Please see information about Left Behind: social housing by FRAPRU

Nearly 5 years ago, The National Housing Strategy was adopted by the federal government. First announced with great fanfare on 22 November 2017, Canadian Housing Day. Is the Strategy able to respond to the current housing crises: serious deterioration of the homelessness situation; scarcity of rental housing; sky-high rent; and the rise of phenomena such as ‘renovictions’, evictions and speculation? Will it really be able to “further the realization of the right to adequate housing” as the law adopted in 2019 requires?

We are pleased to share our new leaflet, updated after the last budget, in English & in French on that important question.

Please, don’t hesitate to share widely this document LefleatNHS

You can also share it from FRAPRU website.

In English

In French

By A.J. Whiters and Amie Tsang—originally posted in briarpatch

At the end of the third wave of COVID-19, the City of Toronto forcibly evicted about 30 unhoused people from Trinity Bellwoods Park. Videos from that day show police using pepper spray on supporters who showed up to protect their unhoused neighbours. New documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests show that in order to legitimize the violent evictions, City staff worked to control the media narrative around encampments, pre-determining media exclusion zones and inflating fire safety concerns in press releases.

Early in the morning on June 22, 2021, people living in and around Trinity Bellwoods Park noticed a temporary fence being erected around large areas of the park. The public would later find out that this fencing cost $139,109, while the private security and police protecting it added another $305,711. The fence was the physical enforcement of an exclusion zone, an area where police block public access – in this case, separating encampment residents from their supporters. And while members of the media are sometimes allowed inside exclusion zones (albeit with a police escort) to document what’s happening, at least five journalists say they were prevented from entering the exclusion zone that day.

Willms suspects his arrest was intended to “scare other journalists from crossing that fence.”

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Toronto

April 7, 2022

Yesterday – City Council voted 20-5 against the expropriation of 214-230 Sherbourne for much needed social housing. Mayor Tory and Deputy Mayor Bailão argued against saving the community of Dundas and Sherbourne, against investing in the generational resource of public housing for poor people in that neighborhood and the uplifting of the whole community.

“For the developers the property is about profits. For the City, the question of expropriation is about money. For our community it is about housing people; it is about life and death. By refusing to expropriate, they are bowing to the developers and, thereby, facilitating the destruction of our community,” says Dr. A. J. Withers from the Shelter and Housing Justice Steering Committee. An additional motion to try to protect the corner by seeking to purchase the adjoining plaza for the development of housing lost 10-15.

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