Chow calls for review of heat relief strategy as advocates demand Toronto restore 24/7 cooling centres

Muriel Draaisma · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 24, 2025 9:22 PM EDT | Last Updated: 3 minutes ago

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow volition inquire assembly this week to o.k. a reappraisal of the city's vigor alleviation strategy, including whether 24/7 cooling centres should beryllium restored for unhoused people.

News of the question comes amid arsenic Toronto experiences its archetypal agelong of utmost vigor this year, with recording-breaking temperatures soaring past 30 C, feeling much similar the 40s with the humidity.  

The city's vigor relief strategy directs radical to a web of 500 publically accessible facilities that whitethorn person aerial conditioning, specified arsenic nationalist libraries; civic centres, assemblage centres. But advocates accidental the unhoused colonisation cannot trust connected specified facilities unsocial and are demanding round-the-clock cooling centres, which were closed successful 2019, beryllium brought backmost immediately.

Lorraine Lam, a subordinate of the advocacy radical Shelter Housing and Justice Network, said the utmost vigor is simply a nationalist wellness exigency and that unhoused radical cannot hold for a review.

"We don't request different review. We cognize the vigor is dangerous. Just unfastened up the cooling centres now," Lam said.

"Frankly, I americium precise acrophobic that idiosyncratic mightiness dice successful this heat."

The motion, entitled "Addressing Gaps successful the City's Heat Relief Strategy," volition spell to assembly Wednesday. It says the reappraisal by the metropolis manager would beryllium done by the 4th fourth of this year.

"Whether you are housed oregon unhoused, we privation to marque definite everyone is safe," Chow told reporters connected Monday. 

Mayor acknowledges 'gaps' successful city's response

Chow, who acknowledged that "there are gaps" successful the city's effect to blistery weather, said the fourth-quarter deadline would beryllium the latest that the metropolis would expect a review.

Lam, however, says the vigor alleviation web is "shamefully inadequate."

Lam said the metropolis cannot trust connected buying malls, libraries and swimming pools to supply alleviation from the vigor due to the fact that they adjacent astatine nighttime and they are not welcoming and affable to unhoused radical owed to security. There is nary enactment for radical to prevarication down and determination is not needfully entree to nutrient and water, Lam said.

"There are a batch of radical extracurricular with obscurity to go. People are having a hard time," Lam added.

Many radical live in the metropolis without aerial conditioning and they request the cooling centres arsenic well, Lam said.

The city, for its part, said it has added 100 much structure beds to bring radical inside, deployed h2o trailers to parts of the metropolis and provided outreach workers with h2o bottles to springiness to unhoused people.

Lam said the h2o trailers are a "very tiny Bandaid." There need to beryllium trailers throughout the city, Lam said.

"We request to halt putting connected Bandaids connected a truly large issue," Lam said. "And truthful determination needs to beryllium a semipermanent speech astir what h2o entree looks similar to each communities successful the city."

In a statement, the metropolis said it opened 7 cooling centres during vigor warnings anterior to 2019.

A 2018 reappraisal of the centres by the city's aesculapian serviceman of wellness recovered they were "not an effectual strategy."

"They were lone unfastened connected days erstwhile Heat Alerts were issued (16 days successful 2018), usage was variable, not each were easy accessible successful presumption of travelling to a carnal determination and galore radical did not spot themselves arsenic gathering the criteria of a susceptible idiosyncratic and would not question alleviation successful a Cooling Centre," the metropolis said.   

The question to beryllium considered by assembly includes a telephone for the instauration of a main vigor officer, backing to guarantee front-line agencies tin administer astatine slightest 500,000 bottles of water, and collaboration between agencies to place precocious precedence locations for surge capableness h2o trucks earlier vigor events instrumentality place.

The city's information says 10,251 radical were "actively homeless" successful Toronto successful the past 3 months.

A full of 9,552 radical utilized its structure strategy connected Monday night. An mean of 148 radical were turned distant nightly from its structure strategy successful May.