Not sure where to start this discussion from? Since the start of Covid though, we've experienced an explosion of people being unhoused and impoverished. For a while there, every (and I mean every) park and parkette within a walk for me had a community of tents until the pigs and private contractors evicted them. Anyways, a friend shared her perspective for publication, so let's start there... We must be at this sharp edge BY THE REV. CANON MAGGIE HELWIG ON NOVEMBER 30, 2022 There has probably never been a time in the last few decades that there has not been one or two people living in the yard at St. Stephen-in-the-Fields. Here, in the heart of the downtown west, in a small pocket of deep poverty surrounded by affluence, we have worked hard to be a space that is open to our community – vulnerable, undefended, a space that, as far as we are able, reflects the vulnerable love of the God who came in a breakable human body. But the intensity of need has never been so great. The intersection of pandemic illness, an economy more and more polarized between extreme wealth and extreme poverty, a massive shelter and housing crisis, a breakdown in social solidarity, and the growing effects of climate change, crash over us all like waves, but most of all over those who are made marginal in our system – Indigenous people who carry the generational trauma of Residential Schools and the Sixties Scoop, racialized people, people who are ill or weak or unable to cope with a viciously competitive society, people for whom one piece of bad luck can turn into an avalanche. Parks are increasingly policed since last year’s wave of violent evictions, many park areas are fenced off, and anyone trying to find space there is evicted rapidly. Shelters are more and more overcrowded, often dangerous, and, simply, almost always full. Our volunteers have spent the last months, even in the depths of winter, phoning Central Intake*, trying to find beds for some of our drop-in participants, and being told that their best option was to wait outside the Streets to Homes office on Peter Street, in case a chair in the lobby opened up at some point during the night. So when tents began to gather in our yard, as other encampments were dismantled by City workers, there was never any question that we would allow people to stay, that we would offer them food and what services we could, that we would learn from them their names and their stories, stories of suffering and survival, of pain and faith and work and fragile hope, of their attempts to live and build in a world that makes no room. Though the decision was obvious, and everyone in our congregation has been supportive without hesitation, I can’t pretend that it has always been easy. We have had to network with a multitude of service agencies, organize harm-reduction supplies, deal with arrangements for garbage collection and mail delivery, provide first aid and connections to medical care, help with mental health crises, and manage neighbours who are uncomfortable or angry. It has called on all the resources of our staff and key volunteer leadership. It has meant giving up any attempt to maintain our community garden this year. And, perhaps most of all, it has meant that we must live, every day, every time we walk through the yard, with the heartbreaking knowledge that some of our most vulnerable community members are living in tents, in the rain, in the wind, trying to figure out how to carry on basic tasks like laundry, to manage sometimes serious medical conditions, to lead as dignified a life as anyone can while encamped in a churchyard for lack of better options. But, in a complicated world, our calling has rarely been so clear. If the Church is to be, in our day, the body of Christ, of the Word who “pitched his tent among us,” as the literal translation of the first chapter of John says, then we must be at this sharp edge; we must witness, accompany, live out in our own bodies the tasks of healing and feeding, and of speaking out for a better way of living together. St. Lawrence famously took a Roman prefect, hoping to confiscate gold, into the churchyard, showed him the poor and sick and hungry gathered there, and announced, “These are the treasures of the church.” And so they are. I am writing this in late October. Recently, the City informed us that our yard is not, in fact, church property, but a transport right-of-way and a “City asset,” and that, therefore, the people we have come to know here may be evicted, even if the church itself is committed to giving them a safe space until they have an acceptable alternative.** We do not know what will happen, while shelter hotels close down just as the weather gets colder. By the time you read this, there may no longer be people living in the yard at St. Stephen’s. Perhaps – unlikely as this hope seems – everyone will find safe and dignified accommodation suitable for their needs, and if that is the case, we will be one step closer to honouring God in all of God’s children. Perhaps, even if this doesn’t happen, some kind of temporary indoor shelter will be available, and everyone will get through this winter as they can. But if the people living in our yard are compelled to leave, are evicted by civic authority and its powers of coercion, it will be without our consent, and over our voices of protest. Until we are no longer able, we will be the last safe place. *Central Intake is something I have to deal with calling on people's behalf some days. And it literally is "some days" as the hold time can be measured in hours. **Confusing, as the church predates the city and the area in use is definitely their property... literally a front yard.
