Shelter & Housing Justice Network

The City decided to close warming centres today, because they decided that it is not cold enough. How cruel.

Earlier this week, surge sites closed.
This same week, the City confirmed that the Better Living Centre winter respite will be closing weeks earlier than the end of their said winter plan.

Hundreds of people will be displaced on the street.

Write to Mayor Chow and your City Councillor to demand that the City of Toronto keep all warming centres and surge sites open until at least April 15!

Lifesaving services cannot rely on arbitrary temperature thresholds. We are in a housing emergency and steps must be taken today to prevent severe injury, illness and death for unhoused community members!

➡️Take action!
🔗 Letter template here: tinyurl.com/WinterPlanTO

Council’s 2026 Budget is meant to provide a safer city; this must include unhoused residents. Divesting from policing to invest in shelter and housing must be a priority!

[SHJN] Email Template - Winter Respites, Feb 2026 [date, i.e. February 13, 2026] Subject: Keep all warming centres and surge sites open until at least April 15 See SHJN’s Letter to Council for more context. Dear Mayor Chow [[email protected]] and [your city councillor], I am concerned/[insert own emotion] about the City’s inadequate winte.....

the City's warming centres were beyond full at 106% capacity last night. Clearly the need is there, and yet the City does not keep these sites open all winter long. How inhumane to leave unhoused people without options outside at risk of injury and death!!

Take action!
Write to the mayor and city councillors to insist they open more sites, and keep them open through the winter.
Template here: https://tinyurl.com/RespitesTO

https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/data-research-maps/research-reports/housing-and-homelessness-research-and-reports/shelter-census/

Earlier this week, we received word that the encampment at St Stephens-In-The-Fields Anglican Church will be cleared on Friday morning. This is a result of months of strategizing, scheming, and advocating from Councillor Dianne Saxe to find ways to displace these residents and evict this encampment. For example, she guided the community to apply for a garden permit as a guise to clear this encampment; the permit suddenly disappeared when the church hired a lawyer. Now, the City claims it is a fire hazard.

Tell Saxe this is unacceptable: 416-392-4009

Residents are camped here because they have no other options. Here, they are able to access services such as food, washrooms, clothing, and supports from nearby organizations. For many of these residents, this is the most stability they have had in a long time - knowing they can return to one place that they call home. Shelters are full, geared-to-income housing unavailable, and no warming centre spaces are open. Evicting people from this park without any long-term solutions and stability will simply mean that people will end up in a different park, increasingly destabilized, further traumatized, and removed from supports. In addition, how much money will be spent on displacing 8 residents?

On Friday morning, the City will evict these residents and put up a fence to prevent people from returning. At this time, residents have not requested in-person support from the wider public. There are groups with relationships to these residents who will be present to assist. What is really imperative at this time is to hold Saxe to account for these actions; it is only HER ward where there has been mass organized evictions since 2021.

Call her office, email her, show up at her office and let her know that you do NOT approve of displacing encampment residents with nowhere to go.

BREAKING NEWS: SHJN has released a full winter plan to counter the horribly inadequate one released by the city.

This plan includes data, graphs, and is divided into five sections based on what a fulsome winter plan SHOULD address:
1. expand capacity for access to safe indoor spaces
2. ensure dignified, humane and responsive conditions in city services
3. promote surgical for people in encampments
4. intervene in the financialization of housing
5. implement measures that increase housing security and stability

Please read through our plan and push the City to respond through meaningful action to address the housing & homelessness emergency!!!

Read it here: https://tinyurl.com/SHJN-alt-winter

Heads up —

November 22nd (Wednesday) is NATIONAL HOUSING DAY ! Last month, the City released their 2023-24 Winter Plan (see: https://www.toronto.ca/news/city-of-toronto-releases-2023-24-winter-services-plan-for-those-experiencing-homelessness/) which will include:

- adding up to 180 spaces in the shelter system
opening a 24-hour respite site with capacity for approximately 40 people;

- activating 170 spaces via four Warming Centres located across the city when temperatures reach minus five degrees Celsius;

- up to 275 housing opportunities through new supportive homes and available social housing units with supports;

- enhancing street outreach when temperatures reach minus 15 degrees Celsius to encourage people to come indoors; and

- opening additional surge spaces when temperatures reach minus 15 degrees Celsius. (Excerpted from City’s website)

We know this is NOWHERE NEAR ENOUGH.

In the coming days, be on the lookout for our revised release of what the 2023-24 Winter Plan should be ! Created in consultations & collaborations with those of us most impacted by these policies, our demands will fall under the mentioned areas: (1) respites, shelters, livable conditions, drop-ins; (2) robust supports / encampments, moratorium on evictions, access to supports; (3) financialization & social housing; and (4) housing security / keeping people housed.

