Toronto's warming centres have been operating at or near maximum capacity since the start of the year, according to data from the City of Toronto.
For community advocates, the data confirms what is already common knowledge: more and more unhoused people are being forced to endure dangerously low temperatures outside, sometimes with fatal consequences.
“Most of the folks that I encounter don't even try [to enter warming centres],” said Lorraine Lam, an organizer with the Shelter & Housing Justice Network.
“They know that the chances of getting inside any of them are so impossible.”
So far in 2025, Toronto’s five warming centres have been 94 per cent full, on average, with over half of warming centres operating at 100 per cent capacity during the first two weeks of the year.
Combined, Toronto’s warming centres have space for a maximum of 242 people per night. The city estimates 11,144 people were actively homeless in Toronto in the last three months.
The occupancy rate of warming centres began to increase dramatically on Jan. 6, the data shows. That’s when temperatures dipped to -9 C in the city centre, kicking off a particularly cold spell that appears here to stay as a polar vortex is expected to move in.
Between Jan. 8 and Jan. 14, the last week available in the City of Toronto dataset, warming centres were a staggering 99 per cent full.
Warming centre data from years prior appear to show strain on the system steadily rising. The occupancy rate of warming centres in 2024 was 90 per cent, on average, up from 84 per cent in 2023.
Maggie Helwig, rector of St. Stephen-in-the-Fields, told TorontoToday last week that an elderly man who attends the church’s drop-in dinner service was “turned away from three warming centres because they were full.”
“He’s sleeping on a heating grate,” Helwig said.
The St. Stephen church was recently issued two notices of violation from the city for the small encampment just outside the church property. Lam said a similar violation notice was given to another small encampment near the harbourfront, ordering the residents to “immediately” clear the tent structures or “city forces shall remove it.”
for extra cruelty, the city dropped off these notices to one of the folks we saw. warming centres are full, no surge capacity, and now you’re making people dismantle the structures they’ve set up to keep warm?? this is cruel. @MayorOliviaChow @BravoDavenport @ausmalik https://t.co/lSFdxoE3nA pic.twitter.com/P1BNlI5Vjv
— Lorraine Lam (@lorrainelamchop) January 9, 2025
In the face of the overwhelmed shelter and warming centre system, Lam called it “bananas” that the city is “criminalizing people's attempted survival.”
Lam pointed to social media reports that a woman sleeping outside in East York was found dead just before Christmas Eve when temperatures dipped to -17 C. According to posts on X, the woman died near the Shoppers Drug Mart at Coxwell and Danforth avenues.
“Where do we expect people to go?” she asked.
Warming centres in Toronto are activated when temperatures dip to -5 C, with an additional two surge sites that open when temperatures reach -15 C.
To Lam, these requirements are “arbitrary.” She said warming centres should be open 24 hours during the winter months regardless of the temperature.
The city added one new warming centre at Metro Hall to its Winter Services Plan this year, introducing 30 beds to the system.
Despite this, city staff know the current level of service “is still not enough to meet demand,” according to Gord Tanner, general manager of Toronto’s shelter and support services.
“We do not have the resources to accomplish this alone,” Tanner told TorontoToday.
He called on higher levels of government to support Toronto’s homelessness programs through additional funding and resources.
The city will be opening its two surge warming centres and adding additional temporary spaces in the shelter system on Saturday at 5 p.m. in anticipation of the coming polar vortex, a city spokesperson told TorontoToday. Those will be located in shelter "areas not traditionally used for sleeping."
The weather system could bring lows of -18 C on Monday night, with a wind chill in the -20s, according to the Weather Network.
