Homelessness on the TTC (catch all)

[pmacpherson68]

If someone is functionally unemployable, leaving them to fend for themselves amounts to inhuman cruelty.

Relegating them to a shelter bed full of lice, where they and their belongings are not safe, is not much better.We tried that. The system grew so cruel (in part because it was systematically under-funded) that we shut it down because the meagre amount we were willing to spend was not achieving satisfactory outcomes.

"We'll just do it properly this time" is not convincing.

Tell that to the family of those who have been murdered or those assaulted on the TTC. no amount of arguing the "cruelty" will convince normal people that they should not be being treated. and nobdy is arguing for inhumane treatment. It just seems to be a talking point that because X happened in the past, then it will always happen. That is not an effective argument against treatment.

 

[pmacpherson68]

Effective perhaps. But insanely uneconomical - far cheaper to give them free housing.

Some countries do that. Some countries just execute drug users - which is even cheaper; but I hope no one here would would advocate for such despicable evil.

And as far as on TTC goes, adding security in each station and at major transfer points for physical removal would also be far cheaper.

we have security, ive seen what they do to the homeless, and thats basically nothing. they just ask them to move but ive never seen an actual removal from the ttc. Its funny or sad, not sure which as yesterday I literally saw a TTC supervisor ask a woman who was sitting on the floor with her dog with a sign asking for money to "get up off the floor and go sit on a bench"... she just ignored him and he walked away. nothing was done.

 

[Richard White]

we have security, ive seen what they do to the homeless, and thats basically nothing. they just ask them to move but ive never seen an actual removal from the ttc. Its funny or sad, not sure which as yesterday I literally saw a TTC supervisor ask a woman who was sitting on the floor with her dog with a sign asking for money to "get up off the floor and go sit on a bench"... she just ignored him and he walked away. nothing was done.

Unfortunately, there are too many bleeding hearts that will raise a stink if you get rid of panhandlers on the TTC. Likewise, if you get rid of homeless people on the Subway someone will cry about how they have nowhere else to go and how it is not their fault.

It is not worth the Human Rights case or potential safety concerns if they are on drugs.

I have had friends who were homeless and who were addicts. Unfortunately, as much as they try if the resources aren't there to get help they won't be successful.

One of my former friends dabbled heavily in a drugs and alcohol over the years. I tried to help get her back on track but she still felt the need to smoke up and drink every night.

Eventually, I gave up trying to help her because no matter how hard I tried she would not make an effort to change her lifestyle. She would still hang out with cokeheads and get drunk because those were her friends.

Similarly, when I worked at Maple Leaf Square I knew a woman named Daisy who was addicted to various drugs and was homeless. She had a bright future when she was younger but when her mother died in 2020 she got addicted to drugs.

Unfortunately, she got in with a bad crowd and remained addicted until she OD'd in 2021.

The reality is, some people need forced treatment and supports for their own good.

 

[fiendishlibrarian]

Unfortunately, there are too many bleeding hearts that will raise a stink if you get rid of panhandlers on the TTC. Likewise, if you get rid of homeless people on the Subway someone will cry about how they have nowhere else to go and how it is not their fault.

I believe your father was a driver - like mine was - during the David Gunn era. You may recall that Gunn took a *very* hardline stance on vagrancy on the TTC (probably because he came here from New York and saw its effects there) and forbade the TTC from handing out free tokens to various shelters and soup kitchens. That got him in a heap of trouble with the OCAP/Toronto Star/Jack Layton crowd and I believe Gunn's response was, in so many words, go f*ck yourselves. Highly unlikely we'll see a transit CEO with *that* attitude darken these parts ever again.

 

[Richard White]

I believe your father was a driver - like mine was - during the David Gunn era. You may recall that Gunn took a *very* hardline stance on vagrancy on the TTC (probably because he came here from New York and saw its effects there) and forbade the TTC from handing out free tokens to various shelters and soup kitchens. That got him in a heap of trouble with the OCAP/Toronto Star/Jack Layton crowd and I believe Gunn's response was, in so many words, go f*ck yourselves. Highly unlikely we'll see a transit CEO with *that* attitude darken these parts ever again.

He actually had someone huffing glue in the back of a bus packed with school kids on their way to a field trip. The bus was an old GM New Look Fishbowl from what I was told.

As the story goes, he was nice about it and asked the person to leave. He reminded him that there was a time and place for everything but doing drugs on a bus full of small chidlren was not that place.

The person refused to leave until he got to his stop and told my father off. My father was a muscular guy who then picked him up, stepped on the rear treadle and threw him off with his belongings.

This was before cameras and cellphones leaving alot of operators to fend for themselves in these situations.

