More than 200 homeless people died in Toronto last year 2021

A total of 216 people experiencing homelessness died in Toronto last year, according to new data from the city.

The data released by Toronto Public Health (TPH) on Friday shows there were 4.2 average deaths of unhoused people per week last year. 

According to the city, the number of deaths in 2021 rose significantly from 2020. Seventy-two more people died last year than in the previous year, when 144 unhoused people died. The number of deaths has more than doubled since 2017 — the first year that the city collected such statistics — when 101 people died. 

A full 55 per cent of the deaths in 2021 were due to drug toxicity, the data shows. Other causes of death include heart disease, accidents, complications from diabetes, hypothermia, liver and lung disease, organ failure, suicide and cancer.

The city says 132 out of the 216 people who died were residents of homeless shelters. It has yet to release the number of people living outside who died. 

For Gru, a shelter hotel resident in Toronto, the numbers are "awful" to hear.

"There are no words," he said. "There is just a deep, deep sense of loss that these are people like you or I who ended up in a position where they couldn't afford rent or they couldn't afford their mortgage. Homelessness in Canada is a death sentence, really."

Homeless advocates say the numbers are staggering, but not surprising. They say the city has enforced policies that created unsafe conditions for unhoused people. And they say the solution is permanent housing and harm reduction supports, not policing and clearing encampments.

'It's a crushing number,' homeless advocate says

Doug Johnson Hatlem, a street pastor at Sanctuary Ministries of Toronto, said on Saturday that Mayor John Tory, the city's Shelter Support and Housing Administration (SSHA), and city councillors should all be held to account for their policies on homelessness, given the "unacceptable" number of deaths of unhoused people last year.

"It's a crushing number," Johnson Hatlem said. 

"All three — council, Toronto mayor's office and SSHA spent an incredible amount of their time and their political capital insisting that they were in the right to beat people into submission to get inside for what they were calling safe indoor shelter. Their priorities were completely out of whack."

In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, there was more of a spirit of "we're all in this together," but in 2021, Tory's attitude was "we're going to do what we want to do and we're not going to listen to people," Johnson Hatlem said. The city failed to engage with people who were unhoused and their advocates and instead chose to act on behalf of wealthy people and those who don't want to see homelessness in their backyards, he said.

"The problem will not just ever go away until people are housed. And so, we saw a 50 per cent increase in deaths and it's an enormous number that somebody has to take account for," he said.

"It's not an acceptable number. I think a great majority of these deaths were preventable," he added. "It's always been a crisis that we have people who died homeless on the streets of Toronto. At this point, it's a five-alarm fire, and the people who should be treating it as a five-alarm fire are not doing so."

Johnson Hatlem said the city, for example, put a lot of effort into clearing encampments, which displaces and scatters unhoused people, increasing their vulnerability. He said the city should sit down with unhoused people and advocates to figure out what needs to be done to reduce the number of deaths and violence and to reduce the number of overdose deaths.

Rafi Aaron, spokesperson for the Interfaith Coalition to Fight Homelessness, said it is important to remember that each number represents a human being.

"They were wonderful people. They loved and were loved. They had people who were close to them. They were fathers, wives, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, in some cases grandparents. They were our neighbours or your neighbours. They were people who were vibrant and generous and who we miss dearly and who didn't need to die," Aaron said.

A.J. Withers, a steering committee member of the Shelter and Housing Justice Network and adjunct faculty in critical disability studies at York University, said some of the deaths happened when the shelter system was more than 99 per cent full. The absence of safer indoor shelter space, the toxicity of street drugs and the dismantling of encampments was all "deeply concerning," Withers said.

"The lack of safe supply, the lack of access to overdose prevention sites and lack of access to appropriate harm reduction really means that people die," Withers said. "As the city does things like criminalize people in encampments, people get pushed further and further away from support systems and people die."

Withers said the numbers are probably far higher because hospitals and emergency rooms don't report deaths of unhoused people to TPH. Withers noted that the median age for males who died was 49, while the median age for females who died was 40, meaning "there are many years lost" when people don't have housing.

Dr. Andrew Boozary, a primary care physician and executive director of the Gattuso Centre for Social Medicine at the University Health Network, said the city cannot "go back to normal" because homelessness was already a public health crisis before the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic itself has affected unhoused people disproportionately, he said.

"The solution to homelessness is housing. Shelters or encampments are not solutions to homelessness, it is housing. And so, we really need to ensure that every level of government is committed to housing as the solution. And if we don't see that concerted effort, these rates will only continue to increase," he said.

"And that's on us as a society, because these rates are increasing, not because of individual failures, but because of our failure on delivering housing as a human right."

Policing poverty is also not the answer, he said.

"What is really has to be clear is that ripping down tents is not the solution to homelessness. It is delivering on housing as a human right. It is building more social housing, it is getting people more access to social housing and supportive housing." 

