Violence in Toronto shelters is on the rise. Here's how the city hopes to tackle it
Action plan responds to increase in violent incidents over the last decade
Months after a report showed violence in Toronto's shelters has spiked 280 per cent over the last decade, the city is proposing a three-year plan that it hopes will make shelter clients and workers safer.
The city released its shelter safety action plan on Tuesday with 14 actions, including enhanced training for staff and increased health care, mental health and crisis intervention supports for clients.
The plan will come to the city's economic development committee, which oversees Toronto's shelter system, for approval next week. Coun. Alejandra Bravo, who chairs the group, said the plan provides "system-wide oversight" on safety and supports to help shelter residents.
"We're there to address their urgent health care, mental health care (needs) by connecting them to those systems on the outside, some of which are really in short supply," she said. "And to look at it as a crisis intervention."
In April, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) found violence in Toronto shelters jumped dramatically from 2011 to 2021.
According to the report, interpersonal violence in the shelter system increased 283 per cent over the decade, with 1,071 incidents reported in 2011 and 4,102 incidents reported in 2021.
Those incidents are defined as physical assaults, verbal abuse, threats of death and harm and harassment of staff and residents. The rate of restrictions denying some individuals service increased by nearly 40 per cent.
'Turning away 200 people every night'
Overcrowding, the pandemic, winter, hopelessness and frustration among residents as well as shelter policies that limit privacy and autonomy all played a role, according to the report.
The city's plan calls for enhanced supports for staff following serious occurrences in shelters, new training to help them support clients who use methamphetamines and establishing tracking measures for incidents of anti-Black racism in the system.
The CAMH report found that 17 shelter residents who need extensive and specialized support were responsible for hundreds of incidents. This new plan will also identify those clients with higher rates of incidents and service restrictions to ensure they receive housing.
"Let's look at the whole thing with a lot of compassion for both shelter residents and shelter workers, and start to find the solutions," Bravo said. "We have to commit ourselves to making sure that our shelter system is safe and that people are coming out of there in the best way possible to get into a permanent home that supports their needs."
Bravo said strained resources are contributing to the problem as the city struggles to house over 12,200 people a night in its system.
"I think this is a problem in every city in Canada and in every town," she said. "We have the largest shelter system by far, any of any place in Canada, but we're still turning away 200 people every night."
"There are a bunch of people who just don't call in anymore to find a bed and they're in encampments."
Service restrictions must be reviewed: outreach worker
Outreach worker Diana Chan McNally said she's pleased the city will review the use of service restrictions, which can see shelter residents denied space.
"The reasons why they're kicked out, to me, don't seem sufficient," she said. "It can be simply because a staff person doesn't like you, which doesn't feel like grounds to actually remove someone's right to shelter."
Chan McNally said relationship building between staff and shelter residents needs to be a priority as part of the plan.
"I see a lot of focus on (staff) training, which is something that I had actually cautioned against," she said. "I think what we see in the sector is that we medicalize people. We further dehumanize them by viewing them through the lens of a substance they may be using, or a particular diagnosis, when what people really need, what they want, is to have a real human connection."
The full report could come before city council in December for approval.
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