The Mayor's Homelessness Action Task Force has completed its mandate and submitted its final report in January, 1999. The following information is provided for archival purposes.

Task Force home page Introduction Recommendations Download a copy of the full final report of the Homelessness Action Task Force January 1999 PDF version of full final report (1.4Mb) Breaking the Cycle of Homelessness Interim report July 1998 PDF version of full interim report (419Kb)

Introduction

Dear Mayor Lastman,

When you created the Mayor's Homelessness Action Task Force in January, 1998, you asked us to:

• recommend ways to stop the growth of homelessness
• respond to the public's concern about the growing number of homeless people they see on the streets of our city.

We hope that this report will be the basis for action to deal with the problem.

As you know, homelessness in Toronto has reached a level we have never seen in our history. This growing problem shows itself in many ways. More and more people live on the streets or sleep in shelters. The pressure on drop-in centres, food banks, and other emergency services is increasing all the time. Evictions are on the rise. Waiting lists for social and supportive housing keep getting longer.

Our definition of homeless people includes:

• those who are "visible" on the streets or staying in hostels
• the "hidden" homeless, who live in illegal or temporary accommodation
• those at risk of soon becoming homeless.

Two key themes run through this report. The first theme is that prevention and long-term approaches must replace the reactive, emergency responses to homelessness that we have relied on to date. The second theme is that everyone, including all three levels of government, must take ownership of the problem and responsibility for solving it.

Mayor Lastman, as your Task Force, we found our study of Toronto's homeless people both sobering and enlightening. We believe that there are workable solutions to this deep and complex problem. We were pleased, as a Task Force, that we reached consensus on so many different issues.

Thank you for your support and leadership. We urge you and your Council to endorse and act on this report.

Signed,
The members of the Homelessness Action Task force

Recommendations

There are 105 recommendations in total in this report. The recommendations in bold are pivotal in the sense that the other recommendations are dependent upon these being implemented.

Chapter 2 - Simplifying and Coordinating the Service System
Chapter 3 - Specific Strategies for High-Risk Sub-Groups
Chapter 4 - Prevention Strategies
Chapter 5 - A Comprehensive Health Strategy for Homeless People
Chapter 6 - Supportive Housing
Chapter 7 - Affordable Housing

Chapter 2
Simplifying and Coordinating the Service System

1. Appoint a Facilitator for Action on Homelessness for a five-year term who will report to the Mayor and Council.
2. The Facilitator's primary mandate should be to ensure implementation of the recommendations of the Report of the Mayor's Homelessness Action Task Force.
   
   The Facilitator should establish priorities, define action plans, and track progress on implementation. The Facilitator should proceed by way of projects to create systems change; second staff as required; seek incentive funding to leverage cooperative action; and make recommendations to improve planning and service delivery where appropriate.
3. The Facilitator for Action on Homelessness should report regularly to City Council on progress in preventing and reducing homelessness and communicate in a clear and timely way with various stakeholder groups.
   
   The Facilitator should produce an annual report card that would gauge the performance of the City and all its partners in preventing and reducing homelessness and in dealing with the needs of people who become homeless.
4. Establish a 24-hour Homeless Services Information System comprising a database and a Homeless Services Information Telephone Line that would include the existing Street Helpline. All staff in agencies that serve the homeless population (including hostels, drop-ins, and hospitals) should have access to the database through computers housed in each agency.
5. Community Information Toronto, in collaboration with hostel operators, should establish a central hostels bed registry to provide up-to-date information on hostel bed availability on a 24-hour basis.
6. Resources should be redirected from providing hostel spaces to helping people find and maintain permanent housing, on condition that a sufficient new supply of supportive and low-cost housing is created. This shift should be phased in by reducing the number of hostel spaces by 10 percent each year until the total is reduced to half the base number.
7. Provincial cost-sharing for hostels should reflect the actual costs in Toronto. A percentage of all hostels' budgets should be allocated to purchasing services from community agencies to provide additional specialized supports for those who are preparing to leave and those who need follow-up after leaving the hostel.
8. The City should upgrade hostels to ensure that they all provide a safe, clean environment with single beds (no dormitory bunks), lockers, and sufficient showers and toilets. Standards in temporary shelters should also be upgraded. All emergency hostels should implement a clear appeals process for people who have been "barred."
9. The City should require hostels to establish a written "community partners policy" within six months to formalize links with agencies and institutions that currently or potentially provide services to their users to prepare them to move out of hostels. The City's Shelter, Housing, and Support Division should provide clear guidance in developing these policy statements.
10. The drop-in sector should be rationalized. All drop-ins should provide core services (basic needs, crisis intervention, information and referral, personal supports, and basic recreation). Vital ancillary services (health care, financial and legal counselling, and community economic development) should be provided across the sector. Drop-ins need stable, core funding and key funders (the City of Toronto, the Province of Ontario, and United Way) need to collaborate. The City of Toronto should take the lead in implementing this initiative.
11. The health and safety standards of drop-ins should be improved to include ventilated smoking rooms. City by-laws, which enable City staff to regularly inspect and maintain standards of hygiene, nutrition, and sanitation, should be applied to drop-ins to improve the health and safety standards for users and staff. Funders should also determine appropriate staff-to-client ratios for drop-ins. Capital costs to bring these facilities up to standard should be covered by the City.
12. The principle of self-help should be promoted throughout the hostel and drop-in system by having service users assist in service operations on both a paid and unpaid basis.
13. The City of Toronto and voluntary sector funders like United Way should provide supplementary funds for drop-ins to purchase and/or prepare nutritious food. They should also create a small pool of funds for physical upgrading of kitchens and equipment.

