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• Specially for The London Free Press
Published on January 28, 2023 • Last updated 4 hours ago • 4 minutes read
People queue outside First Baptist Church in the Park on Richmond Row for a dinner provided by the Ark Aid Street Mission on Monday September 26, 2022. (Mike Hensen/The London Free Press)
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Talk about a snowball effect.
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What began last year as a notice of breach of statute issued by the City of London to a church and street mission has grown into a $25 million behemoth that’s still gathering momentum.
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His goal: to end the city’s perennial homelessness problem with a long-term, sustainable solution.
The problem of homelessness in London and efforts to address it has long been part of the city, a kind of noise, a background noise that many accept as an inevitable part of city life, even if social services have tried to solve it.
But what happened in late summer set off a series of events that may prove more impactful than anything in recent memory.
When the city notified Ark Aid Street Mission and First Baptist Church of their temporary agreement to provide a drop-in center for several hundred homeless people along Richmond Row, meals, showers and support services violated the city’s zoning regulations, drew the attention of more than only Ark Aid and First Baptist.
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Aid agencies across the city were outraged. Faith communities were shocked and saddened. It seemed like heartless bureaucrats were compounding a problem they were committed to solving.
But the fuse for a much broader community conversation — in service clubs, in churches, mosques and synagogues, in corporate boardrooms and near workplace water dispensers — had been lit.
Even then-Mayor Ed Holder, unable to intervene in the bylaw violation, urged those involved to band together to find a solution. After all, we are measured as a community by how we care for our most vulnerable, he said.
By November, city planning officials offered a compromise but acknowledged that pressure from downtown businesses and residents for action remained strong. In the same month, London’s largest health organisations, the Middlesex-London Health Unit and a wide range of charities held a summit on homelessness to find answers through inter-agency work.
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As the Summit’s work continues to craft a scheme, not just a plan, to help the homeless, by the end of December so much tangible progress had been made that a London philanthropic family came to the office with a bold, bold and bold message of the Mayor and the London Community Foundation. changing offer.
In his State of the City address last week, Mayor Josh Morgan stripped the covers of a $25 million donation, with an opportunity for the community to donate another $5 million. If that threshold is met, the family, who choose to remain anonymous, will commit an additional $5 million for a potential grand total of $35 million.
At the same time, Morgan was aware of the need for broader support and partnerships with federal and provincial governments: “Local governments do not have the expertise, capacity and resources to address these increasingly complex health issues that lead to homelessness or prolong chronic homelessness.”
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At the London Community Foundation, which manages the fund and donations to it (fundforchange.ca), excitement at such a precedent-setting initiative is palpable.
Diane Silva, director of philanthropy, says the donor family and others have been buoyed by what they see as steely determination and broad participation in the development of a lasting, enduring system.
“That conversation was generally centered around philanthropists, and I know that was an issue for the family,” Silva said. “They invested in other programs and wanted to do something that would create systemic change. The summit gave them that hope because it’s about breaking down silos, working together on what a new system could look like.”
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The reaction from Londoners, she said, has already been remarkable. Since the mayor’s announcement, the Homeless Initiative has dominated donations to LCF through its online portal, a grassroots response that is already receiving support from other organizations and funds.
“We’ve never seen so much activity… well, I’ve never seen it in the 10 years I’ve been with the foundation. I can see us hitting $5 million,” Silva said, noting that Libro Credit Union made a $50,000 donation this week and other organizations are waiting in the wings.
“This is the greatest gift in the history of our community to a homeless organization,” said Silva. Philanthropists “often give this size (of a donation) towards health care or education. But what? Because of homelessness? most vulnerable? That’s incredible. They don’t put donor names on walls; It’s really about helping the most vulnerable in our community.”
A bad start has turned into a rapidly growing snowball, proving once again that it’s amazing what cross-sectoral community collaboration can achieve.
Larry Cornies is a London-based journalist. [email protected]
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