TDRC to deliver cots for homeless people

Toronto Disaster Relief Committee (TDRC) will deliver good quality cots to Metro Hall so that homeless people can lie down.

Time: Noon, Sunday, January 19, 2003
Place: Metro Hall (King St. entrance, east of John St.)

The TDRC will deliver cots to Metro Hall so that the City can begin to set up a much-needed 200-bed shelter. While the TDRC welcomes the warming centre at Metro Hall there is nowhere for people to lie down. The warming centre could become a real shelter.

Last week, to the dismay of homeless advocates, the City decided to add 80 mats on the floors in their existing hostel system. They have been told not to do this time and time again. The TDRC has released a report showing the extreme trauma that results from crowding shelters. They also released two secret videos showing the extreme conditions in some emergency shelters. Instead of heeding the advice of TDRC and over 50 agencies, that signed a petition to Mayor Lastman to open a new and humane 200 bed shelter, the City decided to put more mats into the existing system and make it even more unliveable. Now they point to the fact that only half of those mats have been used.

Danielle Koyama, a front-line health worker and member of TDRC, responded to this dilemma with indignation. She exclaimed, “Dah!!! Everyone knows why people reject these mats. The crowded conditions in the shelters are so extreme that people’s mental and physical lives are already in peril. This extra crowding can easily lead to people who are already in the shelters leaving because of the extra pressures.”

The opening of Metro Hall as a warming centre proves there is another alternative. All they need are beds and food to make it a real shelter and TDRC will deliver 6 cots to start the ball rolling. Advocates and the TDRC are very aware that the 60 Richmond St. East shelter has two large, empty floors which could be used for shelter immediately.

For more information, contact TDRC at tdrc@tdrc.net

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