London woman recounts her brush with homelessness at the opening of a new community housing project

CTV’s Gerry Dewan with the grand opening of the new Reimagine Southdale housing units, the city’s first new public housing build in nearly 50 years.

For the first time in more than 50 years London and Middlesex Community Housing (LMCH) have opened a new building.

It’s a six storey apartment complex with 53 units and a number of community spaces.

The tower replaced 18 townhomes that were torn down.

“I went from pain and despair to gratitude and happiness,” Kathleen Savoy told those gathered for at Reimagine Southdale phase one structure.

Savoy said her life was turned around when she found shelter in this London and Middlesex Community Housing complex, “I was this close to being out on the street, and I don’t think I would have made it 24 hours.”

She believes the Reimagine Southdale development will have the same impact on many others, “We have to unite together and work together to make sure that everybody’s housed and everybody has the same opportunity.”

Work on the Reimagine Southdale development got underway in March, 2024.

This $29 million complex is the first of three new buildings being constructed on the LMCH lands at 955 Southdale Road East.

LMCH CEO Paul Chisholm called it a milestone project, “It really just demonstrates that we’re moving forward, that we’re really focused on making sure we have good, safe, quality housing that meets the needs of the community.”

LMCH leadership says the project and others that will follow will provide modern, purpose-built, and accessible housing for London and Middlesex County.

Phil Squire is chair of the LMCH Board of Directors, “We want people to live here. We want them to be safe, we want them to raise their families here, and we want them to aspire to have their own housing that they own.”

London and Middlesex Community Housing is in the midst of its Master Regeneration Plan for the region’s stock of public housing.

Their stated goal is to increase the overall number of rent-geared-to-income units and improve the overall quality of the buildings.

In June, City Council was told that a condition assessment of the 31 LMCH properties found that only seven of were in fair condition and the remainder were in poor or very poor condition.

At that time council was told that bringing the overall assessment up to fair condition would require $34.6 million over the next 10 years. The cost would rise to $110 million to achieve a good condition.

Most of the properties were built in the 1960s and 1970s and reflect the impacts of aging infrastructure that hasn’t been adequately maintained.

London Mayor Josh Morgan told CTV News that underfunding of community housing infrastructure taught governments at all levels a difficult lesson, “This is the downloading of social housing to municipalities decades ago without the proper resources to actually maintain them. And that led to years of neglect that you see in almost every community who has taken on that asset. But through the last couple of years this council, in partnership with other levels of government, has made renewed investments in our community housing stock.”

Construction of phase two of the Reimagine Southdale project in underway, with another 53 units incoming. Chisholm said phase three is awaiting funding, “Our focus this time was on family accessible affordable housing. We know there’s a need for seniors, a need for others. So, we’ll look at that need and build what the community needs.”