Business groups split over $611K for daytime homeless help

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Groups representing businesses in two districts on the front lines of London’s homelessness crisis are at odds over continued funding of drop-in services at a London agency.

City councillors will be asked Tuesday to approve $611,000 in funding for Ark Aid Mission so the agency can provide laundry, meals and showers during the day at 696 Dundas St. in Old East Village for a year.

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Kevin Morrison, general manager of the Old East Village BIA, is urging city councillors to vote against the funding, citing the oversaturation of social service providers in the neighbourhood.

“The continued concentration of social services in our district directly correlates with rising costs for business owners due to vandalism, security, and property damage,” he said in a letter to city council. “Allocating additional resources to a day drop-in space without addressing these existing financial strains will further destabilize the local economy.”

Council should explore distributing housing stability services more evenly across the city, and provide financial relief to businesses paying for damage repairs and security, Morrison said.

But the board of directors at Downtown London and Bonnie Wludyka, senior property manager of Citi Plaza, say the city should continue funding drop-in services at Ark Aid Street Mission.

“We recognize the critical role that such services play in supporting vulnerable individuals in our community and commend the city for prioritizing this initiative,” Downtown London said in a letter to city council.

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“While $610k may seem significant funding for drop-in services, it represents a mere 0.000432 per cent of a $1.4 billion city budget. We respectfully urge you to continue supporting these essential services,” Wludyka said in her letter.

City council’s community and protective services committee endorsed $3.6 million in funding for Ark Aid Street Mission at a March 17 meeting so the agency could continue operating its 70 shelter beds at 430 William St. and for 18 additional shelter beds for women at the Salvation Army’s Centre of Hope through March 2026.

But $611,000 in funding for the agency to provide drop-in services was quashed on a 2-2 tie vote.

Coun. David Ferreira, the chair of the committee where the vote failed due to his absence for an emergency, is appealing to his council colleagues to reverse the move.

“We need to make sure that we have one of our major primary referral points to be in existence, because if we pull that away, then there’s very little to refer people to,” he said. “This is an essential service. If this goes away, the immediate impacts are going to be visible right off the bat.”

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The proposed funding for Ark Aid’s drop-in services already had been reduced from $1.1 million, after council ordered city staff to find overnight beds for which the money could be used, leading to the 18 new beds at the Centre of Hope.

Coun. Sam Trosow, one of the committee members who supported the drop-in services funding, said he is pleased to see the support from two members of the business community. The homelessness debate can often pit residents and business owners against homeless people and service providers, he said.

Quashing the funding for the services would be “very cruel and short-sighted,” Trosow said.

“If we did not have the services that Ark Aid is providing, would that help the situation, or would it lead to more deterioration? I don’t think it would help . . . you would just have hungrier people who need a bathroom and who have not had fresh clothes,” he said. “If anything, we should be thinking about expanding this type of service so it can be in more places and serve more people.”

Also up for final approval Tuesday is $1.2 million in funding for encampment outreach through March 2026, covering services such as water, meals and portable washrooms.

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