Good afternoon,

Thank you for including the Office of the Mayor in your email to City staff and Councillors, and for alerting us to the change.org petition.

We are aware that Councillor Chris Moise and his office are diligently working on concerns regarding encampments in Allan Gardens and Deputy Mayor McKelvie supports the councillor's efforts.

The City's Shelter, Support & Housing teams (SSHA) are actively on-site offering resident's access to safe indoor shelter. From January 30 to May 14, SSHA made 52 referrals to safe shelter from Allan Gardens, and 94 outreach visits to the park. We recognize that encampments are unsafe, unhealthy and illegal and support the work City staff and community partners do 24/7 to help people experiencing homelessness. We also support this ongoing work because we firmly believe that parks should be safe and accessible for all residents to enjoy as parks, including Allan Gardens.

The Deputy Mayor believes the solution to homelessness is to get more supportive housing built to help ensure people have a pathway out of homelessness. She also continues to support all the city's overall housing efforts to help everyone have access to safe, stable and affordable housing.

To address this issue, earlier this year City Council approved the 2023 Budget which saw robust investments for housing, community safety, transit, parks and emergency services. The 2023 budget invested more than $2 billion to build and protect vital housing.

Thank you again for reaching out to us, we appreciate it very much.

Sincerely,

Rebecca