‘We’re just dreading, dreading the minus 15s’
Pandemic has restricted access to indoor spaces for city’s homeless
Toronto is in the midst of a particularly mild winter, but in the emergency room at St. Michael’s Hospital, social worker Nicole Champagne has seen more frostbite and hypothermia than ever.
Champagne has worked in the ER for four years, primarily with homeless patients. This year, she’s seen an influx of patients with soaked, frozen extremities — fingers and toes that sometimes couldn’t be saved. In at least one case, she said, a patient became septic and died.
“The department is seeing a huge increase in people literally just coming in for basic needs: food, clothing and shelter,” she said.
With hundreds living outside this winter, Champagne noted that COVID-19 has restricted access to spaces like coffee shops and public libraries that Toronto’s homeless population typically relies on in the winter to get warm and dry.
It’s especially worrisome with the forecast for the next several days calling for night-time lows near -10 C, with windchills even lower. The city announced Friday it was reopening warming centres.
“We’re just dreading, dreading the minus 15s, the minus 25s,” Champagne said.
Elizabeth Harrison, a nurse with Toronto’s Inner City Health Associates, has also seen a spike this winter in frostbite and “freezing cold injuries” among homeless patients. In past winters, she said, outreach workers would give those who couldn’t find indoor spaces a Tim Hortons or McDonald’s gift card to access a few hours’ warmth. That option didn’t exist this year.
“They’re not getting their body temperature up, at any point during the day, because they’re not accessing indoor spaces at all,” Champagne said. That situation made even unseasonable temperatures a cause for concern.
Environment Canada climatologist David Phillips predicts the last full week of January will have the coldest days of this winter — with the first anticipated drop below -10 C.
Besides opening the warming centres, the city also said Friday more staff would be dispatched to encourage people in camps to come inside, and to hand out blankets and sleeping bags. Some advocates have been pushing the city to provide more winter gear, including “safer” heat sources to avoid encampments catching fire.
City and fire officials, meanwhile, say that moving to indoor spaces is the sole way to eliminate those risks — though the shelter system has been at or near capacity many nights this winter. The city’s most recent estimate suggests that between 300 and 400 people are still sleeping outside, though their count only includes those staying on city land like parks.
Leigh Kern, who works at Toronto Urban Native Ministry, said she’s seen encampment occupants this winter lining their tents with blankets or other makeshift insulation — but when it got really chilly, she said some people living in camps did light fires in an effort to stay warm.
In Moss Park, 60-year-old Derrick Black has lined his tent with polystyrene material. He recognizes it’s flammable — something the city has warned about.
But Black said that risk is outweighed by the protection it offers against the cold.
“I have no heat, man. I’m freezing,” he said.
Dave Smith, who has been living outside for roughly six months, said he tries to keep warm by walking for hours on end.
Others, Kern said, tried to numb themselves with substances to sleep through the cold. “Someone might have to drink until they’re not conscious anymore.”
Harrison said one of her primary concerns this year relates to the increase in encampments across Toronto since COVID-19 hit — and the health of those without experience outdoors, should the weather become more severe.
“I’m concerned,” she said. “Because I feel like, more than ever, there’s people who’ve never stayed outside for a winter.”