There have already been a handful of days so far in 2025 that temperatures have plummeted low enough for the City of Toronto to open up its warming centres; pop-up save havens scattered around the city for residents with nowhere else to go amid the potentially deadly cold.
Though the facilities are set up in existing City-run spaces like community centres, and are usually only reserved for during extreme cold weather alerts (when temperatures are -15 C or worse, and/or there’s a wind chill of -20 C or worse), a new report has shown just how pricey they’ve become to operate: around the cost of a nice hotel room per person per night.
The study, released by the City’s Auditor General last week, shows that warming centres are the most expensive type of shelter space to operate, running local government a staggering $359 per person per night.
A quick Google search at the time of publication shows that one-night stays at the Chelsea Hotel, Hyatt Regency Toronto, One King West Hotel and many other luxury accommodations are cheaper. And comparatively, a standard shelter bed costs about $136 per night — less than half the price.
Warming Centre beds cost the City the most per night, despite offering fewer amenities than other shelter types. The most cost-effective service for houseless residents is, according to an Auditor General’s report, more long-term solution, like subsidized housing.
Part of this has been due to poor budgeting, with many beds left vacant while sites deactivate following cold weather events, even though they could have and really should have been used “to ease system capacity pressures during the winter within the existing funding constraints.”
The City, the audit states, also tends to “budget for Warming Centres to be open and operating at full capacity for the entire season,” even if they do not meet that capacity.
The high cost disparity between shelter space types comes despite the fact that warming centres offer fewer services and amenities than base shelters do. But, a strategy that is even cheaper for taxpayers than operating even base shelter spaces, and more importantly, is more effective for those using the services? More long-term supports, such as subsidized rental units, the AG writes.
“Shelters, in turn, are more expensive for the City than providing assistance to access more permanent, stable forms of affordable housing,” the doc says.
“The cost of emergency shelters during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the hotel program, was over three times more expensive than providing supportive housing. Further, it was approximately seven to ten times more expensive than providing subsidized housing, rental subsidies or housing allowances, before any Federal or Provincial funding offset.”
City Council will decide during its meeting on Wednesday whether to move forward with recommendations from the document.
These recommendations include reviewing deactivation procedures for Toronto’s warming centres, the “reasonableness and appropriateness of reported costs” for operating them and “methodologies for collecting data to better understand unmet demand and how many winter program spaces are needed,” among other things.
