City
Luxury homeless shelter opens in Toronto
Toronto's latest luxury hotel homeless shelter opened Thursday night. The much-anticipated Peter St. shelter is now ready for use after 40 long months and $11.5-million. The 40-bed shelter will offer respite services, overnight assistance and outreach programs for the homeless, as well as businesses in the area.
The cost for the shelter, which is located at Richmond and Peter, is more than double the originally estimated price.
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shelter- it is part of his War on clubs/fun in the entertainment district to turn a night club (Fez and others ) into this money pit and Yes we all paid for it
Councilors like Adam Vaughan have been around long enough to know better. I needed a bath after watching his smarmy remarks on election night about his 'ability' to work with Rob Ford.
Heads up people. This is not the first luxury hotel for the homeless, or downtrodden. Look at all those lovely waterfront palaces at Queen's Quay and Bathurst. Wouldn't we all love to be able to afford to live there? But those people get to live there, right on our tax dime.
This would have been a better post if you had focused on that instead of this low brow pandering. Try harder next time, please.
It's called transitional housing, jerks, and it's been proven to help the homeless get off the streets and become productive members of society. A bunch of filthy cots jammed into an overcrowded auditorium (or whatever you'd prefer to see as a shelter) wouldn't be nearly as effective.
Anyway, really ignorant post.
What's next? A post about a terror mosque going up in downtown TO?
bang, bang!
The cost of the shelter over its lifetime will save taxpayers more money (millions?) rather than the alternative of leaving them on the streets and costing both their lives and taxpayers money in the form of providing more expensive healthcare.
For some other analysis, check out: http://www.gladwell.com/2006/2006_02_13_a_murray.html
This is a small but vital investment in the city of Toronto for its less fortunate citizens.
I personally find the comments arguing that the this project is not a good one for the city to be in poor taste. We should have more projects in Toronto like this one. (but, yeah, it would be nice if they came in on budget)
- United States continues luxury war in Iraq
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Keep it classy, Blogto.
Choppery - Since when is the word "luxury" a negative? Also, have you even been to the new shelter? I have and it's f'in nice. There's nothing negative nor wrong with the writer using the term luxury.
This was a shitty post, don't rub it in by insulting the intelligence of your readers.
Work.
- Peter St. replaces a shelter on Edward St that was converted to affordable housing
- It has more than just beds, being a referral centre and hosting case management services to get people off the streets
- the original budget of $5.5 mil was grossly understated to begin with (so the overrun should not have been this high)
- Land acquisition cost - $4.7 mil (85% of original budget)
- council requested a rooftop smoking area to expand the sidewalk on Peter - $300,000
- Solar panels & green roof - $700,000
- asbestos removal - $400,000
- elevator - $900,000
I love Toronto.
"hacks" to collect fat salaries and funnel tax dollars to their buddies. Toronto Housing is trying to sell 12 million dollars worth of houses to a native group for less than half a million dollars after leaving them derelict for years! At the same time the deep thinkers spend almost 12 million for a homeless shelter? How many other empty buildings does the City of Toronto own? Clowns to the left and jokers to the right and the joke is on Toronto taxpayers.
There are 40 beds, I highly doubt there is turn-down service and mints on pillows. The article doesn't state much more, other than there being 40 beds.
Also, the very phrase "luxury homeless shelter" is an oxymoron, and an insensitive one at that. The idea that a capable homeless shelter is "luxurious" is like the idea that welfare is an opulent lifestyle. It belies a fundamental ignorance of what extreme poverty is like, and how a nice chair does not luxury make.
Without meaning to or not, you've just put a large group of vulnerable people who actually depend on these kinds of facilities on the stake and made them fodder for ridicule and derision. From people who don't give a shit unless it somehow affects a decimal point percentage of their income taxes.
Let's not BS ourselves, and call a spade a spade.
me thinks blogto is better at taking other people pictures and reposting them then they are at contributing to political discussion.
i think the 20 reviews of poutine had more substance and useful information than this snarky mini article.
And for those touting the long-term savings, this expensive hotel does nothing to prevent the eating/drinking/drug habits of the homeless, a far greater health care burden that the just living out on the street and facing the elements. The hard core will just smile and nod at the "outreach" and go back to doing their thing on the streets.
I'm still waiting for the article.
http://www.thetravelmagazine.net/i-2697--ten-luxury-hostels.html
I certainly don't think Travel Magazine is being derogatory toward people who stay in hostels NOR are they suggesting that these hostels are as nice as the Four Seasons. It's just used as a relative term for emphasis.
Frankly, lets build 10 more 'luxury' shelters for the homeless. They bloody deserve it! Jerks.
