The Church of the Holy Trinity is surrounded by camping tents, each one big enough for two or three of Toronto’s homeless residents.
Amanda Stroud moved into the encampment four weeks ago after struggling to find space in the city’s overwhelmed shelter system.
“There’s nowhere else for me to stay,” she said, standing outside a small canvas tent Friday morning. “The shelters are full, I don’t have any housing opportunities. This is home.”
Since the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the city has seen a dramatic increase in homeless encampments across the city as inhabitants find themselves without shelter space and apprehensive of facilities that have become vectors for the deadly virus.
Early in March, the city imposed a moratorium on clearing homeless encampments, given the challenges of ensuring physical distancing in shelters. But the city has since resumed the removals of the encampments as they implement new, temporary housing measures for the homeless.
On Friday, standoffs unfolded between Toronto’s homeless and city officials at several downtown encampments as police officers and city workers cleared tents.
The city said it was clearing tents that were abandoned after moving people into housing last week, but Jason Phillips, who lives in a tent underneath the Gardiner Expressway, told the Canadian Press he received an eviction notice despite refusing an offer for a shelter placement.
He said he feels safer outside than in a shelter during the pandemic. Stroud agrees.
“At least, here, you can pick up your tent and move somewhere else if you don’t like the spot,” Stroud said. “I’ve stayed in a shelter where someone stole the shoes off my feet while I was sleeping. It’s not much better.”
Some of the encampments, like the one outside the Sanctuary Charity on Charles Street, have outhouses and are staffed with harm-reduction workers.
The encampments often congregate in the city’s ravines and underpasses — beside the Gardiner Expressway and along the Don Valley Parkway — though street nurse and housing advocate Cathy Crowe says recent areas include stretches of University Avenue and in Parkdale.
“People in these encampments have less access to basic hygiene, washrooms and food services,” Crowe said. “They have some outreach coming to them from charitable organizations, but not as much they should.”
Mary-Anne Bédard, general manager of Toronto’s Shelter, Support and Housing Administration, said that the city will always offer indoor spaces for inhabitants before removing their tent encampments.
“When we make an offer to someone for an inside space, we work with them to ensure they’re in a position to accept that. But if they decline that offer, we will continue to clear the site,” she said.
Toronto Fire Services Chief Matthew Pegg said Friday that city staff withdrew from the encampment sites after they were approached by protesters.
Since the pandemic began, the city says it has moved 97 inhabitants of tent encampments to indoor spaces.
“By moving inside, you’re moving to a location that’s being cleaned to high standards, you have access to three meals a day, you have access to running water and sanitation, and you have access to space that has met physical distancing requirements,” Bédard said. “Encampments have none of those things. Our staff are trying to help people understand that.”
But Crowe says the shelters pose risks to their inhabitants as well.
Two people have died and more than 329 have tested positive for COVID-19 in the shelter system since the pandemic began, according to the city. The city has also reported outbreaks in nine facilities where roughly 70-80 individuals are hosted on a nightly basis.
In March, the city added nine new shelters for homeless people with over 350 spaces to help improve social distancing. The shelters are spread out across the city, in recreation centres and motels that the city has adopted.
Despite the city’s efforts, advocates of health-care providers say “widespread outbreaks” in Toronto’s shelter system are inevitable due to limited space and overcrowding.
Crowe says that some of the difficulties concerning the shelters were further exacerbated by the closure of Toronto’s central intake centre for homeless shelter services in March.
The centre, which connects the homeless with shelter beds, shut down its in-person services due to COVID-19 concerns, leaving individuals to contact the centre via phone or by relying on shelter staff and outreach workers to help them find locations with available space.
Many of the individuals Crowe works with have had trouble getting through to central intake by phone, she said.
Mayor John Tory said that city staff are helping people in the encampments move into two midtown buildings with 125 fully furnished units. The units come with laundry, Wi-Fi, cable television and on-site support staff to help residents.
Bédard says that 87 individuals in tent encampments have received interim housing. She says the city anticipates it can provide space for another 60-80 people in the coming weeks.
According to the city’s most recent report, more than 500 Torontonians inhabit tent encampments across the city.
Bedard notes that the figure has likely changed amidst the pandemic, as other institutions, like prisons, have discharged people into homelessness in order to meet their own physical distancing and site security measures.
“Unfortunately, the homeless sector is not necessarily in a position to respond to that right now,” Bédard said.
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