Sanctuary’s Public Statement Against Encampment Evictions

“For you have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat.”

Isaiah 25: 4

Sanctuary is a church and a community located near Yonge and Bloor that has been doing street outreach and offering support to people living in poverty in Toronto for nearly 30 years. We believe that every person should have access to safe, dignified housing, but that is not the reality in our city. Until it is, we believe that encampment evictions impose needless suffering on people who are already suffering. We are calling for the City of Toronto to impose a moratorium on evicting people from encampments.

The city has argued that people have alternatives to these encampments, but our staff members have been told by city workers many times that there are no beds available when they have tried to find shelter spaces for people. When shelter spaces are available, they are not necessarily safe.

At the start of the pandemic, many people left the shelter system for their own safety because shelters are, by definition, congregate settings.  Their fears were borne out, as there have now been more than 650 COVID cases and 5 COVID deaths linked to the shelter system.  Although we don’t have comparable data for folks living in encampments, based on our connections with outreach organizations throughout the city, we are aware of fewer than 5 COVID cases linked to encampments.  Furthermore, the Ontario Superior Court recently found that the City of Toronto has failed to implement adequate COVID-19 protections in shelters.

Shelters can also be unsafe in other ways.  Many people who end up without housing have had traumatic experiences in institutional settings like group homes, hospitals, or prisons.  For folks like this, staying in a shelter, in close quarters with strangers, with institutional rules like curfews and bag limits, can be traumatizing. 

Finally, many shelter spaces in the city are located far from the downtown core, taking people away from the communities and essential resources they rely on for survival. While many of us have had to rely on video-chatting and cellphones to stay connected to our friends and communities this year, that simply isn’t an option for people without regular access to internet, phones, or a computer.  Isolation can be damaging and deadly for people living in poverty.

And so, for all these reasons, many of our fellow Torontonians have chosen to stay in tents. We wish that there were better options, but in many cases, there aren’t. We call on all those in power to take action to ensure that all people have access to safe, dignified housing.  Until then, we will continue to support our friends and neighbours who are living in encampments, and we ask that the city not heap further injury and trauma on people by evicting them from the only place they have to call home.