Nowhere to go

As temperatures drop, people affected by homelessness face increasing challenges

Toronto has a problem. 

If you’ve ever walked down Dundas, maybe you’ve noticed people with nowhere to go sitting against buildings or in stations. If you’ve lived in Toronto for a while, maybe you’ve noticed that there are more people affected by homelessness all around the city. 

There are over 9,200 homeless people in Toronto, and that number is only going up. Abusive relationships, loss of employment, substance addiction, mental or physical health issues, discrimination, displacement, and so on—homelessness has a range of causes, but its consequences are often the same. Lack of access to proper hygiene and healthcare, hunger, and mental illness are some of the most common factors that endanger homeless people. One of the greatest threats to people experiencing homelessness in Toronto, though, is the winter weather. 

We all know that Toronto winters are harsh, with slippery and snowy sidewalks, frigid winds, and air temperatures well below freezing. And for those affected by homelessness without access to shelter, tents and blankets might be all that stand between oneself and these conditions. It should go without saying that winter poses a massive risk of injury, illness, or death to those with nowhere to go when it’s below zero outside. From November 2018 to February 2019, there were 30 recorded deaths on the street, and even more are in danger now if nothing changes. 

Refugees and asylum seekers from Syria and Mexico, who have come to represent a disproportionate 36 percent of those affected by homelessness in Toronto, face a particular challenge in winter. Not acclimatised to the North’s bitter cold and snow, they are more vulnerable than any to harm and death when temperatures drop. 

With all this in mind, the City of Toronto released a new winter plan for people affected by homelessness in November. The plan included a new shelter with space for 200 people that opened at Yonge and Finch on November 12, as well as additional spaces for 285 people across the city. For the last six winters, Toronto has allocated increasing resources to homeless shelters and services—but some say that it’s not enough. 

There are currently around 7,000 beds spread across 63 shelters set up in Toronto, but they’re almost all taken up. Shelter space for men is at 98 percent capacity, women’s spaces are 99 percent full, and there isn’t any room left at all in family shelters. People affected by homelessness in desperate need of safety, respite, or warmth may be turned away and denied necessities for a healthy or comfortable life. No matter how many new shelters open, occupancy rates never seem to go down, as noted by Toronto’s director of homeless initiatives, Gord Tanner. 

And to make matters worse, what shelter space that is available is often dismally inadequate. Last October, Toronto’s shelter system was cuttingly described as “second-tier” by street nurse Cathy Crowe, who released footage of the bare and tightly-packed state of multiple centres across the city.  

The situation seems dire. Shelters are inadequate, services and donations aren’t enough, and people are in danger. So, here’s the question: what should Toronto do? 

A winter plan and respite spaces are a good start, but they’re surface solutions. The shelters, while helpful, are a short-term bandaid slapped over a much deeper problem. Mayor John Tory’s lip service and shortsighted measures look good on paper, but the reality of the situation is that preventable deaths are happening in this city—and all the city can do is set up a few hundred extra cots every winter.  

Developing strategies to mitigate the economic and social factors behind homelessness is the only way our government can start to work on a real solution. New shelters and new resources are not a bad thing, but they cost money and time that wouldn’t be spent if more officials publicly recognized and addressed the root problems.  

Economically speaking, that means a huge waiting list for housing and a low rental vacancy rate. Over three-quarters of those affected by homelessness in Toronto point to high rent and long wait times for apartments as their major obstacles to shelter and safety, with 94 percent seeking a permanent home without avail. Social issues like addiction, poverty, and racism also lie at the heart of the homelessness emergency. The stigma that people face add to the struggle of being affected by homelessness. 

Not to mention the hypocritical hostile architecture in Toronto: while politicians wax distress and dispirit about the homeless crisis, we see more and more armrests on benches, planters on sidewalks, even spikes in front of stores to prevent anyone trying to lie down. The city has also threatened to vacate encampments that provide people with the only shelter they can get. It should be our city’s responsibility to spread awareness, to put more money and more time into long-term solutions, not to act like human beings are mundane municipal inconveniences.  

Our city needs to do better, to stop treating people experiencing homelessness like criminals and second-class citizens, to stop ignoring the suffering that happens in this city every day, especially as winter inflicts its toll on the most vulnerable people in the city. Some advocates, including Toronto city councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam, have even called for the declaration of a state of emergency in response to the housing crisis. 

And as for your part, reconsider how you view Toronto’s homeless. Drug addiction, mental illness, and poverty are circumstances no one wants to find themselves in, and further stigmatizing and alienating those who experience homelessness will only worsen the problem. Give what money you can to people in need, and constantly hold politicians accountable for their responses to Toronto’s emergency. Homelessness is systemic, and the only way we as a city can tackle this problem is without stigma, without indifference