October 3, 2002
A twice monthly electronic bulletin published on what people are doing to put housing back on the public agenda in Ontario, across Canada and around the world. Our web site is http://www.housingagain.web.net.
If you have any tips for the Bulletin please e-mail: gallop@interlog.com.
**********************************
1. Eviction Roller Coaster for Tent City Residents
2. Tent City Eviction Contravenes Canada’s International Commitment
3. Squatters Across the Country Vow This is Only the Beginning
4. Have Your Say on the Budget
5. Get Ready for National Housing Strategy Day
**********************************
1. Eviction Roller Coaster for Tent City Residents
At 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday September 24th Toronto
police arrived at the gates of Tent City. they waited for an uncomfortable
couple of minutes while a team of private security guards, hired by property
owner Home Depot, worked their way through traffic.
When the guards arrived, they swept through the squatters
settlement conducting an eviction that came as a surprise to Tent City
residents, the organizations that supported them, most city councilors
and even the non-profit housing company that had been working with property
owner Home Depot to find a housing solution for the squatters.
Rainer Driemayer was taken out before he could get his
bicycle and pictures of his children. Sam Rojik was using a portable toilet
and was still waving a roll of toilet paper while talking to reporters
outside of the property fence. Spider and Olivia, a couple who had just
finished putting a deck railing on their makeshift cabin a couple of weeks
earlier, didn’t have time to get their cats, Scooby and Dooby.
While workers erected a new perimeter fence and manouvred
a backhoe tractor and dump trucks filled with gravel to create a road for
security guards to patrol property’s perimeter, residents pleaded with
police and guards to retrieve their pets, ID, medication and warm clothing.
They were eventually allowed to enter, one-by-one, escorted by guards to
retrieve as many belongings as they could carry or cart.
In a matter of hours, the community that brought international
attention to the issue of homelessness in Toronto was disbanded. As reasons
for the eviction Home Depot cited increased drug activity and prostitution,
fire threats, poor sanitary conditions and health hazards to residents
due to the fact that the soil on the land is contaminated.
In April 2001, Tent City had a shot at redefining the
way cities respond to homelessness when residents and activists got the
City’s Community Services Committee to pass a proposal to pursue the creation
of an experimental public/private partnership to build a community of low-cost,
expandable houses with costs that could be carried over 10 years on the
housing portion of a welfare cheque.
The city had chosen the non-profit Homes First, which
was partnered with Home Depot, to build the houses. The deal soured when
the federal government’s Port Authority contested the city’s claim to ownership
of the land proposed for the project and started a lawsuit. Home Depot
then said it would pave over the contaminated land at the Tent City site
and work with Homes First to create the community on its own site. This
plan was stalled when the city said it would require a zoning chnage.
Home Depot stopped communicating with Tent City supporters,
and police patrols of the area increased. Then the company evicted the
squatters, a move which came as a surprise to everyone except police, a
few bureaucrats and the mayor, who was told the day before. Immediately
after the eviction, protestors shut down a Home Depot press conference
and then stormed a City Official Plan meeting.
By 7 p.m. the City had made arrangements for temporary
shelter. The next afternoon, Wednesday, the City presented a plan offering
former Tent City residents rent supplements, using money from a recently
announced provincial program. The city calls its plan a ‘pilot project’
that will cover the full rent of an apartment for up to three months, then
require residents to pay one-third of their income towards the rent. The
Toronto Disaster Relief Committee, which was negotiating on behalf of residents,
says the city’s offer is a good one. It will be up to individual squatters
to decide whether they will accept the deal.
Saturday September 29 former Tent City residents and their
supporters gathered at the site, now a compound with high fences, guards
and floodlights at night, to demand Home Depot give residents more time
to claim their belongings and make a substantial capital contribution to
create new affordable housing. The squatters assembled seemed tentative
but excited about the city’s deal. Many had been saving money to move out
of their makeshift shacks and into apartments.
"I’ll believe it when I have keys in my hand and a piece
of paper that says I have an apartment in my name," said Patrick Lepage,
who had been on an unsuccessful house-hunt during the summer.
When asked how she was coping, Olivia replied that she
was having a good day. She had just come from a meeting with a housing
worker who told her that she would be able to start hunting for an apartment
on Tuesday. Before the eviction, she and Spider had been hoping to
find an apartment and leave Tent City by December. Olivia was excited by
the prospect of having an apartment before the winter.
Former Toronto Mayor Barbara Hall, who appears to be gearing
up to run again for the city’s top political post, attended the Saturday
demonstration and said that while the rent subsidies were an acceptable
short term solution, the city needs more affordable housing in the long
term.
2. Tent City Eviction Contravenes Canada’s International
Commitment
Home Depot’s eviction of the approximately 120 Tent City
residents contravened an international agreement been signed by Canada,
says a lawyer with the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario.
Mary Truemner says that Canada is a signatory to the
United Nations Covenant on Economic and Socio-Cultural Rights. General
Comment 7 of the agreement says that signatories are to ensure that forced
evictions must not result in homelessness. Under the agreement, Canada
is supposed to ensure that any party that conducts evictions is to consult
ith the people who are affected and ensure that a re-settlement plan is
in place.
