Trinity belwoods

June 27th 2021

Confrontation between homeless and law enforcement in Toronto

Events of the day

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2021, the picket lines were drawn. On one side, stood an army(1) of police
officers, ready to enforce the law; on the other, a band of activists alongside those living there. The scene was Trinity Bellwoods Park, and the conflict arose over the planned clearing and removal of several homeless encampments that had arisen on the premises. It was around 4:20 a.m when law enforcement first received the call to carry out these actions. What had started as a small incident quickly turned into something bigger, when activists from many different Toronto based groups(2) quickly came to the aid of the people living there, in support of a different kind of solution.

Clearly this issue is not exclusive to Trinity Bellwoods Park, or Toronto; disagreement over policy regarding where a person can and cannot sleep or live stretches far and wide both in theory and in practice. Two weeks ago, I wrote a short article titled 'Homeless man removed from Waterloo Park by private security'. In that piece, I outlined a very small event, comparatively to what happened in Toronto, especially because the man himself did not fight back, and there were no activists there to support him. Yet these two incidents, along with many others across the country, share similar themes that make it easy to think of them as one single issue, one that demands a solution.

As of May, there were 3,739 people experiencing chronic homelessness in the city of Toronto alone. Where do the people who have no recognized property, no real estate, and no home, have the right
to live?

I write this today to highlight the severe difference of opinion that exists in Canada in response to the question above. John Tory, the Mayor of Toronto, being bombarded by questions about this very topic in recent days, shared his feelings: (3)

“I believe it is the fundamentally correct position, that you cannot have unsafe, unhealthy, illegal encampments in public parks in particular, but on other public property as well”.

Brad Ross, a city spokesperson, echoed Tory’s remarks:

“Camping in city parks is unsafe and it is not permitted, frankly, under city bylaws”

Even with the illegality of the encampments, the extremely heavy police presence was seen by many as unwarranted, so much so that the City of Toronto will review how the dismantling of the shelters was handled that day(4). The long lineup of cops that arrived on the scene can be clearly observed during this video in a CBC article covering the events of the day. Some even rode on horses through the park. The activists that came to fight back against the city's actions tried many tactics, such as a dramatic forming of a human chain around many of the park encampments, but in the end, it failed to halt demolition. The police, once maintaining control over the park, set up tall, metal, blue barricades around the tents and other encampments, blocking off the people from the shelter they were trying to protect. This resulted in many instances of push back, like one viewed here. Throughout the day there were many clashes between law enforcement and protesters, culminating in three arrests. Though, by dinner time, the majority of people had dispersed.

{Trinity Bellwoods Park on Tuesday June 22nd, 2021}

A solution?

Mayor Tory and other local officials, to their credit, offer one solution, which they say is to move people experiencing homelessness to “safer housing”(5). This could mean homeless shelters, shelter hotels, or affordable housing projects(6). For the 20 to 25 people who lived in Trinity Bellwoods Park before Tuesday, a deal involving “permanent housing” was supposedly reached with the city to provide them with somewhere to live, in the (cities) hopes that they will leave the park indefinitely.

The question is, will the encounter at the park on Tuesday be recurring, or will the city's ideas and solutions be enough to solve the problem and avoid such situations in the future? I think most people can agree that what happened on the 22nd in Trinity Bellwood Park was not ideal, and quiet eye opening, in a terrifying way. BlogTO called the scene “dystopian”, and I somewhat understand that judgment(7). Even if you fully support the policy that the police carried out(8), surely it must still be difficult to accept that it came to this, a chaotic scene where arrests were made and clashes broke out between the two sides. If anything, this will lead to greater social unrest, and an eventual return of encampments, if the underlying problems are not solved. Besides, where can these people go? Despite there being several homeless shelters in Toronto, some of the people stuck without a place
to live do not feel comfortable enough to go there, partly because of the pandemic, but also because of another feeling of danger stemming from the threat of violence at the shelters(9). Dangers aside, the city confidently says that there is vacant space in shelters across Toronto, and that those who lived at Trinity Bellwood park are invited to move into one. Some writer-activists, an example being Nicholas Hune Brown from ‘Toronto Life’, paint a different picture, highlighting in the shelters the same problems brought up by the homeless living in the park.

Underlying problems

There are two broad social, psychological, and economic problems that in particular I want to touch on, ones that need solving in order for any real solution to come about.

