After a winter that saw homeless people suffer and even die on Toronto streets, city officials have announced expanded services for the cold months ahead.

Five “respites” — short-term-visit centres offering warm meals, sleeping space and staff with information on help to find permanent housing — will be open around-the-clock from Nov. 15 to April 15.

Operated for the city by community non-profit agencies, the centres will be at: 21 Park Rd. near Yonge and Bloor Sts.; 323 Dundas St. E.; 25 Augusta Ave.; 705 Progress Ave. in Scarborough; and a Parkdale site to be identified soon.

That’s a boost in services from last winter when three such centres operated across the city.

The third was opened in mid-Dec, to manage the overflow from the first two sites and was set up inside the St. Lawrence Community Recreation Centre.

“We are responding more than we ever have in the past,” Paul Raftis, the head of the city’s shelter, support and housing office, told reporters Friday.

“The city of Toronto provides more services than any other community in Canada,” but demand for those services is continually increasing, he said.

“We are very confident we will be able to provide excellent service this winter.”

He outlined other improvements including plans for more shelters as the city prepares to close its largest shelter, Seaton House, and more beds at existing shelters that will bring the total number of beds to 5,656 by the end of this year.

The city has also released a “homeless help” app, using GPS to point people to nearby services for the homeless. Mary-Anne Bedard, director of shelter support, said city staff are seeing an increasing number of people on the street having access to mobile phones, and the city is giving some homeless people donated smartphones.

Cathy Crowe, a long-time Toronto street nurse, welcomed the new respite centres, calling the city’s response last winter “totally inadequate.”

However, more services and space are needed to help Toronto’s most vulnerable residents in other seasons too, she said. “It’s a year-long issue — you can walk anywhere and find people in misery and bad situations on the sidewalk,” she said.

Crowe said she will visit the centres to see if they provide cots, and not just mats on the floor, and repeated her past calls for the city to open the armouries at Fort York and Moss Park to homeless people when temperatures dip dangerously low.

Rafi Aaron, spokesperson for The Interfaith Coalition to Fight Homelessness, called the city response completely inadequate.

“Having more people sleeping upright in chairs in additional respite centres is an unfortunate but needed response at this time for a shelter system in crisis,” he said.

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“The answer lies in the creation of more permanent shelters with support services that address the root causes of homelessness, such as mental health and addiction, and a major increase in low income and affordable housing options.”

Aaron said people who use the winter resources must return in spring to streets, ravines and parks, and accused the city of abdicating its responsibility by leaning heavily on volunteer-run Out of the Cold.