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A push for a pilot project to offer London’s homeless huts without running water or heat was shot down at Monday night’s council meeting.

Councillors in favour of investigating a possible pilot using Conestoga huts were outvoted two to one, with a 5-10 vote knocking down the idea for good.

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Conestoga huts are structures that resemble covered wagons, and are in use in the northwestern Unites States, where communities in Oregon and Washington have embraced them.

“It should not be acceptable that people would be living like this. I understand the feeling, the urgency to do something . . . I think funding would be better spent on permanent housing with supports,” Ward 5 Coun. Maureen Cassidy told her colleagues.

The pitch to test out Conestoga huts in London received unanimous support in a 5-0 vote at a council committee last month, but the final decision rested with councillors Monday night.