A Toronto committee is recommending that City Council declare homelessness an emergency and prioritize 24-hour respite sites.
On Tuesday, the Economic and Community Development Committee considered a report that reviewed the current procedures for the opening and operation of emergency warming centres.
Prepared by Shelter, Support and Housing Administration (SSHA), the staff report called for lowering the threshold for activating these sites to -5C from -15C and making at least one warming centre available in each corner of the city between Nov. 15 and April 15.
The committee supported SSHA recommendations that a working group be created to develop a long-term strategy for warming centres and other winter services as well as annual winter capital plans to identify locations for warming centres and/or 24-hour respite sites and reviewing available buildings for them.
They also include requesting an additional $5 million from the provincial and federal governments to ensure warming centres can keep going throughout the 2023-2024 winter season as well as $20 million from both levels through the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefits so that up to 2,000 households can exit the shelter system and move into permanent housing.
Lastly, City Council is being asked to authorize the General Manager of SSHA to enter into an agreement with ICES (formerly the Institute for Clinical and Evaluative Sciences) to share shelter client data and receive de-identified administrative healthcare data to help plan and provide health services for people who access the city’s shelter system.
During the meeting, Couns. Paul Ainslie and Chris Moise also put forward accompanying motions, which were both unanimously approved.
Ainslie called for homelessness to be declared an emergency, while Moise’s motion requested SSHA prioritize the opening and operation of 24-hour respite sites in an effort to bring “stability and reliability” for both staff and clients.
Moise went on to say that he feels that Toronto has “come a long way” in the short time he’s been a city councillor, pointing to the increase in shelter beds from 6,000 to 9,000. He said what’s really needed is a regional strategy, one that gets the province involved in supporting all municipalities across Ontario so they can open respite centres.
Ainslie, in his remarks, said he moved the motion to declare homelessness an emergency because he feels more robust and long-term funding sources are needed from the federal and provincial governments.
And while this declaration may not hold any legal grounds as declaring a state of emergency is something that would typically be done by city council, he said it will serve to draw attention to this important issue.
“Something needs to be done. People are going to keep coming to this city. It doesn’t matter, I think, how many warming centres or shelters we build, we may never have enough,” Ainslie said.
This is the first time in 25 years that Toronto is taking steps to make such a declaration.
Back in late 1998, the city declared homelessness an “unnatural disaster.” Just over a year later, the federal government announced the creation of a National Homelessness Initiative, which resulted in the establishment of a number of programs to support unhoused individuals and families.
Long-time street nurse and advocate Cathy Crowe told CP24.com that she’s optimistic that it will help the city obtain funding and resources for affordable housing.
“We’ve been trying for quite a few years (to declare homelessness an emergency),” she said, calling this latest move “quite encouraging.”
Crowe said she’s hopeful that it will result in the deputy mayor and city council using much stronger language in their calls for support from other levels of government.
“This is a positive step to address homelessness,” she said.
“I think it’s very symbolic.”
Greg Cook, an outreach worker at Sanctuary Ministries and a steering committee member with the Shelter and Housing Justice Network, said this declaration would surely “up the ante” and show that Toronto has the leadership to tackle this crisis head on.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” he said, adding it’s time that the city stop politely requesting more money to address homelessness from other levels of government and be more forceful and serious in declaring its demands so that it gets the response it desires.
“I really hope the candidates running in the byelection take notice of what this committee has done,” he said.
During his deputation before the committee, Cook spoke about how SSHA’s report doesn’t accurately describe or illustrate the severity of homelessness in Toronto pointing to the 187 individuals who died in the city’s shelter system last year. He said that’s a “massive increase” compared to the roughly 30 people who died when he started working in the sector about 13 years ago.
“We’ve asked repeatedly for the city to declare an emergency,” he said, adding repeated requests by the city to the province of federal and provincial governments for more funding have not resulted in the money needed to address homelessness.
Cook also noted that more people are entering the shelter system each month than SSHA is able to house and Toronto could face a situation like Los Angeles, which has an estimated 60,000 unhoused residents.
On April 12, Hamilton city council voted to declare a state of emergency over opioids, homelessness and mental health in the city. Ottawa and Niagara Region have done the same.
Both Crowe and Cook said they hope Toronto will follow suit and adopt the warming centres report and accompanying motions at its upcoming City Council meeting on May 10.
