City's response to homeless encampments still causing harm to unhoused, report says

The City of Toronto's current response to homeless encampments isnot only inadequate but is also causing further harm to the unhoused people who aremost affected, a new report says.

The report by the MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions, looks at the supportsavailable to people living in encampments last year, how some of those services were helpful and also ways they could be improved.

"The biggest thing people needed and wanted was permanent housing and that was the thing they did not get," said Zoe Dodd, a community scholar withthe centre.

The report, released Friday, follows the controversial eviction of homeless encampments from three Toronto parks in the summer of 2021. Many unhoused people chose to live in thoseencampments rather than risk contracting COVID-19 in the city's shelters.According to the 83-page report,127 surveys were conducted, along with 23 interviews with current or former encampment residentsacross Toronto. Researchers also interviewed 16 outreach workers and volunteers from a variety of organizations and groups.

"I think the stark thing is that people felt pretty abandoned in terms of the help they needed, but then there were neighbours and people who stepped up," Doddsaid.

The report says the study demonstratesthe community-based outreach supports provided to encampment residents during the COVID-19 pandemic were highly beneficial for their survival and well-being, and that residents had a great appreciation for the social relationships that developed with outreach volunteers and workers.

The report's summary goes on to say housing-specific outreach, typically by Streets to Homes of the City of Toronto, was less successful at meeting the needs of encampment residents, most of whom expressed an ongoing urgent need for permanent housing options, rather than the traditional shelter and shelter hotel beds the city offered.

Theclearing of the threelarge encampments last summer sparked aninvestigation by the city ombudsman.The city says in Julyitaccepted all of the ombudsman's recommendations in the interim report, includingupdating the city outreach initiative plan and better defining and communicating the role and mandate of the city's Encampment Office.

Dodd says she believes there were a lot of misconceptions about people living in encampments, including the assumption that the people living in them were unhousedprior to the pandemic. She saysonly 17 per cent of those surveyed had stayed in an encampment before March 2020.

"We've listed over 40 recommendations we think the city should listen to, reflect on and implement. One of our biggest recommendations is for the city to divest from enforcement where they spent a lot of money and actually put those into community led supports and into permanent housing," she said.

Committed to 'housing first approach,' city says

In a written statement released Monday, the city saysit's aware of the recently released report and saysit welcomes feedback from the community and those with "lived experience." It says addressing encampments is a "complex social issue."

"The city is committed to a housing first approach to street and encampment outreach and providing wrap-around, client-centred case management supports to people living outdoors," the statement said.

The city goes on to say that outreach staff visit various sites daily to work with encampment occupants on referrals to indoor accommodations and to connect them with a housing worker.

"This engagement process continues once a person accepts an inside space to help ensure they have ongoing support and access to services," the city wrote.

"The city cannot force people to come inside and avail themselves of the many services offered by the city,but living in an encampment in a city park is unhealthy and illegal."

Earlier this year, the city faced widespread criticism when a plan became publicto spend $1 million in a bid tohire private security companies to patrol parks as a way of deterring encampments.

With the rising cost of rent, increasing pressure on sheltersand the winter season looming, Dodd says the recommendations should be looked at with urgency.She says the reality is encampments will continue to exist as an alternative shelter option.

"Taking an enforcement approach or surveillance approach to people who are struggling to survive, it's not the kind of compassion we want to see."