The City of Toronto must treat people living in homeless encampments with dignity and respect as it clears temporary dwellings from local parks, the city’s ombudsman said Thursday.
Ombudsman Kwame Addo is conducting an investigation into the clearing of encampments last year and released an interim report with recommendations he said the city should implement immediately.
The city should develop a detailed plan outlining how and when it will update its encampment response protocol, hold consultations with the public to inform that update and clearly outline the role and mandate of its encampment office, he said.
“We heard from individuals who lived in encampments that they didn’t believe the city treated them with respect and dignity,” he said in an interview. “These encampments were their homes and they didn’t feel the city respected that.”
Toronto police and city staff cleared four homeless encampments in three parks last summer, but clashed with residents and their supporters while doing so.
Addo said the city has an outdated encampment response protocol — it hasn’t been updated since 2005 — and noted its encampment office, which co-ordinates the city’s response to encampments, is under-resourced.
Putting his recommendations into practice will improve how the city responds to homeless encampments, he said, noting that dealing with encampments is difficult as it relates to affordable housing, poverty and human rights.
“Clearing encampments is extremely disruptive and in some cases traumatizing to the people living in them,” said Addo. “The ball now is in the city’s court.”
Toronto Mayor John Tory said he and city staff accept all of the ombudsman’s recommendations, including strengthening the encampment office to apply a more fair, consistent protocol to clear the homeless encampments.
The city will work to clear encampments in a less disruptive and more compassionate way, Tory said, but it will continue to ensure parks are available for everyone to use.
“Public parks are not a place where we can have encampments. They’re not safe, they’re legal and they’re not healthy,” Tory said Thursday during a news conference after opening 22 newly renovated affordable homes in Toronto.
“There have been people who have pushed back on that and said that (parks) are entirely proper places for people to live and set up an even bigger encampments. I don’t accept that as a mayor.”
The city said the ombudsman’s report will be presented at a meeting of city council this month.
“City staff will implement the recommendations and provide the ombudsman with an update in the fourth quarter of 2022, and quarterly thereafter,” the city said in a statement.
According to the city’s data, the number of homeless encampments in Toronto went down from about 418 encampments in June 2021, to about 121 encampments as of July 13, 2022.
The ombudsman’s team reviewed about 11,000 documents from the city and spoke with 43 homeless people before issuing the recommendations.
Addo said his team will monitor the city’s implementation of his recommendations and will release a full report later this year.
“In that report, we will focus on the city’s planning of encampments clearings, how engaged with stakeholders and how it communicated with members of the public about the clearings,” he said.
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