on that. Thank you.

Councillor Ferra. Thanks, Chair. How much time do I have? Don’t count, this is my time.

You have three minutes and 30 seconds left. I don’t know, it was not a very helpful answer, so please accept the 330. That’s good. So, you know, while people are saying here, what we should be doing for how we should respond to homelessness and how should we help the crisis and how we should be doing a better job, you know, I would say, you know, we need to do a better job ourselves too.

We mess around here a lot. Like, if we were serious about homelessness, we wouldn’t have displaced 45 people in the OEV. You know, if we were serious about homelessness, we would have fully implemented the whole of community system response and the hubs model. If we were serious about homelessness, we wouldn’t use people who are out on the street as social media content.

You know, if we were serious about homelessness, we wouldn’t approve applications that demolish rent-controlled housing and displaced people out on the street. You know, if we were serious about doing something better with homelessness, we would have passed my demavictions motion and stop people before they’d become homeless or at least give. Yeah. So, Councillor Ferra, I have several points to order on you.

Of course. It’s true. It’s true. Okay.

So, we’re not. We’re not. So, I got chirping over here. So, just specifically on everything that’s on the floor before you.

I know. But I’m hearing things being said. Councillors, people voted against rent evictions or pack items based on different items. We’re not dragging this into year.

We’re okay. I’ll stop. Thank you. What I’m saying is, is if we are serious about actually making a meaningful impact when it comes to the city’s homelessness response, we should start prioritizing the city’s business first and only.

I don’t see that all the time. I hear what was said, but I’m not convinced because I’ve been here for three years now. So, we’re, I forgot. That’s okay.

I’d also say that at this committee meeting, we have, it looks like we’re going to vote some things down and the way the votes are going to go. You’re going to see this go away, but it’s coming to council and at council, that could all change. So, it’s not over yet. At this committee, we’re a very reasonable committee.

I can’t speak the rest of council. I’m hoping that we follow through with what we see here, but it could change. So, just know that. Okay.

So, David, I’m not sure if you’re speaking time was, were you down when you turned off your mic or you were pausing for the point of order? Which one? You were done. I’m done, but I’ll hear the point of order.

Well, yeah. I guess it’s more a point of personal privilege, but I don’t like the referral of council being unreasonable or potentially being less reasonable than the committee here is helpful in the conversation. Thank you noted. I had heard that as well.

I was going to address it when his speaking time was done when we wrap up of next, next steps. Do you want me to retract that statement? You could. That would be nice.

Okay. I retract the statement, but it could change. Yes. Thank you.

Anything here today goes to count. Everything here today goes to council on the 10th, February 4th at 9 a.m. is the regular submission deadline and February 9th at 9 a.m. is be added.

Councilor Pribble, you want to add on the last minute? You’re not excellent. Okay. I have no one online.

I have no one in chambers. We are doing each one individually at this point in the day. We will go new alphabetically, starting with a closing the vote. The motion carries four to two.

Calling B next. Good neighbor clock. Closing the vote. The motion fails one to five.

C is the civic administration be directed to explore other funding operations for basic needs. Calling the question. Closing the vote. The motion carries six to zero.

Thank you. Calling D that civic administration be directed to report back at a future meeting that staff said may or may not be redundant, but it’s going to be a report either way. Calling the question. Closing the vote.

The motion carries six to zero. Calling E that this report be received. Closing the vote. The motion carries six to zero.

Thank you. 2.3 system area update. This is our final one of the day. Supports for those living unsheltered basic needs and pathway options.

It was a staff report with the recommendation to be received. We also have a delegate in the gallery. So looking for a motion to receive the report and receive the one delegation at this time moved by Councillor Hopkins, seconded by Deputy Mayor Lewis. We need to do a vote first on the delegation at this time and then we will go to the lower mic if approved to hear Ms.

Campbell. I’ll end the question on it and to receive the delegation at this time. Closing the vote. The motion carries six to zero.

Thank you, Ms. Campbell, for waiting and for multiple appearances today. The mic is yours up to five minutes and lower below. Thank you.

Go ahead. Thank you through the chair for the opportunity to speak to a third time today. I really do recognize the gravity of the decisions that are being made in this committee today and I wanted to take a moment to highlight. I know it was listed in the report.

The number of services that are impacted by the funding that is not forthcoming from the federal and provincial governments. It’s been stated today how important those levels of government participating in funding the services that are required to address health, housing, and the needs of our community cannot be shoulder to exclusively by our municipality and I wanted to make sure I was very clear about the impact of them vacating those roles within our system. A number of the organizations including Arcade Street Mission do outreach services within our community. This funding is directly in an eye to encampment support and bringing people from encampments into housing.

