Nearly 9,000 people each night, on average, were sleeping in the city’s shelter network, roughly 3,000 more than two years ago. “That said, the issue is urgent,” Gord Tanner, the head of the city’s shelter department, said at the time.ĭata from March offers a snapshot of the mounting problem. Last month, when the motion to declare an emergency emerged in consideration of a report on the city’s winter service plans, senior staff said a declaration would primarily be “symbolic,” and wouldn’t compel other governments to offer up more money. Just one councillor, Stephen Holyday (Ward 2, Etobicoke Centre), cast a dissenting vote. The declaration, made alongside requests for millions of dollars in aid from higher governments, does not compel provincial or federal officials to act but is meant as a signal of the swelling crisis in Canada’s largest city. With the move Friday, Toronto follows similar declarations in jurisdictions such as Hamilton, Niagara Region, Peterborough County and Ottawa. Toronto city council has declared homelessness an emergency, heeding a years-long call from sector workers and advocates to sound the alarm as services have been bursting the seams.

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