[innsertnamehere]

Homeless sleeping in suburban GO stations has also become very prevalent in the last 2 years - something which absolutely was not pre-covid.

 

[chrisw]

I'll share my anecdote. I was taking the Yonge subway last Monday at 8 pm. There were so many couples, I was surrounded by them.

 

[turbanplanner]

Homeless sleeping in suburban GO stations has also become very prevalent in the last 2 years - something which absolutely was not pre-covid.

I've had the police show up a lot of times the last 2 years while riding the go, even have a photo of the police escorting out a lady who threatened to shoot me and the other passengers

 

[allengeorge]

On my last ride on the 501, a homeless person had pretty much barricaded themselves into the back end of the car, shopping cart and all. In full view of riders, they proceeded to urinate on the floor. Riders just moved away, clearly no one wanted to directly intervene, and alerting the operator would only have delayed service and possibly been pointless.

That’s truly upsetting. It only takes a few stories like this to accelerate a doom loop, where people think that the TTC is uncomfortable - if not flat-out unsafe - to ride.

FWIW, in situations like this someone should push the strip and force the vehicle to be taken out of service. Maybe more instances of doing so would force the TTC and the city to get more serious about enforcing some decency on their vehicles.

I’m all for supporting the homeless, and I know I come off as cold here: but transit vehicles are not homeless shelters.

 

[dowlingm]

I’m all for supporting the homeless, and I know I come off as cold here: but transit vehicles are not homeless shelters.

What’s cold is telling people to go to a homeless shelter in a city where its shelters are beyond capacity, some of those that do exist have safety/security issues. Until there is enough capacity, and pathways to supported housing for as many as can be housed, the alternative is what? The sidewalk ventilation grates?

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

What’s cold is telling people to go to a homeless shelter in a city where its shelters are beyond capacity, some of those that do exist have safety/security issues. Until there is enough capacity, and pathways to supported housing for as many as can be housed, the alternative is what? The sidewalk ventilation grates?

It is cold - but transit isn't a homeless shelter - and it is counterproductive to allow it to interfere with the core service of transit agencies. It is not doing anyone service when your legit customers are avoiding transit because of it.

AoD

 

[T3G]

I don't know... it's not pleasant to run into someone who has requisitioned the transit system for their own residence, and I never sit on the TTC for fear of what I might pick up on the back of my pants, but if the choice comes down to that, or finding them frozen to death in a back alley...

 

[Richard White]

I don't know... it's not pleasant to run into someone who has requisitioned the transit system for their own residence, and I never sit on the TTC for fear of what I might pick up on the back of my pants, but if the choice comes down to that, or finding them frozen to death in a back alley...

Honestly, I feel for them but having someone sleep on a row of seats smelling like piss and booze is not at all helpful.

As I said to TPS recently about a mentally ill homeless person at my work nothing will be done until someone gets stabbed. Until someone wakes up a homeless person sleeping on a train and gets killed for doing it nothing will change.

What I find though is that this changes during the summer when it is warmer.

I manage Condos for a living and my property has persons who sleep in our main entrance. They only show up in the winter but when they do, people are scared to use the main entrance.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I don't know... it's not pleasant to run into someone who has requisitioned the transit system for their own residence, and I never sit on the TTC for fear of what I might pick up on the back of my pants, but if the choice comes down to that, or finding them frozen to death in a back alley...

If we are really honest with ourselves - there is a good chance of the latter happening regardless. Dumping them in the transit system is just another way of not dealing with the core issues. The priority of a transit system needs to be transit.

AoD

 

[rbt]

What’s cold is telling people to go to a homeless shelter in a city where its shelters are beyond capacity, some of those that do exist have safety/security issues. Until there is enough capacity, and pathways to supported housing for as many as can be housed, the alternative is what? The sidewalk ventilation grates?

If we need to use transit vehicles as homeless shelters then retrofit some less reliable vehicles with restive heating and park them in convenient Green P lots with signs saying "Shelter". Plug them in for heat.

Moving vehicles with drivers is both an inefficient way of sheltering people looking for some warmth, and terrible for transit capacity.

 

[Northern Light]

What’s cold is telling people to go to a homeless shelter in a city where its shelters are beyond capacity, some of those that do exist have safety/security issues. Until there is enough capacity, and pathways to supported housing for as many as can be housed, the alternative is what? The sidewalk ventilation grates?

We do actually have a number of solutions available, even the short-term, albeit, none are ideal.

We absolutely can lease more hotels/motels; that's expensive, and interferes w/the tourism sector, but its an option.

For refugee families, who currently occupy more than 1,500 units in the shelter system, we can literally rent them market-rate apartments and charge back what they can afford to partially offset the cost, which would free up those 1,500 units for those on transit, in parks, and on grates.

As expensive as market units are, they really aren't any more expensive than shelter beds.

For those who need intervention/care housing, the options are more challenging, in the near-term, still, hotels can get quick-retro-fits in some cases.

The TDSB does have some empty school sites which could get a 'quick and dirty' refit for shelter+ accommodations, that could be made ready in about 90 days if the determination were there.

****

Let me argue, that one of the reasons we haven't seen government make a more determined effort is because society, in some measure, has been accepting the usurping of transit, parks and the public realm. Though, curiously, not as much of an issue in the nicest neighbourhoods.

I wonder if the City simply gave a nod and a wink to encampments in Chorley Park, how long it would take the Rosedale set to find a better solution.

Actually, the more I think of it, the more I like this idea, a network of parks where encampments are allowed, pending sufficient affordable housing/social benefits increases to mitigate the issue.

Chorley Park - Rosedale
Ridgewood Park and Sir Winston Churchill Park in Forest Hill
Windfields Park and Banbury Park in the Bridle Path
James Garden - Close to the Premier's house.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Moving vehicles with drivers are an extremely inefficient way of sheltering people looking for some warmth.

And it's a symptom of problems elsewhere (ie. shelter and broader housing/mental health system). As @Northern Light - there is this odd acceptance that transit riders should be the ones to deal with this. Perhaps it's time to make some noise. If anyone think it's "no big deal", tell them to share their offices, their homes, their vehicles with said homeless people before they clutch their pearls.

AoD

 

[APTA-2048]

If we need to use transit vehicles as homeless shelters then retrofit some less reliable vehicles with restive heating and park them in convenient Green P lots with signs saying "Shelter". Plug them in for heat.

This already happens at Spadina Station and Union Station from 20:00 to about 05:00. The City has converted a few decommissioned buses exactly for this purpose. Though sometimes they’ll use the BYD electric buses when residents complain about the noise.

 

[Richard White]

This already happens at Spadina Station and Union Station from 20:00 to about 05:00. The City has converted a few decommissioned buses exactly for this purpose. Though sometimes they’ll use the BYD electric buses when residents complain about the noise.

Could the police not just use their LRAD's and blast Nancy Sinatra's "These boots are made for walking" alongside some Alice Cooper?

If it worked for the ATF and FBI at Waco, it should work here.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Could the police not just use their LRAD's and blast Nancy Sinatra's "These boots are made for walking" alongside some Alice Cooper?

If it worked for the ATF and FBI at Waco, it should work here.

Removal is one thing - the effort needs to maintain dignity whenever possible. Not everyone needs the stick.

AoD