Advocates, Toronto Councillors Call for State of Emergency over City's Homeless

The Globe and Mail, January 22, 2019

City councillors and advocates are demanding that Toronto’s homeless and housing crisis be declared a state of emergency and that all three levels of government work together at a time when shelters are at capacity and the extreme cold weather persists.

Since the beginning of the year, four homeless people have died in Toronto; in the 18 months between Jan. 1, 2017, and June 30, 2018, 145 homeless people died. The shelter system is at 94 per cent capacity, surpassing the city’s safety target of 90 per cent.

The opioid crisis and an influx of refugees are all part of the problem.

Homelessness advocate and street nurse Cathy Crowe described the conditions inside the city’s emergency shelters as unlivable, uncomfortable, unsanitary and overcrowded.

“The city needs external resources to deal with the crisis,” she said to the city’s Planning and Housing committee later Tuesday morning. “We now have 1,050 people that are staying on floors, mats or cots in this second-tier system and some of the images look like post-Hurricane Katrina. We need help.”

“We embrace an all-of-government approach that would provide wraparound support, customized to the specific needs of individual people," - Julie O’Driscoll, Director of Communications for the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing