Mayor John Tory says the way to address dangerous homeless encampments is not with more law enforcement, but by building more affordable housing to reduce the need for the makeshift camp in the first place.

“It’s a very complexing, complicated and in some respects sometimes discouraging problem because the more you do, sometimes it seems the less progress you make,” Tory told reporters Monday, a day after a fire broke out in an encampment under the Gardiner Expressway, near Yonge Street and Lake Shore Boulevard West.

“But I’m very determined to make a difference on this over the next period of time and that includes addressing issues of safety as they relate to some of these encampments.”

Nobody was injured in Sunday’s fire.

City officials visited the site of the fire 13 times in February alone, Tory said.

Const. Alex Li earlier said people were likely trying to find heat sources because of the cold weather.

“Whether it be utilizing a propane tank to conduct these heat sources or starting a fire . . . Obviously these tents are flammable, whatever they’re using is flammable and you know they are in small spaces,” Li said.

The incident also marked the third homeless camp in downtown Toronto to catch fire in the past week. A fire near Bayview Avenue and Corktown Common Trail broke out on Feb. 23, and firefighters were called the next day to a camp near the Gardiner Expressway and Jameson Avenue.

Tory, who was meeting with the Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, said he learned that the U.S. city doesn’t allow propane cylinders at homeless encampments. But Toronto isn’t considering a similar ban yet, with Tory saying he wants to be briefed by all relevant personnel on the issue.

Despite the mayor’s wishes for sufficient affordable housing, the city is well behind on its promises to build new supportive housing units — housing that helps transition chronically homeless Torontonians into livable conditions — and needs significant investment from other levels of government to meet its targets.

More than 5,000 people in Toronto — or about 23 per cent of those using the shelter system — meet the federal definition of being chronically homeless for six months or more.

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With files from Jennifer Pagliaro, Margaryta Ignatenko

Jacob Lorinc is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Star's radio room in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @jacoblorinc

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