Here's where London's new micro-shelter could be located

London city staff are recommending a new temporary, emergency homeless shelter site housing as many as 60 people to be built south of Hwy. 401 in a field currently being used for crops.

In a report released Tuesday, staff said 1710 Wilton Grove Rd., east of Highbury Avenue, meets a number of requirements for building mini modular homes that could be opened by the end of December.

The city-owned land is shovel-ready, more than 400 metres from schools and daycares, not within a floodplain and would have minimal impact on commercial and residential areas, staff wrote. It's also a two-lane road, with a posted speed limit of 80 km/hr that does have a designated bike lane and farmers as neighbours.

Mayor Josh Morgan used his strong mayor powers in late September to expedite the staff report, sending them to do the research without having to pass the plan through a majority vote in council.

Council will now review the plan, including the site location, Wednesday at a committee meeting.

"This is actual shelter for people who need it, particularly through the winter in the colder months," Morgan said Tuesday.

"Right now, those individuals are sheltered on the streets of downtown and in Old East Village. They're in parks, they're in the doorways of businesses. And it's because they don't have another option."

The modular housing is expected to stay open until April 2027, and would cost $7 million to build and operate. Staff said there's enough money in the city's contingency reserve fund to cover it, and is recommending an expedited tender process to get the work going as quickly as possible.

If approved, some of the specific requirements for the micro-modular shelters would be:

• Less than 10 square meters (108 square feet) and no foundation required
• Heat and air conditioning
• Accessible
• Easy to clean and maintain
• Water, sewer and hydro available
• Outdoor space for pets, units for couples, units for recovery and abstinence
• 24 hr/day security
• Garbage collection

Morgan said the micro shelters are intended to be temporary, and to be a step toward permanent housing.

"I expect people to be on a pathway to housing and that this is a stop on the way," Morgan said. "We are doing a whole lot of things across the spectrum, including investing in supportive housing, partnering with developers on getting buildings up and going."

The Wilton Grove site would require approval to use as temporary housing from the Ministry of Transportation because of its proximity to the 401. Once builders were chosen, staff also note that a service provider with experience would have to be hired to run the site.

The proposed site is located at the southeast edge of the city, straddling London's manufacturing areas and rural farm land. As a result, readily available public transportation is hard to come by.

Wilton Grove Road is serviced only by a single London Transit route, known as "30 White Oaks Mall – Cheese Factory Road," which operates infrequently and only during weekdays, based around the hours of nearby shift workers.

Launched in 1994, the route's path has not changed in more than a decade. In June 2024, London Transit commissioners approved a draft five-year plan for its conventional system that included changes to the route, planned for 2026.

Morgan points to the success of Chatham-Kent's newly opened micro-shelter site, where 50-cabins began housing people in August.

"We've had folks come in from our local encampment that are now prepared to access support, which is huge," Kim Crew, Chatham-Kent's director of housing services, told CBC News last week. "We've had folks come in with their pets, and folks that are cooking communal meals for everybody now that they have space to do that."

London's Unity Project built pre-fabricated temporary shelters that opened in their Dundas Street parking lot in 2023. That organization stressed that they're not homes, but only temporary.