TORONTO -- City crews have dismantled a homeless encampment in Toronto’s Rosedale Valley despite ongoing criticism from some anti-poverty advocates.
During the morning hours of Tuesday, workers with the City of Toronto were seen placing various items into garbage bags from underneath the Rosedale Bridge.
The city announced last month its plan to clear out the encampment, citing health and safety concerns. Those living there were given 15-days’ notice to relocate. Outreach workers were sent to the area during that time period to build relationships and provide information on what services are available to those being displaced.
Toronto Mayor John Tory stood behind the decision while speaking on Monday.
“It is not safe and it is not appropriate to have people living in encampments, so we go about dismantling those in a very orderly fashion,” he told reporters. “The decisions are made by professional public servants and there is a lot of notice given.”
Tory added that there is “space specifically set aside in shelters adequate to house all the people that will be dislocated by the dismantling of the encampment.”
Meanwhile, advocates for people experiencing homelessness continue to speak out against the decision, saying the city’s “false information” is “appalling.”
“Housing options are non-existent for people,” one advocate, Yogi Acharya, said on Tuesday. “Under these circumstances what are people supposed to do except for find places of relative safety and even those spaces the mayor and his administration are kicking them out.”
“The question is to what, to where are people being sent and frankly, the mayor’s office doesn’t know where a lot of people have gone because people left in anticipation.”
Those criticizing the city’s decision said the shelters across Toronto tend to be overcrowded.
Over the weekend, for example, 94 per cent of the 7,297 shelter beds were occupied, including 97 per cent of those set aside for women.
