The tensions between the city of Toronto and residents of homeless encampments that have increasingly sprung up during COVID-19 were laid bare in a virtual courtroom on Thursday.
The hearing was for an injunction, which — if granted by Judge Paul Schabas — would stop the city from dismantling encampments in public parks during the COVID-19 pandemic.
An injunction would override the city’s ability to issue trespass notices under its parks bylaw to encampment residents. As it stands, the bylaw prohibits camping in municipal parks.
The city is asking for the injunction request to be dismissed, claiming that granting it could lead to a drastic increase in the number of encampments across city parks.
No decision was delivered Thursday, with Schabas noting his decision may take a few weeks.
The applicants in the case — former and current encampment residents, the Toronto Overdose Prevention Society and the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty — argue that involuntarily displacing encampment residents puts them at risk of psychological and physical harm, as well as increased risk of COVID-19.
“The city’s shelter system has not proven to be a safe alternative in terms of risk of exposure,” the applicants said in court documents.
As of Thursday afternoon, five cases of COVID-19 were reported in shelters across Toronto.
The city pushed back against the idea that its shelters are unsafe, arguing that more than 80 per cent of confirmed COVID-19 cases among shelter residents were in April and May. In its view, it took “extraordinary measures” to reduce the risk of COVID-19 in the shelter system.
While lawyers for the applicants acknowledged the city’s efforts in recent months, they also presented other arguments for allowing encampments to stay during the pandemic.
Encampment setups alleviate stress and uncertainty for homeless individuals, they argued in court materials and during Thursday’s hearing, by providing consistency in where they can get their meals, relieve themselves, charge cellphones and sleep each night.
They applicants’ lawyers also presented encampments as a place for more consistent access to pharmacies, safe consumption sites and medical care. The loss of those routines, they said, would be “profoundly destabilizing.”
“For some homeless people, the city’s shelters and specially acquired hotel spaces and temporary apartment units may be an acceptable alternative to congregate shelter spaces,” they said. “For others, however, these spaces have not met their needs. They may be far from people’s communities, the services they rely on, and the routines that they have established.”
The city said it believes indoor spaces are safer. In written materials, it argued that encampments pose “serious dangers” to residents, city staff and the public.
“The city has made a policy decision to invest its scarce resources in making safer indoor spaces available to as many people as possible, rather than building infrastructure to support living within parks.”
The city cited complaints to staff from members of the public, reporting fear walking near certain parks with encampments.
The city also raised the matter of fire hazards from generators or fuel tanks near tents, noting that one person died in an encampment fire this spring. The applicants countered that the death wasn’t in a city park, but under Mount Pleasant Road. It was easier for fire services to monitor encampments in city parks as they were in plain view, they argued, making the case that encamped people were generally cooperative in cases of concern.
Another point of tension is whether encampments have led to increased violence. In its submitted materials, the city pointed to incidents of guns being seized, alleged assaults by and on encampment residents, and an alleged sexual assault at George Hislop Park.
The applicants say the city only identified three instances in city parks where charges were laid for items found in tents — and that at George Hislop Park the encampment resident was a victim, not a perpetrator.
An injunction wouldn’t prevent the city from working with encampment residents in order to find indoor alternatives, the applicants said. The injunction sought only to “ensure that these efforts are not backed by the threat or use of coercive force.”
They acknowledged the city had been able to “drastically” reduce the size and scale of encampments through outreach, communication and negotiation — but claimed that for some of the encampment residents, a central factor in them refusing indoor alternatives was a “lack of communication and loss of trust” with the city.
Victoria Gibson is a Toronto-based reporter for the Star covering affordable housing. Her reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. Reach her via email:
