Live downtown? City crews will shovel snow off your sidewalks starting this winter

Thestar.com
June 9, 2021
Victoria Gibson and Francine Kopun

Residents in the old City of Toronto won’t have to shovel snow from their sidewalks anymore, after council voted Tuesday to have city crews take over the task.

More than 103,000 households will be added to the sidewalk snow clearance program, rectifying what Toronto residents in older urban areas saw as a bitter inequity -- newer, wider suburban sidewalks were plowed by the city, but people living in homes on streets with narrower sidewalks had to do it themselves.

The city was finally able to rectify the problem by agreeing to purchase smaller sidewalk plows, making it the third city in Canada, behind Montreal and Ottawa, to employ a city-wide sidewalk clearing program. Those streets that remain too small for even the smaller snow plows will be shovelled by city workers.

“This expansion will ensure all homes in the city will receive snow clearing service on their sidewalks starting this upcoming 2021-22 winter season,” according to a press release from the city.

Council also voted Tuesday to ask the province to engage the public as part of its redevelopment of Ontario Place, which remains in its early stages.

A motion by Coun. Joe Cressy (Ward 10 Spadina-Fort York), requesting that public meetings be held as soon as possible, carried.

But most of Tuesday’s council meeting was spent debating the pernicious problem of homelessness in Toronto and the encampments that have sprung up in city parks during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Portable toilets and sinks will remain in “high needs” Toronto parks for at least another year, and potentially two at the discretion of staff, city councillors decided Tuesday -- while a proposal to overhaul the city’s approach to the homeless encampments that hundreds still occupy failed to gain support.

The decision on washrooms, which was supported in a 19 to seven vote, means the city will continue to rent up to 50 chemical portable toilets and sinks -- 22 of which are currently in place, council was told. If extended for both extra years, the contract will require just shy of $2.9 million in additional city dollars.

“This is a basic human need,” said Coun. Mike Layton (Ward 11 University-Rosedale). “If we don’t provide those washrooms, well, the alternative is much, much worse.” Opponents of the move meanwhile argued that keeping washrooms and sinks in public spaces would make it harder to bring people into indoor shelter.

“I don’t understand how we could condemn camping in a city park, but also sort of doing it with a wink and a smile and say if you do come, we’ll give you all these things to support you,” said Coun. Stephen Holyday (Ward 2 Etobicoke-Centre), who also voted against a motion to distribute water to encampment occupants and rotate the city’s HTO To Go water trailers between city parks, which passed 22 to three.

Holyday put forward a motion establishing a target of having zero encampments, which passed a vote.

Councillors sparred for hours in Tuesday’s meeting about the city’s current approach to camps in public parks, as they voted to adopt a series of reccomendations contained in a new city manager’s report -- from continuing to work on infection prevention in shelters to reiterating requests to higher levels of government to provide extra dollars to implement a two-year housing and homelessness plan.

In recent weeks, decision-makers in Toronto have moved to forcibly clear at least five homeless camps.

Some suggested a fresh approach was warranted on Tuesday, with Layton proposing that staff develop a new strategy for providing indoor shelter and housing to people living in encampments, created alongside people who’ve been homeless and organizations that work in the sector. That request failed nine votes to 17.

“While we know that being inside is safer and healthier than people sleeping outside, try to tell that to someone who’s worried about contracting COVID or dying of an overdose in an empty hotel room. There is great fear there,” Layton said. Public health data shows that last year, as deaths in shelters hit a record high, overdoses went from being 30 per cent of deaths in 2019 to nearly half, at 49 per cent.

The city has reported nine deaths among shelter occupants with COVID-19. In the first four months of 2021, deaths in shelters overall have been 125 per cent higher than in those months for 2020. Layton said the city needed to address those fears, and build trust, if they wanted people to come inside.

Coun. Josh Matlow (Ward 12 Toronto-St. Paul’s) also asked if staff could consider creating an advisory committee with people who’ve lived through homelessness; if they’d review existing shelter standards and make changes from independent audits to ensure hotel rooms aren’t shared between strangers. Those requests failed 10 to 16.

“Is it reasonable to perhaps acknowledge a nuance in between the advice and the messaging, that perhaps there’s work that we can do to better address some very genuine concerns that are being expressed by shelter clients and their advocates?” Matlow asked staff during the meeting.

But Mayor John Tory, who opposed a new strategy, said he believed in proceeding with the existing approach, which he called “gradual and reasonable.” “The firm way, and frankly the compassionate way, says those encampments can’t remain without being acted on in public parks,” Tory said.

Council is scheduled to reconvene virtually on Wednesday morning.