Armoury shelter’s service extended
Feds agree to keep armoury open until provincial site on George St. is ready on Jan. 29
The federal government has extended the use of the Moss Park armoury as an emergency shelter to fill in a gap left by an evolving plan with the province and city to deal with a shelter capacity crisis.
Mayor John Tory was visited in his city hall office Wednesday by federal Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, who flew in to Toronto en route to a cabinet retreat in London, Ont., to discuss the need to keep the armoury open until Jan. 29. They made that announcement just outside the mayor’s office.
“When it comes to the Canadian Armed Forces, there is a system in place that we want to make sure that we have a proper response to serve Canadians,” Sajjan told reporters summoned just minutes earlier. “We will be there for a time of need for Canadians, but we have to do it in a manner that we make sure we use the right resources.”
The minister also said they would not be looking at recovering any costs from the city.
Last week, after continued demands from frontline advocates, Toronto Liberal MP Adam Vaughan announced the armoury would open for two weeks after the city requested help in creating a seventh winter respite site amid freezing temperatures, as shelters continue to be at capacity and with cold-weather drop-ins crammed with people sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder on mats, the floor or chairs.
At the same time, Vaughan said the province was looking to open a site that could be available until April, as the city had requested.
On Tuesday, the province announced the defunct York Detention Centre on George St. had been identified, but wouldn’t be ready until Jan. 29. That left more than a one- week gap in emergency shelter space with the armoury’s coming closure.
“We have expanded the system as the need has continued to expand and we’ve talked about the extraordinary demand that’s been placed on the system, partly a factor of the weather that was the coldest it’s been in 50 years, so you can’t necessarily anticipate that,” Tory said, thanking Sajjan and his military staff. “We’re doing what we can to make sure that every single person who needs shelter has that shelter.”
Members of the public told a sub- committee dealing with the 2018 budget Wednesday the city is not doing nearly enough to house the homeless.
“The non-profit community is bearing a huge responsibility and weight for the funding for emergency shelter programs in this city. The current funding formula is insufficient and relies on someone other than government funding what is essentially a human right,” Colette Prevost, director of advocacy and communications for the YWCA, told the budget committee. The YWCA oper- ates a women’s shelter that is consistently at capacity.
Rev. Maggie Helwig, who has been a longtime homeless advocate, noted the climbing number of deaths.
“I am tired of watching people die and I am tired of coming here two or three times every year for the last I-don’t-know-how-many years to say that I’m tired of watching people die. How many times do I have to say it?” Helwig said. “We need a level of leadership which we have not seen up to this point under this mayor or under the previous mayor.”