The Mayor’s Office in Toronto is today occupied by a much slicker operation than it was during the years of dysfunctional, bigoted buffoonery that unfolded under Rob Ford. Mayor John Tory has resumed the drive toward a fully fledged neoliberal city but has the basic political skills to frame his twin agendas of austerity and upscale redevelopment in the language of inclusiveness. He has been sufficiently proficient at this to rapidly create what Michael Laxer has termed an “austerity consensus” supported by the overwhelming majority of the Council, including its left wing.
The agenda of the developers with regard to the central part of Toronto is to complete the creation of an interwoven hive of business, commerce, upscale recreation and high end housing. Standing in the way of this are enduring pockets of housed poverty and a considerable and growing homeless population. Those without housing, very understandably, have tended to gravitate toward the centre of the city and, over many years, shelters and other services have developed in this area. This situation is resented by those working for upscale redevelopment and not only because visible destitution impacts property values and ‘quality of life’ for those with the money to pay for it. It is also the case that the shelters, drop-ins and service agencies that homeless people turn to are located in areas that the forces of gentrification are laying claim to.
The General Manager of Shelter, Support and Housing Administration (SSHA) has submitted an “Infrastructure and Service Improvement Plan for the Emergency Shelter System” to the Community Development and Recreation Committee of City Council. It is a startling plan to remove homeless shelters from the centre of the city on a mind boggling scale. I’ll return the focus shortly to this aspect of the report but, before that, I want to note that it also represents a response by the bureaucracy to the dramatic worsening of the homeless situation, the extreme overcrowding of the shelter system and to community based political action has been taken up on these issues.
On page 7 of the report we learn that, between January 2011 and January 2015, shelter use in Toronto increased by 11 per cent and there is no reason to think this trend will be reversed in the foreseeable future. In this worsening situation, there has been a longstanding struggle to ensure that the number of available shelter beds is adequate to meet the needs.
This has largely focused on demanding that the City’s policy of ensuring a maximum shelter occupancy rate of 90 per cent was actually enforced instead of being wilfully disregarded. At the beginning of this year, four tragic homeless deaths, and community action that was taken in response to them, forced the politicians and the administration to adopt some concrete initiatives that moved toward meeting the policy. Mayor Tory went to some lengths to ensure these measures were put in place. As socially regressive as his regime may be, it is sophisticated enough to understand that street deaths, especially from the cold, are simply too glaring an indictment of how the city is run and that a few million dollars to lower the risk of such tragedies is money well spent.
So, we have a staff report that responds, to some degree, to the need to reduce overcrowding in the shelters but is primarily concerned with clearing the way for the redevelopment agenda. In this, it focuses on three objectives. Firstly, it proposes to remove a portion of long term shelter users and place them in housing. Secondly, it looks at opening additional space and increasing capacity in the system somewhat. Finally, it uses the opportunity to advance a plan to relocate shelter facilities in outlying areas of the city.
The General Manager gives over part of his report to a glowing appraisal of the prospects for “Housing First approaches for long term shelter users.” On page 12, we learn that those who have been in shelters for more than one year “represented 10 per cent of all shelter users in 2014, but used 32 per cent of all shelter beds available.” Given this situation, the administration proposes to try and house some of this portion of the shelter population. Of course, no one is going to suggest that people should have to live their lives as residents of homeless shelters. However, the report is really offering very little when all is said and done.
On page 14, a goal of reducing the long term users by 20 per cent by housing them is set out, that would not make a decisive difference if it could be achieved, given the fact that the homeless population is growing so significantly. Moreover, it is necessary to temper enthusiasm around this initiative with a more realistic understanding of how the City’s Street to Homes initiative has actually played out in practice
more
.https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/torontos-plan-to-push-out-the-homeless
The agenda of the developers with regard to the central part of Toronto is to complete the creation of an interwoven hive of business, commerce, upscale recreation and high end housing. Standing in the way of this are enduring pockets of housed poverty and a considerable and growing homeless population. Those without housing, very understandably, have tended to gravitate toward the centre of the city and, over many years, shelters and other services have developed in this area. This situation is resented by those working for upscale redevelopment and not only because visible destitution impacts property values and ‘quality of life’ for those with the money to pay for it. It is also the case that the shelters, drop-ins and service agencies that homeless people turn to are located in areas that the forces of gentrification are laying claim to.
The General Manager of Shelter, Support and Housing Administration (SSHA) has submitted an “Infrastructure and Service Improvement Plan for the Emergency Shelter System” to the Community Development and Recreation Committee of City Council. It is a startling plan to remove homeless shelters from the centre of the city on a mind boggling scale. I’ll return the focus shortly to this aspect of the report but, before that, I want to note that it also represents a response by the bureaucracy to the dramatic worsening of the homeless situation, the extreme overcrowding of the shelter system and to community based political action has been taken up on these issues.
On page 7 of the report we learn that, between January 2011 and January 2015, shelter use in Toronto increased by 11 per cent and there is no reason to think this trend will be reversed in the foreseeable future. In this worsening situation, there has been a longstanding struggle to ensure that the number of available shelter beds is adequate to meet the needs.
This has largely focused on demanding that the City’s policy of ensuring a maximum shelter occupancy rate of 90 per cent was actually enforced instead of being wilfully disregarded. At the beginning of this year, four tragic homeless deaths, and community action that was taken in response to them, forced the politicians and the administration to adopt some concrete initiatives that moved toward meeting the policy. Mayor Tory went to some lengths to ensure these measures were put in place. As socially regressive as his regime may be, it is sophisticated enough to understand that street deaths, especially from the cold, are simply too glaring an indictment of how the city is run and that a few million dollars to lower the risk of such tragedies is money well spent.
So, we have a staff report that responds, to some degree, to the need to reduce overcrowding in the shelters but is primarily concerned with clearing the way for the redevelopment agenda. In this, it focuses on three objectives. Firstly, it proposes to remove a portion of long term shelter users and place them in housing. Secondly, it looks at opening additional space and increasing capacity in the system somewhat. Finally, it uses the opportunity to advance a plan to relocate shelter facilities in outlying areas of the city.
The General Manager gives over part of his report to a glowing appraisal of the prospects for “Housing First approaches for long term shelter users.” On page 12, we learn that those who have been in shelters for more than one year “represented 10 per cent of all shelter users in 2014, but used 32 per cent of all shelter beds available.” Given this situation, the administration proposes to try and house some of this portion of the shelter population. Of course, no one is going to suggest that people should have to live their lives as residents of homeless shelters. However, the report is really offering very little when all is said and done.
On page 14, a goal of reducing the long term users by 20 per cent by housing them is set out, that would not make a decisive difference if it could be achieved, given the fact that the homeless population is growing so significantly. Moreover, it is necessary to temper enthusiasm around this initiative with a more realistic understanding of how the City’s Street to Homes initiative has actually played out in practice
more
.https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/torontos-plan-to-push-out-the-homeless
