New task force to look for shelter amid nightmarish winter projections

For Peter Tilley, Ottawa's homelessness crisis has never looked so bad.

His staff at the Ottawa Mission are used to putting out mats on the chapel floor, but they're well beyond that now. People are spending the night sitting in plastic chairs.

"We're seeing people in our waiting area in record numbers — 35, 40 sometimes 50 per night — because they have nowhere else to go," said Tilley, who's been CEO there for a decade following a longer stint atop the Ottawa Food Bank.

"That number is just going to grow as the winter months come upon us."

Tilley is seeing signs the city is serious about facing the cold-weather rush. On Thursday, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe and community services committee chair Laura Dudas announced an emergency shelter crisis task force.

"I think that's a statement that we're going to get on this now," Tilley said.

Ottawa Mission CEO Peter Tilley says the shelter is seeing record numbers in its waiting area. (Arthur White-Crummey/CBC)

The city estimates about 275 people are now sleeping outside. Many will seek a warm bed when the weather turns too frigid to bear.

Projections suggest that rush will overwhelm shelter capacity during the winter, with an estimate on the high end of 187 more people than the system can handle.

"We must take immediate action to make sure we are prepared," Sutcliffe told reporters at his office at city hall.

The task force is not meant to tackle the root causes of homelessness, rather to work with community partners for a short-term solution by opening more spaces to keep people warm.

"There's no question now that we will need more space, more shelters and more warming centres," Sutcliffe said. "These are unprecedented times where the demands on the city's emergency shelter system are enormous."

City needs help to find permanent solution

Dudas said the city is not willing to accept that anyone has to sleep on the street as temperatures plummet below zero, as is forecast next week.

"Emergency and crisis is in the title and I cannot sugarcoat it enough: that is exactly what we are in and that will be what we're focusing on," she said.

The announcement did not come with any new money, though Sutcliffe said the task force will look at what's needed and can come back to council for resources.

It will also work with other levels of government to push for permanent solutions.

"This is not a problem we can solve on our own," Sutcliffe said. "We have limited resources as a city and there are decisions that are being made at other levels of government that are having an impact on this."

Ottawa declared a housing and homelessness emergency in February 2020. Kaite Burkholder Harris, executive director of the Alliance to End Homelessness, said Ottawa needs more housing units to address the crisis.

She did welcome Thursday's announcement as a signal the city is following up on its emergency declaration.

"It's like we have had the house on fire for three years and no one has called 911. And today, I think we're calling 911," she said.

"That makes me encouraged that this council is taking leadership and wanting to see this as a priority."

Community spaces to remain makeshift shelters

Given the pressures this winter and the need to add more space, Sutcliffe said there's little chance makeshift shelters at the Dempsey Community Centre in Alta Vista and Bernard Grandmaître Arena in Vanier will be able to stop serving that role anytime soon.

The city councillors for both neighbourhoods have pushed for those facilities to return to the community. Both are now on the task force.

"Certainly it's a disappointment, but we need to shelter people. They need to have a place to stay," said Alta Vista  Coun. Marty Carr.

"So for right now that's trumping the fact that once again Dempsey will not be open during the winter months — we're going into year four."

An ice rink that was converted into a temporary shelter for single men at Ottawa's Jim Durrell Arena in April 2020. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)

Carr said the pressure is so great that using even more city facilities might be necessary. Other options might be expanding the use of hotels and housing people in underused federal buildings.

"It's a challenge to find the right space," she said.

"We don't want to be just throwing people down on a mat in a place that's not equipped to offer them a meal or provide them services."

'We're going to look everywhere'

Just this week, Rideau-Vanier Coun. Stéphanie Plante introduced a motion at the city's community services committee to push for a more equitable distribution of social services in the city.

Her ward includes the city's three major men's shelters and one of the makeshift shelters.

As she prepared to join the task force, she repeated that her ward has few remaining spaces to offer and argued that people can be better integrated when they're spread out. She also said that keeping people warm is priority number one, wherever the search may lead.

"We don't want anyone to freeze in the cold," she said. "I would have to speak to people like the University of Ottawa, like (the) Shaw Centre … to see if they can help. But I'm so glad other councillors have stepped up."

She noted that two task force members are suburban councillors. Dudas represents Orléans-West Innes, while Coun. Allan Hubley represents Kanata South. The fifth member, Coun. Ariel Troster, represents downtown Somerset ward.

Sutcliffe said the task force will be looking for spaces throughout the city.

"Councillor Plante and I have spoken many times about the disproportionate burden that her ward and a couple of other wards have been bearing during some of these challenges that we've faced as a community," he said.

"So I think were all very sensitive to that at city council. We're going to look everywhere for space."

Tilley called the task force announcement a "bold move" but still short of what's needed to meet the scale of the crisis.

He hopes the renewed commitment to a short-term solution this winter will lead to a lasting focus on helping people into permanent housing.

"Let's hope, coming out of that, will be the momentum to focus on these long-term solutions so we're not addressing this next October as well."