TDRC Media Releases

Media advisory                                                               January 18, 2005
 

TDRC on Toronto’s proposed homelessness strategy:

House the homeless, drop
plan for new anti-homeless law
 

Virtually all Torontonians share the goal of ending homelessness in our city. Toronto City Council has a choice - the right way or the wrong way.

“The right way - the most efficient, cost-effective and humane - is to adopt a ‘housing-first’ policy and put in place the tools to support this,” says Cathy Crowe, street nurse and steering committee member of TDRC. “New York City, since 2002, has adopted a ‘housing first’ strategy to end homelessness. Mayor Michael Bloomberg set a target of 65,000 new subsidized homes by 2008. In the first two years, he has funded almost 30,000 new subsidized homes.”

”The wrong way - the least efficient, most costly and cruel - is to enact additional laws to criminalize activities associated with homelessness,” says Michael Shapcott, research co-ordinator with TDRC. “New York adopted this approach in the 1990s under former Mayor Rudolph Guiliani. Not only did his strategy fail to end homelessness (there was an all-time record of 34,000 homeless people in that city by 2002), but by fiscal 2001, New York City was spending almost $1 billion annually to police and shelter the homeless.”

On Wednesday starting at 9.30 a.m. in Committee Room #1 at City Hall, Toronto City Council's Policy and Finance Committee will consider a staff report on homelessness. The Toronto Disaster Relief Committee will join with others in underlining several fatal flaws in this report. We are asking Toronto City Council to make five crucial amendments. Toronto City Council's Homeless Advisory Committee has adopted the first four of these amendments (the fifth amendment was added by TDRC after the HAC meeting, in response to a new set of concerns). Our amendments:

·        Drop the proposed ban on “camping” at Nathan Phillips Square.

·        Commit at least an additional $14.2 million in city dollars for new social (subsidized) housing to match the $14.2 million in re-allocated dollars.

·        Create city-community committee to ensure delivery of new homes.

·        Set the year one target at 3,000 truly affordable new homes.

·        Amend the street outreach strategy to make sure that temporary beds to be closed in the spring are replaced and to effectively support existing outreach services.

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

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