Mayor Tory: Warming Centre conditions are symptom of the city's homeless emergency.

Metro Hall - this hallway operates as Toronto's only Warming Centre during Extreme Cold Weather Alerts. Once the temperature creeps up from -15C it shuts down. This past week it opened for one night. 55 people accessed it, despite pretty bleak conditions: crowded cots, not enough blankets, no privacy, no division by gender, no hot meals.

Since shelters, overnight respites and drop-ins and the Out of the Cold program are full and beyond capacity it is highly likely these 55 people were left to survive outside.

These conditions do not meet the UN Standards for Refugee Camps.

This petition calls for the relocation of the warming centre to a more suitable and accessible location where hot food can be provided. It also calls for 4-6 warming centres to be opened across the city and for operational assistance from the Red Cross.

In addition, health workers have long demanded an update to the restrictive cold weather alert formula so as to recognize the risks to people at temperatures even above 0 Celsius. Recent research has reaffirmed this point.