Item - 2021.MM28.5

City Council on February 2, 3 and 5, 2021, adopted the following:

1.  City Council request the Government of Ontario to work with the Attorney General to suspend and immediately order a comprehensive moratorium on residential evictions and to stop the processing of applications, notices, hearings and enforcement of evictions to prevent further homelessness.

2.  City Council request the Government of Ontario to immediately establish a Province-wide residential emergency rent subsidy to prevent tenants from falling into homelessness.

3.  City Council request the Government of Ontario to take the following actions to mitigate the rising number of homeless persons in Toronto:

a.  identify Provincially-owned space which could be made available for emergency homeless shelters this winter and, should City staff request these sites on a short-term basis, immediately provide them for this use;

b.  require municipal governments receiving Community Homelessness Prevention Initiative funding to build new shelters that provide sufficient capacity to accommodate their local homeless populations;

c.  immediately expand funding to create new supportive housing units in the City of Toronto to transition people experiencing homelessness from shelters to permanent housing;

d.  create a specific funding stream for shelter services in Toronto that is responsive to sudden increases in demand for services and in recognition that many people from underserved municipalities are accessing Toronto's emergency shelter system; and

e.  provide equal rent scales for Ontario Works/Ontario Disability Support Program recipients regardless of what type of housing they reside in.