Nobody said anything and from what I understand the teachers who escorted the group were thankful for his help.

 

[txlseries4]

I never said doing the hard thing was cheaper, but its the right thing to do. What is the alternative? Just give them free shit? wont solve the problem either and will just create a reverse incentive to getting better.

Oh well my bad if your hang up is just that they get a handout and you don’t I’d say don’t let your dreams be dreams! Just give up your home, most of your belongings, likely your job, and sacrifice your mental wellbeing and you can get that wee benefit too. Don’t know how fair you’ll feel it is at that point though.

 

[nfitz]

you are forgetting one important fact. A free apartment, free food, free drugs WONT fix the problem.. Will just create a bunch of new ones and a lot of resentment among the community that has to pay for all of it.

That's absurd. Do you have a reference for that?

Most of the homeless that's exactly what they need. Yeah, there's a hard core that need much more, perhaps even intervention, but that's a small minority of the 15,000 homeless in Toronto. Meanwhile the system is so overloaded, that it can't handle the majority who just need some financial assistance to break the cycle, and it's a waste of their resources to even try with the hardcore who we see as the problem

What you seem to want is some kind of punishment for the majority that housing would help, for the sake of the minority that we see causing problems. Not only does that fail solve the problem that we see in the city, large-scale institutionalization would be massively expensive and unaffordable.

There's 85,000 homeless people in Ontario. The Ontario prison population is only 10,000 and costs about $1.2 billion a year. That's $120,000 per year. It does not take anywhere close to $120,000 a year to house the homeless. Some studies say that proper support actually saves us money over the status quo - increasing government revenues.

yes, we've all heard these tired old arguments before... and look where its got us.

It got us a century of not having homeless people living on the street on mass. Toronto has had social housing for well over a century. I don't know how you think this is better than what we had for many decades.

we have security, ive seen what they do to the homeless, and thats basically nothing. they just ask them to move but ive never seen an actual removal from the ttc. Its funny or sad, not sure which as yesterday I literally saw a TTC supervisor ask a woman who was sitting on the floor with her dog with a sign asking for money to "get up off the floor and go sit on a bench"... she just ignored him and he walked away. nothing was done.

Yeah, TTC needs to do better, and be more hard line.

But that does nothing to solve the root cause of the problem.

 

[fiendishlibrarian]

He actually had someone huffing glue in the back of a bus packed with school kids on their way to a field trip. The bus was an old GM New Look Fishbowl from what I was told.

As the story goes, he was nice about it and asked the person to leave. He reminded him that there was a time and place for everything but doing drugs on a bus full of small chidlren was not that place.

The person refused to leave until he got to his stop and told my father off. My father was a muscular guy who then picked him up, stepped on the rear treadle and threw him off with his belongings.

This was before cameras and cellphones leaving alot of operators to fend for themselves in these situations.

Nobody said anything and from what I understand the teachers who escorted the group were thankful for his help.

Sounds about right. My Dad told me about some of the crew of guys who drove the Bloor night bus with him in the 1970s who would throw drunks out the front door when they wouldn't leave people alone, and then just keep going. Or old school Metro cops would show up for some "street justice" when one of the drivers would flag down a cruiser. Word got around, you didn't cause problems on the Bloor bus when these guys were driving. Different times.

 

[McGillicuddy]

That is not an effective argument against treatment.

The point is that what we've done in the past did not really amount to treatment: it amounted to expensive warehousing, more concerned with making these people easier to administer than actually improving them or their prospects. The stories out of the Ontario asylum system would make your hair curl.

And given that this was the outcome all over North America, I won't accept an argument to the effect that we simply need to "do better" this time.

We have tried mass incarceration. It failed, in part because over the course of decades, we refused to adequately fund it. And goodness knows we'll do the same again.

 

[urbanclient]

Some countries just execute drug users

Which countries execute drug users, as opposed to drug traffickers? Only one I can think of with low thresholds is Singapore, and apparently Saudi Arabia had one possession case in 2025? Hardly one country out of 190+? I don't think anybody or any country openly advocates for execution of drug users.

https://hri.global/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/HRI-GO-Death-penalty-drugs-2025-FINAL.pdf

I work for an international research institution that is considered one of the best for mental health research in the world.

Is that just a roundabout way of saying a University with 'Toronto' in its name?

We first discussed this because someone pointed out that there is no legal mechanism for involuntary treatment of addictions in Ontario, only psychiatric conditions. In theory there is overlap, but in practice much less so.

Some homeless in Toronto are drug users. The studies on voluntary treatment vs. involuntary treatment is not as clear-cut as some would make it seem. IMO, evidence is limited and inconclusive. The issue is highly political so it's normal for conflicting conclusions to show up.

