In the first weeks of 2022, Torontonians have experienced multiple extreme cold weather warnings, risk of frostbite and wild chills with a feel of -30 C. It marks another year of brutal winter conditions in the city, without enough safe places to stay for homeless individuals. Coupling extreme weather events with the largest wave of COVID-19 the city has ever seen, it’s a recipe for what housing advocates are calling Toronto’s shelter system collapse.
The city’s 2021 Street Needs Assessment estimated that there are over 7,000 people currently experiencing homelessness in Toronto, though housing advocates place that number closer to 10,000.
According to the city of Toronto’s winter plan, there is space for over 6,800 individuals, including 75 permanent shelters, 24-hour respite sites and, at present, 26 temporary sites. Four warming centres opened in early December for the winter, offering up to 150 spaces for those who need them during extreme cold weather alerts.
Recent numbers from the city report at least 50 active COVID-19 outbreaks in the Toronto shelter system, with at least 400 cases among residents and one reported death of a resident at a homeless shelter due to COVID-19.
This winter has put homeless individuals in an impossible situation, choosing between exposure to COVID-19 or freezing out in the cold – and often even that choice is out of their hands.
Lack of shelter capacity leaving people with nowhere to go
Lorraine Lam, an outreach worker with Sanctuary Toronto, says there simply isn’t enough capacity for those who are unhoused in Toronto right now. On Monday, she detailed on Twitter what it’s been like making calls to central intake, Toronto’s centralized access system for emergency shelter, in an attempt to place people within shelters.
even before covid, the shelter system was failing. since, things have gotten worse. this week there were two extreme cold warnings & ppl tried desperately to get indoors.
this week out of 47 central intake calls, only 4 resulted in anything. 43 remained outside. read on: [1/]
— Lorraine Lam (@lorrainelamchop) January 16, 2022
Lam explains that the situation has gotten more and more dire during the city’s past few extreme weather events. “One unhoused woman that I worked with was just kicked out on Monday night from her hotel shelter, and so she was outside last night and stayed in our elevator shaft,” she says. Lam is noticing extreme wait times for central intake, resulting in individuals not finding overnight shelter.
“My colleague was on the phone with central intake for nearly two hours, then was told there was nothing available,” says Lam. “Hearing the recording that said they don’t have capacity to answer the phone is new to me.”
Still, Lam says a member of the Shelter, Support and Housing Administration (SSHA) told Lam to “stop pushing panic buttons” while she expressed her concerns over the phone.
“One of the points I made was that a lot of us have seen this coming,” Lam says, in reference to other housing and homeless advocates and outreach workers. “If we had worked better together, we could have maybe done some collaborative work. And [the SSHA member] said, ‘I really disagree with that, nobody saw this coming. Omicron only came in December.'”
The city’s winter plan is “inadequate,” advocates say
Back in October, the Social and Housing Justice Network (SHJN) shared a report with the city of Toronto ahead of the publication of their winter plan, which identified inadequacies in the city’s past winter plans. The report outlined some key demands, including incorporating 2,250 permanent, non-congregate shelter beds into the system, implementing COVID-19 indoor air quality safety measures, repealing the “no camping” bylaw and freezing all evictions.
The lead author or the report, Dr. A.J. Withers, is a member of the SHJN Steering Committee, an anti-poverty and disability justice activist and co-founder of FactCheckToronto.ca.
“Oftentimes in the middle of every winter, there’s a big crisis,” says Withers. “We organize and we say, there’s a crisis coming, and this is what you need to do. And [the city of Toronto] refuses to do it,” they say. “They put in a completely inadequate winter plan . . . and here we are now, and the system is in collapse.”
The SHJN has planned a community press release for Jan. 20, 11 a.m. at 129 Peter Street to rally public support for unhoused neighbours and discuss support strategy.
“The basics of our demands haven’t really changed since we put them forward in October,” Withers says.
There’s a need for expanded COVID-19 shelter safety measures
COVID safety is a key component of what advocates are asking of the city. With outbreaks on the rise, advocates and shelter residents have shared stories of inadequate isolation measures, a lack of N95 masks available and poor ventilation.
The city of Toronto announced on Jan. 13 they would be distributing more than 300,000 N95 masks through the shelter system and open two emergency shelters. and later announced an additional 60 beds would be added to the COVID recovery hotel shelter, bringing the total to 120 beds.
“The city has consistently all throughout COVID said that they have safe indoor space,” Withers says. “But their winter plan [remains] shockingly inadequate. It is much more a PR move than a plan.”
City of Toronto media relations representative Erin Whitton noted in a statement over email that, “Toronto – like all cities – continues to experience significant demand for emergency shelter. Emergency responses are critically important to fill the gap when people are in immediate housing crisis. However, the real solution is permanent housing with supports, which is why the City’s 10-year housing plan, Housing TO 2020-2030 includes actions across the full housing spectrum.”
But organizations such as the Health Providers Against Poverty have called on the city to strengthen their COVID protocols to address the current crisis. In a release sent to the city’s Board of Health, the organization called for more recovery sites and isolation beds, increased access to COVID-19 testing and transparency around outbreak sites. “We have heard from our colleagues that it is very difficult to understand which shelters are in outbreak and how to access non-outbreak shelters for clients,” the release states. The organization also called for an immediate moratorium on evictions, including encampments.
