City clearout of Toronto homeless encampments leads to standoff with residents

San Francisco is joining other U.S. cities in authorizing homeless-tent encampments in response to the coronavirus pandemic, a move officials have long resisted but are now reluctantly embracing to safeguard homeless people.

About 80 tents are now neatly spaced out on a wide street near San Francisco City Hall as part of a “safe-sleeping village” opened last week. The area between the city’s central library and its Asian Art Museum is fenced off to outsiders, monitored around the clock and provides meals, showers, clean water and trash pickup.

In announcing the encampment, and a second one to open in the famed Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, San Francisco’s mayor acknowledged that she didn’t want to approve tents, but having unregulated tents mushroom on sidewalks was neither safe nor fair.

“So while in normal times I would say that we should focus on bringing people inside and not sanctioning tent encampments, we frankly do not have many other options right now,” she said in a tweet last week.

basketcase said:

Sadly many of the people at these makeshift camps are there because they chose not to take part in the shelter system for a variety of reasons, whether for the sense of independence, a dislike of shelter rules, or because of drug use.. There are two of the pre-fab City of Toronto shelters within a ten minute walk of the Gardiner camp.

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My impression is that shelters are overcrowded, smelly, have addicts, unsafe etc

Permanent housing is available with private rooms but there is a long waiting list

The homeless issue is going to get worse for sure.

A tent/yurt encampment seems like a decent proposal. I would rather live in a tent with public fascilities available than a shelter. I am talking army tent not a pup tent. Yurts are more expensive but quite nice to live in, at 10K for the cheaper version they are still much cheaper than normal housing. Charge $200 per month for rent and they pay for themselves as they last forever.

Tent city seems like a temporary solution that has long term possibilities if you can find locations and think outside the box.The public will scream if parks are taken over by encampments

Big Rig said:

My impression is that shelters are overcrowded, smelly, have addicts, unsafe etc

Permanent housing is available with private rooms but there is a long waiting list

The homeless issue is going to get worse for sure.

A tent/yurt encampment seems like a decent proposal. I would rather live in a tent with public fascilities available than a shelter. I am talking army tent not a pup tent. Yurts are more expensive but quite nice to live in, at 10K for the cheaper version they are still much cheaper than normal housing. Charge $200 per month for rent and they pay for themselves as they last forever.

Tent city seems like a temporary solution that has long term possibilities if you can find locations and think outside the box.The public will scream if parks are taken over by encampments

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Shelters are doing what they can to manage their population amidst all of this. They’ve had to decrease their capacity in shelters across toronto and are working on opening more sites to deal with the overflow. A reality from those experiencing marginalized housing and more specifically homelessness is that they feel safer on the streets than in an overcrowded shelter, potentially with individuals who don’t have the same consideration for public/their own health ... lower barrier shelters to make resources accessible and blah blah blah = Higher risk clientele. A lot of those who’ve set up camp under the highways might not necessarily even qualify for the permanent housing or hotel/motel placement the city has been doing (as mentioned drug abuse and mental health is pervasive in the homeless community and my understanding is those qualifying for private accommodations don’t have the same barriers to accessing care.)

It’s easy to say ““It’s better than being on the street”. “They’re safer in a shelter”. “That’s where they belong”. But from a lot of their perspectives they’re terrified for their lives entering the shelter system at this time.

I’m not justifying setting encampments on fire or any of the physical confrontations that have come out of this and will continue. But speaking from someone that’s heavily involved in shelter system since the onset of covid, Toronto could do better. Everyone could do better.

It’s a lot easier to demolish and disperse “ugly” in the city than it is to advocate for the people who put it there.

This isn't a societal issue, have you ever met a vagrant with an accent, or an Indian, chinese or any vagrant who isn't Canadian born. I bet all these vagrants are Canadian born white people. Used to collecting welly and free health care if they overdose. I bet maybe 30% have actual mental health issues, the rest say they do.

wazup said:

This isn't a societal issue, have you ever met a vagrant with an accent.

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Plenty.