We need to continue putting the pressure on the government to fulfill their duty of care to ALL, because and collectively fight against the state’s strategies of organized abandonment !

SHOW. UP. WEDNESDAY.
We are in an increasingly worsening housing crisis and developers like Kingsett are part of the problem. They’re hosting a gala this wednesday - $250K a table - to honour the CEO as a business leader. this "leader: has profited by displacing poor and vulnerable people.

Show up and speak out and let him know what you think!

Saturday's deadline to move applications online could mean that 34,000 households are booted off the waitlist.

In light of this, we are asking people to submit deputations (written, online, spoken) at this Thursday's Planning & Housing Committee (Agenda #1): https://secure.toronto.ca/council/agenda-item.do?item=2023.PH6.1

Four demands:
We demand:

1. Removal of the September 30th deadline until the City has clear infrastructure in place to effectively transition the many existing RGI applicants to the online system, including the 34,000 applicants on the waitlist who have not yet registered.

2. That the MyAccesstoHousingTO online system is consistent with the working principles of Toronto’s Digital Infrastructure Strategic Framework, the Ontario Human Rights Code, the Right to Housing, and must follow Toronto’s Housing Charter.

3. A fulsome review and overhaul of MyAccesstoHousingTO to bring it into alignment with these policies.

4. The development and implementation of a clear, fair and well-communicated appeals process for anyone who is removed from the RGI waitlist.

Until these demands are met, enforcement of this upcoming deadline and removing applicants from the RGI housing waitlist is a clear human rights violation and will directly harm unhoused, marginalized and poor people who have been waiting for years to access social housing in this city.

SHJN Statement on MyAccesstoHousingTO Registration Deadline Monday, September 25, 2023 City’s discriminatory policy threatens housing access for up to 40,000 RGI applicants Poorly publicized upcoming registration deadline risks many canceled applications The City continues to enact reckless and dangerous policy decisions that exacerbate the housing emerg.....

In light of Saturday’s deadline to move housing applications online, we are asking as many people to submit deputations (written or spoken) to this as possible. link in bio for committee agenda.

We demand:

1. Removal of the September 30th deadline until the City has clear infrastructure in place to effectively transition the many existing RGI applicants to the online system, including the 34,000 applicants on the waitlist who have not yet registered.

2. That the MyAccesstoHousingTO online system is consistent with the working principles of Toronto’s Digital Infrastructure Strategic Framework, the Ontario Human Rights Code, the Right to Housing, and must follow Toronto’s Housing Charter.

3. A fulsome review and overhaul of MyAccesstoHousingTO to bring it into alignment with these policies.

4. The development and implementation of a clear, fair and well-communicated appeals process for anyone who is removed from the RGI waitlist.

Until these demands are met, enforcement of this upcoming deadline and removing applicants from the RGI housing waitlist is a clear human rights violation and will directly harm unhoused, marginalized and poor people who have been waiting for years to access social housing in this city.

n case you missed it, nearly 40,000 housing applications might get cancelled by end of this week.

Full statement linked in bio.

If you do not have an online RGI housing application by this Saturday 30, 2023, you will be removed from the waitlist - no matter how long you have been waiting.

Up to 40,000 applications could be canceled.

Please find SHJN's statement & suggested action steps around this egregious, classist and discriminatory policy decision.

SHJN Statement on MyAccesstoHousingTO Registration Deadline Monday, September 25, 2023 City’s discriminatory policy threatens housing access for up to 40,000 RGI applicants Poorly publicized upcoming registration deadline risks many canceled applications The City continues to enact reckless and dangerous policy decisions that exacerbate the housing emerg.....

Alongside 30 other collectives, organizations, and agencies, SHJN is asking Mayor Chow to take immediate action to ensure safe housing and shelter for everyone.

Toronto is in the midst of a decades-long emergency, and things only continue to worsen. Just this month, we know two shelter-hotels have closed without housing ready for any of the residents.

In the past two years, an unprecedented number of people have died in Toronto while unhoused. This month alone over 30 names were added to the Toronto Homeless Memorial. It has been two months since Toronto City Council voted to declare homelessness an emergency. Since then, there has been no adequate response to improve access to housing and safe shelter despite heat warnings, heavy rain, thunderstorms, and high risk air quality levels due to raging wildfires across so-called Canada.

As a collective of agencies, organizations and advocacy groups, we are issuing a list of demands of the City, including the immediate opening of emergency sites as an interim measure i.e. vacant storefronts and community centres, open refugee reception centres in Toronto, and advocate for at least 4500 rent supplements to be funded.

To see the full list of 14 demands: https://tinyurl.com/HousingEmergLetter .
To sign onto the letter as a collective, please contact SHJN via email at [email protected]

The City must take immediate action to meaningfully respond to the housing and homelessness emergency. Safe shelter and housing for all!