Toronto-area transit agencies are experiencing an increase in reports of homeless people frequenting vehicles and stations during the COVID-19 pandemic as regular supports for the region’s vulnerable shut down.

TTC spokesperson Stuart Green said that despite ridership on the city’s network plunging by 80 per cent since the start of the outbreak, the agency has experienced a higher number of service calls for “vulnerable individuals,” a group he said includes people who are experiencing homelessness or are in mental distress.

Metrolinx spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins said the provincial organization, which operates GO Transit, has also noticed “an increase in people seeking shelter in our stations.” GO has seen ridership fall 90 per cent.

Green said homeless people may be using the TTC more frequently, but the increase in calls from customers could also be related to the fact that homeless people are more visible now because there are fewer people using the system.

Gregory Cook, an outreach worker at Sanctuary, a downtown Toronto charity that provides services to the homeless, said vulnerable people seek refuge on the TTC during normal times, but he believes they’re turning to the transit system in larger numbers during the crisis because they have few other options.

As of this week, only about a dozen of the city’s 60 drop-in centres were open, and many of them were operating at reduced capacity. Shelters are still open, and the city says it has implemented measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 at the facilities, but Cook said some people are avoiding shelters out of concern that crowded conditions will expose them to the virus.

In addition to facilities designed for the homeless, other places where people are normally able to seek respite like coffee shops and libraries have also shuttered.

“People just have no options,” Cook said, adding that lower ridership has likely made transit seem a safer space for homeless people who want to avoid crowds.

While some transit riders have complained on social media about encountering marginalized people, Green said the TTC doesn’t consider homeless people using the network an inherent threat to public health.

He said the TTC recognizes the transit network is public property and the agency is “compassionate to those with nowhere else to go.” Starting this week the TTC is partnering with the city-funded Streets To Homes program to perform “pro-active outreach to assist those in need,” he said.

Green said agency employees are “are exercising discretion” in cases where people are engaged in harmless behaviour like loitering on trains or sleeping on benches, but “should a risk to public safety arise, we have staff and protocols in place to handle it.”

Aikins said most homeless people using GO Transit facilities “do not pose any risk.” But she said “a transit agency is not a social service” and isn’t equipped to provide supports that vulnerable populations need. She said transit officers on the GO system “will treat anyone in need compassionately” and “provide referrals to local municipal service providers.”

According to Aikins, earlier this month Metrolinx had to shut down the Oshawa GO station for six hours to disinfect it after a homeless person sheltering there claimed to have COVID-19. It was the third such closure since the outbreak began.

Yogi Acharya, an organizer with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, said anyone concerned about homeless people using transit during the outbreak should push “to get people into hotel rooms or housing,” a measure he said advocates have been pushing for since early in the crisis.

Acharya said the city hasn’t found places for vulnerable people “on the scale or at the pace that the current situation demands ... And so people who are homeless are doing their best to try do survive in the times of a pandemic.”

On Monday, more than 300 health workers signed a letter calling for more and better supports in Toronto for people experiencing homelessness and precarious housing during the crisis. Among their demands was for the city to quickly open more than 7,000 hotel rooms that are sitting empty.

At a media briefing Tuesday on what the city is doing to protect the homeless, Toronto’s medical officer of health Dr. Eileen de Villa said many people who use the shelter system “have chronic health issues” and are among the most susceptible to experiencing severe illness as a result of the virus.

“I am very concerned about the devastating impact of COVID-19 on our city’s most vulnerable community,” she said.

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According to the city, 30 shelter clients at seven facilities have tested positive for COVID-19 to date.

The city says that since the start of the crisis it has moved 1,000 clients of the shelter system into programs to meet their needs, including spaces in community centres, hotel rooms and permanent housing, and is on track to move 1,000 more by April 30.

It has also increased health screening and social-distancing protocols for shelter system clients, and invested $1.2 million at shelters, respite centres, and drop-ins for cleaning supplies, personal protective equipment, and wage increases for frontline staff.

With files from Francine Kopun

Ben Spurr is a Toronto-based reporter covering transportation. Reach him by email at bspurr@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @BenSpurr

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