They ran the day-to-day operation of two shelters last winter, but say no one at city hall talked to them before deciding to put this year’s shelters on two golf courses far from the downtown.
They ran the day-to-day operation of two shelters last winter, but say no one at city hall talked to them before deciding to put this year’s shelters on two golf courses far from the downtown.
And despite what city hall is saying, none of the residents of last winter’s emergency shelter program expressed to them a desire to live outside of the city’s core, the two former on-site managers of the program tell The London Free Press.
“I don’t know who the city spoke to. We were the people running it and we were not consulted at all for this plan,” said Dan Oudshoorn, one of two site managers of last winter’s shelter and now a community outreach worker at Sanctuary London.
“I have not heard from anyone,” said Michele Trebake, his partner managing the sites, and also now a community outreach worker with Sanctuary London.
Living downtown or in central east end is essential to the health and well-being of people experiencing homelessness and in shelters, the two said.
“For a lot of reasons, people are interested in being closer to health-care providers and services. When you’re a pedestrian, it’s a difficult situation to be on the outskirts when the services are more in the core. And that’s where people’s friends are, where people are connecting and there’s a sense of community and belonging,” Trebake said.
“Everyone I heard from in the community said how important it was to be centrally located in the downtown core or the central east end. I don’t think anybody wants to move further out to the fringes of the city,” Oudshoorn said.
Last winter, faced with more than 100 people sleeping rough, a coalition of non-profit organizations prepared a Winter Interim Solution to Homelessness (WISH) plan and staffed two emergency shelters with funding from city hall, one located on York Street near the Men’s Mission and one on Elizabeth Street.
City hall unveiled a plan Wednesday to put one winter shelter this year at the Fanshawe golf course in northeast London and another at the former River Road golf course in the southeast.
Other elements of the city’s plan, such as round-the-clock resting space centres and a stabilization space for short term stays, received praise.
But moving the shelters to the edges of the city has come under fire and that fire grew Friday.
Nonie Brennan, a native Londoner who spent decades working in the United States – most recently as the head of Chicago’s strategy to end homelessness – contacted The Free Press “in an uproar” over the winter proposal.
“I was absolutely horrified that anybody would think that this was an appropriate solution for people who are experiencing homelessness and often are extremely vulnerable. Isolating anyone who may be dealing with health and mental health challenges can only make the situation worse. When I read this, there’s no question in my mind that people will die if this is a solution,” she said.
The remote location of the golf courses, away from downtown services as well as friends and community, doesn’t make sense, Brennan argued, despite pledges to bring services directly to the shelters.
“Why are you duplicating something that people should easily be able to access if they’re in the city? I’ve worked all over the world and I’ve never heard of anything like this, and believe me, I’ve encountered a lot of ideas about how to solve homelessness.”
City officials said the WISH team was involved in the planning. But the two researchers who evaluated the WISH shelter system – Jodi Hall and Tracy Smith-Carrier – said Thursday they weren’t consulted, and the city didn’t answer their request to share that evaluation. On Friday, Oudshoorn and Trebake made it four leaders of the program who say they weren’t consulted.
Two researchers who studied London’s temporary shelter program last year say moving the sites to the edge of the city will uproot and isolate homeless Londoners, flying in the face of their research at the shelters. https://t.co/HnOBU4RFk6 #ldnont pic.twitter.com/2lNM49G52A
City officials also said they spoke to homeless people who wanted to live away from the core for privacy reasons and promised to provide services on the sites, as well as transportation downtown.
That’s misrepresenting the privacy concerns of residents, the researchers and the two former managers of the sites say.
People expressed concerns about lack of privacy in connected trailers, and at York Street especially, were worried about the exposure to the public, the media and city hall officials, Oudshoorn and Trebake say.
“There’s a host of reasons why people don’t want others to know where they are staying,” Trebake said. “Disclosing where you’re living should be up to you. And it doesn’t feel like your choice when there are tours and people taking photographs. People don’t necessarily want their whereabouts known, but it doesn’t mean they want to be remote.”
The London InterCommunity Health Centre, which medically supports hundreds of people homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, provided a statement Friday that supported Hall’s contention about the privacy issue.
“We at Intercommunity share the concerns by our partners and Dr. Jodi Hall. We will always provide support to the people we serve and our approach will stay the same, which is supporting our patients who face high medical acuity because of their homelessness with our services in the core,” Dr Andrea Sereda said.
“The feedback I have heard from residents at last year’s WISH site were that they desired increased personal privacy that is hard to achieve in a trailer setting. I agree with Dr. Hall’s interpretation of the privacy concerns as outlined in the (earlier Free Press) article. I have not heard anyone express to me that their desire for privacy meant living in a remote location.”
The city promised to provide free bus tickets to people on the downtown sites last year, but cut the funding, both Oudshoorn and Trebake said.
“They backed out of their commitment to provide transportation to the WISH sites last year. We provided transportation in the end out of donations we received from private donors, not from the budget provided by the city,” Oudshoorn said. “Even if they do provide some transportation, I strongly doubt that it will be adequate to meet the level of need of residents living in remote locations.”
Living on the edges of the city will isolate people battling isolation, Oudshoorn said.
“We know that the solution for addiction is community. How is moving people to an isolated location going to do anything but further harm people and put them at greater risk of dying?”
Ward 2 Coun. Shawn Lewis, vice-chair of the community and protective services committee, backed the proposal Friday.
“I think this is absolutely worth trying. I think there is a real opportunity to do things a little differently and to recognize the one-size-fits-all approach that we’ve taken for years is not working,” he said.
The committee meets Tuesday to debate the winter plan. It goes to city council for approval Nov. 16.
It’s important that downtown options still exist for those who prefer to stay in the core, Lewis said, noting emergency shelter beds will still be available at the Men’s Mission and Salvation Army, plus new drop-in spaces run by Ark Aid overnight.
He said he believes the remote shelters will offer an opportunity for others, including an Indigenous-led and culturally relevant model run by Atlohsa at the shuttered River Road golf course. The other site will be operated by Impact London.
“What it does provide is a lot more dignity than sleeping in an alleyway or a storefront. It’s still providing a warm, dry place to sleep, with a door they can lock behind them,” he said.
“For some people, the street culture and sense of community they feel is really important, but for other people, the best way to break the cycle of homelessness is to break that culture.”
Oudshoorn said it appears to him city hall wants to remove homeless people from sight, as it tries to sell downtown to businesses and residents.
“I feel like the city is building refugee camps for the victims of neoliberal gentrification. The cities are turned into private property of a few wealthy individuals or corporations. Those who are impoverished are left with nowhere to live. Instead of addressing the root of this problem, the city is just exacerbating it by setting up these temporary refugee camps during the winter.”
The neighbours around the Elizabeth Street site showed last winter they supported homeless people, Oudshoorn said.
“There were a few unhappy people, but there was large outpouring of support. People made origami animals for their pillows, baked things, little children wrote letters of support. It was quite beautiful, actually,” he said.
[email protected]
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To Dundas and Adelaide intersection:
13 km , 2.5-hour walk from Fanshawe golf course
9 km , 2-hour walk from River road golf course
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