TL;DR version There's a tent city that exists in front of one of the local churches in what has been considered the church's front yard since before there were streets here (it's one of the oldest ones in Toronto). A few weeks ago a claimed group of concerned neighbours submitted a complaint and with some creativity has managed to get yet another injunction to disperse the homeless from the churchyard. (I say "claimed group" as they don't seem to exist beyond the signature of the complaint.) anyway... text wall coming up next post
"The bodies are all accounted for, they just don't know it yet." -- Encampment resident, November 10th As we wait to see what the City's next move will be, now that our application for an injunction has been refused, here is a fuller statement on recent events. On October 19th, as many of you know, we received a phone call from a City staffer telling us that the encampment at St Stephen-in-the-Fields was to be cleared because a "community group" had obtained a "permit for a pollinator garden." On October 20th, we engaged Addario Law to assist us in filing an application for an injunction against the clearing. As soon as it became apparent that the "community group" was a thin fiction, the "permit" disappeared from the City's argument. They now say the permit has been cancelled, and was issued "in error" because City staff, for some reason, believed that the group calling itself Friends of Bellevue Parkette was, in fact, the Church of St Stephen-in-the-Fields. Why they might think that a church would form a separate not-for-profit, at a different address, to apply for a permit to renovate our own yard was not explained, nor why that church might apply for such a permit in order to evict an encampment we've been publicly supporting for at least a year and a half. The City's new position was that, permit aside, the encampment was a major fire risk, and, further, that this risk could not be reduced or mitigated by any means other than a full eviction and clearing of the space. We do not deny that fire is a risk in encampments, but we have had little cooperation from the City with cleaning efforts to mitigate the hazard. When three tents were abandoned in early November, City staff refused to be involved in taking down the tents or cleaning up garbage and abandoned items, because they deemed them "too heavy" and "too dangerous." The clean-up was ultimately done by a single peer support worker from The Neighbourhood Group. (Similarly, when a large tree branch fell on a tent in August, City staff would not remove it because "there might be needles", and it was eventually removed by a church volunteer and an encampment resident). Encampment residents have spoken of having fire extinguishers confiscated by City staff. On November 6th, the City suddenly mobilized resources which had never been offered to the encampment before. From November 6th to 10th, large numbers of Streets to Homes workers visited every day, often for hours, offering shelter-hotel spaces which apparently did not exist until we pursued an injunction, but had now suddenly been made available. However, these rooms were available only the people who were on a "list of ten" which the City considered to constitute the full number of people living on the site. We were not permitted to see the "list of ten" for several days; when we did finally see it, we were able to confirm that it was not an accurate representation of the population of the encampment. The positive result of the City's sudden and brief effort was that a number of people (to our knowledge six) were able to move into indoor space as winter began. On the other hand, it should not have been necessary to retain a law firm in order to get half a dozen people into shelter-hotels. Decent shelter should be available to everyone who needs it, not doled out to try to prevent legal action. Further, we note that no one is moving into housing, only into temporary shelter. And it was made clear to us that the purpose of the rooms was very strictly "tent reduction", rather than sheltering those most in need; so people who sleep on the benches, the church steps, or the ground were not considered eligible for rooms, as sheltering them would not achieve "tent reduction." Numerous residents still remain on the site, although the City insists there are only "one or two." Two people are on the very small area which is inarguably church property, and at this time are they not being threatened, although we anticipate that they may be in future. At least four people, living in tents on the land which is considered a transportation right-of-way, have been classified as "declining service." These people are the most highly vulnerable of all our residents, and face severe barriers in dealing with City staff and accessing City services. Some have already been evicted repeatedly from shelters and shelter-hotels. They have gradually begun to trust the support workers who visit them in the encampment, but do not feel safe accessing City-run indoor space. "Declining service" is not an appropriate description of their situation. These people depend so heavily on the supports and services they receive in the encampment that an eviction might very realistically result in the deaths of some of them. Others living on the site have expressed to us that they would take shelter-hotel rooms if offered, but they have not been offered. And additional people have arrived on the site since November 10th, most without even tents as shelter; they are living under tarps and blankets in below-zero temperatures. Streets to Homes has continued to visit since November 10th, but less often, and with fewer staff. The workers in attendance have largely, as in the past, been unable to offer any rooms. We continue to believe that there are City staffers, and elected officials, who are genuinely concerned for the encampment residents, and are trying hard to do the best they can for them within the confines of the system. But there are others who have lied to us, and lied about us, and who have treated encampment residents with contempt. We have tried for over a year to cooperate with the City. By now, we do not believe that the City, as an institution, can be trusted to act in the best interests of our residents. Almost every encampment area which has been cleared by the City to date has eventually been repopulated by tents. Tents have now returned to Bellevue Square Park, Sonja's Park, and Alexandra Park, in our immediate neighbourhood, as well as Lamport Stadium and other areas. Allen Gardens has had a large encampment continously since 2020. Central Intake is turning away hundreds of people every night. We applied to serve as an emergency warming centre this winter, and were turned down. People will continue to live in tents, tarp constructions, and handmade shelters until there are real alternatives, because they have no other choice. We are grateful to Samara Secter, Jocelyn Rempel, and Addario Law for making tremendous efforts to try to obtain an injunction. We are grateful, as well, to all those who donated towards our legal costs. We thank all those agencies who were not involved in the legal case, but have continued to support the encampment residents, especially The Neighbourhood Group. And we honour the people in the encampment who are continuing to care for and support each other, and to sustain a community in the midst of great struggle. -- Reverend Canon Maggie Helwig, November 21st, 2023
I don't have a solution to homelessness (it's a complex problem and our governments at all levels are failing us) but I do know that the answer isn't to just allow folks to set up tent cities.
