What I Want You To Know About Homelessness in Toronto

Published by Hannah Alper at January 27, 2019

“Awareness is the greatest agent for change.” – Eckhart Tolle

In other words, when you know about an issue, you can care about it. And when you care about it, you can take action on it. Homelessness is an issue that has always been on my radar. When you live in or travel to a big city, you see it. As I prepared to launch FeedTO this year, I read up on the state of homelessness in Toronto. It is not light reading. The factors, statistics and the real stories have really impacted me and it has given me even more reason, even more motivation, for what I’m going to do about it.

Here is a snapshot of some of what I’ve learned. As our awareness grows together, we can be agents for change together.

There are over 9,000 people in Toronto who are homeless on any given night.*****
In 2019 alone, 4 Toronto residents have died from homelessness. * (note: at the time of this post we are not even a full month into 2019)
According to officials at Toronto Public Health, at least 100 homeless people died in 2017. **
The median age of the people that have died from homelessness is 48. **
Sites that started as temporary emergency warming centres during cold-weather alerts are now permanent centres for over 1000 people in the city and can no longer close come spring and summer. *
From 2016 to late 2018, the average number of people using the city’s emergency shelters on any given night leapt 60 per cent to more than 6,600. **
Between 2015 and 2017, the number of encampments removed by the city doubled. **
4 in 10 people using Toronto homeless shelters are refugees or asylum claimants. ***
Sites that started as temporary centres during cold-weather alerts are now permanent alerts for over 1000 people in the city and can no longer close come spring and summer. **
38% of outdoor homeless people that were surveyed identify as Indigenous. To put this into context, Indigenous people represent between 1 to 2.5% of the Toronto population. ****
Half of homeless people report being homeless more than 6 months. These people are known as the chronically homeless. ****
63% of people outdoors that were surveyed first experienced homelessness as children or youth. 1/3 of all respondents reported their first homeless experience as children or youth. ****
Because there are not a lot of shelters in the suburbs, homeless youth often make their way to the downtown Toronto core looking for somewhere to stay (360Kids)
Having a pet is often a barrier for people needing to find shelter or access services – and homeless people will very often choose to sleep on the streets with their pets, rather than go into a shelter without them.*****
There is only one long-term shelter in Toronto that accommodates people and their dogs. It is Fred Victor’s Bethlehem United Shelter in mid-town.*****