Mayor John Tory and city councillor Josh Matlow have written an open letter to city staff asking that additional measures be taken to address safety concerns in a midtown Toronto neighbourhood where several temporary shelters have been set up.
In order to address crowding in the shelter system during the COVID-19 pandemic the city leased three properties near Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue – the old Roehampton hotel and two adjacent buildings on Broadway Avenue.
While the two buildings on Broadway Avenue will be vacated next month, the city recently extended the lease on the Roehampton Hotel for another two years.
That has upset some residents in the area who say that they have seen an increase in violent incidents since the shelters opened.
Earlier this month a city worker was stabbed by a client during a shift at one of the temporary shelter sites on Broadway Avenue. Then this past weekend a 44-year-old man was stabbed outside the Roehampton Hotel shelter site after being approached by a group of three men, one of whom was wielding a machete.
In an open letter sent to General Manager of Shelter Support and Housing Mary-Anne Bédard on Tuesday, Tory and Matlow said that while the city has already taken important steps to address safety concerns in the community “recent events have demonstrated that more must be done.”
“We are urgently requesting that additional, effective and immediate measures be taken to help ensure the safety of local residents and shelter clients,” the letter reads. “As you are aware, a shelter client was stabbed over the weekend. This was just the latest incident that has impacted residents at the Roehampton shelter, the Broadway site that is in the process of closing this month and in the wider neighbourhood. Break-ins, shoplifting, discarded needles, and other threats to safety are unacceptable in any area of Toronto and must be fully addressed.”
The city has already committed to a host of initiatives to improve safety in the neighbourhood, including regular visits by the Toronto Police Services’ Community Response Unit as well as frequent patrols by community safety teams, which are responsible for picking up discarded needles and other hazards.
In their letter, Tory and Matlow say that the city must go further and implement a school safety plan that will include “sweeps of local school grounds for items, including needles” each morning before students arrive.
They say that the routes currently taken by the community safety teams are also insufficient and must be expanded “to include properties of local residential buildings, including stairwells, alleyways, and parking structures,” as well as several area parks, specifically Sherwood, Eglinton, and June Rowlands.
Finally, they are calling on the city to utilize space within the Roehampton Hotel to provide recreational activities and programs to support the health and well-being of those staying there.
“Community members have offered to facilitate fitness, music, and other classes. These programs should be pursued not only for the obvious benefit to the residents but to also help integrate them into the neighbourhood,” they say in the letter.
Since the beginning of the pandemic the city has relocated about 3,500 shelter residents in order to improve physical distancing within its shelter facilities. Permanent housing was secured for about 1,500 of those people while others were placed in hotels and temporary shelter sites like the ones in midtown Toronto.
