Tag: displacement

Claim: Pathway Inside, a new City program, is focused on those living in encampments at four priority sites, namely Moss Park, Alexandra Park, Trinity Bellwoods and Lamport Stadium, that are subject to increased health and safety concerns. The City has secured safe space inside hotel programs for everyone at these four sites.

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Fact: Pathway Inside is designed to clear specific City parks of unhoused people.

The City is using the Trespass to Property Act to clear multiple encampments. The City posted notices in March, 2021 informing people that they must stop living in the park and remove all their belongings from the park by 8:00 am, April 6, 2021 (photo below).

The City claims that Pathway Inside will clear four priority parks; however, Allan Gardens has also been served with a trespass notice (photo below).

  • Tresspass Notice. Date March 19. Moss Park. Notice outlines a number of alleged infractions to by-laws and gives residents until 8:00 am April 6th to leave the park.

Fact: Pathway Inside involves the City turning people away who are seeking a bed in the shelter system, claiming that there is no space available, while hundreds of shelter hotel spaces sit empty.

For the Pathway Inside project, a shelter hotel has been secured and rooms in the hotel are being reserved for residents from four “priority” encampments.1 The residents in these encampments are currently sheltered in make-shift shelters, but the City is demanding that these shelters be dismantled and the residents move into the shelter-hotel by April 6, 2021, or they will face legal repercussions. In the meantime, these rooms sit empty. Meanwhile, on March 18, 2021, the City was telling people with no access to shelter or a warm space of any kind that there was no room for them in the shelter system:2 a front-line worker had to pay out of their own pocket for a space in a private hostel for a person seeking shelter3 while a hotel full of empty rooms, paid for by public money, sat empty. Additionally, outreach workers have been trying to refer people to these empty rooms and all have been rejected.4

Notes:

City Claim: City of Toronto. (March 16, 2020). City of Toronto supporting people living in encampments with safe, supportive indoor space.

  1. City of Toronto. (March 16, 2020). City of Toronto supporting people living in encampments with safe, supportive indoor space.
  2. Evans, Jennifer. (March 18, 2021). https://twitter.com/nejsnave/status/1372723483772260356; https://twitter.com/nejsnave/status/1372718337692639232. At the same time there were 11 active COVID-19 outbreaks in shelters, with 204 cases. City of Toronto. (March 19, 2021). Active COVID-19 Outbreaks in Toronto Shelters.
  3. After paying for the room for two nights, the worker fundraised for a third night for this individual and for a night for two other people who were also unable to access shelter through the City. Evans, Jennifer (March 19, 2021). https://twitter.com/nejsnave/status/1372946919392165891; https://twitter.com/nejsnave/status/1373362591007830019
  4. Lorraine Lam. (March 20, 2021). Twitter post. https://twitter.com/lorrainelamchop/status/1373802832323870722

Images: Trespass notice photos: Greg Cook

Claim: City programs in shelters, hotels, and transitional and supportive housing, also include medical supports, like mental health and addiction counselling, meals, clean linen and access to showers, to ensure people don’t return to living outside.

factchecktoronto

FACT: While the City claims that it provides medical supports (like mental health and addiction counseling) at City-funded facilities, supports aren’t interchangeable.

A health provider at a remote City-funded site is not an adequate replacement for a health provider with whom a person has a long-standing relationship; familiarity with the person’s case history and a trusting relationship, developed over time, makes a long-standing health provider uniquely important to a person’s health. For this reason, many encampment residents do not want to or are unable to move far away from the supports and services they rely on, which can include safe consumption sites, pharmacists, methadone clinics, friends, networks, and other places and services in the neighbourhood that are a part of their daily routine. Some people have been moved over an hour away by transit  from their communities.1

FACT: City-funded facilities subject residents to a large number of rules that can be difficult for people to follow, criminalizes behaviour, and can lead to involuntary discharge.2 A third of all people moved into the shelter system (30%) from encampments have left to an “unknown discharge location,”3 demonstrating that the conditions and services City-run sites provide are inadequate for many. 

FACT: Overdose prevention and harm reduction services in shelter-hotels have been inadequate.4 In 2020, 29 people died from overdose in the shelter system between January and November (compared to 13 people in all of 2019).5

FACT: Not all residents in shelter-hotels require the high levels of support that is often mandatory in shelter-hotels.6

For example, some front-line workers and former shelter-hotel residents have described the many (sometimes 5 or more) mandatory daily “wellness checks” that some residents have experienced as invasive and a serious violation of privacy.7  Inner City Health Associates recommends doing two “wellness checks” a day by phone.8 Reducing some kinds of supports for people who do not need or want them would help the City better provide support to the people who do need them. 

Notes:

City Claim: City of Toronto Press Release, December 3, 2020

  1. Dodd, Z. Affidavit. Black et al. v. City of Toronto, 2020 ONSC 6398. Para 15. According to the the Encampment Support Network, Lamport Stadium residents, for example, were moved to shelter-hotels at Kennedy Rd. and the 401, 30 km and about 1 hour and 20 minutes away by transit.  Encampment Support Network. (July 27, 2020). Relocation and Return. ESN Donor Newsletter. Also see Dodd, Z., (November 8, 2020). Encampment Support Network Press Conference.
  2. Chili. (November 8, 2020). Encampment Support Network Press Conference; Lam, L. (November 8, 2020). Encampment Support Network Press Conference; Pabani, A., & Rotsztain, D. (2020). Dismantling Stubborn Structures. 
  3. Shelter Support and Housing Administration. (December 7, 2016). Update on COVID-19 response for Homelessness Services. 
  4. See Altenberg, J., & Robertson, A. (November 27, 2020). Get opioid overdose prevention and harm reduction into Toronto shelters — now. The Star; Dodd, Z., (November 8, 2020). Encampment Support Network Press Conference; Rondinelli, N. (2020, October 21). Deaths in Toronto Shelters at All Time High: CEO of Heart to Heart CPR Says That Shelter Staff is Taking the Wrong Course – A Claim Recently Supported by Newest Canadian 2020 Resuscitation Guidelines Released October 19, 2020. Global Newswire. 
  5. City of Toronto. (2020, December 15). Integrated Prevention and Harm Reduction (iPHARE) initiative, also see Boisvert, N. (2020, November 22). Preventing fatal opioid overdoses a looming challenge as Toronto shelters prepare for winter.
  6. Not all “supports” are mandatory, many are voluntary. However, “wellness checks” are mandatory
  7. Carbone, G. (2018, February 20). CD26.5 Update on Shelter Services. Community Development and Recreation Committee, Toronto City Council, p.44
  8. Svoboda, T., Baral, S., Perlas, P., Bond, A., Orkin, A., Jardine, L., & Tanner, G. (2020). Isolation Site for People Experiencing Homelessness: High Level Policies and Procedures Overview.