City of Toronto Ombudsman Susan Opler will look into recent communication issues that led to some people mistakenly being told that there was no available space at a 24/7 winter respite centre.
On Saturday volunteers at the supervised injection facility at Moss Park told CP24 that they attempted to find space for patrons at a new 110-bed respite site at the Better Living Centre amid frigid cold conditions but were told over the phone that the facility was at capacity, both by staff at central intake and at the facility itself.
The officials responsible for running the facility, however, subsequently indicated that there were 39 beds available on Saturday night and blamed communication issues for the confusion. The officials also said that the facility is intended as a drop-in site where the homeless will always be able to go to warm up, even if all beds are taken.
In a news release issued on Tuesday, Opler said that she is “concerned” by the reports and will conduct an “enquiry.” into what exactly happened. An “enquiry” is smaller in scope than a full-blown ombudsman investigation.
“We are concerned about reports that some people were mistakenly told there wasn’t any space for them on December 30th,” Opler said in the release. “Ombudsman Toronto wants to ensure that these essential services for vulnerable people are being optimally delivered.”
News of Opler’s “enquiry” comes less than a year after she conducted an investigation into concerns over a lack of emergency shelter spaces for the homeless.
At a news conference at city hall, the city’s interim general manager of shelter, support and housing said his department would also conduct a “full review” of its communication processes and would cooperate with Opler as she completes her investigation.
“Information needs to be accurate and reflect real-time situations. I have requested a full review of our communication and intake process that should begin immediately,” Paul Raftis said. “I have also been speaking with the ombudsman to discuss this issue and work with her on this issue.”
Raftis said that the city has a “very complex” shelter system with 52 facilities operated by community partners and another 10 operated by the city.
He said that there are also six winter-respite sites, most of which are operated by different organizations.
Staff manning the phones at the Peter Street referall centre are supposed to be able to advise people of which facilities have space but Raftis said that their process clearly needs to be reviewed.
“I think there is no question that we have to review the system we have in place. We need to improve upon that, we have to look at technology to help us and we need to investigate and look into the protocols we have in place,” he said.
Raftis said that going forward street outreach workers will be visiting the supervised injection facility at Moss Park nightly to make sure that no patrons there are without shelter. He said that efforts are also under way to improve messaging in light of this weekend’s issues.
“The longer term goal is to improve the system with technology and process but that will take a little time,” he said.
The city has a total of 5,460 shelter spaces but the occupancy rate system-wide regularly exceeds 95 per cent. Raftis said that the city “has never” been able to achieve its target of 90 per cent occupancy in the system and is struggling to deal with a 30 per cent increase in average nightly use of shelter beds compared to a year ago.
In December council directed staff to provide 400 additional shelter spaces as soon as possible. About 200 of those are now available while the remaining 200 are expected to be made available in the coming weeks.
“We have a 60-bed shelter opening up in the next seven to 10 days, the new Hope shelter in Leslieville, that will be very helpful. We also have three (planned) shelters that we are trying to fast-track in 2018, so we are very aggressively moving forward to increase capacity in the system and will continue to do that,” Raftis said.
