Ward 2

Shawn Lewis

1. What do you feel is the #1 accessibility issue facing the city of London?

In my personal opinion, and perhaps this is influenced by the amount of work I have been doing on the housing file, the availability of enough accessible housing units is the number one issue that we can meaningfully tackle at city hall. 

2. How will you commit to improving accessible housing opportunities in our city?

As a member of the board at LMCH, I’ve been a part of the leadership that has developed a plan, obtained the funding, and is in the process of renovating of 400 of our RGI units to be fully accessible and affordable. I want to continue to be able to work on that initiative and see it through.   Just as importantly, we are as city building the first new LMCH buildings in over 50 years, since before it was downloaded by the province.  It is important as we develop these new builds, that we ensure the unit mix includes fully accessible units for those who need such a space.   

3. How will you work to improve accessible transportation including conventional transit, Paratransit, taxis and ride sharing?

Having been one of the council members who pushed for dedicated funding in the budget to specifically improve the paratransit service, I absolutely agree that this is a challenge. While progress has been made, there is more work to do. I’m honestly not as keen on the conventional transit system being a significant part of addressing accessible transit, as it still leaves people with mobility challenges facing the “last mile” problem of getting to and from conventional stops. I do think there is an opportunity to explore with the taxi association an opportunity for their playing a role in providing door to door accessible service and having an agreement in place with the city and LTC.  I will add ride share is a much different problem and not one the city can easily address given the nature of those companies and drivers. The taxi model however is one with local ownership and licensing that we can 100% work with locally.