CREDIT: MICHELLE LYNNE GOODFELLOW
The London Homeless Coalition combines their soup and bread day with World Homeless Action Day to respond to issues of homelessness in the London community.

Abe Oudshoorn is a professor in the School of Nursing at Western University and also the chair of the London Homeless Coalition.

He comes from a background of working as a nurse with people who have experienced poverty and homelessness. The mission of the coalition is to advise and coordinate a response to homelessness in London, and as the chair Oudshoorn tries to bring all of their collaborative partners in the community together in order to address the problem and facilitate a dialogue to come up with goals.

On Oct. 8, the coalition hosted a soup and bread day and what was different about this one was that it lined up with international efforts.

The coalition’s soup and bread day is a chance for the community to talk to people who have experienced or are experiencing homelessness to get a better understanding of what it’s like day-to-day. It gives an opportunity for community leaders to get into agencies that are also working on the issue. Around 3100 people access homeless shelters every year in London.

“We host our soup and bread event a couple times a year, every year, and what’s exciting [about this one] is that we [combined] it with World Homeless Action Day, which is an international day to respond to issues of homelessness in our community.”

He said that the community response has been great so far, and that whenever there is an event there is a big turnout.

“We’re very excited by the response from federal, provincial and municipal politicians and community leaders, and business people. So many individuals have responded to our call to kind of get on the ground and see what the issue is.” He also said he hopes that with the federal election coming up, politicians will put more focus on dealing with poverty and housing shortages.

Homelesshub.ca is a website with an election resource that takes apart each party’s platform and looks at strengths and weaknesses, and Oudshoorn pointed out that Canada is the only country in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development that does not have a national housing plan, something that disappoints him. He said any party that will step up with a national plan is one that he will support.

“So the municipal government is a key partner with us in solving the problem of homelessness because the municipal level is where the issue sits in terms of government responsibility. They get the resources from the federal and the provincial government, and from our municipal dollars, and combine those resources into actionable strategies.”

He also said that the dialogue between the community and government is constant, and he’s excited that London mayor Matt Brown has localized the issue with an advisory panel on poverty. Provincially, Liberal MPP for London North Centre Deb Matthews has a poverty fund through her office.

“We’re constantly bringing the issues forward to our politicians, and making sure that at least locally, that we can focus on this issue, even if it’s not getting the kind of time federally that we hope it would.”