Amid what the city has called an “unprecedented demand” for emergency homeless shelter beds, some North York residents are raising concerns about a temporary respite centre set to open its doors next week — an outcry others call “NIMBYism.”

Starting May 22, the Don Mills Civitan Arena, at Don Mills Rd. and Eglinton Ave. E., will host a 24-hour respite centre with 120 shelter beds. City-owned and used in the winter for hockey, the arena sits empty once the ice melts, making it a good candidate for a temporary and much-needed respite centre, said Patricia Anderson, who is with the city’s shelter division.

“We had, pretty much, two choices. One was to perhaps open in a community centre and disrupt programming, or identify city buildings that were available in the summer with no programming,” Anderson said.

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Created to provide emergency temporary housing during the winter months, the city’s respite centre program was slated to end last month. But due to continuing high demand, city council earlier this year opted to prolong the program through the summer months.

That required finding new space for shelter beds, as some of the current respite sites — including at Exhibition Place’s Better Living Centre — are set to close. In addition to the Civitan Arena, another respite centre has been established at the Lambton Arena at 4100 Dundas St. W.

But some Don Mills residents have begun expressing concerns about the shelter. Last week, a flyer began circulating in the community urging concerned residents to reach out to their local representatives to stop the respite centre from coming to the neighbourhood.

“This is the WRONG location! Say NO to 24-hour homeless shelter approved for Don Mills Civitan Arena,” reads the flyer, which was posted throughout the neighbourhood and online last week.

Doris Bies, who is with Don Mills Residents Inc., acknowledged she has heard some negative responses from residents, but said it was mostly stemming from the feeling that the city had failed to provide information or notice. City representatives have since come to the Don Mills Residents Inc. annual meeting last week and gave a detailed presentation about the respite centre, including that it’s a temporary situation, Bies said.

“I know there are people that don’t want it in their backyard, but we’re all empathetic to the needs of the homeless,” Bies said. “There are a lot of people in the community that want to volunteer and think it’s a great use of space.”

Yogi Acharya, an organizer with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, says the negative response “reeks of NIMBYism” and displays the all-too-frequent assumption that poor and homeless people are inherently criminal.

If the residents who are opposed to the respite sites are serious about not wanting such services in their neighbourhood, “then what they should fight is poverty, not poor people.”

Acharya adds that the ongoing shelter crisis in Toronto is due to “years of negligence,” including underfunding by the city of shelter facilities.

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Jeff Simpson, a lifelong resident of Don Mills who is the president of the Don Mills Civitan Club, said he feels it’s important that the community step up to help those in need.

“I’m a citizen of Toronto, Toronto has problems, and Don Mills has to take it’s fair share of being part of the solution,” he said.