Chapter 3
Specific Strategies for High-Risk Sub-Groups

14. As a long-term strategy, family hostels should be equitably distributed throughout the City.
15. Reception and support programs should be established in Scarborough schools that serve the children of homeless families to enable these children to get the support they need with minimal disruption to the rest of the student body.
16. Treatment programs should be available specifically for young parents with substance abuse problems. Such programs should include outreach services and childcare support.
17. Dedicated supportive housing with appropriate supports should be established for young homeless mothers.
18. The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health should partner with the new Satellite youth shelter in North York to develop and implement a harm reduction approach to serve youth with drug and alcohol addictions.
19. The City should establish partnerships between youth shelters and landlords (including the City Housing Company) to create additional housing units for youth. The youth shelters would place their clients in designated units and provide transitional support services so that the youth can maintain stable housing and then remain in the units after they no longer need services.
20. The Province should provide capital renovation funds for the Extended Youth Shelter Project at 11 Ordnance Street.
21. The Ministry of Community and Social Services should reinstate funding for transitional housing supports for abused women and their children.
22. Community-based agencies should be provided with sufficient resources to provide supports to abused women and children staying in the general hostel system. Hostels should make connections with these agencies through the new community partners policy.
23. Additional supportive housing units, with special safety features, should be designated for abused women and their children.
24. Establish a new Aboriginal shelter by expanding and strengthening Council Fire's operations so that it can operate its shelter year round.
25. The federal government should carry responsibility for funding housing and supports to the Aboriginal homeless population in partnership with the provincial government.
26. A supportive housing pilot project should be established in a suburban area of the City specifically for the Aboriginal population in Toronto. The capital costs should be covered by the federal government. Support services should be attached to appropriate Aboriginal-specific service providers. This project should establish formal linkages to the healing lodge recommended below.
27. The Li'l Beavers/Eagles prevention program for Aboriginal children and youth, operated by Native Friendship Centres, should be reinstated by the Province.
28. The federal government should establish an Urban Multi-Purpose Aboriginal Youth Centre in Toronto in cooperation with the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto, Council Fire, and other Aboriginal agencies.
29. The Facilitator for Action on Homelessness should, as one of his or her special projects, create an Aboriginal Steering Committee to provide ongoing advice on an implementation plan to prevent and reduce Aboriginal homelessness and monitor and evaluate the results.
30. An Aboriginal clinical detox centre, funded by the Ministry of Health, should be established, building upon the efforts of Anishnawbe Health and Pedahbun Lodge.
31. Establish a rural-based healing lodge near Toronto to provide opportunities for healing and self-development of the Aboriginal homeless population in Toronto.
    
