Gentrification

The Mayor’s Office in Toronto is today occupied by a much slicker operation than it was during the years of dysfunctional, bigoted buffoonery that unfolded under Rob Ford. Mayor John Tory has resumed the drive toward a fully fledged neoliberal city but has the basic political skills to frame his twin agendas of austerity and upscale redevelopment in the language of inclusiveness. He has been sufficiently proficient at this to rapidly create what Michael Laxer has termed an “austerity consensus” supported by the overwhelming majority of the Council, including its left wing.

The agenda of the developers with regard to the central part of Toronto is to complete the creation of an interwoven hive of business, commerce, upscale recreation and high end housing. Standing in the way of this are enduring pockets of housed poverty and a considerable and growing homeless population. Those without housing, very understandably, have tended to gravitate toward the centre of the city and, over many years, shelters and other services have developed in this area. This situation is resented by those working for upscale redevelopment and not only because visible destitution impacts property values and ‘quality of life’ for those with the money to pay for it. It is also the case that the shelters, drop-ins and service agencies that homeless people turn to are located in areas that the forces of gentrification are laying claim to.

No Social Cleansing in Toronto! Save Downtown Homeless Shelters and Services!

Meal and Community Meeting

Wednesday, April 15
6.00 PM
St Luke’s Church (353 Sherbourne, at Carlton)

TORONTO CAN'T LOSE 124 SHELTER BEDS! DEFEND OUR EMERGENCY SHELTER BEDS!

DELEGATION TO CITY SHELTER ADMINISTRATION OFFICES
MONDAY, MARCH 30
1PM
METRO HALL (KING & JOHN)

Three upcoming walking tours in Downtown East Toronto with Gaetan Heroux - celebrate your May Day weekend with some radical poor people's history

August 23, 2012:
OCAP Takes Over Dundas/Jarvis With An Outdoor Drinking Zone:
Delivers Toast To the ‘End of Gentrification’

(See More pics hers, at journalist John Bonnar's page: http://johnb.smugmug.com/Journalism/Rally-to-Save-the-Schoolhouse/249627...)

As part of the fight to save a local shelter from closing down, OCAP has
today marched to the site of an upscale development - Great Gulf Homes’
Pace Condos - that is encroaching on the edge of the Downtown East. It is
here that those who wish to drink a beer are doing so in the open for all
to see. We are together making a toast to the fight to save the School
House shelter, and to the determination of this community to stand up with
pride and defend itself.

The decision to close the School House shelter means that homeless people
who drink will have no choice but to drink in public. The politicians who
made this decision know this, but they are counting on the cops to sweep
the problems they create from sight. Right now, OCAP is here at the Pace
Condos lot at Dundas and Jarvis to raise a glass and loudly proclaim that
we will not be pushed, priced or policed out of our neghbourhood.

Great Gulf Homes, with their 46 storey luxury condo tower at Dundas and
Jarvis, are establishing a beach head for a new level of upscale
redevelopment in the Downtown East. The whole area is now contested
territory and the contest will either end in the driving out of the poor
and homeless, or the defeat of gentrification by a community that
mobilizes to resist.

Drinking problems affect people at every level in this society, but those
with wealth and position can deal with their issues in discreet seclusion
and enjoy the best supports money can buy. The homeless, who have no
private space, have none of these benefits and must face public derision
and criminalization when they behave as any wealthy drinker would but for
a plush home and an ample bank account.

This fight is only beginning. OCAP has stated that we do not indeed to let
the building sit empty while homeless people die on the streets.

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SAVE the SCHOOL HOUSE SHELTER FAQ: