Hamilton aims to provide warming spaces for unhoused residents all winter. Critics say it's not enough

After what some city leaders and many onlookers decried as a policy failure last December, Hamilton is launching a new warming strategy Friday.

Officials say this will provide the opportunity for more unhoused residents to shelter indoors this winter. But a group of people working in the homelessness-serving sector call it "dangerously inadequate."

In an emailed news release, Hamilton homelessness researcher Gessie Stearns wrote the plan was shared with too little notice for people in the sector to respond. On Friday, she said, several people who work in the sector, including representatives from downtown drop-in centre The Hub, and the Student Overdose Prevention & Education Network will hold a news conference outside city hall to share their concerns. 

Stearns wrote that "formulating a comprehensive plan for cold weather must be attended to as a major municipal and public health priority. Anything short of this is dehumanizing, disrespectful, and has the potential to cause great harm and death."

CBC Hamilton requested comment from Stearns but did not immediately hear back. 

What's in the new plan?​​

The city's new strategy runs from Dec. 1 through March 31, and includes several measures, in addition to increasing the available number of drop-in spaces. One is a warming bus that will run nightly from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., picking up people and giving them transportation or a place to rest out of the cold. It will be a city bus, and will have two outreach workers on board. 

The bus will stop at:

• Westmount Recreation Centre.
• Mohawk Road and Upper James Street.
• Lime Ridge Mall.
• Valley Park Recreation Centre.
• Stoney Creek Recreation Centre.
• Eastgate Square Terminal.
• Walmart Supercentre in Stoney Creek.
• Norman Pinky Lewis Recreation Centre.
• King Street East and Victoria Avenue South.
• Cannon Street East and Mary Street.
• Park Street North and Cannon Street West.
• 20 Hunter St. W.
• King Street West and Pearl Street South. 
• Main Street West and Whitney Avenue.   
• West Hamilton Bus Loop.

While all Hamilton recreation centres and libraries act as warming centres during regular business hours, the new plan also includes extended operations at several facilities. Westmount, Valley Park and Norman Pinky Lewis recreation centres will stay open until 11:30 p.m., seven days a week, on holidays and during bad weather. Those facilities will not offer extra staff or supports.

Hamilton's Central Library branch will have warming hours between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. on statutory holidays. 

Michelle Baird, Hamilton's director of housing, said that as homelessness in the city increases, one goal is to give people around the city options. "Although the majority of our services are in the downtown core, we have people who are outside that."

Measures also include 24-hour operations at washrooms at J.C. Beemer Park, and Corktown Park, which Baird says came into place with the encampment protocol. She said keeping washrooms open in the winter requires winterization, and keeping them open through the night requires security staff.

Christmas Eve closures led to calls for change 

One of the biggest changes this year is the warming response will no longer be tied to the cold weather alerts issued by the medical officer of health. This was the case last year, and it meant additional warming spaces would become available only when temperatures dropped, or were forecast to drop, below –15 C, or –20 C with wind chill. Ontario municipalities do not have a standard threshold for cold alerts. 

This approach came under scrutiny on Christmas Eve last year, when warming temperatures prompted the cancellation of an alert that had been issued during a storm the day prior. The Hub had been open for its usual evening hours, but with the alert ended, additional hours could not be funded without special approval.

Director Jennifer Bonner shared the news and as word spread, many Hamiltonians expressed upset, including Ward 2 councillor Cameron Kroetsch, who wrote on social media the situation was a "policy failure." 

Later, the city contracted The Hub to operate nightly through March 2023, as officials noted Hamilton would move away from a response tied to cold alerts. Baird says that's what the city has done. Now, cold alerts will be mostly informational, she said, noting days on which alerts are called will still see increased efforts by outreach workers to get unhoused people inside.

"Cold alone is not the only factor that challenges folks," Baird said. "Heavy snowfall, inclement weather, wind, ice, that kind of thing, also problematic."

Research by MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions at St. Michael's Hospital has found unhoused people are at risk from the cold well before the temperature drops to -15 C. In fact, the researchers reviewed Toronto coroner's records and emergency-department charts from downtown hospitals between 2004-2015, and found 72 per cent of hypothermia cases in people experiencing homelessness occurred in temperatures warmer than -15 C. 

More spaces with fewer barriers needed

Bonner said that change is a real improvement. "The city's done some great work here, don't get me wrong." She also applauds the work to reach people outside of downtown with measures like the warming bus.  

However, she said, "there are still not enough spaces" for people sleeping outside to take respite from the weather, which means overall, the plan is "insufficient." 

The city says its plan includes 100 new daytime drop-in spaces available all year, and 80 new overnight winter spaces: 35 at the Mission Services Men's Shelter, and 45 at Willow's Place for women, transgender and non-binary people. 

"They act as an interim 'warm up' option but do not service the same as a bed would," Baird wrote in an email. 

Bonner worries these new spaces will have barriers to entry. People who are unhoused, experts and advocates often point to shelters' restrictions as a significant barrier to entry for people sleeping rough. Shelters often ban drugs, and disallow pets and couples staying together.

Baird said that in the coming weeks, she thinks the city will have more spaces available, and that reducing barriers is something Hamilton needs to work on, even as providers work to "ease or remove service restrictions" when it's cold.

She did not respond to a follow-up question about whether that includes restrictions on drug use. She said Hamilton does not have a dedicated shelter serving couples or allowing pets that aren't service animals, but "the city is continuing to explore options that may be available." 

Olivia Mancini, co-founder of the Student Overdose Prevention & Education Network, told CBC Hamilton via text that the city's new warming strategy "lacks a clear plan for supporting individuals with complex needs." 

She said her team advocates for ending drug use restrictions in shelters, and the availability of shelter spaces where people can safely use drugs. 

Bonner added that the city should be mindful of hidden homelessness, including people couch surfing or sleeping in cars. "There's a lot of low- to medium-income folks who are struggling right now and they are one [paycheque] away from sleeping in their cars and we can't sleep in our cars when it's -10 C outside."

She said this year, The Hub will operate Monday to Friday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. She said the team would have preferred to open overnight, and potentially could with the right partnership, but that as things stand, its space is too small to accommodate the overnight need.