VIDEO: OCAP Protests at Metro Hall Over Shelters
Protesters with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty have gathered outside Metro Hall to bring attention to the city's shelter problems.
The group plans to take over Metro Hall, because they say a request for an emergency meeting on homelessness failed at the council meeting held on February 20th.
OCAP says the occupancy rate in the city's homeless shelters are running massively overcrowded at 96%, and, with City officials maintaining the reckless position that this is an acceptable and safe situation, they are left with no choice but to open a shelter.
They argue that overcrowding leads to unsafe conditions inside
shelters and many people are forced on to the streets.
They are targeting Metro Hall because it was used as an emergency space in 1999, when the city decided to use it as an emergency space when the shelter occupancy rate was at 90%.
They add that with the loss of over 400 shelter beds since 2006 due to spending cuts, the city is still denying that there is a crisis.
Eight homeless people have died in 2013 alone, and 34 died in 2012.