This letter was sent to Mayor Chow on July 14, 2023. We encourage you to send your own letter to her at Mayor_Chow@Toronto.ca, cc to Councillor_Moise@Toronto.ca (Ward 13 councillor), Gordon.Tanner@Toronto.ca (SSHA GM), Paul.R.Johnson@Toronto.ca (City Manager). They need to hear your personal story how the encampment is affecting you and your family.
Dear Mayor Chow
Congratulations on your election win to become the first ethnic minority mayor of Toronto. However, you have inherited a slew of problems from the previous administration. Allan Gardens encampment being one of the most embarrassing ones for the city.
There are close to 90 tents in the park as of July 6. The overcrowding situation is a ticking time-bomb waiting for someone to lose control and he/she will hurt a lot of innocent people. The “Housing First” strategy employed by SSHA has not worked effectively. Many of the campers don’t want to go to shelter or permanent housing even when options are offered. Some of them have been there for over 2 years! There was a murder and multiple stabbings in the park, rat infestation, campers’ dogs running loose terrorizing other dogs, sexual abuse, fights, drug use and drug dealings are rampant and in the open. What was once a popular tourist attraction is now a place where locals and tourists are all afraid to venture there.
Some of the encampment residents need “Treatment First” instead of “Housing First”. Drug addicts want to stay in the park where there are no rules, no curfews, supplies are plentiful, and help is nearby when an overdose occurs. The municipality has allowed this situation to fester in Allan Gardens and the neighborhood residents are extremely frustrated. There are examples in other cities such as Vancouver’s East Hasting Street and San Francisco’s Tenderloin area where such encampments with open drug use are allowed to fester for years to a state where it is impossible to control. We DON’T want that to happen here.
Your election promise of building 3,000 homes and rent subsidies won’t be fast enough to help these folks. Your proposed solution could take 10 years to implement. Just look at the former Mayor Tory’s housing plan. After 4 years, not a single project has broken ground. The campers need immediate short-term solutions to house them with proper facilities like clean running water, washrooms, shower, electricity, a place to cook and feed themselves, job training, job placement, addiction treatment, and case management. And for security, a key to their own place. There is no dignity living in a tent or on the street.
Quick Short-term solutions that are working for other cities:
Waterloo – shipping container house
Kitchener, Waterloo – A better tent city
https://www.abettertentcity.org/
Resources on the inter relationships of encampments, addiction, and mental health issues:
1. Encampment and Addiction – full length Canadian documentary (1.5 hour)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RaWzJUeT0o
2. Alberta Model
https://www.alberta.ca/alberta-recovery-oriented-system-of-care.aspx
3. United States (24 mins)
https://ciceroinstitute.org/homelessness-the-reality-and-the-solution/
4. Portugal Model – Drug Addiction is a health issue
Continuing to allow encampments in our park is driving a wedge between the homeless and the housed residents around Allan Gardens. The crime rate is rising in the neighborhoods and the residents are getting very angry and frustrated at the City’s inability to restore Allan Gardens for everyone. A petition demanding the city to restore Allan Gardens now has over 2.500 signatures. www.change.org/AllanGardens Read the comments and you can feel the frustration and insecurity that the residents are experiencing. You are a mayor for all citizens and the residents have a right to live peacefully in our neighborhoods. We encourage you and the council to start by implementing some of the short-term solutions that have proven to work in other cities.
We understand that implementing the Alberta Model is in the provincial jurisdiction, as the mayor of the biggest city in Ontario, you can hopefully lead the conversation with Premier Ford to get this started.
A group of concerned residents would love to sit down with you, Councillor Moise, SSHA, and the police to discuss this encampment problem and report back to other residents on your plan of action. We look forward to hearing from you and meeting you.