‘We are in an emergency’: Olivia Chow says Toronto encampments are down, but outreach worker says homelessness has not declined

Toronto may be seeing fewer encampments, but that does not necessarily mean fewer people are experiencing homelessness, according to a frontline outreach worker.

At a recent mayoral debate, Mayor Olivia Chow said encampments in Toronto are down to 70 per cent and that about 98 per cent of the city’s parks are now clear of encampments.

But Greg Cook, an outreach worker and team lead at Sanctuary, says the numbers do not tell the full story.

“Homelessness has not declined,” Cook told Now Toronto.

Cook pointed to the city’s data on people seeking shelter, saying the latest figures show about 81 people a day calling for a shelter bed and going unmatched.

For Cook, the decline in encampments is less an indication that fewer people need somewhere to sleep and more a reflection of how the city is responding to encampments.

“It’s less that there’s less people needing to sleep outside and more the fact that the city is spending more on clearing encampments than they did a number of years ago,” he said.

Cook said the city has hired more staff for its encampment office and has become more aggressive in clearing tents before larger encampments can form.

Where do people go?

When an encampment is cleared, Cook said some people are offered a space in the shelter system.

But he stressed that a shelter bed is not the same as permanent housing. Cook said for some individuals who can’t get a bed or refuse, they are dispersed to more isolated locations.

“People are forced to sleep outside without survival structures like tents, and so then the city can say there’s no encampments, but that just means people are forced to survive outside with less resources,” he said.

Cook said the result can be a worsening quality of life for people who are already experiencing homelessness.

‘The situation is much more hopeless’

Cook, who said he has worked in the field for more than 15 years, said he has seen a continued lack of resources for people experiencing homelessness.

Cook pointed to what he described as a lack of funding for drop-ins and outreach teams, as well as difficulties getting people into housing.

He also cited the cost of housing and the availability of the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit, commonly known as COHB, as factors making it harder for people to move out of homelessness.

“The situation is much more hopeless for people who aren’t able to get kind of basic housing,” Cook said.

Cook also said frontline workers are seeing people struggle to access food and medical care.

“People are hungrier. People, it’s harder to get people the medical care they need,” he said.

Cook said emergency departments are frequently used by unhoused people who have nowhere else to go, particularly during the winter.

“People are forced to try to get what they need from systems that aren’t designed to help them,” he said.

What would a sustainable solution look like?

For Cook, the long-term answer is housing.

He pointed to the thousands of shelter hotel rooms the city opened during the COVID-19 pandemic as an example of how governments can respond when homelessness is treated as an emergency.

“We are in an emergency. People who are unhoused are an emergency,” Cook said.

In the short term, he said the city should provide indoor spaces where people can have privacy and some autonomy, as well as basic infrastructure for people who remain outside, including access to toilets and clean water.

In the longer term, Cook said governments need to make a much larger investment in affordable housing.

Cook also argued that new housing construction needs to keep pace with the number of people losing their homes as rents rise and some rooming houses are demolished for redevelopment.

For Cook, the number of encampments alone is therefore not enough to determine whether Toronto’s homelessness crisis is improving.

“Really, what people need is housing,” he said.