Yup. Even if they're not bothering anyone or causing trouble, living in a tent year round in Canada is not safe or healthy. Two homeless people died in separate encampment fires in Edmonton over one weekend, not too long ago. https://edmontonjournal.com/news/lo...two-deaths-following-weekend-encampment-fires
Generally speaking I'm not much of a fan either... However Maggie's someone I've known as a social activist for over 30 years, and has made St Stephen's one of the more progressive ones I've ever seen within mainstream Xianity. I'm pretty disgusted as the pseudo "community group" isn't made up of anyone who lives here, but rather a private school a few addresses down the street. We've also always been supportive of our unhoused neighbours here, so this doesn't really reflect the wishes of those of us who do live here. Also the lack of due diligence and the gaslighting responses from the city... it gets even more interesting if we ask why the city's authority extends to the churchyard but none of the other property frontages. (Google Earth: Bellevue Ave at College St) It's actually preferable that there is an encampment there rather than in the other parks (well, there are some tents at the bigger one, but they're a bit less eye sorey and don't take up the entire space). The location is at the end of a side street emptying onto a main street, there's a homeless centre around the corner as well as the church to attend to most of their needs, and the fire risk is mitigated by being across the road from a fire station (and a five minute walk to a hospital). Literally the only place better would be to allow the church to set up cots in it's auditorium.
Yeah, I'm gonna grossly oversimplify here but: Our shelter capacity in Toronto is about a fifth of what it needs to be, and that's not even taking into account the shortfall of refugee settlement services. The one location I work at is almost an even split between displaced Canadians and newcomers. A big part of cities' problem in dealing with the homeless is that so many aren't from here but come from places that have little to no supports, so we're overloaded with folks from all over the province who don't have any connections other than social service agencies. The suburbs and beyond really need to start picking up their own slack. The lack of affordable housing being built + the decommisioning of existing subsidized housing has exacerbated the issue. Air BnB-especially at the REIT level- combined with the removal of inflationary controls on rentals has devastated availability/affordability while at the same time artificially inflating the potential value of multi unit buildings. We're approaching a "where do the workers in service industries live in Galt's Gulch" here. The Landlord/Tenant Board has become unbalanced in favour of landlords, to the detriment of the public interest in keeping people housed (it's a hell of a lot cheaper and more realistic to fix their other problems when they're fed and sheltered). LLs, on the other hand, have been highly motivated to turn over occupancies as frequently as possible, especially with legacy tenants who may be paying far below what the market fantasies expect.
Whilst not allowing tent cities to be set up is not the answer to homelessness, you also shouldn't be stopping tent cities until you have a workable alternative. Or putting spikes on benches/sidewalk. The UK doesn't need to be imitating the US on their treatment of the homeless, but our recently-sacked Home Secretary (sacked for instigating violence on Armistice Day, not this bullshit) called living in tents "a lifestyle choice". Doubtless UA is searching for her Tinder profile behind Jenee's back as we speak.
In Edmonton the city works to dismantle encampments as soon as they're informed of them, focusing on the more disruptive or crime-adjacent ones first. Everyone there gets some amount of warning, and relocation services are offered to everyone before the encampments are disbanded. They don't just bulldoze them without warning. We're not supposed to say it out loud because it's also something that assholes say, but for some people (obviously not all of them) it really is a lifestyle choice. Maybe not directly, but for most of us there's stuff we have to do and compromises we have to make in order to keep living indoors, and some of the people living on the streets in tents are out there because they've consciously chosen to reject those terms. Just sayin'.
