Homeless turned away from shelters in mix-up
Advocates outraged after ‘miscommunication’ leaves some out in cold despite available beds
The mayor and city staff are scrambling to explain a miscommunication that left some of the city’s most vulnerable seeking warmth in a tiny trailer at Moss Park on Saturday night, believing there were no spaces available at shelters.
Gillian Kolla, a Toronto Overdose Prevention Society staff member at the park’s supervised injection site, raised the alarm on Twitter late Saturday after she said she was told there was no space available on a night when the temperature felt like -29 C with the wind chill.
“We are cramming folks into our heated trailer, everyone is freezing,” read a tweet on the overdose prevention society’s Twitter account. “Where are they to go at 10 p.m. when we close? There are no available shelters, respite or warming centre spaces in the entire city.”
Outraged social media users quickly chimed in, with many demanding that the city open every available respite centre. By Sunday, the hashtag “Open The-Armouries” was trending amid mounting concern for the city’s homeless population, which numbers in the thousands.
On Sunday, city staff said there had been available shelter space — including room for almost 40 more people at the Better Living Centre at Exhibition Place.
There was also space at a women’s respite centre on Cowan Ave., in the west end, and at the Streets to Homes Assessment and Referral Centre on Peter St., which doesn’t have beds but is open for people to keep warm overnight.
Mayor John Tory released a statement on Sunday, saying that he appreciates “the outpouring of emotion from people who want to help Toronto’s homeless population.” But he noted that the Better Living Centre is a preferred option over opening the armouries and that he supports shelter staff in deciding “when and if extra capacity is required.”
“The Better Living Centre can accommodate 110 people right now, it is open 24-7, and it is a city-owned site,” Tory said.
“We are cramming folks into our trailer, everyone is freezing. Where are they to go at 10 p.m. when we close?” TWEET FROM TORONTO OVERDOSE PREVENTION SOCIETY
Yet Kolla said she was told there was no space available when she called the city’s central intake and the Better Living Centre, trying to find shelter for the people who had gathered at the Moss Park injection site, which closed at10 p.m. Saturday.
“We’re not there to be a warming centre, but we’re the only warm thing in Moss Park,” she said.
With no other options available, Kolla said she handed out gift cards so people could keep warm in coffee shops.
Many temporary facilities have been set up to provide relief during the winter months, when shelter occupancy tends to spike. But temporary shelters are not required to meet the same service standards as permanent facilities. Not all of the sites have showers, and most don’t offer support services like counselling or case management.
“It’s a catastrophe,” Cathy Crowe, a street nurse who works to provide services for homeless people, told The Canadian Press. In a phone interview from a temporary shelter in the city’s east end — she didn’t want to identify it, for fear that describing its conditions might cause the city to shut it down — Crowe described a scene of chaos and neglect.
With an extreme weather warning still in place Sunday night, the city’s poverty reduction advocate, Councillor Joe Mihevc (Ward 21, St. Paul’s West) said a city outreach van would be at Moss Park at 7:30 p.m. to take people who need shelter to the Better Living Centre. By early Sunday evening, a small outreach van, which can carry two people at a time, was parked outside the prevention site. Chris Dalton, a worker at the site, said that about 20 people had expressed an interest in taking the van to the Better Living Centre.
There were also free transit tokens and a free taxi service are available to people wanting to access the facility on the CNE grounds, which is more than five kilometres from YongeDundas Square.
It’s unclear why people thought there was no space at the shelters.
Mark Aston, the executive director of the Fred Victor Shelter, which is running the respite program at the Better Living Centre, said that “clearly there was some miscommunication,” though he’s not sure what caused it.
He said they’ve given the city, which provides most of their referrals, daily updates on usage at the new respite centre.
Aston added that he’s spoken with staff and anyone who may potentially answer the phone to clarify the situation and doesn’t “anticipate any further miscommunications.”
Gord Tanner, the director of Homeless Initiatives and Prevention Services with the City of Toronto, said he checked in with the referral centre and was also told there was space in more than one facility Saturday night.
Sometimes, though, it takes some time to get the word out about new respite centres like the Better Living Centre, Tanner said.
“We’ve got a lot more winter sites this season than we’ve had before, so we need to continue to get that mes- sage out and let people know where there is space and how to access it.”
Despite the space available Saturday night, the shelter system overall was at 95 per cent capacity, above the city’s target of 90 per cent capacity, the same as it was on Thursday, when 5,500 people were using the system.
In a city where 80 homeless people have died this year, critics have called it a “shelter crisis.”
“We are, as a city, on every spectrum of the shelter situation, failing,” said Councillor Joe Cressy (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina). The city aims to keep shelters at 90 per cent capacity .
He and others have called on the city to open 1,000 new permanent shelter beds next year and to immediately increase emergency shelter capacity by opening the armouries.
Mihevc, the city’s poverty reduction advocate, said there are downsides to the armouries. The last time they were used they were available for use as emergency shelter space only between the hours of 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. and it cost the city roughly $800,000 for three weeks.
Mihevc said if the current capacity at the Better Living Centre fills up, he would support expanding the available space at that city-owned facility. Currently, only 10 per cent of the 200,000 square feet available is being used, he said, adding the issue right now is ensuring people know about the available respite space.
At the same time, Don Peat, the mayor’s director of communications, said the city is continuing to expand the shelter system.
The mayor and “the majority of council” are relying on the advice of city staff to address concerns about shelter capacity, Peat said in a statement.
“Based on that advice, the city is continuing to expand our shelter system. On top of the additional 400 beds or spaces approved earlier this month, more than 290 shelter beds will be opened in 2018 as part of five new shelter programs serving men, seniors, youth and LGBTQ2S youth,” Peat said.