Toronto needs to declare homelessness a humanitarian crisis and call on the province for urgent assistance. That was the call being made by front-line workers and advocates at a news conference at city hall Tuesday morning, standing alongside city councillors Kristyn Wong-Tam, Gord Perks and Josh Matlow. “There are easily 400 people still outside and this is not a cold weather story, you must understand that,†said street nurse Cathy Crowe, representing the Shelter and Housing Justice Network.“We have close to 60 shelters in the city that are really shelters, but we now have over 1,000 people forced to sleep ... on floors, on mats, on cots, in situations that are like post-hurricane Katrina is the way I would describe it,†said Crowe.Extreme cold weather this week drove more than 1,000 people in the city into temporary overnight drop-in, respite and warming centres, which Crowe says are inadequate.“They have no security. There’s no safety.â€Read more:Video from Toronto shelters shows ‘inhumane’ conditions, indicates shelter system is broken, advocate saysOpinion | Rosie DiManno: It’s tough to be homeless in Toronto — and it’s getting tougherUnder the Gardiner: ‘We check in on each other, that’s kind of the reason to be here’Wong-Tam said 9,000 people are living on the streets right now, as a result of a housing crisis created by the “chronic failure†of every level of government, over multiple administrations to invest in essential services. “If this was all to have happened overnight, this would be a calamity, but because it happened in a slow-moving fashion over a period of time, it’s almost crept up on us like climate change,†said Wong-Tam after the news conference. “We believe that we have reached this critical point where we need to name it and call it a crisis and move with the determined action of an emergency response.â€Wong- ...
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