To donate money to help us support our member drop-ins to maintain services during COVID-19, please click on the image above to go to our donation page. Select "Toronto Drop-in Network" as the program.
For small donations, please reach out to a drop-in in your neighbourhood. For larger donations (300+ units), please contact Diana at engage@tdin.ca.
Toronto is a city of pronounced homelessness. In the 2018 Street Needs Assessment, 8,715 homeless individuals were identified in Toronto and Scarborough. In truth, the number is far likely closer to 11,000, accounting for folks who are couch surfing and sleeping rough in ravines. With the combined population of Scarborough and Toronto at approximately 3.56 million, about 1 in every 320 Torontonians is homeless.
That number reflects a disaster of homelessness in our city.
... and this was before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The city has shuttered all community centres and libraries as part of their pandemic response. Restaurants are either closed or takeout-only. Many establishments that are open are no longer accepting cash. Shopping malls have reduced hours.
This means that almost all of the public indoor spaces that homeless folks can go -- even with the danger and stigma of public scrutiny -- are no longer available. Public bathrooms are few and far between. With increasing restrictions on the cash economy, which is so integral to life on the street, accessing resources is becoming more difficult.
Shelters are places where people sleep, and not everyone can access them or chooses to sleep in them. What happens to people during the day, with almost no place to go because of the pandemic?
They go to drop-ins. Because there is an extreme reduction in spaces for people to access food and other basic needs, we are literally the "last man standing" to provide care and connection for people who have been systematically excluded from the COVID-19 pandemic response. If we shutter, we cut off a lifeline to Toronto's most vulnerable residents -- the homeless in particular, but also people who are housed and low-income, who cannot afford food or other resources, and who need social connection.
The Toronto Drop-in Network supports 59 drop-in centres across the city of Toronto, including Scarborough, providing supports and advocacy for the work that they do, and developing tools and resources for them to grow their capacity.
We can't even tell you what a difficult time it is for the work of drop-ins, and how precarious our situation is -- and how vital we are to ensuring the livelihood of thousands of your neighbours. We have the undue burden of caring for vulnerable Torontonians with very few resources and limited funding -- in fact, some drop-ins operate on a budget of just $10,000 a year. We do so much, with so little.
And it's not enough to do it on our own: we need your help. We may be operating with reduced or contingency services for weeks, if not up to a year or more.
If you are able to help, drop-ins need the following:
For small donations, please reach out to a drop-in in your neighbourhood. For larger donations (300+ units), please contact Diana at engage@tdin.ca. To donate money, please visit our donation page.
This Announcement Relates To:
The Toronto Drop-In Network (TDIN) is an active member-based coalition of 59 organizations that run at least 56 diverse drop-in centres across the city of Toronto. Our members work with people who are homeless, marginally housed, or socially isolated, including men, women, transgender and non-binary people, youth and seniors.
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