    This model should be similar to existing Aboriginal healing lodges in Ontario but with a focus on the homeless population.
32. A focused strategy should be established for increasing training and job opportunities for Aboriginal youth based on a transitional housing model in which residents work to upgrade their skills and prepare for independent living. It should be led by Native Child and Family Services in collaboration with Nishnawbe Homes and the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto and other youth service providers.
33. Expand the Biindgd Breakfast Club model.
34. The federal government should provide the same orientation to refugee claimants on arrival to Canada as to government-sponsored refugees. Refugee claimants should be able to access settlement services including language orientation and help in finding housing.
35. The federal government should provide the capital costs for an additional shelter for refugees. This shelter should have on-site settlement staff. Regular operating funds for this hostel should come from the provincial government and the municipality on an 80:20 basis.
36. The federal government should work directly with the City of Toronto to address immigration and refugee policy and program issues faced by the municipality. The federal government should make arrangements with municipalities outside of Toronto to provide emergency shelter for some of the immigrants and refugees (including refugee claimants) to reduce the pressure on Toronto's hostel system.

Chapter 4
Prevention Strategies

37. The shelter component maximum for social assistance should equal 85 percent of median market rent for each local housing market, based on annual surveys. In Greater Toronto, this would represent, on average, an increase of just over 20 percent on the current maximum shelter benefit.
38. A new shelter allowance program should be created, targeted to working poor families as a first priority, and to working adults if feasible. The aim of this program, which would require annual re-application, is to reduce the risk of homelessness and to ensure that the transition from welfare to employment does not increase the risk of homelessness. The shelter allowance program should reduce the share of income that low-income people spend on housing to between 35 and 40 percent of income.
39. The shelter allowance program should be paid by the Province, consistent with the articulated goals of the provincial government.
40. The City of Toronto should fund and administer a City-wide rent bank with a $500,000 annual budget, to help individuals and families deal with short-term rent arrears. Access to the rent bank should be through designated multi-service agencies.
41. Housing help programs should be more systematic, adequately resourced, and linked to other services. Provincial funding for housing help should be maintained.
42. Housing help to social assistance recipients should be provided by purchase-of- service contracts between welfare offices and housing help services.
43. The Provincial legal aid plan and its successor should ensure adequate funding for community legal clinics for tenant assistance, and maintain its funding for tenant duty counsels.
44. The City should ensure sufficient funding for the Federation of Metro Tenants' Association Tenant Hot Line to ensure that callers can get through to receive information.
45. To ensure that social assistance recipients can rent affordable apartments, rapid payment of first and last months' rent should be provided by the City when requested, and Proof of Address procedures should be expedited.
46. The use of outreach workers should be expanded to move chronic hostel users into stable housing. This can be done by either expanding the Hostel Outreach Program (HOP) or through specific projects similar to the Housing Match Maker Project.
47. Institutions should establish and implement discharge protocols for all persons with no fixed address. No one should be discharged from an institution to the street. If a person is discharged to a hostel, it must be one with 24-hour access. When a homeless person is discharged from an institution to a hostel or unstable situation, arrangements for follow-up by hospital staff or an agency contracted by the hospital (such as Community Care Access Centres or Public Health) must occur within 24 hours after discharge.
48. The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the Canadian Mental Health Association of Toronto should take responsibility for defining discharge protocols for homeless people with mental health problems and/or addictions. These two organizations should meet within the next 90 days to define discharge protocols in consultation with other key organizations.
49. The Facilitator for Action on Homelessness should set up an inter-agency/hospital information network to monitor the effectiveness of the protocols for homeless people who are discharged from institutions.
50. The City of Toronto should invest an additional $300,000 in community economic development over the next three years through the newly established Productive Enterprises Fund.

