Disasters, natural or man-made, are not restricted to countries in the tropics, but their consequences are similar. The evidence that the crisis of homelessness in this city, this province and in this country has become such a disaster, started to accumulate in late 1995 and early 1996. This included: serious overcrowding of our day and overnight shelter system; a 38% tuberculosis infection rate among the homeless; clusters of freezing deaths of homeless people; a rise in overall morbidity, including malnutrition; the spread of infectious disease; and a rise in the number of homeless deaths. A recent study, conducted by Dr. Steven Huang of St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, showed that homeless men aged 18-24 had a mortality rate 8 times than the general population and men aged 25-44 had a mortality rate 4 times as high. This is unacceptable. Despite Canada’s reputation for providing relief to people made temporarily homeless by natural disasters, our governments are unwilling to help the scores of thousands of people in Canada condemned to homelessness. We urge you, the federal government to mobilize in the face of this Homeless Disaster, and come to the aid of this one’s victims - before the next person dies.