People making minimum wage or doing casual labour can't afford most apartments, and the city refuses to regularize cheaper options like rooming houses, so what are people supposed to do?
There were few encampments before Covid reduced shelter capacity. Now that Covid has abated and shelter capacity has returned, the encampments remain. But I'm not asking what the people are supposed to do, but what is our city and mayor's policy and plan for encampments? It would appear by
this article in May 2022 (click to bypass paywall) that the City considered evicting the campers, but as of today there are at least two dozen tents in Allan Gardens.
After living in the park for nearly nine months, Lynn received a notice last Friday from the city telling her she had 72 hours to vacate.
www.thestar.com
We don't want to end up like Seattle, Portland or LA where encampments take over, and where the public become apathetic about it all. Even myself, I've started letting my little dog run off leash in the park, I know it's against the by-laws (
349-12), but so is camping in parks (
608-13), public defecations and obstructing sidewalks (
743-9) and littering (
548-2), and I have never seen a Toronto by-law officer enforce any of these in Allan Gardens or other parks near me. So I've just not going to GAF anymore - provided we don't encroach on anyone else's enjoyment of the space, I draw a firm line there.
This is an interesting angle....
The federal class-action lawsuit filed on Tuesday says that Portland has failed to keep the sidewalks accessible to people with mobility issues by allowing encampments to proliferate unchecked.
www.dailymail.co.uk
Not an encampments issue, but concerning shabbiness, has the City ever enforced the bylaws requiring property owners to remove graffiti (
485-7) outside of a complaint from the public?