DaleyDDD said:

Shelters are doing what they can to manage their population amidst all of this. They’ve had to decrease their capacity in shelters across toronto and are working on opening more sites to deal with the overflow. A reality from those experiencing marginalized housing and more specifically homelessness is that they feel safer on the streets than in an overcrowded shelter, potentially with individuals who don’t have the same consideration for public/their own health ... lower barrier shelters to make resources accessible and blah blah blah = Higher risk clientele. A lot of those who’ve set up camp under the highways might not necessarily even qualify for the permanent housing or hotel/motel placement the city has been doing (as mentioned drug abuse and mental health is pervasive in the homeless community and my understanding is those qualifying for private accommodations don’t have the same barriers to accessing care.)

It’s easy to say ““It’s better than being on the street”. “They’re safer in a shelter”. “That’s where they belong”. But from a lot of their perspectives they’re terrified for their lives entering the shelter system at this time.

I’m not justifying setting encampments on fire or any of the physical confrontations that have come out of this and will continue. But speaking from someone that’s heavily involved in shelter system since the onset of covid, Toronto could do better. Everyone could do better.

It’s a lot easier to demolish and disperse “ugly” in the city than it is to advocate for the people who put it there.

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Comes a point where hand wringing doesn't really do shit. There are more and more of them. Something went wrong. Nobody is doing anything. The starving masses of any third world country would like to come here en masse. Way nicer than to quote trump than "the "shit hole countries" they are in. Trouble is we don't have room or resources to take them all in . Neither do we have the resources to straighten out the mess the homeless have made to Vancouver or Toronto. Time for some tough love.
Some kind of time limit should be put on solving a problem with kid gloves. After 30 years or more,some motivation might be needed .

Robert Mugabe said:

Comes a point where hand wringing doesn't really do shit. There are more and more of them. Something went wrong. Nobody is doing anything. The starving masses of any third world country would like to come here en masse. Way nicer than to quote trump than "the "shit hole countries" they are in. Trouble is we don't have room or resources to take them all in . Neither do we have the resources to straighten out the mess the homeless have made to Vancouver or Toronto. Time for some tough love.
Some kind of time limit should be put on solving a problem with kid gloves. After 30 years or more,some motivation might be needed .

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We are going meet a lot of quality people homeless thru no fault of their won. They deserve our respect

Big Rig said:

We are going meet a lot of quality people homeless thru no fault of their won. They deserve our respect

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I am not going to dispute hard knocks and hard life. However.The ones I see are basically so far gone they are rabble that need to be managed. Maybe a little harsh but I make the analogy from experience living in a place that got taken over. Tenant moves into a rooming house. Landlord not on site. As days go by friends move in.Squatting in the hallways. Making disturbances 24/7.Turning the place very quickly into a squatters camp. Trashing it and turning it into a filthy slum. Uninvited by the landlord and not paying rent,with absolutely no right to be there but taking over anyway, becoming an eviction problem.
In my idealized semi hypothetical scenario, the appropriate response is clean your shit up and go away or face the business end of a baseball bat. Against the law, as with the situation with the homeless. Apparently nothing can be done. I know there are a lot of US veterans who are homeless. There are lots of people who deserve better, but there is a majority of people who are turning out cities into slums who need to be managed. As somebody else surmised,probably only 30% are actually non compos mentis. A lot of them are swinging the lead.
Must have something going for it. Freedom from being managed. Day's all your own. Nobody to take orders from. do what the fuck you want with no consequences. As pointed out. Some people are terrified of being housed inside. Any brush with organization or structure means some semblance of responsibility.

These people are mentally ill or lacking in some cognitive functions or drug addicts. Normal people don't choose to live in squalor when better hygienic options are available. Normal people don't care for doing whatever they want all day if that means scavenging trash bins for food and living under bridges in the freezing cold and the heat of summer, with no shower.

They need help and they need to be managed.

Supertramp The Logical Song

When you don't stay on top of it you get homeless camps and when you lose control you get LA (just google Los Angeles Skid Row). If you don't think that could/does happen here you're nuts.

Move 'em out, clean it up. Offer them inside places to stay and if that means building more capacity then do it. But establishing hobo camps in downtown Toronto should NOT be an option.

Keebler Elf said:

When you don't stay on top of it you get homeless camps and when you lose control you get LA (just google Los Angeles Skid Row). If you don't think that could/does happen here you're nuts.

Move 'em out, clean it up. Offer them inside places to stay and if that means building more capacity then do it. But establishing hobo camps in downtown Toronto should NOT be an option.

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Exactly... do something now or end up like L.A. What a disaster it is there.