As the pressure on Toronto’s emergency shelter system continues to build, a group of housing and health advocates are calling on City Hall to declare a state of emergency to address a “disaster” unfolding on the streets, and pushing for the swift opening of temporary respite sites. “The whole system is imploding. What happens when you don’t take care of the social housing component is that everything filters down into the emergency shelter system,” said Rafi Aaron, a member of the newly created Shelter and Housing Justice Network, speaking with the Star. Network members include Health Providers Against Poverty, the Interfaith Coalition to Fight Homelessness, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, the Street Nurses Network, the Toronto Overdose Prevention Society and No One Is Illegal. A list of their demands were read out on Thursday at city hall, before the new and smaller council was set to handle official business. Toronto must declare a state of emergency, they said, to deal with the duel disasters of homelessness and rising opioid overdose deaths. The provincial and federal governments should also, they said, be called on to speed up funding and supports for local overdose prevention initiatives. This week, the Public Health Agency of Canada reported 683 people died of opioid overdose deaths in Ontario in the first half of 2018. Last year at least 308 people died in Toronto. Read more:Justin Lidstone died of an overdose. His family was gutted. We spent a year with them to understand what happenedToronto council approves using 11 surplus properties for affordable housing‘Affordable’ housing may need to be redefined, Tory acknowledgesThe city has pledged to create 1,000 new emergency beds by 2020. Mayor John Tory has also committed to the creation of 40,000 new affordable units over 12 years. At last count, the roughly 4,340 shelter beds currently available for women, men and youth were almost completely full. T ...
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