It's a disgrace in our societies that anyone should have to live like that at all, never mind the government policies that try to punish them for it.
Well, you don't actually expect them to do something useful, do you? That would force them to admit that their policies are a failure.
seriously... google earth the location and take a stroll. Those houses across the street? every one of them is worth over $2m. That little apartment block has some of the few 3-4 BR units around (it ws originally built for students at the nearby UofT). They were over $3200/month-three years ago.
It's been a shitshow. this part "while shelter hotels close down just as the weather gets colder. "... I don't know by what mechanisms, but the city/province took over a few hotels to use as shelters during the initial wave of pandemic evictions-it didn't go as intended. Rather than transitional housing they've become ghettos with untrained staff/"peers" monitoring them. People don't want to go to them because frankly they're safer in the tent cities.
more on this ‘Where are people supposed to go?’ Threats to clear an encampment and a shelter closing raise concerns about the city’s plans this winter On a bright, frosty afternoon recently, Alan Donaldson sat on the hard steps of Toronto’s Church of Saint Stephen-in-the-Fields, adjacent to a small, dense homeless camp, and talked about being bounced around. To find a warm place to lay his head, Donaldson often calls shelter systems beyond the city itself. “Every area — York, Peel, Barrie, Toronto — all of them full,” he lamented. A few nights earlier, he found a bed in Newmarket. When his search is fruitless, he hunkers down in subway stations or rides a streetcar back and forth. A woman sitting nearby chimed in: “I do a lot of bank lobbies.” Life on Toronto’s streets means constant movement. And it’s a reality that’s now crashing down on the church-side camp, just off College Street near Kensington Market, since a yellow city notice was taped to a tree — citing the encampment for “obstructing, encumbering, damaging or fouling” a street, and for dwelling or camping on a street. They were given two weeks to clear out — a ticking clock that’s set to expire on Thursday. The warning was delivered amid other upheaval in Toronto’s homeless service system. A large, temporary shelter in an Esplanade hotel shut down this week. And it’s all happening as winter arrives, with the cold putting extra pressure on an already oversqueezed shelter network, where an average of more than 180 callers each day were turned away throughout October. The notice has led some in the camp to accuse the city of relocating people rather than fixing underlying issues. The church’s priest, Maggie Helwig, fears enforcement will push people further to the margins — isolating them from supports that the church and nearby services can offer as the winter hits, and potentially severing connections with housing or health workers as they change locations. Rest at link...
It is great that we can move our armies across the world and set up camps so they can operate and live remotely, but we can't make enough shelter and food for the homeless. I guess it isn't that we can't, but it is really that the people in charge won't. Since a lot of us live in some sort of system that relies on a public vote for people in government we see how well democracy works for the poor. If we all worked together we could lift up those that have the least, but instead we use our energy to enjoy pissing on the people beneath us while the piss of the people above us trickles down on us.
One of the biggest problems is taht there simply are no services outside of urban centres like Toronto or Hamilton (and Hamilton is barely worth mentioning as far as capacity/capability goes). Of the 150 or so people at my workplace in a day, at least 3/4 are from more than two hours away, and a significant number of them from out of province.
