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﻿<title﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, Homelessness: A Preventable Disaster - Article﻿</title>﻿

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﻿<b﻿>﻿Homelessness

﻿<br﻿>﻿A Preventable Disaster 

﻿<br﻿>﻿</b>﻿</font>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿


﻿<font﻿ ﻿face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"﻿ ﻿size="2"﻿ ﻿color="#000000"﻿>﻿

﻿<i﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, April - May 1999﻿</i>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿</center>﻿


﻿<font﻿ ﻿size="1"﻿>﻿On March 16, the Toronto New Socialists convened a public forum on housing and homelessness. Guest speakers were CATHY CROWE, a street nurse and founding member of the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee and SUE COLLIS, provincial organizer for the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP). Excerpts from their talks are printed below.﻿</font>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

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﻿<b﻿>﻿The Toronto Disaster Relief Committee 

﻿<br﻿>﻿</b>﻿</font>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

by Cathy Crowe﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿</center>﻿

I'm going to talk a bit about the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee campaign. But I have to preface this by saying that for years in our city and across the country we've had lots of coalitions and groups fighting on different issues relating to homelessness and poverty. So, for example, we've had a group fighting tuberculosis among the homeless (that was called the TB Action Group) and groups fighting around the fact that 50% of homeless people traditionally haven't had a health card (so we had the Health Card Advocacy Group) and you know OCAP has been doing important work. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

And then a couple years ago (after the Harris government's 21.6 per cent welfare cuts) everybody working in the area of homelessness saw numbers just double. Drop-in centres saw the numbers double, shelters saw the same thing. We began to see more people out on the street. And then with the provincial housing cuts and other federal cuts, we were seeing lots of new homeless people, especially women, young people, people coming from every region across the country - coming to Toronto; so the face of homelessness was changing. We also saw people we'd known for years were in lots worse shape. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

There were a couple of triggers that led us to actually begin using the word disaster. One of the ones that many people remember were the three freezing deaths of three homeless men in '96. That cluster of freezing deaths on the streets of the city made it very visible to most people in the city that there was a problem. We were also beginning to track way more homeless deaths. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

As a nurse, I began to see TB for the first time in my career. And not just tuberculosis, but pockets and clusters of TB. We began to see way more mental health problems: more people who were depressed, isolated, feeling quite down (in every way you could possibly imagine). We began to see more people contracting HIV and Hepatitis C, more people relying on street drugs. We began seeing malnutrition, vitamin deficiencies. And in November, I saw a patient, again for the first time in my career, whose diagnosis was starvation. So that's just kind of a picture of what some of us are seeing at the street level in our work. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

More and more, it was really clear that the City (where we were always going to the Board of Health and to different city committees) was blocking us and stonewalling us, and meanwhile funding was being cut and we were really stuck. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

At a committee called the Homeless Advisory Committee at City Hall we asked for a staff report on what goes in place to have homelessness declared a state of emergency or disaster in a city. Because there is a mechanism that goes into place when there's a train derailment, or a huge fire in a nursing home or something like that. So they came back with a report which was really just photocopies of the local emergency act and the provincial act. And it uses words like 'emergencies of a social welfare nature.¯ So we put a motion forward asking for the mayor to consider this an emergency for the purpose of calling it a disaster ± again, to get emergency relief dollars zoomed in to the inner city of Toronto. And that motion passed. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

And then it went to the next level of city government - Metro at the time - and that was a committee called the Council Strategy Committee on People Without Homes and that's when we knew we were really in trouble trying to go through the normal political channels. We did a presentation at that committee, and then it just died. And that's when we decided to move outside of that political structure and form what we called the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee. And we did that last May. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

What we wanted to do was to actually write a simple state of emergency declaration - about four or five sentences - that people could sign on to from across the country, stating that homelessness is a national disaster. It's a very motherhood kind of statement - it's really clear. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

So we contacted organizations across the country to endorse the state of emergency declaration. And right now we have about 1250 organizations from across the country: anti-poverty groups, the Children's Aid Society, St. Michael's Hospital, Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, student union groups across the country, just about every AIDS service organization in the province, just about every homeless-based agency in the city. So then we took this to Church of the Holy Trinity and had a big press event where we and invited people to come forward to actually sign the declaration, and then we took it down to City Hall (Metro Hall at the time). 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

That morning the Toronto Star had made it their top headline story? so every politician woke up that morning, pretty much in the country, seeing "Homelessness a National Disaster" as the top story. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

What we've done since October-November has been to try (without really much money) to connect with anti-poverty groups across the country, to encourage them to take this document to their own city councils and to try to see if they would be willing to pull together their own disaster relief committee or something like that. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Overall if you look at federal and provincial housing budgets for the last ten years, on average they've spent one-percent of their budget on housing. So we're calling for an additional one-percent. This being one of the prime ways that we can end homelessness. The other thing we're doing is literally calling it a disaster and not ever apologizing for using that word. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿<font﻿ ﻿size="1"﻿>﻿The Toronto Disaster Relief Committee can be contacted care of 168 Bathurst St., Toronto, ON, M5V 2R4. Phone: 416-703-6190. Email: tdrc@hotbot.com﻿</font>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿<font﻿ ﻿face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"﻿ ﻿size="4"﻿ ﻿color="#000000"﻿>﻿

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿<center﻿>﻿

﻿<b﻿>﻿Confronting Those in Power 

﻿<br﻿>﻿</b>﻿</font>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

by Sue Collis﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿</center>﻿

The conditions that Cathy talks about are true, and no human being was ever meant to live like that and yet there are thousands living like that every night in this city alone. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

So we make very basic demands but I think the important thing is that we call for them in such a way that exposes the hate and the intolerance that is driving the shutting down of these shelters, that is driving the fact that people are living like that, and that we inspire people to take a stand and fight back. 'Cause that's where it's at and that's the only thing that we've got. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

There is no room for compromise anymore. When you have a list of 12 people who died in the city, there is no more ro﻿om for compromise. That's why it's okay to point a finger of blame, because those who hold positions of power can literally determine who does and doesn't get access to shelter, or how many people do or don't get access to shelter, and what the conditions of those shelters are, and all those things that go along with it: to make a determination that will put people on the street. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Last summer we started hearing reports of families in the parks, and parents hiding their kids under bridges and taking turns leaving them. No-one can say that a kid chooses to be there; no-one can say that a kid just really has to apply himself or herself and things will be okay. It's a lie. It's all a lie. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

So these people in power have to be confronted; they have to be challenged. And we have to do it in a way that brings us together, that makes us stronger, and that supports one another. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿


﻿<font﻿ ﻿size="1"﻿>﻿The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty can be contacted at 249 Sherbourne St., Toronto, ON, M5A 2R9. Phone: 416-925-6939﻿</font>﻿</font>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿


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