The MSA Answers Gov’r Town Hall Questions — Shelter and Housing Crisis
The MSA received the following prompt to answer these questions as part of the Gov’r Town Hall.
The first week of Gov’r Town Hall has graciously been hosted by Spadina-Fort York Community Care & Seeds of Hope.
Spadina-Fort York Community Care’s mission is to bring hope, dignity, humanity and care, while providing individuals in need with meals, groceries, and hygiene and supply kits. It is the mission of Seeds of Hope to build self-sustaining communities that create the conditions to enable individuals at a crossroads in their lives develop their livelihood, learning and creative potential through engagement with each other in experiencing social enterprise and community endeavors.
Here are your questions for this week:
Question 1: With the shelter system at over 90% capacity, what is your plan to provide immediate housing for those who are unhoused and/or in crisis situations?
The shelter system crisis emerges from the neoliberal capitalist system that treats housing as an investment commodity rather than a human right. As rent explodes and the housing crisis continues to swell, oppressed, and working Torontonians are driven out of their homes and into the streets and parks. Any system based on profit accumulation cannot rationally respond to the shelter crisis. The Covid-19 pandemic led to even more people camping in parks, and the city responded with a two-pronged approach: the criminalization of houselessness and corporate handouts for developers. The MSA rejects both of these approaches.
The immediate impact of Covid-19 on rates of houselessness led to immediate community response. Working and oppressed people operated food banks, distributed clothing and sleeping bags, and advocated for permanent housing solutions. People like Khaleel Seivwright made tiny shelters so that houseless people would not literally freeze to death. In return, the City of Toronto sued him. Rather than provide access to stable housing to the scores of people falling behind in our exploitative, oppressive system, the city and police bullied encampment residents into overcrowded and dangerous shelters. Those that refused were brutalized by Toronto Police Services (TPS), had their possessions destroyed, and in some cases, arrested. The latter includes two MSA candidates, Corey David and Adam Golding, who were arrested for protecting their neighbours in tents and protesting police violence.
While simultaneously attacking vulnerable houseless individuals, the city of Toronto provided millions in bailouts to the hotel industry. When houselessness spiked during the pandemic, the city paid up to $220 a day (over $6000 a month) directly to hotel owners for each houseless person they sheltered. This financial exploitation by the capitalist class did not stop there. A fiscal audit found the city overpaid these hotels by $13.2 million in “hotel fees,” which were tacked onto invoices and paid by city staff. The tragic irony of this pro-corporate policy is that it costs the average Torontonian more money to shelter houseless people in hotels than it would to simply provide $2000 a month, the equivalent of CERB, for houseless people to rent an actual apartment and begin stabilizing their lives. This is no accident. The city of Toronto prioritized corporate subsidies for hotels that could not make a profit during pandemic lockdowns over the wellbeing of our houseless neighbours.
Encampment evictions also represented a corporate subsidy for private security firms. When the City of Toronto razed the encampments in Trinity Bellwoods, Alexandra Park and Lamport Stadium, it cost nearly $2 million dollars, which went to private security, Toronto police, and the fencing used to ‘kettle’ encampment supporters before mass arrests.
Again, the status quo response to the housing crisis costs the average working and oppressed Torontonian more money than if houseless people received actual support and permanent shelter.
Demands:
Give Khaleel Seivright a key to the city and compensate him for all legal costs incurred
Repeal Code 608 (the no camping bylaw).
Provide financial support directly to houseless people to secure long-term housing, indexed to median-market rent
Expropriate vacant units in large multi-unit buildings and assign them to people in dire need of housing
Our demands recognize that houseless people best know their circumstances. The City must respect their inherent agency while providing support that financially costs the working class and oppressed people less. The only people hurt by our demands are the capitalist class that exploits the human need for shelter.
(Drafted by the MSA Policy Working Group — Rosalyn, Wali, Daniel)
Question 2: What is your plan to provide an affordable and supportive long-term housing strategy for those who are unhoused or under-housed?
The housing crisis is severe. Skyrocketing rents are driving working-class families, low-income communities, seniors, and students out of the GTA, into debt, into unsafe or deplorable living situations, into the shelter system or onto the streets. Those who can’t pay inflated rent are exploited. The housing market is dominated by real estate and development speculators. The establishment is entirely unwilling to fight for the solutions we need. It’s time to build rent-geared-to-income, publicly-owned and cooperatively-run accessible housing. In the meantime, expropriate vacant units in large multi-unit buildings and assign them to people in dire need of housing. Landlord licensing is needed so landlords who fail to keep units in good repair and meet basic standards would have their rental properties turned into cooperatives. Orders and judgments against landlords must be enforced.
Demands:
Introduce rent control/freeze.
Vacancy tax to kick in after 3 months, at 30% of property value annually, with expropriation after two years of vacancy. Primary residences excluded.
30% tax annually on investment properties. This does not include individuals renting out portions of their primary/personal residence.
Introduce mechanisms to transfer property from landlord to city. a.) city has the right of first refusal if the landlord sells property b.) The City takes over for bad landlords (i.e. code red).
All housing units expropriated by the city will be rented to tenants as non-profit housing. Rent would cover only utilities and maintenance.
Index the shelter allowance to median-market rent.
(Policy adopted by the MSA at the May 28 MSA Convention)
Question 3: What is your plan to increase access to clean drinking water, bathrooms, and heating and cooling centres for those experiencing homelessness?
The intersection of neoliberal capitalism and the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in record deaths among houseless people in 2021. That year, 221 houseless people died in Toronto, an average of 4.3 people a week. Houseless individuals experience many intersecting vulnerabilities, including extreme heat and cold, addiction, and violence. The death of any person due to these preventable causes is unacceptable.
Increase the number of public washrooms, their accessibility, and their cleanliness (by hiring and retaining more public service workers).
Increase the number of public drinking fountains.
Increase funding for public libraries and community centers to be open 24/7; require that certain sheltered areas of civic buildings be open to the public 24/7 where feasible; work with large shopping centers (such as Eaton Centre) to be open to the public 24/7.
(Drafted by the MSA Policy Working Group — Rosalyn, Wali, Daniel)
Question 4: What is your strategy to immediately take action on food and water insecurity in Toronto?
Price control of essential foods to be achieved through the education and empowerment of communities to grow and prepare their own food via community gardens and kitchens, establish regulations governing food waste, including a spoiled food tax and the seizure and distribution of otherwise discarded and excess food building a pipeline from the private grocery store to the community kitchen. The possible expropriation of private corporate-owned grocery stores to be run in the public interest within a no-profit framework. Transition the city to a food system based primarily on local and sustainable agricultural practices.
(Policy adopted by the MSA at the May 28 MSA Convention)
