More at risk Londoners will be offered housing in a brand new, supportive, and affordable apartment building come this fall.
Members of London’s various levels of government, and community partners gathered for the grand opening of the city’s newest affordable housing development on Monday.
The four-storey building, located at 403 Thompson Road in the city’s Glen Cairn neighbourhood, is comprised of 44 units. The building will provide tenants with laundry facilities, a common room, and vehicle and bike parking. Funding for the project was announced in January 2022 and construction was completed earlier this year.
“This represents 44 of the 100 supportive housing units that we need this year as part of [the City’s] health and homelessness plan,” said Mayor Josh Morgan during his address. “This is not just an investment in the individuals who live in this building, it is an investment of each and every member of our community, because we know the cost of homelessness, [and] the cost of not caring for those who need help show up all across the system.”
Tenants will begin moving into the building in October. Individuals on the city’s priority waitlist, including Black Canadians, those at risk of, or experiencing homelessness, Indigenous Peoples, and women and their children fleeing from violence will be referred to Indwell, the charity that will be operating the site until the end of 2025.
Those individuals will then complete an intake process and be briefed on the wraparound services available to them. Staff will be available 24 hours a day to provide residents with care including addiction and mental health services, one meal per day, and other housing stability supports.
The project was selected through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s Cities Stream project under the second round of the Rapid Housing Initiative (RHI) for the City of London. The development received over $ 10.7 million in federal funding announced in December 2021.
Costs to run the building will amount to approximately $1.7 million per year. Funding to operate the facility will initially come from the City of London, before it eventually receives subsidies from provincial health care and federal homelessness funding.
-With files from Craig Needles