With Toronto’s unhoused population more than doubling since 2021, the city is considering whether micro-shelters can operate in unused Toronto Transit Commission parking lots to help combat the homelessness crisis.
During an economic and community development meeting held last week, city council voted to assess whether underused Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) parking lots could be repurposed for the creation of micro-shelters.
The successful motion, brought forward by Toronto Centre Coun. and Chair of the Board of Health Chris Moise discussed the possibility of the tiny shelters, with several city agencies being asked to report feasibility findings in the first quarter of 2026.
This comes after a TTC report found several of its commuter parking lots were being underused, remaining less than half full during peak hours, with some only reaching 17 to 50 per cent capacity.
“I think housing is a human right. It’s one of…our social determinants of health. So, for me, I feel it incumbent upon me to do all I can to make sure we try and find either permanent or temperate housing for people, and micro-shelters are one of those tools I think we can use,” Moise told Now Toronto on Tuesday.
Micro-shelters can take many forms, from small cabins and modular units to insulated tents, with designs aimed at providing those experiencing homelessness with a dignified, safe space to transition toward more stable housing.
But land availability, lot size, and opportunity costs remain the biggest barriers to the micro-shelter rollout, along with the need for on-site staff placement and services, according to city staff’s report regarding the feasibility of micro shelters.
Smaller lot sizes in dense urban areas further complicate the possible strategy.
“It can be kind of hard to actually put these structures in places. I know that talking to Toronto shelter services that they need about an acre or so to have, but I think it’s only 50 micro-shelters. So, it’s kind of hard to have that here in the core. But you know, there may be the possibility of that, I believe still, in Scarborough and Etobicoke, in the outskirts of the city,”Moise said.
“We’d love to build housing right now, but you know, it takes time. Even though we have a lot of housing in the pipelines, there need to be some stop-gap measures in the meantime.”
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Until additional permanent housing is built, Moise says micro-shelters and hotels are necessary to ensure people are kept in safe environments away from the elements, making note of the heat waves impacting the city, along with the ongoing crisis.
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The scope of the homelessness crisis was outlined in the City of Toronto’s 2024 Streets Needs Assessment, where the unhoused population had reached an estimated 15,418 last fall, up from 7,347 in 2021. Currently, more than 300 encampments exist across the city.
Moise expressed his concerns for those currently living in encampments, citing the need for a safe and controlled environment where staff support is made available when needed.
“There are many overdoses. People are assaulted. We have people that were stabbed and died from the stab wounds. People were shot. There’s a lot of vulnerable women that are in those encampments, and I’ve heard horror stories as to what’s happened in those tents,” Moise said.
Additionally, Moise invites those disputing the creation of alternative housing in their neighbourhoods to remember that those experiencing homelessness are part of the community, too.
FRONTLINE WORKER SAYS STABLE HOUSING SHOULD BE THE FOCUS
And while micro-shelters may offer temporary security and relief, some frontline workers are expressing additional concerns over the potential temporary measures.
“I think everybody should have the right to housing. And these are actually not really houses, right? Often, they don’t have their own toilet, they don’t have a kitchen. So, the kind of basic, humane things that we would all expect everybody to have, they don’t have,” Greg Cook, outreach worker at Sanctuary Toronto, told Now Toronto on Tuesday.
Cook says his biggest concern, apart from the inability to provide those experiencing homelessness with wraparound care, are the standards used to assess and affirm their needs.
“I have a big concern about just how low the bar is for our societal expectations. Essentially, we’re building slums for people. So, I think that’s really, really concerning to me, that that’s kind of where we’re at, and that’s where the conversation is at for some people.”
Through lock-and-key security, micro-shelters will meet some urgent needs, especially for unhoused and vulnerable women, but Cook says that if micro-site governance structures remain similar to the shelter system, the difference in improvement may be hard to tell.
“I know that most sites where there’s a micro-shelter, there’s often many rules and kinds of expectations that kind of go above and beyond, more than what you or I would experience in our day-to-day life. I think there’s, I would say, a lot of it has to do with governance, and if they’re governed in the same way as a shelter, I don’t really understand the difference, frankly.”
Despite lingering concerns, Cook says he would refer those seeking shelter to a micro-site, noting that it could save their life.
But the frontline worker is sharing his disappointment and calling on the federal and provincial government to reconsider their approach.
“I’m frankly disappointed that where we’re at is discussing whether people should be able to keep shelters out of their neighborhood, and whether we should be building tiny shelters, when really the conversation should be, how do we make sure that people have housing they can afford? How can we make sure that people who are unhoused and are losing friends kind of at an alarming rate, get the kind of health care and the grief counseling that they need? Instead, we’re having these kinds of fringe conversations about stop-gap measures.”
