City workers face tough job clearing park encampments, Tory says

Torontosun.com
July 20, 2022
Antonella Artuso

City staff should ensure comprehensive social and health supports are in place when moving homeless individuals out of park encampments, Toronto Council says.

Council discussed an interim report by Ombudsman Kwame Addo that found the city did not have an up-to-date and transparent plan to humanely deal with people living in park encampments.

Mayor John Tory said the city can and will improve its approach but he defended staff who are tasked with the difficult task of dismantling encampments sometimes over the objections of aggressive, self-professed advocates for the homeless.

“(Staff) have been followed home, they have been sworn at, they have been spit on by the very same people who are supposedly doing Mother Teresa’s work,” Tory said Tuesday. “I can’t accept this notion that they’re pure, lily-white people who’ve done nothing but to help ... Everybody’s rights have to be respected in all this and that is why I believe so strongly public parks are no place for encampments -- they’re not safe, they’re not legal and they’re not healthy.”

Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong said city staff don’t deserve to be criticized for taking enforcement measures, whether clearing out a park encampment where there might be drugs or weapons, or trying to stop people boarding the TTC without paying a fare.

“I think it’s disappointing if our staff who are involved in this are villified and made out to be the bad guys,” Minnan-Wong said. “They’re not the bad guys in this.”

Deputy City Manager Tracey Cook, soon to be Interim City Manager, told council that staff have helped move over 2,500 people living in parks during the past two years through largely voluntary means, resorting to trespassing enforcement only as a last resort.

Staff has also found that some of the tents put up in parks are being used solely for storage and those are being removed, she said.

Councillor Gord Perks said the ombudsman’s report revealed that the city made mistakes, using force to clear people out of encampments in a way that ran counter to their human rights.

“We must make it clear that in no circumstance do we violate someone’s rights just became we have a bylaw on the books about parks or just because they use drugs or just because people in the neighbourhood feel unsafe or just because we’re concerned about whether those places are healthy or just because we don’t want to spend money,” Perks said.

Some of the homeless people who have occupied at tent encampment at Clarence Square Park -- a parkette at the east end of Spadina Ave. at Wellington St. W. -- mill about after residents there were evicted by city officials on Sunday, June 12, 2022.

Councillor Josh Matlow said the city needs a better process to guide its response to park encampments.

“Until that’s developed, we shouldn’t be doing something that we know is both ineffective, violent and inhumane and doesn’t actually solve the problems that we seek to resolve,” Matlow said. “With all due respect, we didn’t keep people safe, we supported an approach that was violent ... We should apologize to the people we hurt and therefore we can demonstrate that we intend to do better.”