It's generally not a lifestyle choice after September, and honestly most of'em are hard to house in the first place... if only because they have incomes under $45K and some sort of eviction on record (ironically, most often N12 or 13s, so no fault of their own). They don't want to go to shelters (jail is substantially nicer, to be honest) because why would anyone volunteer to become institutionalized? Then there's the fact that there are far from enough shelter beds... half of the spaces at one place I do support work at double as a refugee shelter. That's true across the entire shelter network here. It's easier to avoid a lot of the drugs and trauma by not going into a shelter and staying outside. Let's not even get started on that hotel debacle. It may have warehoused folks in relative comfortable surroundings for a while, but it did more harm than good for a lot of them. Again, think institutionalization with a smattering of 70s prison movie.
sorry, forgot to clarify that N13 or 14 evictions are for the "Landlord's personal/family use" or "Capital Improvements" (Renoviction). Both of which statistically have shown to be in bad faith as a method to raise rent above guidelines.
A short update from Maggie Helwig after a very long day yesterday: Supporters gathered at the encampment beginning before 7 am on Friday. Some people had already dispersed after the City's warning on Wednesday night, but some remained, including all of our most longstanding residents, the people for whom the churchyard has truly become home. City officials began to arrive around 9 am, offering shelter-hotel spaces. There was some confusion around their communications regarding what was being offered, but two things did gradually become clear -- no one was being offered housing, but there were sufficient shelter-hotel spaces, because they had been especially reserved for this eviction. This means that they had not been available for people seeking emergency shelter the previous night, adding to the huge numbers already being turned away by Central Intake. It is additionally frustrating that some of our residents had been wanting shelter-hotel rooms for some time, and had not been offered any spaces until now. It is clear that the emergency shelter system is impossibly overcrowded and overburdened, and many of the City's decisions about how to allocate their very scarce resources are frustrating at best, and cynically opportunistic at worst. Nevertheless, we are very glad that some people were able to access indoor space which they wanted. We know that shelter-hotels are not a long-term solution for anyone, but they are at least a respite from the cold. Several residents were unwilling to accept shelter-hotels. This included two people who were already living on church property, and three other who were, as of Friday morning, on City property. Over the course of the morning, we managed to clear enough space on the very small remaining area of church property for those people to move to, and our volunteers and other supporters helped to move the belongings of two of these people. This was all done in a situation of stress and rush, and during the course of the morning we had to deal with two separate serious medical crises, both probably related to the distress created by the City's actions. By afternoon, it became clear that one of our longest-term residents was not willing to leave their established space on the north plot of the yard. Their position was that this was their home, and they were exhausted by the City's constant moves, cleaning, clearing, and changes of policy, and they were not going to be displaced voluntarily. A standoff of some hours resulted, as the City seemed reluctant to act while a large group of supporters and media personnel were present. Finally, around 6 pm, when it was already dark and while we were trying to open our weekly drop-in, the City made the decision to bring in the claw machine to clear the south plot only. Supporters shielded the plot from the machine for several hours while others tried to collect the remaining belongings of residents, some of whom had been too ill or too distressed to pack up properly, or had felt too rushed by the City's urging that they get into transportation to shelter hotels immediately. The use of heavy machinery in the dark, on a very small street in a residential neighbourhood, is concerning. Additionally concerning is the fact that a large and unnecessary police presence was sent, in an apparent attempt to intimidate supporters. By around 9 or 10 pm, when we were confident that all possessions of value had been retrieved, supporters moved back, and the remaining structures were removed. Several hours earlier, our one remaining resident was issued a notice of trespass, and City staff reminded them regularly that they could be arrested at any time. They acknowledged that they understood that, but did not intend to move. However, police were never given direction to remove or arrest her. As of late last night, they were still in place, and we had assurances that they would not be forcibly removed overnight. By 11 pm, a substantial fence had been erected around both dirt areas on the south. The north plot remained undisturbed. We do not know what the next steps will be, though the City has expressed that they do intend eventually to clear and fence the north plot. It was not a good day, but it was not nearly as bad as it might have been. We thank all the supporters who came, and those who stayed, and those who ran down from the neighbouring apartment building when they saw the removal beginning. We thank Inner City Health Associates for their support of ill and distressed residents, and, as always, The Neighbourhood Group for their constant support of encampment residents and others in need. We also thank the reporters who stayed on after dark to witness and report on events. Our first concern is to ensure that the one remaining person on the north plot is safe, and able to choose their course of action from here. We are also looking into how to ensure that the now larger number of people on church property are left in safety. We have just learned of a serious fire in the encampment in Bellevue Square Park, where some of our former residents may have gone. Preliminary reports are that no one has been hurt, and we are grateful for that. We are sorry that the situation at our own area means that we cannot offer safe space at the church, as most of the yard is now fenced off. We will keep you updated as we can. the fire mentioned at the end was reportedly a propane tank flash inside of a tent. Bellevue Square is maybe 300 yards down the street from St Stephen's. Another report has stated at least one serious injury. my walk home yesterday past yet another encampment (there're at least 3 between Queen and College Streets along Bathurst-Four, if you consider the two areas at Alexandra Park separately), there were people sheltering on the ground under piles of blankets and tattered sleeping bags now that they no longer had tents. It's getting insane... many of the inhabitants are long term, if not life long, residents. This is gentricide.
