'We need to move faster': Property owner wants answer on homeless hub by July

A London property owner has set a July 1 deadline for the city to approve what could become the city's third homeless hub before he shifts focus to finding another tenant for the vacant building. 

Ross Rains owns 743 Wellington Rd., a former radio station located across from Tourism London's office and about 1.5 kilometres south of Victoria Hospital. It's located on what will become a bus rapid transit line and has parking for 46 vehicles.

Rains has applied to have the property re-zoned to allow it to operate as an emergency care establishment and a clinic. The re-zoning is a requirement to operate a homelessness hub on the property as part of the city's Whole of Community System Response plan approved by council last year.

The hubs are intended to provide emergency supports for unhoused people who may also have complicated care needs due to addiction or mental health challenges. The hubs are places for people in crisis to stabilize, and get temporary shelter and services while they access other supports and options for supportive housing. 

In an interview on CBC's London Morning on Tuesday, Rains said he's run into challenges getting approval for a hub at 743 Wellington Rd. There's been pushback from neighbours but also what Rains calls a lack of clarity about the city's approval process. 

"[The property] meets all the criteria that the city's hub plan requires for a basic hub operation," said Rains. "The process for moving forward with a hub requires a rezoning. We thought that was one and the same with the hub application but it's a two-step process but the second step hasn't been defined," he said. 

"It tells me that the vision is clear but the management is uncertain in terms of where the hub strategy is going," he said. 

Two homeless hubs have opened since the city's plan was announced and approved by council last year. One is run by Youth Opportunities Unlimited catering to young people, the other is operated by Atlohsa for Indigenous people. A plan by the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Thames Valley to open a hub on Fanshawe Park Road in northwest London was withdrawn. 

Need not being met

When the homeless plan was created last year, city officials said they'd hoped to have three to five hubs running by the end of 2023. 

"No plan like this is perfect but we need to move faster," said Rains. "We only have two hubs. There are 15 beds each. That's five per cent of the need that's being met right now." 

Kevin Dickins, the deputy city manager who oversees the homelessness response, said he's grateful Rains is pursuing the zoning change. However, Dickins also said there's still more information and work needed to get a hub operating at that location. 

"This is a great first step but we're missing an operator, we're missing capital costs, we're missing proposals and that's still to come," he said. 

However, Rains said CMHA was in discussion with the city about operating the Wellington Road hub but said their board of directors was concerned that only two years of operating funds were available. 

CBC News reached out to CMHA to confirm this but did not receive a response. 

Meanwhile, Rains said the expense of carrying a vacant property means he'll have to decide by summer if the hub plan for that location can move forward. 

The application to rezone the property is on the agenda at the May 22 meeting of council's planning committee.