Dear Ms. Chow,
Here's a simple recipe for housing the homeless and new refugees. First of all Toronto is sitting on many thousands of unused units in people's homes that are not rented because of current draconian Ontario LTB delays and laws.
The City and OHRT tells landlords not to discriminate even when the facts are in front of our own eyes and horror stories are in the press everyday.
Anyways, lets move past this, and find the solution.
City of Toronto Needs A Program:
The city of Toronto simply needs to develop a program which is exempt from the RTA under section 5(f) short-term living accommodation provided as emergency shelter; where people who have existing vacant basement apartments can provide their units and be guaranteed a few very simple things.
Payment of the rent in full and on time
Payment of the utilities in full and on time
Payment of damages if there are any.
A way to simply unsubscribe from the program if it's not working out.
Places should comply with a few simple safety rules
Smoke/CO detectors
No bars in the windows
In short the City needs to put their money where their mouth is rather than trick seniors and landlords who don't know anything into taking bad risk tenants and then hang them out to dry, move the people if they start misbehaving, punching landlords in the teeth, and other kinds of malfeasance.
Or keep the homeless on Peter St. in front of your shelter. Up to you Ms. Chow.