‘There’s no plan at this point’: Toronto youth shelter raises alarm about feared April closure

An agency that works with young homeless Torontonians is raising alarm about the potential closure of a youth-specific shelter hotel — saying its lease is ending after April and city hall has offered them no clear plan, to date, to relocate the more than 130 young people in its care.

The youth site, which opened as part of the temporary pandemic-era expansion of the shelter system, is run by a number of agencies in tandem. In recent weeks, it’s been packed near capacity, with 132 of its 134 available rooms filled as of Feb. 1.

But fear is now simmering about an imminent closure. City staff aim to shut up to five of 23 remaining temporary sites this year, though they’ve asked council to extend most leases into 2024.

While officials have declined to detail which sites could close, citing ongoing negotiations, Covenant House executive director Mark Aston — whose organization is one of several that operate the shelter today — believes the youth hotel is on the chopping block after April.

“There’s no plan at this point. There’s nothing in place to renew that lease,” Aston said in January, after taking his concerns to the city’s economic and community development committee. Though he’s since met with city hall officials to reiterate those concerns, and believes they’re working out what happens next, he hasn’t heard any new plans while the clock ticks down to April.

The anxiety over the future of the youth site is a microcosm of Toronto’s shelter hotel system at large. While the city has pointed to the financial pressures of the hotel leases and labelled them an unsustainable emergency solution — a lease inked for the youth hotel by the city in 2021 put the cost at nearly $440,000 monthly — Toronto has meanwhile been in the grips of a homelessness crisis that’s only gotten worse, with emergency sites often packed to capacity.

While the city plans to increase capacity in the base system along with its wind-down of temporary sites — not quite to pre-pandemic levels, but from two metres laterally between beds to 1.25 metres — Aston estimates that the closure would mean a 35 per cent reduction in youth shelter beds across Toronto. Youth shelters generally aid young people from age 16 to 24.

(Pre-pandemic, Aston says the youth sector had 377 emergency beds, which he says would drop to approximately 246 without the multi-agency hotel site.)

Covenant House recently started putting cots in its drop-in space to respond to demand, with about a dozen filled nightly. “For the youth shelter system, if the hotel closes in April and if there isn’t an interim strategy in place, we’re losing a sizable chunk of our capacity at a time where the youth shelter system is full.”

In recent years, more young people have been landing on Toronto’s streets, rising from an estimated population of 752 young people in January 2021 to 936 as of December 2022. On Jan. 16, for a one-night snapshot, the youth emergency system was 95.6 per cent full, with 263 beds reported as occupied while just 12 were unclaimed as of 4 a.m. It isn’t just youth, either — the broader system has faced what city staff describe as “unprecedented” pressures.

Each closure has triggered concern about the system being put under further strain — as well as the human toll, as occupants may be scattered to new locations across the city.

Following Aston’s public appeal, a city hall spokesperson declined to confirm future plans for the youth shelter, again citing negotiations underway — but speaking generally, said the city would advise staff and shelter occupants as sites are identified for “decommissioning,” then develop plans to relocate remaining occupants into other shelters or, where possible, housing.

(The hotel is owned by a company whose director and address matches the Easton’s Group of Hotels. An email and phone inquiry to that company about the site’s future was unanswered.)

A recent city hall report said at three temporary sites that closed last year, fewer than 16 per cent of occupants moved into housing during the closure process. Most moved into other shelters, some went to known spaces like health facilities, and some left for unknown locations.

A separate confidential report was recently prepared for Toronto councillors about the future of the city’s remaining temporary shelter sites. One city hall source who is familiar with the report, who the Star is not naming because they were not authorized to speak publicly about its contents, said the document confirms the present end date for the youth shelter site is April 30, and it does not include information about a potential relocation.

Aston worries about the consequences of displacement on the young people under their roof. “We know that young people can be very damaged by homelessness,” he said. Many have been through traumatic childhood experiences, he said, with 27 per cent of youth in Covenant House programs having also been entangled with the child welfare system at some point in their lives.

That’s true across youth shelters, according to a 2021 street survey, with 26 per cent of youth staying in city sites reporting experiences in foster care, kin care, or group home settings. Many of their residents, Aston added, came to them after being subject to “considerable” abuse.

Properly supporting young people could change the trajectory of their lives, Aston said, and prevent them from falling into a cycle of homelessness as an adult. In that 2021 street survey, almost a third of respondents said they were first homeless in their childhood or youth.

Having a robust plan before closing the hotel, he believes, isn’t just a question of where people go in the short term — but of the long-tail impacts on someone’s well-being. If a young person is shuffled into the adult shelter system, for example, he fears they would lose the support their agencies offer young people in a vulnerable period of their life.

“If we want to really change the dynamic of homelessness, we have to look at where the story starts,” Aston said. “It’s a really effective way of addressing homelessness in the long run.”

Victoria Gibson is a Toronto-based reporter for the Star covering affordable housing. Reach her via email: victoriagibson@thestar.ca