Moss Park TV: Moss Park Community Says “No” to Encampment Evictions

By Ana Higuera
(Ana is a volunteer journalist with the Focus Media Arts Centre)

The Moss Park community rallied together on April 3rd at an event organized by the Encampment Support Network (ESN) and Building Roots, to support encampment residents’ right to live in the park, pleading the City to “let them stay”. This action was taken following trespass notices served on March 19th and posted on tents, tiny shelters, trees and posts, expressing to enforce removal of encampments by April 6th.

The event hosted speakers, music and dance performances, as well as featured free food and arts and crafts activities. By engaging the community on the issue, organizers and encampment residents looked to show that the park can indeed be shared by all, opposing one of the claims expressed in the trespass notices, that encampments are prohibited because they may “create nuisance” or “interfere with the use and enjoyment of the Park by other persons”.

Since the pandemic began, encampments around the City of Toronto have grown as people experiencing homelessness look for safe and available spaces to weather this added crisis; due to COVID-19 restrictions, closures and dangers, many feel they have no other choice but to camp in the park. The city has worked to aid in the crisis by leasing hotels and converting them into shelter hotels, bringing the number of shelter spaces available to just under 6,000 while there are about 8,000 people experiencing homelessness in Toronto.

Pathways Inside Program (PIP), the latest shelter hotel program by the City was launched on March 16th, targeting the four largest encampments in downtown parks: Moss Park, Trinity Bellwoods, Alexandra Park and Lamport Stadium Park. PIP’s goal was to move the people living in these encampments to 45 Esplanade. Leased in February 2021 in downtown after taking into consideration feedback from encampment residents that they needed indoor spaces closer to their communities, jobs and supports. Accommodations, the city said on an April 1st media statement, include “private and secure room, bathroom, laundry and three meals a day. It is one of over 25 temporary sites that have opened since the start of the pandemic”.

The Encampment Support Network (ESN), claims on their #NoEncampmentEvictions Toolkit, linked to the Instagram account (@esn.to.4real), that the potentially criminalizing trespass notices served three days after the PIP was announced was no coincidence and part of a plan to displace residents from their chosen park homes. ESN is a volunteer run network supporting encampment residents in the city. At the April 3rd event in Moss Park, Jeff Bierk, a volunteer with ESN, told RPTV that going to a shelter, especially during COVID, is not a safe place for anybody due to numerous virus outbreaks and should not be expected as a reasonable option. While other advocates hold that shelters do not have the capacity to deal with substance-dependence and have inadequate harm reduction strategies while imposing harsh rules and regulations for people staying there like strict curfews and arbitrary wielding of power by staff.

Fareeda Adam, a lawyer with the Black Legal Action Centre (BLAC), told us in an interview that “we have to think about a sustainable, meaningful housing strategy and not these temporary movements that ultimately will leave vulnerable people even more vulnerable and more exposed to COVID-19 and displaced from their community, displaced from their supports”. Adam is part of a coalition of lawyers from across Toronto who took action following potential evictions, most of which service unhoused or precariously housed folks and deal with the impacts of the City’s housing crisis on a daily basis. This coalition includes the Community Justice Collective, the Black Legal Action Centre (BLAC), Neighbourhood Legal Services, The 519, Downtown Legal Services and Environmental Justice and Sustainability Clinic at Osgoode Hall Law School.

In a letter addressed to the mayor and city councillors of downtown wards, the coalition of lawyers advocated for encampments residents’ rights to live in the park. Stating their concern about the City’s approach to the PIP and what they saw as the invisibilizing of the housing crisis through potential criminalization of unhoused folks, rather than the offering of viable, in touch solutions to providing safe and permanent housing to vulnerable populations.

The letter also voiced concern over the disproportionate negative impact on black, indigenous and other racialized communities that criminalization and eviction could have if enforced while presenting the potential illegality of evicting encampment residents during a crisis like COVID-19. As it “violates the Charter of Rights and freedoms to evict encampment residents from public spaces without adequate and safe alternatives available”.

The City announced in a media statement on April 1st that “no enforcement action to vacate parks will occur on April 6” and that it will continue to support encampment residents through the PIP, facilitating voluntary referrals into indoor space as well as available permanent housing. The statement also added that 1,269 people in City shelters and 70 in unhoused settings have been vaccinated since March 1st. The statement also mentioned the COVID-19 recovery site, a first in Canada and a space for unhoused folks to recover from COVID-19 with medical supports.

The ESN expresses that they and supporters must remain vigilant as the PIP continues to be active. So long looming evictions persist, their demands will remain the same, those demands are:
1. 1.    Revoke the notices of trespass
2. 2.    Repeal the by-laws that criminalize encampments in public parks
3. 3.    Permanent Rent Geared to Income (RGI) housing in the downtown core