Petition update
30,000 people say we need the Moss Park armoury ASAP. It's a shelter disaster.
Dec 31, 2017 — Since the December 6 City Council vote to not open the armouries, the city's bandaid measures have proven to be totally inadequate and incompetent.
*Shelters remain full and crowding is worse thanks to the Mayor's decision to squeeze more people into them.
*Family shelters report families with kids now sleeping in offices and program rooms that were never meant to sleep people.
*Over 500 people (and the number will only grow) now sleep in what are not real shelters and are mostly on the floor.
*The 24 hour overnight drop-ins are swamped and unable to meet people's need for mats, blankets, food. People sprawl on floors or sleep in chairs.
*At two of the 24 hour sites for women, a woman will get a reclining chair to sleep in only if she wins a lottery for a chair space.
*The Better Living Centre at the CNE, the latest site to come on line, will sleep only 110 people in a 200,000 square foot facility. The city just 'forgot' to tell people including community agencies desperate for shelter for their people that the centre was ready to take more than 20.
*Tonight Central Intake reports everything is full and it's -24C with windchill.
Below is an article by an experienced front-line worker Doug Johnson and a tape of his call to Central Intake a few nights ago. The Better Living Centre which had over 40 cots that night is not even offered.
Keep fighting for people power!
Politicians and rich CEOs shouldn't make all the decisions. Today we ask you to help keep Change.org free and independent. Our job as a public benefit company is to help petitions like this one fight back and get heard. If everyone who saw this chipped in monthly we'd secure Change.org's future today. Help us hold the powerful to account. Can you spare a minute to become a member today?
I'll power Change with $5 monthly