It was a bittersweet anniversary Saturday, as volunteers for the Project Winter Survival homeless relief effort packed emergency kits and sleeping bags to prevent further Toronto street deaths during a weekend cold snap.“Today is the 20th annual Engage and Change Project Winter Survival and while some people said that’s incredible, it’s pathetic,” said Jody Steinhauer, the founder of Project Winter Survival. She blamed the city of Toronto for failing to prevent two recent exposure deaths — and a suspected third — of homeless people on its streets.“We should not have to be building survival kits in the city of Toronto to keep people from freezing to death,” an impassioned Steinhauer told volunteers and journalists at the North York warehouse of the Bargains Group, the clothing wholesaler she heads.She said Project Winter Survival has been besieged with requests for survival kits this year: homeless aid groups sought 21,000 kits, up 60 per cent from last year, while the number of homeless people on the street has jumped to 9,000 this year from 6,000 in 2018. It’s time for Toronto to make good on its many promises of homeless aid, Steinhauer said.“I don’t want to be doing this. So, for all of you, we need to put the pressure on the city of Toronto: open up 1,000 shelter beds, get people into housing long-term with support solutions so that next year at this time, we can be indoors and being proud.”(City officials have pledged to open three new 24-hour shelter sites for homeless Torontonians, but only one is currently operating: a 100-bed facility in Liberty Village, run by the St. Felix Centre. The other two are expected to open in March and April.)Read more:`If it is not my daughter it will be someone else`s`It`s tough to be homeless in Toronto and it`s getting tougherCity of Toronto staff say $3 million cost overrun for shelter conversion won’t happen againSteinhauer was speaking after ...
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