#toronto-shelter-crisis

#toronto-shelter-crisis

Simon Dudley described the Grenfell Tower fire as a tragedy but added that everyone dies in the end, which sparked outrage from Grenfell families and others.

The emergency department at Michael Garron Hospital was built to care for about 150 patients a day, but now sees more than 300 patients daily, amounting to about 107,000 patients last year in a space designed for 50,000 annually.

"The landlord did not pay attention to this house whatsoever. We didn't even know we had a landlord."

We're meant to help people in an emergency, but what's changed is now people are in emergency every single month because the income they have is nowhere near covering the actual costs that it would take to live their life. Food banks were intended to bridge a gap only, but the organization says food insecurity continues to grow in the city.

The province is projecting just 64,800 housing starts this year, 10,000 fewer than it expected for this year in last year's budget and 30,000 fewer than the 2024 plan projected.

We take a pause at the end of the case and just acknowledge that there's a human here, a person, someone who has community, someone who is loved. It's not much, but I think that it goes a long way.

Isaac Tumuramye has called the Willowdale Welcome Centre home since he came to Toronto from Uganda two years ago. But the shelter, which serves refugees experiencing homelessness in Toronto, is closing at the end of May. Tumuramye says he's scared about what the future holds and others staying at the shelter feel the same. "We're not ready yet, we're still trying to make life happen," he said.

A year after Toronto staff sent a cease and desist to a man who built several tiny mobile homes for those experiencing homelessness, the city is moving closer to embracing micro shelters with its own potential pilot project. Until Thursday, the city was accepting proposals for a two-year micro shelter pilot project, to be part of the city's 10-year plan to deal with homelessness.

"Affordability isn't about keeping costs down, it's about keeping people in their homes," Chow said. "When we invest in keeping people housed, we're making Toronto more affordable for everyone and we're preventing the far greater cost of homelessness. We're making sure that one bad month or one medical emergency or layoff doesn't destroy the entire family," she added.