Toronto’s homeless are moving north, some to Barrie.
“That’s what we’re getting from some individuals that are here, saying that they were staying in a tent city in Toronto and were displaced, so they decided to move north,” Busby Centre executive director Sara Peddle told BarrieToday. “We have noticed in the last week that there has been a bit of an increase from those people self-disclosing that they are coming from Toronto.”
The City of Toronto has enforced three trespass notices, clearing homeless encampments at Trinity Bellwoods Park in June, Alexandra Park and Lamport Stadium Park in July.
“Every person leaving an encampment may choose to stay in Toronto or to leave the city based on their own unique circumstances,” said Anthony Toderian, senior communications advisor with the City of Toronto. “The City of Toronto and partner agencies do not in any way encourage people to leave Toronto for other municipalities.”
Peddle says she has no information that Toronto’s homeless are being sent north.
“I have not heard anything of that type of nature, it’s more that there wasn’t anywhere for them to go where they wouldn’t be potentially harassed,” she said.
Peddle emphasized Busby officials can’t confirm where the homeless are from, be it Toronto or other Ontario cities
“But that’s what we’re getting from them, self-disclosing (they’re from Toronto),” she said. “I would say more than usual in the last week or so we’ve noticed.
“I don’t have an exact number,” Peddle added. “We have seen an increase in the number of people our outreach team is seeing, like some new faces, though I don’t have the exact number. But the Toronto specific number, I’m not sure.
“We know that there has been, as they’re kind of dismantling the tent cities in Toronto, that’s what’s being shared with us that they’re coming up from those areas.”
Toderian said the City of Toronto continues to "engage" with people experiencing homelessness, including those in encampments, to encourage them to accept safe indoor space in the city, offer them the supports they need and ultimately secure permanent housing.
More than 1,830 people staying in encampments have been referred to safe inside spaces since April 2020, he said.
“This engagement process continues once a person accepts an inside space to help ensure they have ongoing support and access to services,” Toderian said. “City and partner agency staff have engaged with encampment occupants more than 20,000 times since the start of the pandemic, encouraging people to come inside where they have access to meals, laundry, medical and social supports and a housing worker.
“City staff and partner agencies engage daily with people experiencing homelessness at encampments across the city,” he added.
“We have people living in encampments, too,” Peddle said of Milligan’s Pond, “due to the fact there’s no housing option and the affordability is just way too out of whack.”
Between the Busby and Elizabeth Fry Society Simcoe Muskoka, there are approximately 130 people in their hotel/shelter program, she said, and their outreach team is seeing 80 to 90 people a week who are unsheltered.
“Those numbers just keep growing,” Peddle said. “We’ve seen a lot of people that have lost jobs from the COVID situation, lost income where they’ve lost their housing and things are just becoming more and more out of everybody’s price range.
“So if you’re on social assistance it’s not even competitive. Because to get a room in a house is around $700 (a month). And Ontario Works is only $700. They only get $394 toward housing, so it’s definitely out of reach for people and there’s not a lot of subsidies for people to get assistance,” she added.
“Then you have the working poor, where people are trying to make a living, working part-time and stuff like that, and still can’t afford housing,” Peddle said. “We are paying a living wage and some of our (Busby) staff are having a hard time finding housing. It’s just completely out of whack right now.”
The November 2020 homeless enumeration — from multiple sources which deal with homelessness — showed 563 people in Simcoe County experienced homelessness, and that 49 per cent or 276 homeless people were in Barrie.
The Busby Centre is a community, not-for-profit organization which advocates for and improves the lives of individuals and families within Simcoe County who are experiencing homelessness or are at risk of homelessness.
The Busby Centre is located at 88 Mulcaster St., in downtown Barrie.