Chapter 5
A Comprehensive Health Strategy for Homeless People

51. The Ministry of Health should establish a permanent OHIP kiosk in an appropriate location in downtown Toronto on a full-time basis to enable homeless people to register for health cards. In addition, governments, social service agencies, and banks should accept legally certified, notarized copies of identification documents, held by approved community agencies, as identification when homeless people apply for social assistance, shelter, or bank accounts.
52. The Ministry of Health should continue to fund Community Care Access Centres (CCACs) to provide Home Care for people with mental illness.
53. Toronto Public Health should continue to invest in programs which address the overall health needs of the homeless population.
54. A staff person skilled in working with homeless people should be available to hospital emergency rooms, as required.
55. The Ministry of Health should establish a pharmacy pilot project where homeless people can obtain prescription drugs free of charge. The effectiveness of this project should be monitored and evaluated.
56. Toronto Public Health, in collaboration with the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Toronto, George Brown College School of Dental Hygiene, and selected Community Health Centres across the City of Toronto should establish a three-year pilot project to improve the oral health needs of Toronto's homeless population.
57. The Ministry of Health should declare Toronto an "Underserviced Area" for homeless people to enable new doctors to work with the homeless population at the full OHIP rate. In addition, the Ministry of Health should make additional sessional dollars available for physicians to work with homeless people in hostels and drop-ins.
58. The Ministry of Health should fund infirmary beds in appropriate locations for homeless people recovering from illness or surgery. These beds should be coordinated by hospitals in collaboration with the Community Care Access Centres and appropriate community agencies.
59. Long-term care funding should be allocated by the Ministry of Health to designated facilities equipped to address the long-term care needs of elderly chronic hostel users.
60. The Ministry of Health should combine its current community mental health and community health funding for homeless people into one single Homelessness Health Fund which would be administered by the City of Toronto.
61. Fifty psychiatric beds should be added to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Queen Street Division.
62. A harm-reduction facility should be established on a pilot basis to accommodate up to 30 homeless people who cannot participate in programs that require total abstinence. The facility should be staffed by health care professionals, supported by peer counsellors, who would ensure that the harm of alcohol and substance use is minimized and that the person is linked to other health and social supports.
63. An addictions and mental health outreach team should be established, coordinated by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, in collaboration with Toronto Public Health, Community Health Centres, Shared Care teams, and other community agencies, to connect homeless people who have severe addictions or concurrent disorders to the harm-reduction facility. This team would use its expertise to provide consultation and training to other outreach and community support initiatives.

Chapter 6
Supportive Housing

64. At least 5,000 additional supportive housing units should be built in the City of Toronto over the next five years at the rate of 1,000 units per year. Although the high-need districts of the City should receive new units corresponding to their population profile, the majority of new units should be built in all areas of the City.
65. New supportive housing units should be built throughout the province to ensure that people can be served in their own communities.
66. New supportive housing units should provide a range of housing types and management approaches to meet the different needs of different homeless groups. The range should include new construction and acquisition and conversion of existing residential and non-residential buildings.
67. The Province should continue to expand the Habitat program for boarding houses and extend the program to other types of accommodation such as rooming houses.
68. A high-support residential program for people with severe mental illness should be established on site at a hospital. An unused ward of the Queen Street Division of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) could be immediately converted to supportive housing for people with serious mental illness who would find it extremely difficult to find and maintain housing elsewhere.
69. The Ministry of Health, the Ontario Realty Corporation, and the City of Toronto should pursue an agreement with CAMH to make land within the Queen Street Division of CAMH and the former Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital immediately available for the development of supportive housing for persons with serious mental illness or concurrent disorders. At least half the units should be dedicated for persons with concurrent disorders.
70. The Province should fund 100 percent of supportive housing and reassume the costs of any supportive housing devolved to municipalities. It should fund all capital costs, rents supplements, and support services of supportive housing.
71. An overall provincial policy on supportive housing should ensure that definitions of special need and eligibility for supportive housing are broad enough to include "hard to house" homeless people.
72. The Ministry of Health should interpret its criteria for support flexibly to include chronically homeless people who may not have a formal psychiatric diagnosis. Priority should, however, still be given to the seriously mentally ill.
73. The City should contribute developing supportive housing through advocacy, policy development, coordination, strategic top-up funding, and facilitating new supply.
74. There should be a coordinated access system for supportive housing linked to the proposed Homeless Services Information System and to Toronto Social Housing Connections. The coordinated access system should have a "user friendly" centralized database of information on all supportive housing providers, including waiting lists and related programs like housing help. The system should be centrally administered but accessible through multiple entry points.
75. Regular monitoring and evaluation should be done to determine what supportive housing programs are most effective at meeting the diverse needs of the homeless population.