1. Cost of living

To put it bluntly, Toronto has become an utterly unaffordable city for average people. To not be homeless, you must be housed, and to be housed in an economy based on market principles and profiteering, you must have money. How much money? Well, in this month of June 2021, the average house in the city sold for approximately $1.1 million. Though certainly not everyone owns their home; many people in Toronto rent. The median renting cost per month was $1,712, and the overwhelming majority were priced between $1,000 and $2,300(10). There were very few opportunities to rent below $999. This at a time when minimum wage labour, jobs that need to be done in our economy, pays $14.35 an hour. If working for 40 hours a week, every week(11), on this wage, the employee would make $2583, before tax. Forget buying a house; this amount of money barely pays for an average apartment, food, and utilities, the absolute essentials, never mind a car, or dentistry. These numbers put into proper perspective a well known study that was conducted by ‘BDO debt solutions’(12) in 2019, which found that 53% of Canadians are living paycheck to paycheck, and 27% do not have enough to meet their basic needs. What humbling statistics! It is easy to prove this in the case of Toronto, as I think the basic math I made above regarding pre-tax earnings shows that
minimum wage workers in the city have little to know savings after their essential needs are met.

The issue of homelessness is directly connected to cost of living. What happens when someone loses their job, living paycheck to paycheck, because of, I don't know.... a pandemic. No more income, with no savings, leads to no home. The insecurity of our financial lives is a driving factor behind people turning to a place like public parks for shelter. There are affordable housing projects Toronto has followed through on, leading to cheaper prices, though at this time there is a substantial wait list that leaves many out to dry. Last winter, a man by the name of Khaleel Seivwright tried taking this into his own hands by building small houses on public property for the homeless, the funds to do so he got from a 'gofundme' campaign. The clear goal of this project was to create affordable housing.
This was shut down by the city, after threats of fines and arrest. The message was clear: citizens
don't have power alone to make change.

2. The Social Contract

Here is a reoccurring topic throughout many of my writings, and I believe once again it is highly relevant. The social contract establishes rules between government and citizens that each cannot breach. The problem we are witnessing today is that many groups of people have differing ideas compared to government policy about what exactly the rules pertaining to citizens are. Why can’t I live in the forest (or park), and what authority do you have to stop me? The social contract, in theory, is not necessarily clear on these issues. If the government says it is illegal to live on public property, the question is inevitably asked of why it belongs to the public, or the government, in the first place, especially by indigenous people of Canada, who call to attention the history of land agreements and conflict in this country.

The authority of government, in a democracy, is supposed to come from the authority of the people.

This authority comes into question when it is perceived that the underlying social contract has been broken. No wonder, then, that so many came to the aid of those living in Trinity Bellwood park on Tuesday; there is a perceived injustice in our society pertaining to the homeless. The government, being the central authority that has the power to improve the situation, has clearly failed to prevent people from sleeping outside. With this being so, can not the homeless fail to live up to their side of the contract, for their own survival? Especially since, the contract itself, at least the one written by the Canadian government, lists the highly disagreeable policy of “you cannot live on any land in nature you don’t own” as a requirement. I believe the underlying tension created by this disagreement must be resolved.

Conclusion

What can be learned? On a day where hundreds of people gathered in one park during a pandemic
to protest a specific issue, it can be deduced that a large group of people really care about this. It is a
good thing to be passionate enough to stand up for what you believe in. What can also be learned is
the length the police are willing to go to carry out city policy. What happened at Trinity Bellwood
park could be described as ruthless, heartless, violent, or any other adjective or adverb meant to
describe immorality. The message is clear:
If living on public property, you will be removed. Remember, it is the “fundamentally correct”
position, according to John Tory. Mindsets must change, or unaffordable housing must change, if
Toronto is going to one day house the homeless.

On the credit I owe

My reporting on this story would not be possible without the on site journalism of many people that
day. Thank you to all of those who spent their time documenting the scene. I have provided sources
to their work in the article.

1. Forgive my use of hyperbole here

2. One of whom is “People’s defense Toronto”, whose twitter video of the scene is featured here

4. The mayor also said in the same interview that he and other city officials don’t dictate how the police act in situations like these; that is entirely under the jurisdiction of the police force. Hence, accountability for how the police acted, if it is believed it was unjust, should betaken up with the force itself. How exactly one does that, and how the police are ever held accountable, is a mystery to me.

3. I don’t want to cite twitter, it's just unfortunately where some of the best videos and inside information comes from these days

5. This implies that homeless shelters are more safe than the park, which to me is up for debate.

6. Regarding affordable housing projects, this solution is obvious since one of the main reasons for homelessness in Toronto is due to the insane prices of real estate in the area.

7. I think it depends on your preconceived world view. In other cultures, an authority telling others to leave a specific outdoor land that they are inhabiting may be viewed as dystopian

8. Which presumably some do, or else why is this the policy in the first place?

9. Two recent accounts from people living in encampments express this - 1 and 2

10. For everyone who didn't take statistics in high school, this means the middle of any set of numbers. For example, say I have a set of 1, 2, 4, 5, and 8. My median is 4.

11. I should remind readers who are either children or have been un or underemployed for awhile that this length of a work week, every week, is very strenuous, especially if hard labour is at hand.

12. Being a business that specializes in debt solutions, they know full well, mentioning it in the same study, that many Canadians, some living in Toronto, are drowning in debt.