Affordable housing is vital for the city’s housing crisis. But we need interim fixes that aren’t years away

Can you wait until 2030?

According to Canada’s National Housing Strategy, that’s the year in which Ottawa will finally put an end to homelessness. Toronto’s HousingTO 2020-2030 Action Plan promises similar utopian outcomes, and provinces and cities across the country have each proposed their own plans to make homelessness a thing of the past by the end of the decade. So if you’re living in a tent in a city park, or bothered by the ever increasing number of people who do so, help is on the way. You just have to wait another seven years to receive it. Not exactly reassuring, is it? Especially when navigating the numerous encampments on your way to work, or find room to pitch your tent. And especially when the number of people turned away from homeless shelters is rising precipitously. The city of Toronto reports that in May, an average of 220 people a day were “unmatched” with shelters — which is euphemism for leaving people to fend for yourselves, there’s no room at the inn. The inability of shelters to accommodate demand has led to a predictable increase in the number of encampments, with the city reporting 199 tent cities in mid-May, compared to 105 at that time last year. The dismantling of encampments, like what unfolded at Trinity Bellwoods and Alexandra parks in 2021, did not solve the problem. Clearly, people will continue to live on the streets until the problem of homelessness is solved, which is why everyone agrees we need more affordable housing. That said, it’s all well and good to trumpet long-term affordable housing plans but what we need right now are immediate, short-term solutions. Given the itinerant nature of the encampments, those solutions to this housing crisis are beyond the capacity of any one city. Consequently, just as the federal, provincial and municipal governments have come together to propose long-term solutions, we need a unified effort by all governments to offer temporary solutions while the development of affordable housing that meets the need is developed. Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow recognizes that new affordable housing takes years to become a reality. She also recognizes that simply sweeping parks clean of homeless individuals is no solution if there’s no place for them to go. “It doesn’t deal with the problem. You’re moving them from park to park to subways to street cars and libraries, street corners and ravines,” Chow told the Star during her campaign for the June mayoralty byelection. Short-term solutions could include rental assistance and hotel rooms. During the campaign, Chow suggested the creation of respite centres to provide immediate assistance to homeless individuals, a place where they could connect with local resources and supports. She also pledged to fund 1,000 rent supplemented units that top up up low incomes such as disability benefits to enable individuals to get a permanent place. “It has to be a housing-first policy. . . .You have to have a roof over their head and then they can then get back on their feet,” she said. “If they have other problems, you have wraparound services for them, whether it is counselling (for) mental health, drug addiction, treatment, all of that,” Chow said.

Another possibility is to replace the encampments with large, temporary emergency shelters similar to medical tents erected during natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes. These modular shelters could provide centralized social services to residents, while also offering safety, security and sanitation facilities frequently absent from the encampments. British Columbia is constructing a 50-bed modular shelter to replace an Abbotsford encampment that has been plagued by fires and criminal activities. To be sure, the location of such shelters will prove controversial, with the inevitable not-in-my-backyard objections of residents. But since the encampments are already in their backyard, it’s preferable to offer safety and security over crime and conflagration. In any case, such shelters aren’t intended to be permanent, and we must ensure that they don’t become permanent. The Abbotsford shelter, for example, is expected to operate for a maximum of 18 months while the province identifies an appropriate location for a permanent one. At her first council meeting this week as mayor, Chow found unanimous support for her plan to ease the crisis of unhoused asylum seekers that in turn should ease some pressure on city shelters. That includes opening up new shelter spots and new rent supplement funding which could quickly provide permanent housing to upwards of 1,350 households. It was an encouraging sign of unity to see council act decisively on this urgent issue, with a welcome spirit of collaboration with the senior governments. Short-term solutions such as temporary shelters are the critical next steps to address this crisis immediately while long-term strategies are developed. Both strategies must work together to reach the goal of housing for all.