No AC, sweltering temperatures force Ark Aid mission to close temporary indoor space
to close its temporary space at a Richmond Row church on Wednesday amid days of sweltering heat which forecasters say will continue into the weekend.
“We thought that being a basement … that it would be the coolest spot in the church, it’s a big concrete building,” Sarah Campbell, Ark’s executive director said. “We were wrong.”“When you bring, between staff and volunteers and community members, you know, 150, 200, 300 people even at times coming through the space in an hour or two, it gets hot really quickly. Plus we do cooking.
“By being together, we can actually demonstrate that, you know what? We welcome all Londoners to our public spaces. And I think that that’s one way that we can encourage more spaces to be open to these marginalized populations.”Western student to use ‘Head and Heart’ fellowship to research Indigenous youth homelessness
“But we are in a much more constrained environment from a funding perspective, and so those opportunities are much less.” According to Campbell, the mission has received complaints from businesses that its presence had attracted visible homelessness and was deterring people from coming downtown, something she says they were disappointed to hear.Story continues below advertisement