Anti-poverty group takes aim at $3.8M cost of Toronto's 'tacky' Pan Am bridge plan

Ontario anti-poverty advocates are seething over Toronto’s plan to spend some $3.8 million dollars lighting up a city bridge for the Pan Am Games when that money could easily be spent tackling the issue of homelessness.

A long-anticipated project to illuminate the Bloor Street Viaduct is set to be completed before the city hosts the Pan American Games in July. But instead of making a bridge pretty, many are asking why the money isn’t going to funding more shelter services, instead.

The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) publicly released a letter to Toronto City Council on Wednesday, admonishing them for spending millions to beautify the Toronto landmark instead of providing more financial assistance to the city’s homeless population.

"We call on you to kill the lights on the Bloor Viaduct," OCAP writes in its statement. “Instead, we demand you use the $3.8 million to open up TCHC units that are now standing empty because lack of repair has made them uninhabitable while tens of thousands wait for a decent place to live.

"To proceed with this obscene misuse of public resources will be an insult to communities living in poverty that we shall have no alternative to respond to."

The lighting project is expected to cast LED programmable lighting over the viaduct, which spans the Don Valley Parkway and includes both a roadway and TTC track.

The lighting system was intended to be installed in 2003, when a suicide prevention barrier known as the Luminous Veil was installed. But the Toronto Sun reports the lighting was pulled due to budget constraints.

That lighting is now set to be completed as part of the Pan Am Games legacy project.

Last week, city staffers said the project will cost $1 million more than anticipated – bumping the budget up to $3.8 million – suggesting the city’s executive committee use money saved on a program to resurface roads for cycling events.

Mayor John Tory has said he’d prefer that money be spent on something else.

“I still am troubled, and I’ll put it no stronger than that, by instances where we spend money on these kinds of things — which are very nice to have —when we’re having discussions about our inability to pay for — whether it’s adequate homeless shelter, fixing pot holes — all kinds of things,” he said, via the Toronto Star.

The cost of hosting the Pan Am Games has been questioned from a more general view in the past. In 2013, Premier Kathleen Wynne was forced to defend $7 million worth of salary bonuses promised to Pan Am executives.

Last year it was confirmed that the cost of providing security for the Games would be about $239 million – double what was first estimated.

And while it’s easy to look at government budgets and poke holes based on personal priorities, this is a pretty sharp comparison.

The Bloor Street Viaduct plays a key role in the issue of Toronto homelessness. Camps have been known to form under the viaduct, and the city is currently facing an overall homelessness crisis.

Several people have been found dead in Toronto during recent cold snaps, at least three in city streets and another at a shelter while seeking refuge from the cold.

"The waiting list for housing stands at close to 170,000 people while those struggling to obtain or retain a place to live are routinely denied access to the Housing Stabilization Fund by Toronto Social Services offices. Tens of thousands of people in this City turn to food banks in order to survive," the group statement reads.

"Yet, when the circus comes to town and a privileged few stand to make a killing, money is no object and millions can be allocated for something so tacky as the lighting up a bridge."