City 'saddened by all of the deaths'

The city, in response, said it collects the data and uses it to help it make better decisions on improving the health of people experiencing homelessness.

"The City is deeply saddened by all deaths of people experiencing homelessness both in and outside of the City's shelter system. We offer our condolences to the individuals' friends and loved ones and to our staff and clients who continue to witness these tragedies," the city said in a statement.

"While the emergency shelter system plays an important role in supporting the health and wellness of those experiencing homelessness, the real solution to improved health outcomes is permanent housing with supports." 

Toronto's 24-month housing and homelessness plan aims to create more than 3,000 new affordable housing opportunities by the end of year, including 2,000 with supports, to meet the needs of marginalized and vulnerable people experiencing homelessness, the city said.

In February 2022, the city said council approved an accelerated housing plan to provide an additional 300 "housing opportunities" through partnerships with housing providers and private market landlords.

"The death of anyone in our city is extremely sad and our condolences are with the families and friends of those who have passed away," Tory said in a statement issued Saturday evening. 

Tory defended the actions the city has taken to tackle homelessness and drug overdoses, including opening thousands of supportive homes, expanding the shelter system before and during the pandemic and introducing harm reduction initiatives in shelters.

"More than half a billion dollars was spent on shelters and housing programs last year by the City of Toronto — this was entirely because the Mayor and City Council understood we need to do everything we can as a municipal government to provide safe shelter to people, to provide supportive housing to those who need it, and to help provide vaccinations and other pandemic safety measures," the statement said.

"Notwithstanding the significantly increased level of activity especially in the area of supportive housing where the federal government has been of great help, much more remains to be done and I acknowledge that just as I continue to work hard to get the support we need to offer even more supportive housing, perhaps the single most important key to addressing homelessness."

Please share this

Here’s six ways the Federal Budget could affect residential house prices in the GTA

There is no silver bullet for Canada’s housing woes, federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland cautioned while delivering the federal budget this week — a road map that includes an array of pitches to build more homes, stifle flippers, and overhaul housing programs that have faced scrutiny.

The Toronto area has felt the weight of overlapping housing challenges, which ripple out countrywide.

Million-dollar home prices have forced would-be buyers to stay in the rental market, as soaring rent costs squeeze out the city’s essential workers. With thousands relying on the city’s shelter network, the number one reason for homelessness cited during last spring’s street needs assessment was that Toronto housing costs were just too high.

What will the newest slate of federal housing promises mean for residents of the GTA? While many details are yet to come, here’s a look at what this budget could mean on the ground:

Market-priced home supply

Will the budget’s $8.8 billion to build 100,000 more Canadian homes in the next five years make GTA housing more affordable?

Royal LePage CEO Phil Soper says the injection of supply will help, particularly as the budget’s intent aligns with that of the Ontario government and the City of Toronto. The problem, he said, is the tidal wave of demand — millennials are aging out of their condos to raise their families and a record 400,000 immigrants landed last year.

The budget “is not quite enough,” says Karen Chapple, director of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto.

“It’s not really addressing the structural issues in the GTA — the declining population in some of the inner ring suburbs and the unevenness of growth. We have so much low-density housing and it’s very hard to move that stock because it’s inhabited by middle-class, long-term homeowners,” she said.

Chapple says Toronto is doomed to keep building “tall and sprawl” — ultradense towers and exurbs that require people to commute long distances to work, unless it removes some of the existing barriers. Among them, she said, are zoning that makes it easier to rebuild monster homes than multiple units; urban design regulations, and appeals and delays at the Ontario Land Tribunal.

“This money doesn’t quite do the trick without dealing with these details,” said Chapple.

Foreign buyers

The federal government’s two-year ban on foreign home buying made for great budget headlines, but it won’t contribute to housing affordability in Canada and certainly not in the Toronto region, said Royal LePage’s Soper.

He says the issue of foreign buyers probably registers with people who have misconstrued immigration for investment.

In 2017, such a ban might have had more impact but now the run-up in GTA home prices is higher at the tail end of a pandemic when the borders have been effectively sealed for nearly two years.

“This time it’s a made-in-Canada problem. The 2020 to 2022 rise in home prices includes virtually no foreign investment,” said Soper.

In Vancouver, which has a more concentrated population, it could mean a decrease in competition for extravagant homes among the super rich. But it will have less impact in Ontario, he said.

Soper notes the ban includes some significant exemptions, such as recreational properties that are popular with Americans in places such as Muskoka.

“We have 850,000 foreign students (in Canada). A small portion will live in homes they own and they’re exempt,” he said.

The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board says land registry data shows an average of 200 transactions a month by foreign buyers in the Greater Golden Horseshoe. But for the last two years that number has been about half or about 1 per cent of total real estate sales. There were about 11,000 sales in the real estate board’s territory in March.

Home flipping

Experts differ on the effectiveness of a new measure announced to curb house flipping.

