Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Toronto: City council may formally ask the federal government to help cover the costs of shelter-related services for asylum seekers, refugees, veterans and Indigenous persons amid an overcrowding crisis that has left many facilities struggling to meet record levels of demand.
A review of the city’s winter respite sites and shelter services will be debated by members of city council today in what will be their first meeting of 2018.
The review asks council to request that the federal government consider the “uploading and/or sharing of costs” for the provision of shelter-related services to “specialized populations” for which it is currently responsible, including asylum seekers, refugees, veterans and Indigenous persons.
The review also asks council to request that the Ministry of Health and the Toronto Central Local Health Integration Network “immediately develop” a “comprehensive and funded plan” to provide health services, including mental health and harm reduction supports, throughout the city’s shelter system and at respite sites as well.
The province has already announced plans to provide health services at five new shelters planned for the City of Toronto but has not yet indicated when or if those services will be made available at other facilities.
“We will make it clear that this is a problem that we are not going to ignore and that we are committed to solving but that we need the help of the other governments, of shelter advocates and of residents,” Mayor John Tory told reporters ahead of Wednesday’s meeting. “This is a very difficult and complex problem. It may be the most difficult I have faced as mayor and I just hope we can use this council meeting to take some meaningful positive steps in a more cooperative manner than sometimes has been the case in past years.”
The City of Toronto has opened up eight winter respite sites so far in 2018, though Tory conceded that the shelter system remains “undoubtedly under strain.”
The review before council today actually makes a total of nine recommendations aimed at addressing the crisis.
Some of the other recommendations include keeping the city’s respite centres, warming centres, and drop-in programs open beyond April 15 and reaching out to partner agencies supporting immigrants and refugees for their help in providing “appropriate accommodation and support.”
The review also asks council to reaffirm its commitment to cap the occupancy level in the shelter system at 90 per cent, a commitment that the city has never actually met.
“The test of a city is how well you are caring for the most vulnerable and as a city and frankly as a country and a province we are failing,” Ward 20 Coun. Joe Cressy told CP24 during a break in Wednesday’s meeting.
New policy aimed at protecting small businesses from big tax hikes
The review of the city’s shelter services is one of 167 items on the agenda for this week’s meeting.
Tory’s second key item, which will likely be debated later on Wednesday, is a new interim policy aimed at protecting small business owners from sky-high tax increases.
The policy, if approved, would cap the maximum tax increase in 2018 at 10 per cent for all commercial, industrial and multi-residential properties, regardless of increases in the assessed values of their properties.
It is being proposed after a number of Yonge Street businesses raised concerns about tax bills that went up by as much as 100 per cent as a result of soaring property assessments in 2017.
Speaking with reporters last week, Tory blamed the increases on a provincial policy which requires that properties be assessed based on their “best use.”
“In some cases it seemed as if every single location, every single lot, every piece of property was being valued as if it would one day be a condo tower. Of course we know that all of these locations would not be and should not be condo towers but that is what the provincial assessment policy effectively did,” he said.
Other items up for debate at this week’s meeting include a four per cent tax on hotels and short-term accommodations and a report recommending that staff further study the possibility of establishing a “Museum of Toronto” at Old City Hall once the courts vacate the building in 2021.