It’s a critical path that needs to be supported and without these funds I know that the figure that is in this report is not 100% of the money that has been used to support the efforts but I’m unclear on where do those municipal dollars go when this funding goes away. Just like we talked about before sometimes we leverage funding from other levels of government to bring municipal funds to the table to make something effective and so there’s a huge concern. We’ve spent the afternoon talking about winter but we’re coming into summer and so encampment supports people go back outside. There’s places for people to find but we want our neighborhoods and our community to be places of welcome for everyone and that means that we continue to work on bringing people from the outdoors inside.

It’s a cyclical issue if you look at all the pieces. If we don’t actually look at how they rely on one another to create that pathway to home and I just wanted to make sure that you are clear that the funding that is being talked about is about 85% of all the other services so we talked about London Cares as an outreach organization. That is your core funded organization in the city of London for outreach. There isn’t another organization that’s funded.

Arcade is not funded to do outreach. We support outreach with encampment meals. We do outreach by fund-raised dollars. We do 20 of the 24 hours of service at 696 on fund-raised dollars.

There’s a limit to what community can bring to the table without government funds coming with it and we’re at that point. I’ll be very transparent. Our board has talked very directly about having to close spaces, not do nights, not be able to expand services on the fund-raised dollars because the pressures of a living wage and the frontline supports and the things we need to be doing to be a good employer to our people who are doing this really difficult work. It can’t be shouldered by the generosity of citizens on top of their taxes.

There needs to be a partnership here and like yourselves, I would just give you language to bring to your federal and provincial partners that we are living in a crisis here in the city of London. That the removal of these funds is significant to the delivery of services and that as a system, it’s not just losing a particular service or particular action. We are losing our system effectiveness and so when we evaluate a framework as I’m hearing with this procurement plan, we are lacking critical understanding. A system can only work if the links exist.

When you start to remove pieces from that process, the system can’t be evaluated because you’re starting to evaluate a ghost or a shadow of something that once existed. Just like we are evaluating what’s going on with addiction and mental health support, housing that’s affordable for people, we’re asking very difficult questions about why are we in this position without looking at the most glaring answers. People don’t have an income to support that, provincial. People don’t have affordable housing, federal.

People don’t have access to health care, provincial. Like we need to be really hammering this home because it’s not just the municipality who’s suffering here, we are, but it’s the citizens and the numbers are born out across the province. I know I’m not speaking to you as people who are uninformed. 30 seconds.

But I really wanted to add my own voice and make sure you understood the implications including at Arcade Street Mission, where without this funding, we will be far less able to attract and bring those donated dollars to the table without some stable funding for those core services. Thank you. Thank you. So it’s already on the floor.

Staff will confirm with them a report that this time there’s no additional replacement federal funding programs that have been identified in provincial funding levels remain unchanged. Starting a speaker’s list, I’m going to start with Councillor Hopkins if you want to just let me know. Madam Chair, maybe I can start with putting motion on the floor. I’ll move that motion to receive.

If I can make a few comments and just want to thank the delegation speaking to us the need and thank staff for the report too. It’s a grim report. So our federal funding is going to come to an end. The end of March and that is going to reduce a lot of the services capacity for outdoor basic needs and related supports within a broader context of ongoing systems.

I would not want to be in staff shoes because the advocating that is going to be needed to the provincial government and to the federal government is going to be great. And I just want to bring to everyone’s attention. I’m sure you’ve read Emil’s report. It’s their second report on homelessness and housing.

It’s municipalities under pressure and the human and financial costs of Ontario’s homelessness crisis. So we’re looking at 815 experienced homelessness. That’s a 25% increase and we’re talking provincial numbers here. We know that by 2035 it could triple.

There’s a lot of advocating going on. I’m not sure where else to go. I know what Emil, the Emil staff and the work that the directors in homelessness and housing and the leads and AMSA all got together to come up with these numbers. So we have some data here and Emil will continue to speak to the provincial government because we cannot do it alone.

Ms. Campbell spoke to that. She understands that we understand that. Staff understand that.

How do we go forward? Is my big question. I’m not sure how to do that other than continuing to advocate and make sure the governments understand the pressures that we’re under. Next speaker, Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you on this. I mean we get back to what I said a little while ago around the province increased our homeless funding by 60% in the spring of 2023 and our shelter costs went up by 60%. So the money did not get to the most vulnerable and we get to account for that. We get to acknowledge the fact that the money is not getting to the people who need it.

80% of our funding is like 46 million dollars a year or 20 some odd million dollars a year. We spend on this 80% of it goes to wages. Okay. Maybe it’s not sustainable anymore.