Home Depot’s eviction of Tent City came as a complete
surprise to the residents and the company had put no relocation plan in
place, though Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman is quoted after the eviction as
saying that there were 200 shelter beds available. The Toronto Disaster
Relief Committee phoned around to shelters and found 14 available beds.
The UN Council that oversees the agreement will meet again in 2003.
In the meantime, the federal government announced in the
Speech from the Throne that it will extend the Supporting Community Partnerships
Initiative (SCPI) program, which was due to wrap up next year. The program
provides money for emergency and transitional housing for homeless people,
but does not fund permanent affordable housing.
3. Squatters Across the Country Vow This is Only the Beginning
Last week dealt a blow to squatters across the country
but they vow this will not be the end of the occupations.
At almost the same time as the Tent City eviction, squats
in Vancouver and Quebec City were also disbanded. Squatters who had occupied
an old Woodward’s department store building in downtown Vancouver for just
over a week were evicted by police at 6 a.m. Saturday September 21. Instead
of dispersing, squatters moved their mattresses to the sidewalk outside
the building.
They say they won’t leave until the province commits to
turning the building into affordable housing. The province’s previous NDP
government had bought the building to turn it into 220 co-op units atop
street-level stores. The current Liberal government is in negotiations
to sell the building for less than its predecessor paid for it because
Community Services Minister George Abbott says the conversion would cost
the government $90 million.
In Quebec City, squatters who took over a building at
920 de la Chevrotière four months ago were evicted a few days after
Tent City. For their efforts, squatters prevented the building from being
converted exclusively to condominiums. Instead, the new owner will create
a mixture of 25 co-operative units and 38 condominium units. In addition,
the city has passed a bylaw that prevents developers from converting existing
affordable rental apartments into condominiums.
Back in Toronto, the ‘Pope Squat’ at 1510 King St. W.
is still intact. City Councillor Chris Korwin-Kuczynski, in whose ward
the building is located, says the city is waiting for a decision from the
province about the building’s fate. "The city’s position is that the
building belongs to the province so we are waiting for an answer on how
they want us to deal with it," he said. Kuczynski says council will turn
the building into affordable housing only if squatters leave without being
forcibly evicted. Squatters say they won’t leave without a firmer assurance
the city will follow through on its promise and a promise to assist the
homeless people who are living in the building.
John Clarke, organizer for the Ontario Coalition Against
Poverty, which initiated the squat action said his group has plans to take
over another building on October 26. OCAP will also call on supporters
in Toronto and in other cities to hold a series of actions under the slogan
of ‘give it or guard it.’ During this campaign people will announce their
intentions to re-claim buildings ahead of time thus giving authorities
the choice to either put a line of police in front of the buildings or
let the squats happen.
"What may happen is a situation across a number of cities
where police will be serving and protecting empty buildings," said Clarke.
"We see this not just as a symbolic act but a way of building toward a
more ambitious plan of housing take-overs. Given what has happened in Vancouver
and Quebec City, there is no reason why we couldn’t do it on a coast-to-coast
basis."
And, it looks like Toronto’s Tent City won’t be the last.
At a rally last Saturday, street nurse Cathy Crowe said she had been talking
to a group of squeegee kids in Halifax who were discussing plans to start
a Tent City.
4. Have Your Say On the Budget
Housing groups have submitted their pre-budget submissions
to the federal Standing Committee on Finance. Although the deadline has
passed for submissions, groups can send their views to the committee at
any time. Another way to participate is to write letters of support for
existing submissions. Send your letters and submissions to the Clerk, Standing
Committee on Finance, Rm 603, Wellington Building, House of Commons, Ottawa,
K1A 0A6.
Check out submissions already sent by affordable housing
supporters at http://action.web.ca/home/housing/alerts.shtml and click
on the alerts posted September 11th and 17th.
5. Get Ready for National Housing Strategy Day
The third annual National Housing Strategy Day is coming
up on November 22nd and the National Housing and Homelessness Network is
encouraging people to get ready. Last year the mayors of Vancouver, Edmonton,
Saskatoon, North Bay, Parry Sound, Toronto, Ottawa and Halifax issues official
proclamations for the day and 21 communities across the country participated.
Organizers are hoping for more involvement this year.
For sample proclamations to initiate discussions with
your municipality and ideas about how to get your community involved visit
http://action.web.ca/home/housing/alerts.shtml and click
on the alert posted September 1st.
*
To read more visit the Housing Again Alerts at http://action.web.ca/home/housing/alerts.shtml
and click on the articles posted Aug.
22, July 22, July 16 and July 3.
SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE: The Housing Again e-bulletin is distributed by e-mail free of charge every two weeks. To subscribe or unsubscribe, log onto the main page at www.housingagain.web.net. You’ll see the Bulletin’s subscribe/unsubscribe box at the bottom right hand of the page.
Please circulate this e-bulletin to your friends and colleagues.
- end -