Most of our militaries, not the russians obviouskly, have established a means of meeting basic survival standards for a mass of people that could be established and supplied through existing infrastructure. When I was a kid the Navy alone had organizattions like the seebees whose purpose was to quickly establish basic food and shelter in an expanding and protected supply chain infrastructure. We could convert that ability to a civil corps that could use land to create basic shelter and provide basic food and even some medical care. I am not talking about making the fucking Hyatte for the homeless, but some bunk houses, showers, a chow line, and some basic medics would be a better safety net than a tent city and allow a person who wanted to bounce back the ability to do so rather than becoming a much more expensive problem than cleanup or incarceration for homelessness.
pretty much... although yeah, definitely not delivered by a military/uniformed organization but better rather a civil corps. As to housing, the city owns a lot of its own land. If you can believe such a thing exists, there's a semi derelict parking lot a few streets over. Other than weekend overflow from visitors, it's rarely more than 1/4 full. The land trust I'm with is one of a few groups that are getting first dibs on submitting proposals for affordable (geared to income) housing once it's decommissioned. Getting 40 4 BR townhomes onto that site (have to be in scale with existing neighbourhood) would be a breeze, as would purpose building for communal/assisted living. The conservatives have quietly rolled back developer obligations and municipalities ability to enforce them. Most significantly for dedicated low income units, including existing and in progress projects resulting in a further loss of housing stock.
sorry, I had more on this... mostly about client focused care philosophies ("meeting people where they are"). Part of that is validating a client's dignity as a human being, so you ask them what they need and how you can help and remember your p's and q's. You aren't going to get that from an enforcement agency that's objective oriented. Harm reduction's goal is simply to keep them going where they want to be as we can't rebuild their autonomy by treating them like livestock.
and today... ‘Panhandler Jesus’ is put in a cage to protest threat of encampment clearing at Toronto church By Victoria Gibson Affordable Housing Reporter Thu., Dec. 8, 2022 Outside a downtown Toronto church, a statue known as “Panhandler Jesus” was encaged on Thursday morning — in protest against “criminalizing” homelessness. The demonstration outside the Church of Saint Stephen-in-the-Field, off College St. near Kensington Market, was sparked by a city notice delivered to a small, dense church-side encampment two weeks ago. It cited the camp for “obstructing, encumbering, damaging or fouling” a street, while citing those staying in the encampment for dwelling on a street. They were given two weeks to clear out, with that clock expiring Thursday. The notices came at a time when Toronto’s shelters have been under heavy strain, with more than 180 people each day on average in October turned away from beds. The church’s priest, Maggie Helwig, previously told the Star she feared people would be relegated to other, less concentrated outdoor spaces if the camp was cleared, such as stairwells or alleyways. The city, when asked about the notice, said any tent or structure that “encroaches on a city park or right of way” was illegal and subject to trespass enforcement. It said it had increased outreach efforts in the camp since it had grown in size. “The city cannot force people to come inside and avail themselves of the many services offered by the city, but living in an encampment in a city park is unhealthy and illegal,” a spokesperson wrote. They wouldn’t say if enforcement was planned right after the 14-day deadline, but said it reserved the right to do so. Helwig says the idea is to keep the statue, created by sculptor Timothy Schmalz, in the cage structure until homelessness in Toronto was not “criminalized” — with the hope of those who remain in the encampment being offered “safe and decent shelter” rather than being dispersed. The original idea of the statue, according to a description offered on the church’s website, was that of Jesus as a silent, huddled figure — “a person whom crowds walk by and ignore.” “This sculpture asks us to look again, and to look carefully, and to see that the person before us is, indeed, the presence of Christ for us in this moment.” While fears had been simmering over potential enforcement, by Wednesday afternoon Helwig took to Twitter to say they’d received some assurance a clearing wouldn’t be imminent. “We have commitments, which we believe to be reliable, that there will be no eviction in the coming week. We are working on a plan which we hope will enable everyone currently resident here to stay until they can access safe indoor accommodation,” Helwig wrote. She noted some camping structures along the church’s south wall had already been taken down willingly, with their occupants moving to indoor spaces, and that an encampment cleanup effort would take place Friday morning — led by the church along with The Neighbourhood Group, a community organization. “No one will be displaced,” Helwig added. “If you see City trucks here on Friday morning, do not be alarmed.”