Maybe we need a new model. Maybe we need to do things differently because quite frankly the tax payers don’t have any more money. We’re not likely to get a lot federally or provincially and we’re certainly tapped out the municipal tax dollar. So sure advocacy.

Sure. But we’ve had auditor general report saying there’s no evidence that it’s making a difference. We are asked to make decisions like this renewing contracts seeking more funding in the absence of data. We have no data.

We didn’t get data with our whole of community system response even though we approved the measurements and it all sounded great. We got hardly anything. I’ve seen reports from other cities where they get details on the number of people that are in encampments, the number of people who are banned, the number of fires in the encampments. Those councils have data upon which they can make decisions and we are being asked to do it in the absence of data.

This fine. I was going to call point of order personal privilege. We have a dashboard. Councilor Perla want you to take this one because I’m a chair and it just gets awkward when it’s me.

I have the chair and I recognize Councilor Palosa. Thank you. So you’re going to do the ruling on this because you’re presenting on this for this time. So we have a dashboard.

Council asked for it. The dashboards up staff updated. The auditor general report that you’ve referred to before didn’t even recognize London within it. And the whole system community response reports do come forward and inform some of those data.

So respectfully, I question how it’s related to what’s on the floor and some of it’s actually not accurate. I’m not sure what that was. It sounded like cross debate. I don’t know what that was.

Was it a point of order? I think a point of personal privilege, I think it was. Is that the stuff that you’re referencing was even reports? Council got like daughter general reports, not ours.

It’s nothing we have and we have data. Councilor Stevenson, so if you want to continue and please stick to a point, what’s on the agenda? Thank you. Okay.

Well, what’s on the agenda is a funding cliff, right? And advocacy efforts to the province and I’m suggesting that if we were to show value for money, if we were to have data, if we were able to explain why the homelessness numbers were increasing at the same time that funding is increasing, if we could understand why after a hunger strike where people said, you know, no more excuses, people are dying. Those same agencies asked for more money for staff and didn’t expand the number of beds and spaces. If we’re truly committed to helping the most vulnerable, knowing the economic challenges that look like they’re coming our way, we may need to really look at things differently.

So that’s how it ties in here is I don’t believe that advocacy is the only answer. I think this council needs to to consider how we’re going to manage the crisis that is affecting our downtown, it’s affecting our public safety in this city. And so I receive, you know, I have no problem receiving the report, but to just say we need advocacy to continue to do policies and programs that are not producing results that many residents believe are failing our city and that I don’t have the data to even convince them otherwise. So that’s my comments.

Further speakers? Councilor Travsau? I do think through the chair for the presiding officer. It’s me now.

I think it’s a little unfair to say we have no data. We have no reports. We’ve received a number of evaluation reports, one of which said a lot of the things that we’re doing, this was from our outside academic consultants, a lot of the things we’re doing are working. And in fact, yes, homelessness is increasing, 25% province wide, but less than that.

And we are making progress on helping people who are homeless. That is clear. And there’s data to back that up. So I have a difficulty when I hear people say nothing we’re doing is working and everything has to be reevaluated.

Now, the other point I want to make is that even if we are able to cope people who are homeless, don’t worry because more are being created. More are being created every day. And that’s why I don’t want to get into rehashing the random addiction by law or other things. But people are suffering because of the rent control regime that we have.

And the fact that the payments, welfare payments are not going up. And whatever we do to try to poke people out of the river, more get thrown in. And I think it was the mayor who said that three years ago. So I just really, I don’t think, I don’t think it’s helpful for us to beat ourselves up with everything we do as a failure.

And we have no data because I just don’t think that’s true. Thank you. Okay. So I do appreciate some concerns about frost debate earlier.

I do, I do hear that. I appreciate it. So really mindful, this is our last hour. It’s almost 730.

And we got PEC tomorrow. So we’ll be back. Wrapping up the final comments, Councillor for a had your hand up, please proceed. I did.

But I think Councillor Trosto just nailed it with that one. So I’m just going to leave it there. Let’s end it on that. Councillor Pueblo, can you take the chair for a moment?

And then I’ll have to chair and I recognize Councillor Pelosa. Thank you for full transparency had reached out to staff and had a conversation last week. Some of my key concerns from this is just recognizing what we’re potentially losing in this as a staff’s report. One of my main ones was the closure of the 18 women’s own emergency shelter beds at the center of hope.

As my conversations with Mr. Cooper focused around as we’re getting the micromodular housing online, we’re trying to increase capacity of sheltering people. And this is another potential 18 that could either go onto the street or be prioritized and go into those shelters. But there’s only 60 so essentially we’re already filling up like a third of them right off the bat.

