Another Preventable Loss: Don Valley Encampment Fire Shows How Deadly Toronto’s Housing Crisis Has Become
One person should not have to die in a ravine for us to admit the obvious: Toronto’s housing system is failing. Yet at dawn on July 3, flames shot 30-to-40 feet into the sky at an encampment tucked behind a strip plaza on Credit Union Drive. Firefighters doused the blaze in minutes, but by the time crews searched the charred plywood-and-cardboard shelters, they found a person dead inside. Toronto’s fire chief, Jim Jessop, confirmed propane tanks and other pressurized canisters had exploded, turning the wooded slope into a big fire.
“Pamphlets won’t keep anyone alive”
Toronto Fire had already visited the site to hand out fire-safety leaflets. But as housing advocate Lorraine Lam of the Shelter Housing Justice Network told CBC, “Pamphlets are not going to do anything for fire safety. People’s lives are in danger and yet there is no urgency to implement any change.” She’s right. Blaming residents for “unsafe” heating or cooking ignores the root cause: they’re outside because they have nowhere else affordable to go. (Quotes from CBC News, July 3, 2025).
Encampments are multiplying while housing lags
The city logged 283 active encampments by mid-March, up from 202 a year ago. Shelters are overflowing most nights, even as the city races to add 1,600 new beds and six new sites. Meanwhile, Canada would need to double its current construction pace—430-480 k new homes a year—to restore 2019-level affordability within a decade.
Tragedy by design, not accident
- Policy bottlenecks: Slow approvals, zoning restrictions, and NIMBY opposition stall deeply affordable projects.
- Evictions and rent hikes: Despite new prevention programs, rising rents keep pushing people out faster than the city can add shelter beds.
- Safety theatre: Distributing pamphlets and clearing camps does little when people simply relocate—or risk dangerous heat sources—to survive harsh weather.
What would actually save lives?
- Scale up permanent supportive housing: tiny-home villages, modular buildings, and cooperative conversions—paired with wraparound mental-health and harm-reduction services.
- Rapid acquisition of empty buildings using the city’s new “use-it-or-lose-it” authority; convert them before winter.
- Streamline approvals for non-profit and Indigenous-led builds; 60-day maximum from application to permit.
- Rent-control plus vacancy control to stem the flow into homelessness.
- Fire-safety infrastructure now: communal heated tents or micro-cabins with sprinkler heads, monitored propane depots, and on-site extinguishers supplied by the city and trained outreach teams.
A call to act
Mayor Olivia Chow’s office says the fire “underscores the urgent need to bring people indoors.” Shelters are triage; they are not housing. Until Toronto commits to dignified, permanent homes; and funds them at emergency speed; encampment deaths will keep replaying in headlines, each one a preventable obituary.
Housing is a human right. Let’s build like we believe it.
All quotes attributed to Lorraine Lam and Mayor Olivia Chow’s office are from CBC News (July 3, 2025). Incident details cited from CP24 and city shelter data; housing-gap figures cited from CMHC.
Photo by Michael Gabelmann (2016).
