Toronto city council declares homelessness an emergency

Toronto city council has declared homelessness an emergency while voting to make changes to winter services such as how warming centres operate.

The motion does not trigger the immediate flow of additional funds or resources from other governments, provincial or federal, but is meant to further highlight the growing crisis in the city.

Council voted 24-1 in favour of the symbolic motion. Etobicoke-Centre councillor Stephen Holyday was the lone dissenting vote.

Toronto joins Hamilton, Fort Erie and Ottawa, who have made similar declarations.

“We are doing everything we can as a City government to help people experiencing homelessness,” said Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie.

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Council also approved several staff-recommended changes to winter services planning to support those experiencing homelessness, including changes to the criteria for activating warming centres.

It is also creating an Inter-Divisional and City Agency Working Group to identify public and privately-owned locations for use as warming centres and 24-hour respite sites.

Starting this winter, warming centres will now open when the temperature drops to -5 C or colder, or when Environment Canada issues freezing rain, snow squall, winter storm and/or snowfall and blizzard warnings.

Under the previous system, warming centres were only opened when an extreme cold weather alert was declared by the city’s medical officer of health.

However, the city says implementing these actions is subject to available space, staffing and budget.

Council is asking for an additional $5 million from the federal and provincial governments to continue providing winter services beyond the end of this year. Without the money, the city says it will not be able to open and operate warming centres as of Jan. 1, 2024.

Toronto has repeatedly asked the other levels of government for help covering a nearly $1 billion shortfall in the city’s 2023 fiscal plan, in part tied to increases in pandemic-related shelter costs, but no bailout was included in the recent provincial or federal budgets.

The city says despite adding capacity, demand within the shelter system continues to grow. In 2016, the system made available approximately 4,000 spaces. Currently, the city is able to provide overnight emergency accommodation to approximately 9,000 people experiencing homelessness.

City council also voted to urge the provincial and federal governments to add $20 million to the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit. The rent supplement pays the difference between 30 per cent of the recipient’s household income and the average market rent in the area.

A city staff report had estimated an extra $20 million could help transition upwards of 1,600 people from the shelter system into rental market housing.

Files from The Canadian Press were used in this report