‘The suffering is huge’: Community agencies say extreme weather exposed flaw in London’s response to homelessness

In the wake of the latest cold snap, how has the City of London’s homeless response met demand? CTV’s Gerry Dewan reports.

A heavy snowfall Wednesday night followed by a plunge in temperatures Thursday took a heavy toll Londoners who are unhoused.

London Cares Executive Director Chris Moss said her staff witnessed the results, “The pain, the physical issues, like, I can’t even share. It’s so devastating. And the suffering is huge.”

But at no point over the two days did London City Hall issue a Tier Three declaration, part of the city’s Health & Homelessness Whole of Community System Response.

Tier Three would have opened a warming centre at the Boyle Memorial Community Centre and funded warming spaces overseen by local London Cares and the Ark Aid Street mission.

Ark Aid Executive Director Sarah Campbell said her agency opened warming centre spaces on Wednesday night despite not having a guarantee of funding, “Without that funding, we’re going to have to come back to our donor base and say, ‘Can you help us keep the doors open?’ We’re taking this action now because the action is needed now, but we will have to figure out the financial implications.”

The Middlesex London Health Unit issued an extreme cold weather alert on Thursday afternoon.

The alert is triggered when temperatures are expected to be below minus 15, or there’s a minus 20 windchill.

Cheryl Smith, London’s deputy city manager of neighbourhood and community-wide services, issued a statement to CTV News on Friday, which said the city’s Tier Three alert operates with a different threshold.

She also notes that Tier One and Tier Two protocols that provide additional shelter and warming spaces were in effect.

In the statement, Smith also stressed that the city needs lead time in order to open the warming center at the Boyle Community Center. She said the sudden drop in temperatures made that impossible.

“It’s hard to go to bed and sleep at night knowing there’s people living outside,” Ward 4 Coun. Susan Stevenson told CTV News.

Stevenson has drafted a motion for the upcoming Community and Protective Services Committee meeting. She’s calling for more clarity on what triggers a Tier Three response. She’s also proposing money be shifted from encampment outreach to create more warming spaces.

Additionally, Stevenson is looking to change the temperature threshold, “If current service providers have 50 warm spaces that are available, if it hits minus 15, maybe we get to look at opening those up at minus 5.”

And while Stevenson has had, at times, an adversarial relationship with fellow Coun. Sam Trosow, they’ve become allies on this issue.

According to Trosow, “I think that we both have an obligation to the people who are really suffering to try to put aside our differences.”

The Ward 6 representative and Coun. David Ferreira have also put forward a motion, calling for a review of the approach to a tiered response, “Saying it’s got to be minus 15 with the wind chill of minus 20. That’s just, that’s not going to work. We’ve got to change that.”

In the meantime, London Cares and the Ark Aid Street Mission are appealing for more donations to help support their outreach and cold weather responses.