Too cold, too late? London councillors push to open warming centres sooner

London city councillors are urging the Community and Protective Services Committee to raise the temperature at which warming centres are activated, saying the city’s current threshold leaves people experiencing homelessness exposed to harmful cold.

Several councillors argue the city waits until conditions are dangerously cold before opening additional indoor spaces for people sleeping outside.

“I just worry that if we don't change the thresholds, we will continue to see despair in the community,” said Coun. Skylar Franke.

The push for change centres on the city’s Tier 3 surge response, which governs when additional overnight warming spaces are opened during extreme cold. Tier 3 is only activated when temperatures drop to –15 C with a wind chill of –20 C.

When that threshold is met, the city opens 50 additional overnight warming spaces. Until then, only the city’s base winter shelter system is available.

In letters to the committee, councillors cite a Middlesex-London Health Unit report warning that cold-related injuries can occur at much milder temperatures, raising broader questions about whether London’s current framework adequately protects people living outdoors during much of the winter.

Where city policy and health advice diverge

City documents say the Tier 3 threshold was developed using local health evidence from the Middlesex-London Health Unit, along with operational considerations such as staffing and available space.

Franke said the way that guidance was written into the framework created a higher trigger than intended.

“I think it was just in some of the semantics,” Franke said. “When we approved this framework last year, the wording was minus 15 and a wind chill of minus 20, which is a higher threshold to meet.”

Her letter to the committee also references the health unit’s Cold Weather Response and Health Impacts report, which recommends municipalities consider opening warming spaces earlier, at temperatures as warm as minus five.

“There’s no specific threshold by which things get notably worse,” said Dr. Alexander Summers, the Health Unit’s medical officer of health. “Injuries or poor health outcomes from cold weather can happen at any temperature.”

Summers said repeated exposure increases the risk of harm, even when temperatures remain above extreme cold thresholds.

“Our biggest concern is risk of frostbite or hypothermia,” he said. “But over time, you can also have other cold weather injuries, like trench foot or skin breakdown. We also worry about respiratory and heart health as temperatures drop.”

He said the recommendation to consider a minus five threshold was meant to reduce harm earlier in the season, not to suggest people are safe above that point.

“If there is a need to identify a temperature-based threshold, our recommendation was to consider a warmer temperature than that which triggers a cold weather response, at around minus five, with additional surge capacity at colder temperatures,” Summers said.

Limits of city budgets loom over warming-centre debate

The issue is set to be debated Monday, when the Community and Protective Services Committee meets to review the city’s cold-weather response framework.

While Franke is pushing for changes to the warming-centre threshold, she said addressing homelessness and cold-weather risk involves multiple levels of government.

“Trying to solve homelessness is a multi-tiered jurisdiction so municipal, provincial, federal,” she said. “Most of our resources come from property taxes, which were never designed to replace health-care and housing funding.”

Franke said municipalities are often left to stretch limited budgets to cover gaps left by higher levels of government.

“We don’t have unlimited budgets,” she said. “The motion that we have is coming from a reserve fund, because it is difficult for us to be able to fill the gaps that the province has created.”

Despite those constraints, Franke said there is strong public support for opening doors sooner during cold weather.

“Almost every single resident or constituent across London wants people who are unhoused to be inside again during any weather condition,” she said. “They have deep empathy for people are outside in extreme weather.”