The step, which impacts residential properties sold on or after Jan. 1 next year, would see individuals paying “full taxation on their profits as business income,” for properties held for less than a year (excluding homes sold under extenuating circumstances such as a death or divorce.) The measure would see Ottawa reaping an additional $15 million a year.

The move is a switch from current legislation that permits a capital-gains tax exemption on all principal residences.

Frank Clayton, senior research fellow in the Centre for Urban Research and Land Development at Ryerson University, believes the policy is aimed at a problem that “will solve itself.”

Clayton argues that when the housing market peaks, which he says it is going to or has already, due to interest rate hikes, “if we wait until 2023 (house flipping) is not going to be a problem because the market will be softer and people won’t be (doing it).”

John Pasalis, president of Realosophy Realty, a Toronto real estate brokerage that uses data analysis to provide advice to residential real estate purchasers, investors and sellers, holds similar doubts about the policy.

“The speculation tax is unlikely to have a big impact on the housing market,” Pasalis says, adding it’s “very rare” to see investors buying and selling a home within 12 months without doing any major renovations to it, simply to profit from rising house prices.

Rental housing

What’s in it for renters?

For one, a reform of the federal government’s multibillion-dollar Rental Construction Financing Initiative, which was introduced in 2016 to create more rental units, but has faced criticism over its formula — which currently lets some above-market-rent units be labelled “affordable housing.”

The rules are based on median family incomes. Using Toronto’s 2019 median, that would mean any rental could be affordable if it cost $2,228.75 or less — a rate that falls above this year’s average market rate for even a three-bedroom apartment. The new target Ottawa is pledging would ensure at least 40 per cent of the units fall at, or below, 80 per cent of local market rate.

“It was something that really needed a second look and we’re glad that they are taking a stronger approach,” said Douglas Kwan, a lawyer with the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario.

He was encouraged, too, by a vow to federally review “housing as an asset class,” including the way corporate players in residential real estate are taxed. While Kwan was hoping for more immediate steps, pointing to the trend of rental buildings being bought by the likes of real estate investment trusts, the budget hints at “potential early actions” by year’s end.

Also on the horizon: a strategy that tackles the specific challenges faced by Indigenous households in cities such as Toronto. The budget grants a $300-million ask from the National Housing Council to develop an Indigenous housing strategy for urban, rural and northern settings — with the council lambasting the current approach as having “demonstrably failed.”

Deeply affordable housing

With the promise of $4 billion to accelerate housing efforts by municipalities, Kwan is looking for detail — namely, how much deeply affordable versus market housing would be boosted, and if there would be any marked increase in undersupplied rent-geared-to-income homes.

As of late 2021, more than 78,800 households in Toronto were waiting for rent-geared-to-income housing, with just 2,821 housed off that list last year. Tens of thousands are also waiting for units with support services. For those residents, Coun. Ana Bailão — Mayor John Tory’s designated housing advocate — said she was pleased to see a two-year, $1.5-billion extension of the federal Rapid Housing Initiative, which supports deeply affordable projects in the city.

By year’s end, Bailão says Toronto is expecting to have 1,000 RHI-funded units opened up — though she cautioned that with the city’s depth of need, they’d always want to see more funds.

While awaiting details, she’s hoping the accelerator effort offers supports that could be layered on top of city initiatives to further lower the cost of its resulting units.

Also well-received: a promise to keep up the higher levels of funding to combat homelessness allocated during the pandemic, and a pledge to issue a one-time $500 payment to those struggling with affordability.

“Even as fast as we’re building our modular housing, it’s still taking six months, nine months, a year,” Bailão said. Some households, she said, needed help “right now.”

Co-operative housing

More co-op housing appears to be on the horizon, with the federal government promising a new development program with a target of 6,000 units countrywide, and $1 billion in loans to support co-op projects, reallocated from the existing Rental Construction Financing Initiative coffers.

Toronto has a diverse co-op market, with some requiring buy-in, but others operating similarly to a rental — though without a traditional landlord or profit incentive, with residents becoming members of the co-op that can vote on decisions like when to raise housing bills.

But while co-ops provide affordable housing to some city-dwellers, advocates and elected officials alike have said federal funding doesn’t compare to what it’s been in the past — meaning building a co-op today is much harder, and available units have become a rarity.

Tom Clement, executive director of the Co-operative Housing Federation of Toronto, said the budget vow was “significant,” though details of the program are still being ironed out.

He’s hoping to see some grants available along with the promised loans, arguing that especially in expensive markets such as Toronto, loans may help secure the brick-and-mortar building, but that further assistance would likely be needed to offer rentals at an affordable rate.

Clement also hopes to see a program that offers some long-term certainty, in order to ensure a steady pipeline of new co-op units, as well as allowing for ongoing partnerships with the private sector to help boost supply and attracting more talent to work in the co-op sphere.

“To look at this as a long-term investment, to me, is really key,” he said.

Please share this