Mark O'Connell keeps little more than a video-game system and a couple of paperback fantasy novels in his room in the hotel shelter.It’s the simple things Mark O’Connell appreciates about the hotel room he now calls home. He can open his window and let in the fresh air at night. The king-size bed is so large he can sleep sideways if he likes. He doesn’t have to line up for the bathroom.
Other jurisdictions have also made similar use of hotel rooms to spread out their homeless shelter population and spare it from COVID-19: British Columbia has both bought and leased hotels as shelters, and Toronto, while scrambling to allow for physical distancing in its large shelter network, moved about 2,000 people into leased hotel rooms.
Housing director of House of Friendship, Jessica Bondy, shows a window which has art and thank you letters to her staff, from men who use the hotel shelter.Jessica Bondy, the House of Friendship’s housing director, says her organization had been planning to pitch a new vision for a hotel-like shelter combined with a medical clinic to replace its aging downtown facility, even before COVID-19.
All of this, Ms. Bondy says, has made it possible for more of the shelter’s residents to begin to deal with their mental health and addiction issues and become what she calls “housing ready.” Since March, her shelter’s roster has doubled from around 50 to just shy of 100. But 18 men have moved from the shelter into permanent or supportive housing since then, about double the number in the same period last year, Ms. Bondy said. None has so far ended up back at the shelter.
Gayle Parker, a nurse practitioner who treats patients in the basement clinic, said she was worried at first that the hotel setting, and its various rules, wouldn’t work out for residents that have spent years on the street. But she has been proved wrong: “The first couple of days, they come, and they’re like, very sheepishly, ‘All I am doing is sleeping and bathing.’ And I am like, you go for it. You haven’t been able to do that in years.
In Toronto, the city’s use of hotels has been both praised and criticized. Nurse and long-time homelessness activist Cathy Crowe says Toronto’s move to lease disused hotels has saved lives in the pandemic, which has seen more than 630 homeless people in the city infected – out of about 7,000 shelter users – but only five COVID-19 deaths. In April, Ms. Crowe and other homelessness activists launched a Charter case against Toronto to speed up what they said was its sluggish response to the virus.
Sure, the cure for unemployment and homelessness is to just “give” people money, smokes, alcohol and room to sleep it off.... Not seeing much of a plan to fix anything here....
It's better than seeing the homeless living in tents but it will not change the underlying problems that force people to become homeless.
Something is wrong with this society? Homelessness is encouraged and ee should feel shamed of being taken care of...WTF
So housing is a human right But I have to work hard and pay for my house and someone wants to take my tax dollars and give someone else a house for free We all need to quit our jobs and let the government provide for us with all of the money they have. 🤷🏻♂️
Putting them in hotels could be tricky. Why not invest the money and create a massive housing development at a scale never seen. Employ the homeless who can work , employ those who want to work and build affordable and subsidized housing for these people.
Its a good idea but ot puys a strain on the business owner.
The left is out of sane. Remember that is not your money but hard working & night shift tax payers’
This was happening in many cities long before Wuhan Flu showed up. Where was the G&M then? Not news to many.
Finland has adopted a housing first principle very successfully.Every person should have the dignity to have a roof over their head.This strategy not only improves outcomes for the homeless but is less costly for society in the long run.
As long as these hotels are in the wealthiest areas of any city, then hell yes.
NO!
More like shelter dorms.
If 1 cent of tax payer money goes to this I oppose.
That has been done. The YMCA should stick to its mandate. They branched out to kids camps when the mandate was to help men and dropped the ball. Team up with Gabor Mate and use those camps as the first phase of transition.
It’s a good thought. 👍🏻
Before Bob Rae was elected in Ontario, most of the homeless were housed in places. NDP rolls in and says it is against their human rights, open the doors and let them ‘free’. So now it is acceptable to house them?
Given the likely state of the travel industry for the next few years, it kind of depends to some extent on how much you like the post (hopefully)-apocalyptic feel of empty, decaying hotels.
Nope! Take a look at what’s happening in Vancouver and Victoria. Hotels are not appropriate for BC’s homeless who often have sever mental challenges and are addicted beyond help. It’s only a matter of time before one burns down and many perish.
No Shelter hotels are an extremely costly temporary remedy and there are already well established systems in place to help the homeless transition from the street amd into housing
why dont the editors publishers of this article take them in. Better yet, how about city council people take people into their family homes for free?
In this time of covid the homeless are some of the most vulnerable so it's joyful to see that they have not been forgotten.
sure, give them free cell phones, free rooms, booze, drugs, why not prostitutes too?
A home would be better than a hotel because everyone has a right to shelter and a place to call their own. We need to recognize that anyone can end up homeless especially now. These are people first. Homeless people.
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