“Unfortunately, there are times that these move outs have to happen quickly or we lose the housing/shelter option for our residents,” she said, adding that despite Dixon Hall staff's efforts to match residents to housing, many will move to another shelter hotel dozens of kilometres away. Given the constraints we work under, we try our best to relocate our residents based on individual solutions,” said Dixon Hall CEO Mina Mawani. “The reality is that alternate, limited accommodation often becomes available on very short notice. READ MORE: Strathcona residents say Toronto shelter hotels failed promise of permanent housing.It said they were recently advised that the shelter had to be handed back to the city by Aug. In a written statement, the non-profit Dixon Hall said since they are not owners of the Strathcona property, their role is restricted to the delivery of services based on directives by the city. In a letter dated July 5, shared by the network, the non-profit operating the shelter hotel appears to tell a resident they will be moved July 14 to a shelter in North York, where they can only take two bags of belongings and will have to share a room with another person. 15, some were abruptly told they had to relocate this month, according to the Encampment Support Network, a volunteer-run group working closely with hotel residents. Strathcona Shelter Hotel residents are having a press conference outside of City Hall right now ahead of Olivia Chow’s swearing in as Mayor to demand that she uses her power to halt their imminent evictions from the Strathcona as her first task in office /Q2QCyqqWPy - ESN Parkdale July 12, 2023ĭespite residents pushing for and receiving assurances they could stay at the hotel until Aug. ![]() He says he was offered relocation to other shelters roughly 20 kilometres away, but those are far from his downtown doctor and the community he's now a part of. Smith is among the shelter hotel residents calling on Toronto's new mayor, Olivia Chow, to step in to stop the site's closure as a shelter until more suitable alternatives are identified. “It's better to sleep in a tent or underneath a bridge. Where are they going to go? Where am I going to go?” says Smith. “Stop this harassment, kicking people out when they got no other options. It's a situation that has him and other site residents distressed at what the future will hold. Get the latest local updates right to your inboxīut Smith is set to be displaced when the Strathcona Hotel owner reclaims the site at the end of August and resumes regular hotel operations.Download our app to get local alerts on your device.A cashier at the Tim Hortons next door knows him by name and comes by his table later to warn about a storm brewing. Almost everyone coming and going from the hotel says hello. Smith - who has schizophrenia, a heart condition, walks with a cane and has survived multiple strokes - was connected with a nearby family doctor shortly after he moved to the hotel in 2020, he says. In that time, he says the closest he's come to a place of his own is in a downtown Toronto hotel, one of several sites the city converted to temporary homeless shelters at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Smith has been homeless for about 25 years. Somewhere he can call up his friends, fire up the BBQ and share a meal over the sounds of his favourite music: Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley and The Doors. At 71 years old, he imagines what it would be like to have his own home.
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