‘This parking lot is not the solution:’ Etobicoke residents push back against shelter plan

The city shelter is slated to take over a parking lot, but community members say they weren’t properly consulted.

Two blocks up from the lake on a residential street in south Etobicoke, stickers are slapped across the parking metre at the entrance to the Green P lot.

‘Small street – big concern,’ they read; ‘right cause – wrong spot.’

It is here at 66 Third St., near Lake Shore Blvd. W. and Islington Ave., that the city is planning to erect an 80-bed adult shelter, to be operational within three to five years. The property, deemed surplus by the Toronto Parking Authority, was unveiled as one of six planned shelter sites in December – catching the community by surprise.

“I just think that somehow this has to be stopped,” Nadine, who lives in nearby seniors’ building, told CTV Toronto.

“This is very, very dangerous for the senior population, for the children that go to the neighborhood schools.”

“This parking lot is not the solution.”

A group of local residents has formed The New Toronto initiative, an advocacy group petitioning for the project to be paused.

“Frustrations are growing, particularly in the parent community,” Joanna, a mother of two school-aged children, told CTV Toronto.

She said there are concerns about children arriving safely to and from school.

“We don’t know how unpredictable encounters with shelter clients would be met on a street that doesn’t have a lot of foot traffic, that doesn’t have a lot of density,” she said.

“They’re going to get crackpipes, condoms, and needles, but they can’t use them on site... So we’re afraid they’re going to use in the alleys, the parks, and the parking lots in the neighbourhood,” Dean, a 40-year resident of the neighbourhood, told CTV Toronto.

The City, though, insists that the site, which is one lot south of Lake Shore Boulevard, offers access to transit and other services – and was one of the only options that met location, availability and budget criteria in Etobicoke of a hundred sites analyzed city-wide.

“Given the need and the demand, we have to focus on where the shelters are needed,” said Loretta Ramadhin, Director of Infrastructure, Planning & Development for Toronto Shelter and Support Services.

“The city is committed to being good neighbours. We have a good neighbour policy because we want the shelter to be successful in the community.”

City council has delegated shelter site selection to staff to depoliticize the process, though at a recent information session, Etobicoke-Lakeshore Councillor Amber Morley was confronted by dozens of constituents furious over the lack of consultation ahead of the announcement.

Morley declined an interview with CTV Toronto.

The city’s process is “focused on engagement, not on consultation of new shelter locations,” said Ramadhin, who stressed the need for shelters beyond the downtown core at a time when demand for spaces continues to climb. The system currently services more than 12,000 people nightly.

“We are seeing encampments pop up right across the city,” she said. “So that’s really why the conversation is about the successful integration – and not about consulting on if the community feels this is a good location or not.”

The city is promising the shelter would offer support services to clients as part of a pathway to permanent housing, as part of a broader strategy that would see 20 new shelters open across Toronto by 2033.

“We understand that there is a very serious homelessness crisis, but we want to work with the city to find more sustainable, safer solutions to this issue,” Joanna said.

“We want to be in a situation where the city puts shelters in areas that make sense.”