Affordable housing and LTC are critical needs, but I don't see any benefit in incorporating these needs under one roof at this location. It should be a facility designed for those with the most desperate needs.
This is my principle issue...........at the end of the Miller Mayoralty, Toronto had about 4,400 shelter beds, those for beds for the desperate as it were. It had roughly the same number of homeless.
There were some people out on the streets or in parks who refused shelter beds, typically 100-200 most nights.......and there was just about that amount of spare capacity on most nights.
Since then, we've increased the number of shelter beds to 10,700, but there are now 2-3,000 people sleeping in parks, bus shelters, in encampents or back alleys etc.
So clearly that plan worked really well.........population growth and a rise in the cost of housing are parts of the story; but the larger storey is social assistance rates that have been frozen multiple times, and that are no longer sufficient
to get someone a rooming house bed; a minimum wage that has not kept pace with inflation, insufficient numbers of Long Term Care beds, and insufficient mental health system capacity for treating addiction and other mental health disorders, and finally, a shelter system that is so unsafe, and unpleasant, that many homeless who have experienced it would prefer sleeping outside.
In that context, 250 more shelter beds of assorted variations will do little if anything to stop the problem. Worse, they cost far more that permanent affordable housing and therefore eat up precious dollars that could help more people, rather than fewer.
I'm not asking to close shelter beds, or not open those already planned, designed, approved and/or under construction, there is a need there.
But at some point we need to direct the money to effective solutions, not band aids. The plan should not be one of sustaining the homeless, but having fewer homeless, by getting them proper, permanent housing.
Admittedly it has been many years since I walked down that stretch of George Street. I was very grim back then like something out of The Walking Dead. Something needs to be done
This is the other issue. The street feels unsafe to walk down for many. That's what revitalization was about. It was about spreading the social services over a larger area, instead of concentrating them so heavily on a couple of blocks of George
Street, to return the street to one people felt they could walk down safely, ideally 24/7, but certainly during daytime hours.
I have walked down the street, and not been threatened or intimidated, but I'm a decent sized guy, who doesn't intimidate easily; but even I feel the need to look around carefully and be sure I know where everyone is around me and what they're doing when I'm on that block.
That has diminished with the shelter mostly vacant, but it hasn't gone away, given other services that remain on the block and large numbers of vacant buildings.
Its not something I want to see sustained or made worse. Lets use this block for affordable housing and target a portion of those units for those living in shelters or who refuse shelters, but are housing-ready.
Lets build LTC and target a portion of those beds for those in shelters who are unlikely to be able to care for themselves, particularly those who are older.
A program for St. George should help take people off the street, rather than keep people on it.
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