Also some conversations, some of the signs from the last meeting when people brought signs, it was the question of the faith-based community. Some of them do have space. Some of them do try to do work. Reaching out some of it was conversations as this also outlines basic meals that we’re losing.

There was a faith leader luncheon fewish years ago. The Mayor spoke at Councillor Pribble and I was there and Councillor Pribble’s questions at that time was who is doing the coordination or could someone do coordination amongst the community of who has meals on what days and sometimes a bunch of them fall on the same day. And if they knew when there was a master schedule that could be put out to service providers, could people spread out into different days and as we heard from the ARC that they’re the one-ones on weekends. So potentially going to work on a motion for a council just giving committee heads up that would direct staff to maybe do some of that work of just what is the barriers for some of those people who aren’t city service providers but could help do meal service and take some people in for the warmth of that.

What is their barriers to serving? So leave my comments there because I’m really concerned with the list of things that we’re losing especially as we said. I know the population is growing. We’re trying water which is still sadly status quo while growing and problems are growing is still some sort of improvement but not the improvement.

I don’t think any of us want to see for the community and those in need. So I’ll be working on that before a council just want to make everyone aware of it so when it comes to council if I get my stuff in no one’s surprised. I’ll hand it back so you can hand it back and then I can get deputy mayor. Thank you in returning to chair to you.

You’re always welcome to keep it. I should have prefaced with that Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you madam chair so I’m just I’m going to kind of pick up where councilor truss out left off. You know I don’t always agree on things but sometimes we find some middle ground and sometimes we move forward on some things and and sometimes we share some common ground and on what he just said I think we share a lot of common ground.

There are more people falling in homelessness. We have actually done an exceptional job as a city council with the municipal tool tools that are available to us and the resources that we have when you look at us in comparison to our own numbers and I referenced earlier tonight the beds at crone and Warner the hubs that were opened up the micro shelter the indwell projects the new LMCH this vision so-ho hundreds of new indoor units both shelter spaces and housing spaces in the three years of this council. We when we compare ourselves to other municipalities this number was out recently you know homelessness is up across the province by 25 percent. In London we’ve bucked that trend we’re doing better ours is only 19 percent now that’s still 19 percent increase so that’s not great but that comes to what councilor truss I was saying we can’t beat ourselves up about the things we can’t control we need to do the best with the things we can control so we haven’t been able to stem the tide but in comparison to some of our peers we’re headed the curve now that doesn’t mean you sit back and stop doing anything and you know I said earlier Ms.

Kemel and I had a great conversation on the weekend and she mentioned it herself the crux of the need to sit down and discuss how we do what we’re doing with less resources because this is a perfect example of millions of dollars from the federal government disappearing from being part of the solution the municipal property tax base does not take into consideration a resident’s ability to pay it’s based on a number on a building they live in that MPAC establishes income tax and consumer tax that the federal and the provincial governments collect are based on someone’s ability to pay and the choices they make at the cash register so those who have the most contribute the most back in theory so when we think about our municipal reality and when we think about the advocacy piece it’s vital and we need to do that council how can spoke to ammo and and that’s that’s a key component but I think beyond that as a community when we speak to our MPs when we speak to our MPPs particularly as counselors sometimes a little harder for staff to do this but we can lobby too and when we do that we should be going to the table with community partners not just as the voice of municipal council but with with our agency partners with our police partners with our our frontline providers just as we do in other areas so we are on a funding cliff and I don’t hold out a lot of hope that the feds are going to hear us in time to address that so we are going to have to continue to do what we can but we are going to have to face some tough decisions and the reality is there’s no good decision right now because there is no solution we can provide from this chamber from this building in this community alone I spoke to CBC on Friday again incidents of people being sent here told that they have a bed at the Salvation Army and they get here and they don’t have a bed though those kind of things we can’t just keep doing that to each other we need to come together that’s why what ammo is doing is so important because all the municipalities have to speak with one voice on this and unfortunately we have municipalities that are speaking it but they’re not acting it and that that’s going to be a problem that we’re going to have to really take to heart and think about how we address as we look off the side of this funding cliff. Thank you I’ll note that Councillor Ferra has left the meeting looking for further speakers before I call the question call on the question closing the vote the motion carries five to zero motion to adjourn by hand moved by Deputy Mayor Lewis seconded by Councillor Trousow hand vote all in favour of adjournment motion carries thank you that concludes our meeting today safe travels home and thank you to all those in the gallery who started the beginning into those hardcore ones who spent the entire night with us thank you so much