Letter calls for shelter-crisis solutions
Celebrities Margaret Atwood, Rachel McAdams and more sign demand for city action
In the midst of Toronto’s housing and homelessness crisis, a group of prominent Canadians is calling on city council to open1,000 new shelter beds by the end of 2018.
In an open letter, former governor general Adrienne Clarkson joined more than 50 doctors, psychiatrists, actors, directors, academics, lawyers, historians, musicians, business and restaurant owners in laying out five demands to tackle what they describe as a failure to support the most vulnerable residents in the city.
Signatories include writers Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje; actors Sarah Polley, Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy and Rachel McAdams; Drs. Mitesh Patel, Joshua Tepper and Stephen Hwang; and members of agencies across the city dedicated to helping people at risk of losing housing or experiencing homelessness.
“We are very concerned about the lack of sustained action in providing adequate, permanent shelter spaces for vulnerable people in Toronto,” the letter says. “Every year, we find ourselves in crisis, with our shelter system collapsing under the growing demand for space.”
The demands include the funding of 1,000 new permanent shelter beds this year, keeping the Moss Park Armoury open until the 100 temporary cots can be replaced with permanent shelter beds, getting shelter occupancy down to the council-mandated 90 per cent, providing better wraparound services for people in need, setting new standards for drop-ins and improving conditions throughout the entire emergency and overflow systems.
“At its simplest, a shelter bed is a way of staying safe and warm, but it is also a connection to the type of supports people need to better manage their health,” said Dr. Joshua Tepper, whose work with people experiencing homelessness includes the Inner City Family Health Team.
Next week, council is expected to reopen the debate around the creation of 1,000 new shelter beds, with the support of Mayor John Tory.
Tory, speaking to media last week, said the review is “aimed at lifting us up to a better place,” starting with the need to find more permanent solutions to the housing crisis.
“I have gone to those shelters and to the respite centres . . . I am not satisfied with those conditions,” Tory said. The objective, he said, was to make sure nobody was left out in the cold and, going forward, to “do better in terms of finding real permanent or supportive housing,” or both, for people in need.
Council will vote on a motion to direct city staff to review and report back on all elements of the existing system, including all funding streams and the possibility of whether 1,000 new beds could be opened and when.
The budget for the city’s shelter support and housing administration division has stayed the same and actually gone down over the past 10 years, once adjusted for inflation, the city’s community, development and recreation committee heard last week. The number of full-time staff managing issues related to homelessness has also stalled.
Polley, in an email to the Star, said 1,000 beds are the “very minimum” needed to put a dent in the problem.
“This year, people on many sides of the political spectrum are finding it hard to deny that substantial action needs to be taken to deal with a col- lapsing, overflowing shelter system that is putting people at risk,” Polley wrote.
Over Monday night, almost 5,690 people were in the city’s emergency shelter system, including more than 1,450 motel beds used by families, according to city data.
An additional 770 people sought shelter in two women-only, 24/7 drop-ins, seven 24/7 winter respite sites (including 123 people at Moss Park), one warming centre and the volunteer-led Out Of the Cold program at five faith-based organizations.
The city’s emergency shelters have minimum space requirements and provide people with beds to sleep in.
At drop-ins, people sleep on mats or cots, or on chairs.
“There are a lot of really vulnerable and sick people who have nowhere to go and are utilizing these spaces,” said psychiatrist Dr. Michaela Beder, a member of Health Providers Against Poverty and one of the coauthors of a new report on existing standards in the city’s drop-in sites and warming centres.
Beder was part of a group of doctors, nurses, social workers and psychiatrists who visited10 winter dropins and spoke with dozens of clients and staff members, in late December and early January.
They reported people sleeping just feet away from each other on mats, without proper blankets or pillows and, in some cases, with limited access to toilet and shower facilities. The conditions, they reported, prompt some people to stay out on the streets. The findings are outlined in their report, “An Evaluation of Toronto’s Warming Centres and Winter Response to Homelessness.”
“We have been aware for some time that the conditions within them are very poor . . . I think we were frankly really alarmed by some of the things we saw,” Beder said.