Involuntary treatment may not be as effective as voluntary treatment in many studies, but there are some studies showing involuntary treatment is better. Ultimately, no treatment is what many, if not most homeless end up with. AFAIK: 1. there are no peer-reviewed studies comparing involuntary treatment to no treatment for homeless addicts. 2. There are no studies comparing involuntary treatment to treatment as usual for homeless (cycling through shelters, ERs, jail, little to no treatment depending on TAU definition). 3. There are no studies directly comparing involuntary treatment to housing first for homeless.

Here's a systematic 'review of reviews':

"The evidence indicates that Housing First does not lead to significant changes in substance use. Evidence regarding housing and other outcomes is mixed."

What treatment and services are effective for people who are homeless and use drugs? A systematic ‘review of reviews’

Background People who experience homelessness and those vulnerably housed experience disproportionately high rates of drug use and associated harms, yet barriers to services and support are common. We undertook a systematic ‘review of reviews’ to investigate the effects of interventions for this...

journals.plos.org

Here's a Ottawa study comparing housing first to standard care in the community:

"Results: Housing First clients moved into housing more quickly, reported a greater proportion of time housed, were more likely to spend the final six months housed, and had longer housing tenure at 24 months. There was a group by time interaction on problematic alcohol use with more rapid improvement for the comparison group; however, both groups improved over time. The comparison group had a greater decrease on problematic drug use by 24 months. There was no change in physical health and only the comparison group had improvements in mental health by 24 months. The groups had similar improvement on community functioning by 24 months. The comparison group had a greater increase in total quality of life. More specifically, the comparison group had an increase in the family relations-related quality of life, whereas the clients did not. [...[ The Housing First clients reported higher levels of satisfaction with living conditions than the comparison group at baseline and 12 months, but not at 24 months."

Housing First for Adults with Problematic Substance Use - PubMed

Adults who are homeless with problematic substance use can successfully be housed using a Housing First approach. However, further targeted services might be required to address other areas of functioning, such as health, substance use, and quality of life.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

The Fraser Institute (I know many UT people hate that think tank) points out using public info, that the City of Toronto incurs $51,000 in operating costs on each homeless person per year. Even higher, when considering capital costs. Both numbers would be higher than median after-tax income in Canada. ( https://www.fraserinstitute.org/com...uld-demand-better-citys-homelessness-services

When the City rented out hotels to serve as shelters, the homeless trashed the rooms. The underlying problem was moved from the streets to the hotel.

The goal is to reduce that cost while improving outcomes, and in some cases a housing first policy may theoretically be better. As opposed to TAU or institutionalization.

I think it's obvious institutionalizing all 15,000 homeless in Toronto would be financially infeasible and not even necessary. Not all homeless are drug addicts, especially given the worsened housing crisis post-COVID. What I advocate for is involuntary treatment of some homeless addicts, particularly the ones costing more than the typical homeless person. The ones disruptive on transit, frequenting emergency services, hospitals, as well as court and jail. The correctional institutions in Ontario are often overcapacity.

"Most people held in Ontario’s jails are not serving sentences; they are awaiting trial, legally presumed innocent. Many institutions are dangerously overcrowded – some operating at over 150% of their intended capacity – and/or facing chronic staff shortages."

2024-2025 Annual Report

Ombudsman's message - A strong voice for fairness – now more than ever: It is my great pleasure to present my 10th Annual Report as we mark Ombudsman Ontario’s 50th anniversary. It has been an historic year in many respects.

www.ombudsman.on.ca

People forget that part of the later de-institutionalization in the 70s & 80s was due to the government cutting spending due to a weak economy. It's not that those institutions were not effective in getting the mentally ill and addicted off the streets and out of the jail/prison. That was often the point, instead of sending someone to prison, they go to an asylum. Institutions were far from perfect, but I don't see a compelling reason to not revamp that model with modern methods. The provincial jails are averaging over 100% capacity, would you rather build more jails or more mental hospitals?

Many on one side of the political spectrum believe that people will always save themselves (therefore should always be given agency, instead of being forced into treatment). Unfortunately, that's not universally true. As has been pointed out, many homeless people do not seek nor want treatment despite having shelter or permanent housing (first). It's "de facto suicide in slow motion, which is evidently self-harming and which in the process, often pains others." https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/ttc-other-items-catch-all.20264/post-2367619

Some people likely cannot be saved, much less want to save themselves. Take Anders Behring Breivik, who will likely be imprisoned indefinitely by one of the most liberal justice systems on the planet.