The concept of travelers experiencing luxury is not contentious. The concept of the homeless experiencing luxury certainly is contentious. The contentiousness of the word "luxury" as applied to a service for a homeless people is the whole point.
You know there are lots of folks out there who are going to take this into gravy train "omg my taxpayer dollars" homeless-bashing "they choose to be homeless by continuing to make mistakes and now they live better than I do?!" poverty-dismissive territory, and this post is catering to them, and the ensuing shitstorm. I realize that blogs don't necessarily aspire to great heights, but if you're okay with being the Toronto Sun lite, that's a dealbreaker.
In your position, I understand that you're going to argue that this post had innocent intentions, but refusing to acknowledge the political implications of this post's headline and content - whether you think those implications were intentionally crafted by Blogto or not - is just whack. And insulting.
The building was full asbestos and other things that needed to be cleaned out. It also is mainly offices, doctors and other services for the area.
Robyn Urback clearly decided it wasn't work fact checking, asking the city councillor or you know... being a journalist.
Doesn't anyone get it that if we keep building these Taj Mahals for the homeless industry, it just encourages them to stay, well, homeless. Why would you look for a job or accept treatment if you knew it meant being forced out of one of these palaces and into some fleabag rental building?
As for NIMBYIsm, Smitherman talked about giving MORE power to the neighborhood committeess. Since Jane Jacobs stench waffed across this city, the empowered NIMBY zealots have effectively stopped any form of progress. When each neighborhood is given its own power, you no longer have a connected city, but an intractible collection of petty fiefdoms.
When are we going to stop feeling sorry for the 'disenfranchised' and start forcing them to be accountable for their own lives? The biggest issue is the layer of sycophants (bureaucrats) who feed off this public trough. You'll never see study come out of those departments that advocate LESS money, will you?
Most of these 'homeless' that I see hanging out in front of those shelters down by Sherbourne/Adelaide are in their mid-30s and quite able-bodied. There's an entire industry sprung up around this scam.
Everything this city touches turns to shit. The MPF scandal cost the city $42M because the douchebag overseers never read the contracts, then the city spent another $11M in lawyers and consultants to 'study' where the money went. Stavros flips the leases on his properties on the eve of Toronto's Expo bid and nobody goes to jail? Skydome ended up costing the taxpayers tens of millions, then Rogers buys it for pocket change.
Really, the people on this site who see absolutely nothing shocking about $250k per bed are either delusional, mathematically challenged, or themselves feeding off the public teat and don't want the truth to get around.
That is what sickens me. The so-called homeless people are only pawns in this disgusting play.
One can only hope that Rob Ford has the strength and gets the support from all Torontonians to clean out all the scum at City Hall.
At the same time, somebody needs to emerge to do the same at Queens Park and in Ottawa.
How many scandals have to be unearthed where millions, or billions disappear into black holes, with no repercussions, then to see some smiling politician dismiss the matter, then announce that a new tax has to be implemented as the government needs more revenue?
If all levels of government in Canada were being run properly, hiring staff and outside agencies only as needed and at market rates, and without corruption, I would bet Canadians would be taxed at least 20% less and services would improve dramatically.
It is a monumental undertaking to try to root out all the parasites and career criminals who inhabit our governments. They will put up quite a fight as they do feel and exhibit quite freely a sense of entitlement since they have been getting away with this with little opposition for far too long.
Dealing with the extreme end of society leads to some unfair, sometimes counterintuitive solutions; but you cannot ignore that homeless shelters are much cheaper than having the police or emergency services shoulder most of the burden. As I said before, there's no doubt in my mind that this shelter will save the taxpayer money compared to doing nothing.
Umm, obviously it didn't belong to the city if they had to pay $4.7M for it.
What I see as the biggest problem with this place in day-to-day practice is that this is supposed to be "transitional" housing, meaning this is where people stay between being literally on the street and living in one of the city's existing shelters. Except this place is probably about 1000 times nicer than those shelters, so what's to encourage the people to "move up" to housing that are actually shittier?
By purchasing the land, the city now owns the land. Accordingly, that chunk of the shelter cost isn't actually lost, assuming that downtown real estate isn't about to become worthless.
In terms of the article, I have to agree with the many commenters who found this to be in poor taste. Defend all you want, but the tone is extremely divisive.
Hey, Annie, I have an idea: why don't you hang out around the 410 Sherbourne walk-in clinic and listen to the way these entitled down and out people treat the nurses and support staff who work there? They growl and snap at them, lunge over the counter, are abusive as hell, and while I sit in the waiting room I get to dwell on the fact that MY TAXES are supporting these people's entire lifestyle.
