Councillor pushes Toronto to track all deaths of homeless people

A motion inspired by a Star investigation would require tracking all such deaths - not just those in shelters.

Thestar.com
March 31, 2016
By Kenyon Wallace

All homeless deaths in Toronto should be tracked to help guide politicians in their efforts to tackle homelessness, urges a motion coming before city council Friday.

The motion, to be tabled by Scarborough East Councillor Paul Ainslie, asks city staff to count all homeless deaths both inside and outside city shelters and to share that information with public agencies and the provincial government to influence policy and legislation.

Ainslie says his motion was inspired by a Star investigation published in February that found the province and most Ontario municipalities do not fully track homeless deaths.

“We have a responsibility as a government, as a municipality, to make sure (homeless deaths) don’t happen,” said Ainslie. Concrete numbers are needed to get a handle on the problem, he said.

“Do we have proper measures in place to prevent situations like this from occurring? If we don’t, why don’t we? Is it fixable? There’s a dignity in every human individual. People shouldn’t be dying on the street, regardless of whether you’re in the largest city in Canada or the smallest.”

Council can either approve it, refer it to the Community Development and Recreation Committee for further study, or kill it outright.

Currently, the City of Toronto keeps track only of shelter-related deaths - people who die in one of the 59 city-administered shelters or shortly after leaving one. Between 2007 and 2015, the city recorded 217 shelter-related deaths.

Homeless individuals who die elsewhere, such as on the street or in hospital, and are not affiliated with the shelter system, are effectively invisible.

The provincial government has no mandate to track all homeless deaths either. The Office of the Chief Coroner does investigate sudden, unnatural and unexpected deaths, but these categories do not encompass all homeless deaths. The coroner stopped recording whether a deceased individual was homeless or of no fixed abode in 2007 because such data was considered “unreliable.”

Ainslie hopes his motion, if approved, will support the introduction of a provincial mandate to track homeless deaths.

In an email to the Star, Deb Matthews, deputy premier and minister responsible for the province’s poverty reduction strategy, said the government welcomes “all information that will help us better understand the complex problem of homelessness” and “encourages municipalities’ efforts to collect data” on the problem.

She said the province is working toward requiring data on homelessness to be gathered at the local level.
“This will allow us to obtain more robust information and help us to establish a baseline against which we can measure progress,” she said. “Most importantly, it will give us good direction on the steps we need to take to deliver on our target to end chronic homelessness in 10 years.”

A volunteer group of Toronto outreach workers, street nurses, pastors and others has attempted to keep a more complete tally of the number of the city’s homeless dead. The group’s list, called the Toronto Homeless Memorial, is posted outside the Church of the Holy Trinity, just west of the Eaton Centre. The list dates back to the mid-1980s and has more than 800 names on it. But the list is unofficial and not recognized by any government body.

Long-time street nurse Cathy Crowe, who helps organize the memorial, is supportive of Ainslie’s motion and says the magnitude of the problem seems to slowly be getting through to elected representatives.
“It’s a huge first step to accepting that this is a catastrophic situation happening in Toronto and beyond.

This is a problem that needs policy recommendations to prevent it and solve it,” Crowe said, noting she is hopeful the province will take note of Ainslie’s goal to encourage the introduction of a provincial mandate to track homeless deaths.

“It could lead to recommendations for funding more harm-reduction shelters, more aboriginal-focused shelters that are culturally appropriate, more women’s shelters, youth shelters and housing ... This would be a huge problem-solving piece of preventing more deaths.”