The clearings of three large Toronto homeless encampments in the summer of 2021 prioritized speed over the well-being of homeless people, Toronto’s ombudsman has found.
In the report, which comes nearly two years after the city-led, police-and-security-enforced operations, ombudsman Kwame Addo found the process by which city hall displaced people from Trinity Bellwoods, Alexandra Park, and Lamport Stadium was “unacceptable” — pointing to “unclear, confusing” and insufficiently transparent communication, among issues. He noted the city’s operational plans made no mention of the mental health of displaced people.
“Encampments are a complex and intractable problem that is not going away. There are multi-faceted systemic hurdles and structural changes to address, but the process by which the City evicted people was unacceptable,” says the report, which will go before city council next week. Then-mayor John Tory supported the operations, citing health and safety risks to living outside. Critics of the decision meanwhile argued the city should work with people to find shelter or housing that met their needs.
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