The Mayor’s Race

Two hubs open (Atlohsa's Wiigiwaaminaan Lodge and the YOU Community Youth Hub), plus a provincially run HART hub that opened in late October 2025 with 33 beds, building toward 60 plus 60 supportive housing units in its first year, and filled immediately. Most of the money is not on the tax bill: it runs through the ~$37.6M donor-funded Fund for Change, provincial Homelessness Prevention Program dollars, and federal transfers, money that is hard for voters to track through the normal budget. Council controls hub siting, zoning, and encampment protocols; addiction treatment, mental health, and income supports sit with the province and Ottawa. City of London — Whole of Community System Response ↗

Council controls the policing budget and priorities, by-law enforcement, lighting and public-space design, and outreach-program funding. It does not control drug scheduling and enforcement law (federal), addiction treatment and supervised consumption policy (provincial), or Crown prosecution decisions. CBC London reader survey, May 2026 ↗

The package includes 189 new positions (97 of them new officers), body cameras, a new digital evidence system, and $42M toward what is now the London Emergency Services Campus, a joint police/fire/city training facility at 3243 Manning Drive (site endorsed by council in July 2025; Phase One runs 2025–2027). The police budget was worth roughly 5 of 2024's 8.7 percentage points of tax increase. Statistics Canada's official measure puts London CMA's Crime Severity Index at 66.0 in 2025, up 8% from 2024 and its first rise since 2021, though still 12% below 2019 (national index: 75.0, down 5%). The split matters: non-violent crime is still 23% below 2019, while violent crime severity (79.6 in 2025) is about 24% above 2019. And neither the earlier decline nor the 2025 rise can be pinned on the new spending, since the hires were still ramping up. StatCan — Crime Severity Index by CMA, 2025 ↗

The city's office-to-residential conversion incentive (a forgivable loan of up to $35,000 per unit, stackable to about $50,000 with a separate affordable-housing incentive) has funded conversions including 685 Richmond St (41 units) and the former Rexall building at 166 Dundas. Whether the subsidy model is working is genuinely contested: vacancy rose through 2025 despite it, and the turn in the spring of 2026 has not been traced to the program. Careful with which number you are handed, too: the 25.0% figure that ran in some coverage is the whole city including suburban offices, not downtown. Council controls zoning, CIP incentive design, and spending on streets and public spaces; it does not control private employers' return-to-office decisions. CBRE, London Office Figures Q2 2026 ↗

Per the 2025 BMA Municipal Study, London's average residential tax bill is $5,760 (seventh-lowest of the 33 Ontario cities over 100,000 people) while its levy per $100,000 of assessment ranks high, because London's assessment base is comparatively small (average dwelling value about $242,000 at frozen 2016 values). Both are true at once: a below-average bill at an above-average rate, and BMA publishes no single combined 'cheap or expensive' ranking. A large share of 'social' spending is also provincially mandated and cost-shared (Ontario Works, childcare, public health), not a discretionary local choice. BMA Municipal Study 2025 (PDF) ↗

The federal Housing Accelerator Fund ($74M as signed, later amended to up to $81.5M for 2,371 additional units between 2024 and 2026) anchors the city's supply push, alongside the office-conversion program. Council controls zoning and approvals speed, development charges, and incentive programs; it does not control mortgage rates and lending rules (federal/Bank of Canada), income growth, or most direct housing subsidy programs. City of London — Q4 2024 rental market snapshot ↗

The network's approved budget is now $454 million, up from the $280.5M council approved in 2019; about $176M of that comes from the province and Ottawa. The East London Link's final phase, on Dundas Street, began March 16, 2026 and the city expects it to run to about 2028 (City of London Phase 5 notice); Wellington Gateway construction continues into 2027, with full service expected late 2028. Council controls route design, funding priority, and disruption management; it does not control the pace of provincial and federal transit funding, which BRT depends on. Rapid Transit (London, Ontario) — Wikipedia ↗

Road and infrastructure maintenance was cited alongside homelessness and drug use as a top-three concern in the May 2026 CBC survey. Water and wastewater have their own capital plans worth hundreds of millions, paid through water rates rather than property tax. Council controls the capital plan, road reconstruction priorities, and how growth costs are split between existing taxpayers (levy) and new development (development charges); it does not control provincial highway funding or the growth policy driving population increases. CBC London reader survey, May 2026 ↗