Furey, a journalist, vowed he would put families first in his drive to get rid of the encampments.
“I am going to phase out those drug injection sites that are causing so much of this disorder, lawlessness in our streets,” said Furey. “There are people involved in the drug crisis, who are going up and saying abusive things to 4-year-old children, littering needles in front of the school ... And I’m the leader who’s going to say we’re going to phase out those drugs sites and replace them with treatment centres. A compassionate society doesn’t keep people on drugs.”
Chow challenged that, saying many doctors believe safe injection sites are part of the solution.
“What they have said is it has to be a housing first policy, [or] no kind of treatment will work, if they don’t have a roof over their head,” said Chow, a former NDP MP and former city councillor.
“So, what, our children have to be harassed for eight years, ten years, when they build the homes for them?” responded Furey.
“It’s hard for the doctors to provide the treatment that you’re talking about until they have a roof over their head,” said Chow. “So, tent encampments … they have some of them addicted. They need mental health support, all these things you talk about,” she said.
“I’m going to do all of that, but we’re going to put families first,” said Furey. “We’re going to work with the province, the federal government—”
“Where are you going to find the housing for them?” challenged Chow.
“My priority is families first, and children first,” responded Furey.
At that point the debate turned to other candidates, but earlier in the debate Chow had made her position clear.
“Just remember,” she said, “these tents have people inside, just moving them from one park to another park to the subway is not going to work. … What we need to do is to create respite centres 24/7. When they become homeless, they can get counseling, find a place get a meal, and be able to settle.”
However, Furey argued earlier that the status quo is not working.
“Do we want our city to look any more like those awful scenes that we see in places like Seattle, San Francisco, downtown Vancouver?” asked Furey. “Because Toronto is starting to slip in that direction. We are a compassionate society, and we must care for these individuals. But at the same time, we can’t let our standards slip any further.”
The clash of philosophies was evident in the views of other candidates as well.
“We need to use a housing-first approach,” said Ana Bailao, a former city councillor. “That is why as mayor I will have support for shelters. I will double the amount of modular supportive housing which happens quickly, and I will deal with the federal government to deal with the one-third of shelter users who are refugees today.”
Mitzie Hunter, a former provincial cabinet minister, said the fallout from the pandemic has made the situation worse.
“We’ve just come through a global pandemic. And one of the reasons we have so much homelessness on our street is that people need more mental health and wellness support in this city,” she said. “Anyone can see that our city is slipping, is at a turning point and we can’t afford for it to be at a breaking point. So that is why in addition to the shelters … we also need supportive housing. But we also need to actually have a program to build more affordable housing.”
City councillor Josh Matlow warned against just evicting tent encampments.
“A housing-first approach, rather than a violent and ineffective approach that only saw our homeless go to other parks, laneways, under bridges, it was not effective and it was not humane,” he said.
“I have a plan to ensure that we provide outreach to ensure that the individuals in our parks have access to shelters, as a band-aid solution … and also to ensure there are rental supplements to lift them up, to give them a path to housing.”
Councillor Brad Bradford said building more shelter beds is not much of a solution.
“A few years ago we had 6,000 shelter beds. Today we have 9,000 shelter beds and they are always 99 percent full,” said Bradford. “Building more shelters is not the answer. We need to build housing … We can’t have people living in parks and that’s why we need to build more supportive housing as quickly as possible.”
Former Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders blamed much of the problem on years of inaction by authorities.
“City Hall has … neglected this problem that didn’t happen overnight but has happened from years and years of not paying attention,” Saunders said. “When we look at these encampments, this is not a safe environment. We have people that are living with mental health [issues]. We have people that are suffering from addiction. We have people that are going through economic situations, and we have criminals,” he said. He added that a multi-faceted approach is needed.
“But we have to have outward-facing resources 24 hours a day working with the issues.”
The debate heard there could be over 200 homeless encampments in Toronto, in some 95 locations.
The by-election for mayor in Toronto is set for June 26, and advance voting has ended.
