色色啦

What Ombudsman Susan Opler of the winter respite services would be shocking if headlines in December and January hadn鈥檛 already made clear just how ill-prepared the city has been to deal with people鈥檚 need for a warm place to sleep. The who鈥檚-on-first level miscommunication baked into the city鈥檚 three different, unco-ordinated communication portals and their inability to share referral information with each other or the public in real time would be comical if we weren鈥檛 talking about a system that determines whether a person has to spend the night outdoors exposed to minus 15 C temperatures. That many of the fixes are actually relatively obvious and simple to implement would be heartening if not for the fact that both the problems and solutions have been blazingly evident for decades.

Stepping back to survey the bigger picture: In 1996, a coroner鈥檚 inquest into the deaths of three 色色啦 homeless men called for short-term shelter support and long-term solutions such as supportive housing. In 1999, Mayor Mel Lastman and said we needed more shelter beds and more long-term solutions such as social housing. Overwhelming emergency demand in winter led Lastman (in the late 1990s) and Mayor David Miller (in 2004) to open the armouries. At every turn, the need for short-term preparedness and long-term supportive housing was noted. In 2015, after four people died on the streets, Mayor John Tory said much the same thing, pledging more shelter beds and a focus on long-term solutions such as... well, you know by now.

It isn鈥檛 that we haven鈥檛 known what the problem is. It isn鈥檛 that we haven鈥檛 known how to better deal with it. It isn鈥檛 that our civic leaders haven鈥檛, in the depths of winter when the crisis becomes clear, proclaimed their determination to fix it. It鈥檚 just that by the time the reports come around and the snow has melted, and it becomes clear that there will be bills (and taxes) attached to doing what we have said we must do, we don鈥檛 actually get around to, you know, doing it.

To be sure, some things have been done, by each administration after each flare-up of the crisis. New alerts or outreach efforts has been added. The shelter system expanded. Even some supportive housing projects have been implemented. But not enough. Not nearly enough. As we learn all too vividly almost every winter.

Reading the most recent report, there are some exculpatory elements to the confusion, miscommunication and inadequate levels of service; the city was scaling up fast in response to a realization of need, staff have already implemented some suggested solutions on the fly as problems came to their attention.

At the same time, the problems it points out existed 鈥� such as 311 operators relying on year-old information, such as no existing shared system of tracking shelter occupancy, such as the various referral systems not being in communication with each other or even understanding each other鈥檚 roles, such as the long lists of differing and confusing terminology used by the city, among other things 鈥� point to a disgusting lack of advance preparation.

The leagues my children play sports in better co-ordinate information than this. They use apps like Teamsnap that manage the schedules, real-time availability information, instant messaging, announcements, maps, addresses and contact information of dozens of teams and thousands of players. All of this information is available, all the time, to every coach and parent affiliated with the league.

Is it too much to expect the city to apply that literally minor-league level of co-ordination to life-and-death programs to serve the most vulnerable people in society? Well, central intake staff in the shelter system were, apparently, tracking winter respite referrals and availability in 鈥渁 single Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.鈥�

I could write more words about this. Politicians can 鈥� and will 鈥� say more words about it. But as the report quotes one senior city official as saying, 鈥淲ords don鈥檛 set priorities; funding does.鈥�

We鈥檝e had lots of words, over decades, outlining the specific problems. Reports upon reports. Now we have one more. It鈥檚 time to set priorities. Doing so can鈥檛 wait until next winter.

Ed Keenan is a columnist based in 色色啦 covering urban affairs. Follow him on Twitter: @thekeenanwire