Gordon Atkinson lost almost everything he owned when fire swept through his basement apartment last fall in a blaze police believe was set by a serial arsonist in the city’s west end. Although, looking back, he sees the fire and the brief period of homelessness that followed as a blessing in disguise because it led him to his new home.“I love it. I love coming home and turning the TV on and watching a movie or two. I just love this place, it means a lot to me,” said Atkinson, 64, of the bachelor apartment he now rents in a north-end Toronto Community Housing building, thanks to a client intervention worker at the Out of the Cold program, who helped him find housing.“I’ll tell you one thing, it is better than the basement suite I was living in that burnt down,” he said. Out of the Cold was meant to be a temporary solution to a major problem, but 32 years later it remains a vital part of homelessness services in the city. This season the program logged 13,009 overnight stays at 16 locations, down from 13,679 the previous year, according to a new report by Dixon Hall Neighbourhood Services. Out of the Cold is run largely by volunteers at faith centres across the city, on a rotating schedule, with most sites open from November to mid- or late-April. People can rest on mats, are fed and given warm drinks and tokens and can get access to health and housing services. It was created as a stopgap in a city with inadequate emergency beds, but three decades later, hundreds of people still take part in the nightly migration for temporary shelter, despite a recent expansion of the city’s winter respite programs. David Reycraft, director of housing services at Dixon Hall, said the slight drop in usage is linked to the city opening temporary winter respite sites, including the now closed Moss Park Armoury and Better Living Centre, but the numbers show that efforts to combat homelessness are still falling short.“None of these site ...
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