Chapter 7
Affordable Housing

76. The City should develop a "housing first" policy for municipal lands to make suitable sites available for affordable housing, while retaining long-term City interest in the sites.
77. The City should convert the Social Housing Reserve Fund into a Homelessness Community Fund for affordable housing. The annual allocation to the Fund should be $10 million derived in part from the City capital budget and in part from cash-in-lieu receipts from bonusing agreements.
78. The City should implement a tax rate for the new multi-residential property tax class at a level comparable to that for single family dwellings.
79. The City and its agencies, boards, and commissions should waive development charges, land use application fees, parks levies, hook-up fees, and other charges for housing developments that meet affordability criteria.
80. The City should create a private sector roundtable to work with the Facilitator for Action on Homelessness to advise on strategies to create affordable housing.
81. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) should provide direct mortgage loans for new affordable rental projects. CMHC should develop rules and norms for mortgage insurance on not-for-profit projects using more favourable criteria than currently apply to private-sector projects.
82. The federal and provincial governments should develop policies to make suitable government sites available for affordable housing, while retaining long-term public interest in such sites.
83. The federal and provincial governments should rebate fully GST and PST respectively to the developers or builders of affordable housing projects.
84. The federal government should provide up to $300 million in capital support for new low-income housing. The federal government should also reinvest in housing each year the savings to be realized following devolution to the provinces.
85. The federal government should channel federal capital to new affordable housing by way of an Infrastructure program for housing, local foundations for affordable housing, and/or a tax incentive for contributions to eligible foundations or projects.
86. The Province should assume responsibility for building supportive housing either by funding capital subsidies and/or rent supplement, or by guaranteeing an income stream that private and non-profit developers can use to get financing to build or renovate the housing.
87. Upon signing a housing devolution agreement with CMHC, the Province should ensure that the annual federal housing funds that are not required for existing projects (estimated at $60 million annually) be used as a capital and rent supplement fund to support new projects.
88. The current pooling of resources for social housing (about $350 million annually) should be extended to include resources for new affordable housing. In accordance with the principle of "pay for say," the GTSB (rather than the Province) should allocate rent supplement funds for new affordable housing across the GTA.
89. The City should implement the Main Streets Intensification program and explore other strategies for promoting the supply of affordable rental housing such as conversion of non-residential buildings and the purchase of condominiums.
90. As part of its affordable housing strategy, the City of Toronto should pursue the Single Room Occupancy (SRO) option for housing with supports to house homeless singles. The City and the Province should make zoning and regulatory changes to facilitate renovation and new construction of SROs. These would include density maximums, unit sizes, parking requirements and building and fire code regulations. The City should initiate at least three SRO pilots. These should vary according to acquisition or new construction, location, number and sizes of units, financing, and management techniques.
91. The Official Plan should incorporate the goal of preventing homelessness and support the use of planning tools that contribute to the preservation of existing housing and the construction of new affordable housing.
92. Contributions toward the provision of low-income housing should be a high priority among the public benefits secured by the City in exchange for increases in height and density. These should be realized under existing policies and under the policy framework in the new Official Plan.
93. The City of Toronto should request and the Province of Ontario should approve amendments to the City of Toronto Act to permit the City to require the inclusion of affordable housing in new residential developments.
94. The City should reduce the time it takes to grant development approvals or building permits by streamlining the operation of all relevant departments.
95. Federal Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program (RRAP) funding for the City of Toronto should be expanded to $7 million a year to include rental apartment buildings, rooming houses, and second suites.
96. Council should harmonize condominium conversion policies across the new City of Toronto. The new policy should attach conditions to approval of plans of condominium to ensure the replacement of lost low-cost rental units, consistent with the City "no net loss" policy.
97. The Province should grant appropriate authority to the City of Toronto to control demolition of affordable rental properties.
98. The City's housing development strategy should give priority to non-profit acquisition and rehabilitation of existing private apartments, as well as new construction.
99. All three levels of government should commit to the regeneration and redevelopment of public housing where appropriate.
100. The City of Toronto should permit, as-of-right, second suites wherever large- scale new residential developments are being approved. The City of Toronto shoud permit, as-of-right, second suites in areas in which multi-unit residential buildings (including semi-detached houses, duplexes, and triplexes) already exist, as well as in any residential zones that directly abut arterial roads that are well served by public transit.
101. In conjunction with legalization of second suites, a "fast-track" eviction procedure should be established at the Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal, applying to tenants renting suites in owner-occupied properties with only one rented unit.
102. Regardless of current zoning, existing second suites in single family homes that comply with health and safety standards should be legalized. There needs to be an appropriate public hearing and appeal process for neighbours who object. The onus should be on the owner to come forward with an application for relief from the zoning by-law.
103. Council should permit rooming houses as-of-right in commercial zones and multiple-unit residential zones on arterial roads throughout the City. Existing rooming houses that comply with health and safety standards should be legalized.
104. CMHC should assist rooming house owners to access mortgage financing.
105. The City should explore ways to reduce or mitigate the impact of the new property tax burden on rooming houses.