Unfortunately for 'housing first', we're not going to solve the housing crisis for the middle class anytime soon, much less homeless addicts. It's not just unpopular to spend more on homeless than we're already spending, it's also infeasible as there is little to no excess capacity in housing construction. There is a difference between what a politically-motivated study concludes and what is actually economically and politically feasible.

Ontario mental hospitals admissions are already 3/4ths involuntary. Is it really that big of a conceptual leap to involuntary addiction treatment? Substance use disorder IS a mental disorder under the DSM.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/07067437231167386#:~:text=Likewise%2C%20the%20proportions%20of%20hospitalizations%20where%20admission%20was%20involuntary%20(78.4%25)%20or%20with%20a%20stay%20of%20%3C3%20days%20(34.1%25)%20were%20higher%20in%202020%20compared%20to%202019%20(involuntary%20admission

The CMHA doesn't get more funding when people are admitted to mental hospitals instead of attending their community-based programs. Of course they're against involuntary treatment.

 

[SubHuman]

It's cruel and immoral to leave people with severe brain disorders out there wandering around on their own, when they are obviously incapable of caring for themselves, or are dangerous to themselves (or others) when they're staggering out into traffic or repeatedly climbing onto the subway tracks, etc.
Those are the ones that require involuntary commitment, as in New York.
There is no excuse for our present culture of abandonment.

It's difficult to not be suspicious that some of the misguided (at best) activist types may be disingenuously more concerned about preserving their own "outreach" type of jobs or positions, that may become less necessary if there were a lower number of these afflicted individuals out there wandering around on their own.

 

[Towered]

Which means, it literally does not pay to work.

I've seen this up close - my ex has been on Ontario Works for close to 20 years for this reason.

 

[Richard White]

I've seen this up close - my ex has been on Ontario Works for close to 20 years for this reason.

Like mine!

I call them generational welfare recipients. They don't want to work because it is easier not to given how much support the government gives them.

I had family who used to live in TCHC for years and it was not uncommon to see Grandparents and Grandkids living in the same TCHC building.

If drug/alcohol use and convictions were barriers to receiving government supports, I can almost promise you over 50% of people on government supports would lose everything.

 

[urbanclient]

It's cruel and immoral to leave people with severe brain disorders out there wandering around on their own, when they are obviously incapable of caring for themselves, or are dangerous to themselves (or others) when they're staggering out into traffic or repeatedly climbing onto the subway tracks, etc.
Those are the ones that require involuntary commitment, as in New York.
There is no excuse for our present culture of abandonment.

B-but think of their civil rights, human rights, and right to freedom... As in my previous post, some people (Toronto Star editorial board and ideologically captured Urban Toronto members) would rather give the government extrajudicial powers to impose fines for wrongspeak and house arrest for pre-crime (Online Harms Bill), than mandate treatment for drug users. The more humane alternative being status quo languishing in public spaces, ERs, jails and prison.

Authoritarian censorship and punishments for speech that offends the State is apparently good they say. Naively forgetting that if Canada got it's own Orange Spray Tan Man, that their right-wing administration wouldn't hesitate to quash their speech. In the devout Toronto Star mind, freedom of speech mostly protects their political enemies.

Like mine!

I call them generational welfare recipients. They don't want to work because it is easier not to given how much support the government gives them.

I had family who used to live in TCHC for years and it was not uncommon to see Grandparents and Grandkids living in the same TCHC building.

If drug/alcohol use and convictions were barriers to receiving government supports, I can almost promise you over 50% of people on government supports would lose everything.

Weren't we talking about homeless on the TTC, not welfare recipients in subsidized housing? I would wager that many homeless do not access Ontario Works or ODSP even if they would qualify.

If someone is functionally unemployable, leaving them to fend for themselves amounts to inhuman cruelty.

Relegating them to a shelter bed full of lice, where they and their belongings are not safe, is not much better.

If you're diametrically against institutionalization, but you're also critical of shelters and letting homeless fend for themselves, then what alternative solution are you proposing? Vast majority are in favour of helping out homeless with tax dollars, it's how those dollars are spent that is up for debate.

 

[nfitz]

Which countries execute drug users, as opposed to drug traffickers? Only one I can think of with low thresholds is Singapore, and apparently Saudi Arabia had one possession case in 2025?

It was exactly Singapore and Saudi Bonesaw I was thinking of. Digging though, Iran executed about 1,000 drug users a year - not clear that they were all traficking, but it doesn't appear they all were. Other examples seem to include North Korea. Larger countries like Indonesia seem to stick to trafficking, such Indonesia with about 500 on death row currently (as executions have been suspended for now), China,