These are the lives ended from homelessness in 2019.
There have been 63 reported cases of homeless deaths in 2019, according to front-line worker Greg Cook.
Choose a profile in the bar below to view some of their stories.
Details of the stories were found through news articles, obituaries and the work of volunteers at the Toronto Homeless Memorial.
100 Homeless Deaths Per Year
On the eighth day of this year, Crystal Papineau had no place to go. Toronto’s women’s shelters, respite centres and drop-in facilities were all full or overcapacity.
The 35-year-old woman was known for her generosity. Papineau often handed out clothing pulled from donation bins to people on the street. It is believed this is what killed her; she was strangled by a clothing donation bin’s metal jaws.
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She is among the seven people who died in January 2019 due to side effects of being homeless. Papineau’s name was added to the list of homeless deaths at the Toronto Homeless Memorial, a monthly commemoration for the deaths on Toronto’s streets.
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This rate of death has been the norm in Toronto for years. Around 91 people died while homeless in 2018— almost two deaths every week.
Click the image above to read more about Papineau
(Photo: Toronto Homeless Memorial )
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While these might seem like individual incidents, they are entirely interconnected, says Wong-Tam. “If Crystal was safely housed she would not be scouring through a donation bin looking for parcels of clothing or other objects.
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“Losing housing is an extremely traumatizing experience. Once that happens everything else falls apart,” says Wong-Tam.
“Whether it’s mental health, the ability to manage ongoing traumas, to make social appointments, or meet obligations such as work – all of that requires knowing one has safe, reliable housing.”
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Cathy Crowe, a street nurse and long-time homeless
On Jan. 20, 2019, Toronto City Councillors Kristyn Wong-Tam and Gord Perks wrote a letter to Mayor John Tory and the City of Toronto, formally asking for a declaration of housing and homelessness as a state of emergency.
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“Housing is a human right,” the letter states. “We are facing a homelessness crisis that requires a co-ordinated emergency intergovernmental human rights based response.”
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Tory rejected their request.
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Wong-Tam says she is extremely disappointed with this decision. “I think anyone just needs to look around and see the disaster for what it is,” she says.
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Cause of death of those experiencing homelessness in Toronto. 2018.
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Greg Cook, a volunteer at the
Toronto Homeless Memorial,
giving a walking tour of Toronto.
Photo: Aruna Dutt
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advocate in Toronto says that most people who are homeless are dying at a young age from extremely violent causes.
“They’re being run over by a car or truck or freezing to death,” says Crowe. “People die of overdoses, of complications with pneumonia, strep throat, or tuberculosis which is a totally treatable disease.”
She says it's extremely rare that somebody who is homeless dies of old age.
Homeless deaths can happen anywhere from the emergency department in a hospital, to shelters or
street encampments, according to Crowe.
Greg Cook has been working with Toronto’s homeless community for more than a decade. He does outreach for Sanctuary, a Christian charity that provides food, an accessible clinic, and a sense of community to those experiencing homelessness.
“If somebody had better circumstances in their life, if they had a better quality of life, this would not be happening,” says Cook, who also helps run the Toronto Homeless Memorial.
Two or three times a week, he walks around the city to check in with people who are panhandling. Along the way, he offers them socks, toques, gloves and water.
“There’s a sense of loss and grief that someone is not where you expect them to be on a daily basis, and the unfairness of it,” says Cook. “It’s just like if you had a family member die—people are close here, it’s a tight-knit community.”
In order for relief efforts to address this crisis, the fatalities of the homeless need to be uncovered, say advocates Cook and Crowe. But there is no mandatory standard for investigating and tracking them; in Ontario, neither the police nor the coroner is mandated to keep track of homeless deaths.
In attempts to fill this gap, advocates and volunteers at Toronto’s Homeless Memorial have taken it upon themselves to call the city’s shelters and agencies for names of the deceased. This investigation process has allowed the memorial to identify at least 1,000 people who have died on Toronto’s streets since 1985.
Toronto Public Health started keeping track of homeless deaths that occur outside of public shelters in 2017. Toronto is the only city in Ontario to keep these kinds of records.
This reporting system is an online form that hospitals, drop-ins and shelters voluntarily fill in when someone dies with ‘no fixed address’. Cook and Crowe say many deaths and details still go missing from these statistics.
“Many agencies won’t fill it out because they’re too busy, or it’s not at the top of their list. It doesn’t capture the full picture,” says Cook.
“If somebody had better circumstances in their life, if they had a better quality of life, this would not be happening.”
Greg Cook, Volunteer at the Toronto Homeless Memorial
“It's not okay that this is happening in our city. It's not okay that while there are so many people who have lots of money and means, that people are dying.”
Greg Cook, Volunteer at the Toronto Homeless Memorial
Numbers of deaths are only released by Toronto Public Health every six months. Crowe describes the tracking system as “totally inadequate.” Fifty-five per cent of homeless deaths from January 2017 to June 2018 are marked as either “Other” or “Unknown/Pending” causes of death.
Crowe believes the descriptions of circumstances such as the person’s age, the cause of death and location could lead to more accurate recommendations for addressing homelessness. For example, it could help improve training for front-line workers or access to shelters.
But these deaths are more than just statistics; Cook personally knew dozens of people without housing who have died young. He says there is a sense of injustice that people who are homeless are living to an average age of only 48.
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“It’s not okay that this is happening in our city. It’s not okay that while there are so many people who have lots of money and means, that people are dying,” says Greg Cook.​
Total deaths in 2019
(Toronto Homelessness Memorial)
