Canada: How soaring temperatures are affecting Ontario’s homeless

By Brianna Sharpe

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[Doris Grinspun, CEO of the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario,] says hot weather should be taken as seriously as cold: heat and humidity, she explains, can exacerbate pre-existing health conditions, interact poorly with psychiatric medications, and lead to heat stroke. “Extreme heat kills people” who lack adequate shelter, she says.

Environment and Climate Change Canada predicts that, by the end of the century, southern Ontario could see up to 50 more days a year that hit at least 30 degrees. But climate change also provides what Grinspun calls a “tragic opportunity” to create more awareness of the challenges faced by vulnerable populations in extreme weather.

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Sophie Guilbault, manager of partnership development at the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, a non-profit research institute, says that, while heat strategies should be informed by research, they also need to be region-specific: “Sometimes, you need to try it out and evaluate it.” Plans should generally, though, she says, involve a combination of preventative actions — for example, reducing the urban-heat-island effect through improved green space — and responsive ones, such as water distribution or communication with the most vulnerable.

Grinspun would like to see Toronto expand on its commitment to using libraries as cooling spaces by “opening up beautiful rooms in the libraries, well set up for homeless people to be able to come, to rest, to be together, to have programs that would be appealing to them, where they can have water and snacks.”

Those living on the streets, she adds, are “the daughters, sons, partners of somebody. And if they’re not, that’s even more reason to take care of them.”