Build Taj Mahals for the homeless, and it will just attract more and more of them from Wawa, Kincardine and the east coast.
Maybe YOU should hang out with these people a bit. I'd recommend Cawthra park on a Sunday when the needle exchange, er Health Bus, comes around.
I'm from a upper class middle family and feel thankful that I have a job, a good life. It's not always been like that though. I had to work hard as my family came from Italy.I do talk to the homeless and It seems that one problem piled up after another and that is why they are living on the streets.Maybe I am just judging the few homeless people I know.
It's been a year that I've been trying to help a few homeless people. It's all new to me.I am trying to encourage the few homeless people I see around the places I shop at, to get I.D., sleep at a shelter at night during the winter months and to return to family.
When my family came from Italy we lived in a rough area in Toronto, where 80% of the people were on Social Assistance. I couldn't believe it!!!!!!!!!!! The whole family... Grandparents, Parents and Children once they reached age of majority. How I hated that area. I felt that they were a bigger problem than the homeless because these people were capable of working.The neighbourhood I had lived in was disgusting. The people were like the people you describe at the walk-in clinic at 410 Sherbourne. The only difference they were not homeless. You are recommending Cawthra Park on a Sunday... would not see me dead there.In fact my family lived not far from the Sherbourne area. A five minute bus ride.We lived in the Broadview area.
Let me recommend that you talk to a homeless person and find out how they got on the streets.
After all who chooses to be homeless?
It can happen to anyone.
What the hell are you talking about?
There are nice condos there, not subsidized. There is some co-op housing in the area (not all rental units in the area are co-op units) and those places are decades old and not buildings where people live rent free.
A lot of people are a paycheck or two away from one and to put people in some understaffed crumbling building that YOU wouldn’t want to stay is a crime. People need shelter but they also need to reclaim some of the dignity that they have lost because of being homeless. If you have a problem with homeless shelters try living in one for a while or better yet walk around the streets for a few weeks with no cash, no ID, and no shelter, then you can come back to me and tell me why we don’t need new shelters in building that are designed for it. You can tell me that it’s alright with you to sleep in a place that you wouldn’t even walk in.
If you want to do something about the homeless population then I suggest that you get the city, provincial and federal governments to start working out affordable housing for all of its citizens a shelter is a band aid at best, what is really needed is real housing.
It’s not the fault of the people who live on the streets that the people who built this shelter ran up the price, once again look at the system I am sure that the homeless never got a cut of the cost overrun.
I feel they are beyond reach, however they were all once someones child, mother, friend..............
God forbid anyone of you should lose a loved one to a derelict life....It's like they died but are not dead yet they are not alive either.
As for the luxury shelter...I avoid this place like the plague.
It smells, drug use and prostitution is rampid, you have to literally chain your belongings to you....I would rather rent a room at a sleazy motel but the only ones I can afford are full of bedbugs (and I am not exaggerating) so I have chose to stay on street. Without the many resources in Toronto to do my Laundry and shower and have call backs for job searching I don't know what I would be like...Probably dirty and stinky and aweful and just wanting to be on something to forget my circumstances....so I thank Toronto and all you tax payers for helping me keep what self-esteem and dignity I have left.
I pray this never happens to any one of you becuase once your in in it is so hard to get out and I am not even sure why anymore.....I never imagined this would be my life and I am sorry to be a drain on society...I hope some day I will be able to walk with my head held high again.
Seriously.
Thank you.
People complain about the cost but the reward is giving people their lives ,hope and dignity back. We spent much more on crime, criminals and criminal culture but no one complains about that. Stop bullying the homeless and lets deal with the problem.
this is the answer, the word of God.
The truth? Not everybody gets to be as successful in life; sometimes, people stumble (especially in this society and this country); most of the time, all it takes is one spate of illness, or a lost job, and suddenly, you're homeless or on welfare for a long time. That's what's happened to these people, and that is why they need help and understanding. Not nasty putdowns and platitudes about 'pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps' or any of the other nonsense spewed by you and everybody else.
Funny how Canada prides itself of being a progressive country (Toronto prides itself on being a progressive city), and yet we have more homeless than Oslo, Norway.
Many people who dislike the shelter want to have comfort and security for themselves, but don't share their needs with the community. The community of homeless people is doubtless populated with many people who may not "belong" there, but it is important to make the effort to house people in a city where affordable public housing is not readily available. After all, wouldn't most people prefer that the indigent population is off the street anyway? Whether homeless people get to sleep in safety thanks to kindness, or because people are playing Not in My Backyard, a new shelter is a good idea.