Marci Ien, MP
Toronto Centre, Ontario
430 Parliament Street
Toronto ON M5A 3A2
March 7, 2022.
Dear MP Marci Ien,
The Shelter and Housing Justice Network (SHJN) is a network of homelessness and housing advocates, shelter providers, healthcare professionals, faith leaders, legal workers, and researchers who have come together to address the issue of homelessness in Canada on a local, provincial, and national level. Operating under the mantra of “shelter rights, housing rights, human rights” SHJN seeks immediate action and long-term sustainable solutions in the shelter and housing sectors.
We are writing you today because homelessness has reached catastrophic proportions in Toronto and across Canada. People have been left to freeze to death on the streets of Toronto, Montreal, Labrador, Winnipeg. It is the inhumane housing policy of this federal government that has led to this humanitarian emergency.
In the City of Toronto, the emergency shelter system has collapsed, and the situation is about to deteriorate further with the closure of the shelter-hotels. People have nowhere to go. In your own riding, the epicenter of the homelessness disaster, a homeless man was recently found dead in a bus shelter, suspected cause of death is hypothermia.