Council debating plan to add additional shelter beds

Mayor John Tory’s plan to open 400 new shelter beds prior to the arrival of winter will be up for debate today as city council continues their monthly meeting.
Tory held a news conference over the weekend, where he announced that he would ask council to add the beds “as soon as possible.”
Tory said that the beds could be added through renting hotel rooms and by better utilizing space in existing shelters.

Homeless advocates, however, have said that the plan will do nothing to address the long-term need for additional shelter facilities.
“The problem is that the shelter system is already over capacity. That is why we are in this crisis right now and there are no spaces available to cram 400 more people into an already crowded space,” Kapri Rabin, who is the executive director of the community agency Street Health, told CP24 at city hall on Wednesday morning. “We need new spaces but the mayor is not talking about new spaces.”
Tory is expected to make a formal request to add the 400 beds as council considers a staff report, which recommends that he declare an emergency with regards to overcrowding in the shelter system.
The report also recommends that Tory petition the federal government to open emergency shelters at the Fort York Armoury and the Moss Park Armoury, though Tory has previously said that he believes there are better ways to address the crisis.
“I’ve extensively discussed the armouries option again with our professional staff… and they have agreed that this is not a desirable option or the most desirable option for a number of reasons,” Tory said over the weekend.
City council has set an occupancy standard of 90 per cent for its shelter system, though facilities regularly exceed that threshold.
On Dec. 4, 95 per cent of the city’s 5,568 available shelter spaces were filled and that shot up to 99 per cent in facilities reserved for women.
Speaking with CP24 on Wednesday, Trinity-Spadina Coun. Mike Layton said that adding 400 shelter beds is a “step in the right direction” but hardly a permanent solution.
“It is a step in the right direction but unfortunately these aren’t necessarily permanent shelter beds. When you are just opening up rooms in motels that is dealing with an immediate need but not the long term solution,” he said. “Every year you are going to go through this same debate over the number of spaces. The reality is that we are exceeding our target for vacancy, so we need to look for every opportunity to accommodate that need. If that is opening up gymnasiums, opening up the armouries, these are important things that we need to provide options.”
Layton conceded that opening up the armouries, in particular, is “not ideal” but he said that the city doesn’t have another option.
“When you have people showing up to drop-in programs and sleeping on the floor without even a mat you have a crisis on your hands, so you got to do everything you can do to address those needs,” he said.
Tory has said that he also wants to expedite the opening of three new shelter facilities that were slated to be in operation in 2019, as another means to address crowding in the system.
The plan to add additional shelter spaces is one of 109 items that remain on the agenda for this week’s council meeting.