The number of tents set up by unhoused people in encampments has more than doubled in Toronto in the past year, new data from the city shows.
On March 15, 2024, there were 202 tents across the city. That’s compared to 82 on the same day a year ago, according to data from the city’s parks, forestry and recreation division. In 2021, on the same day and during the pandemic, there were 291 tents in Toronto.
The data also suggests that people are taking shelters in parks that haven’t seen encampments before. On March 15 this year, the number of locations where there were encampments was 72, while on the same day last year, that number was 24.
Advocates say they are not surprised by the rising numbers and called on the city and province to take steps to improve the situation facing unhoused people. These steps include keeping open 24-hour winter respite spaces set to close Monday, as part of the city’s winter services plan, and implementing provincial rent control on new rental units.
“What we’re seeing is a trend that’s been going on for a long time and it just keeps getting worse,” Greg Cook, an outreach worker at Sanctuary Ministries of Toronto, said on Friday.
Cook said unhoused people are in tents scattered across the city, with seemingly many more on the periphery than in previous years. Advocates believe that many people are not only being evicted from housing in the city’s outer suburbs, but also are sheltering in their communities of choice, closer to friends and services that they know.
Winter 24-hour respites should be kept open: advocate
Last year, there was a greater concentration of encampments downtown than there appears to be this year, he said.
“Clearing an encampment doesn’t magically get people housing,” he said. “So people have to find places that are probably more in ravines and out of sight so they are less likely to be cleared.”
According to the city, the largest encampment is in Clarence Square Park, near Wellington Street West and Spadina Avenue, where there are 23 tents or structures. The next largest encampment is in Cherry Beach’s Clarke Beach Park, at the foot of Cherry Street, with 13 tents, and the third largest is in Allan Gardens, near Carlton and Sherbourne streets, where there are 12 tents.
Cook, a member of the Shelter and Housing Justice Network, said the network wants the city to keep its winter 24-hour respite centres spaces open and to adopt a “robust” human rights approach to encampments.
“The city knows that the situation is really bad,” he said. “We really need the city not to react and to make sure that people have safe and secure housing that they can go to instead of being stuck outside.”
‘People are becoming homeless all over the city’
According to the city, the number of people “actively” homeless in Toronto in the last three months is 11,173. The number of people who used the city’s shelter system was 9,594 on April 11, while the average number of people unable to secure a shelter bed nightly was 158 in February.
Diana Chan McNally, harm reduction case manager for All Saints Toronto, a church and community centre, said on Friday the increase in encampments makes sense. She said action is needed from all three levels of government.
“I think all of us who are doing this kind of work, frontline, are completely unsurprised by the fact that we are seeing more people living outdoors,” she said.
“We keep seeing the number of homeless people grow overall for lots of different reasons, but primarily because of rents being hiked up by landlords. We’re seeing a lot of new faces, people who are new to homelessness overall.
“People are becoming homeless all over the city,” she said.
“But on top of that, we still have a lot of people who are not cycling out of homelessness and we also have people coming from elsewhere who are not able to access shelter when they arrive. We have this kind of trifecta going on as well as closures of facilities that were formerly sheltering people,” she said.
These include the Better Living Centre, temporary winter respite centre that had 300 spaces and closed down in March.
Chan McNally said the city should declare a moratorium on encampment clearing given the scope of the crisis, while the province should adopt a homelessness strategy, make legislative changes to close loopholes that allow landlords to increase rents and introduce rent control on all new units immediately.
As for the federal government, she said it needs to work out a plan for encampments. On Friday, the federal government said it is proposing to invest $250 million in its budget this year to address the issue.
The number of encampments in Toronto has more than doubled in the past year. According to city data, there were 82 encampments around this time last year. Now there are at least 202. Harm reduction worker Diana Chan McNally speaks to why this is happening.
City says it’s seen ‘success’ through its approach
Elise von Scheel, spokesperson for the city, said in a statement on Friday that homelessness is the result of a complex number of factors.
“Encampments are a symptom of the housing affordability crisis, shelter demand that exceeds availability, increasing costs of living, inadequate income supports, and other social crises such as the drug toxicity and mental health crisis,” she said
Von Scheel said city staff from several divisions work together to help encampment residents to access services. Outreach workers visit larger encampments daily to offer supports, housing referrals and health and safety services, she added.
According to the city, 880 people were referred by Streets to Homes from encampments into the shelter system in 2023, and 5,900 people transitioned from the shelter system into permanent housing that year. Last year, outreach staff attended encampment locations 5,268 times.
“We have seen success in our approach to large encampments, which combines services, supports, clean-up and fire safety. There has been a significant decrease in the number of encampments in parks where this method has been deployed, such as Allan Gardens,” Von Scheel said.
On April 30, at a meeting of city council’s economic and community development committee, Toronto Shelter and Support Services is expected to present a staff report on the city’s encampment strategy.