Please sign to support the demands #forgotten519 has made to the City of London

STOPPING PREMATURE AND PREVENTABLE DEATHS, THE WAR ON THE
IMPOVERISHED, AND FRONTLINE ATTRITION: HUNGER STRIKE LOOMS OVER LONDON ONTARIO WHILE FRONTLINES DEMAND ACTION

Londoners who are experiencing homelessness are dying premature and preventable deaths at an ever-increasing rate. We see inadequate city resources being dedicated to this emergency. A grassroots collective of frontline workers and community advocates known as #TheForgotten519 demands that the City of London take immediate action to address these deaths. If the City of London does not immediately agree to our demands, a Hunger Strike will begin outside of City Hall at 9:00AM on Tuesday, August 2, 2022.

#TheForgotten519 are a multidisciplinary coalition of people who serve individuals experiencing homelessness. We are outreach workers, medical professionals, and advocates. We are also people with lived experience of homelessness, impoverishment, and oppression. Collectively, we have 100s of years experience serving this community.

During COVID, we saw the ability of all levels of government to bring many of our community members inside. With the cessation of COVID-related housing funding, hundreds of our community members have been forced to return to living outside. Shelters are continually full and still operate at reduced capacities. The average rental price for a one bedroom apartment in London is more than $1425.00 (A single person receiving Ontario Works receives $390.00 for rent), waitlists for social housing have grown exponentially in recent years, and there are no additional resources for the 300+ people sleeping outside in London every night. The deaths we
are seeing on the street are directly related to the absence of safe and appropriate housing and the absence of safe and appropriate emergency daytime and nighttime shelter and care. These are
preventable deaths. For those who remain alive, day-to-day life is an ongoing struggle for survival without enough to eat, without a safe place to sleep, without access to bathrooms or showers or the recognition of their human dignity. Those who remain alive grow sicker daily.

The recent death of a woman found dead in the Deshkan Ziibiing (the Thames River) is a gut-wrenching public display of the death we see every day. Her death is emblematic of our failures as a City. Her death did not need to happen. A death like hers should not happen again. Preventing deaths like these will take willpower from the entire community. We need to start listening to the voices that are rising from the frontlines and from the encampments. We need the city to step-up and be a courageous, wise, and caring partner in saving lives and reversing our collective trajectory. We need to take a stand and stop people from dying. Drawing on research,
expertise, observations of solutions in other Canadian cities, our collective experience, and what people living in encampments have repeatedly said to us, #TheForgotten519 are making the following three demands of the City of London:

1. Immediate cessation of any removal of encampments, tents, campsites, or squats in City Parks, along the Thames Valley Parkway, and in empty city lots, or lots that have been left to fall into disrepair by the property owners.
2. Immediate transition of the City of London’s Coordinated Informed Response (CIR) Team from a displacement model, to a team that offers meaningful support (based on the self-identified needs of the campers) to campers at their campsites.
3. Immediate creation of two indoor spaces (one in the core, one in the east end) that provide 24/7 support to people who are deprived of housing and shelter, or who simply need a safe place to be.

The City of London has one week to agree to these demands and we trust that they will do so. However, if they do not, one of our members will begin a hunger strike at 9AM on Tuesday, August 2, 2022. This hunger strike will continue and escalate until the demands are met or until
the designated negotiators from #TheForgotten519 unanimously report that an acceptable alternative to these demands has been agreed upon.
We are frontline workers in the trenches of the war on the impoverished, disabled, oppressed, criminalized, and abandoned. If the City desires to meet with us, we expect them to do so in order to discuss how to immediately implement these demands. We don’t have time to waste and
neither do our friends who are dying.