Poverty in Canada: Toronto’s Homeless Shelters Bursting at the Seams
By John Clarke
Global Research
February 26, 2016
On February 17, a mass delegation of members and supporters of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) marched to Toronto City Hall. We brought with us copies of a report we had put together called Out in the Cold: The Crisis in Toronto’s Shelter System.
The City Council was putting the finishing touches to a municipal budget tailored to the needs of investors, developers and a well resourced police force. We entered the Council Chambers and interrupted their deliberations to deliver the report as many of them scrambled for the exits.
The Out in the Cold report, was our attempt to show just how severe the crisis within the shelter system has become. Shelter use has grown by 11 per cent over the last four years and there is no indication that this trend is likely to reverse. This situation arises from the accumulating impacts of an austerity agenda that has reduced the adequacy of income support programs to the point where many people find it impossible to eat properly and retain their housing. At the same time, this City is in the midst of a frenzied drive to create an oversupply of upscale housing that drives up rents and reduces affordable housing stock. Large scale homelessness is the predictable and inevitable end result.
The regime at City Hall that is working to further this twin agenda of austerity and redevelopment is deeply reluctant to adequately respond to the shelter needs of the homeless population that their work is creating. In tough times, people facing destitution will tend to move into the central areas of the major urban centres. The municipal administration is anxious to ensure that Toronto’s shelters remain forbidding places that are hard to access and even harder to tolerate. For this reason, the track record has been to concede as little as possible to community pressure and to keep the shelters crowded and uninviting.
Snapshot of Conditions
The Rest…HERE
