November 8, 2007
Feed Me / See More
Poor OCAP. They can't even complain about the police watching them without the police watching them. At noon on Wednesday, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty held a press conference (not a rally or an action or a march but a press conference) at the northeast corner of Dundas and Sherbourne, and there was about one police officer for each person in attendance (around twenty). As eight or so cops casually observed the conference from across the street, Beric German of the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee speculated on how much each one was being paid: "About fifty dollars an hour?"
Such was the theme of the conference: couldn't the $2 million being spent on CCTV cameras be put to better use, you know, feeding and housing people, rather than simply surveilling their hunger and homelessness? OCAP spokesperson Gaetan Heroux observed that two of the six cameras installed in the area in the past week have been strategically placed in front of Canada's first- and second-largest men's hostels, and that all of them are within a neighbourhood that has "one of the largest concentrations of homeless people in Canada." In the past year, five major hostels have been shut down by the City (partially due to a supposed lack of funds), meaning 300 fewer shelter beds, and "service reductions" have resulted in 341,000 lost meals. And yet "we're told somehow that these cameras are going to keep us safe."
Zoe Dod from Street Health spent three months interviewing homeless men and women. "Cameras and police surveillance are not among the solutions to homelessness....Cameras displace people into alleyways and streets that are less well-lit." And without even any public consultation, "the police can [now] collect whatever information they want without a watchdog" overseeing them.
Mark Bill lives down the road from the intersection and stated perhaps the most important point: "On top of everything else, they don't work. A study by the British Home Office [PDF] showed them to be a near-complete failure in Britain."
German held up the TDRC's Street Health Report 2007 [PDF], stating that 69% of homeless people in their survey had experienced hunger at least one day per week in the previous three months, exclaiming, "This camera doesn't provide food! $2 million could provide a lot of food and keep two shelters open for the winter!" As the first snow of the year fluttered down around us, this last point took on extra gravity.
The city shut down the 300 beds, the province's welfare rates haven't kept pace with twenty years of increases in the cost of living, and the federal government has no housing strategy. "After you've given us these things," said German, "and you want cameras, we'll talk."
A reporter observed that, given the number of people living on the street, having the cameras in the area is "similar to having cameras in people's living rooms." Unlike people visiting the Entertainment District to club or the Yonge and Dundas area to shop (but very much like the people living in Malvern and Jane-Finch), "people here don't have a choice," said Heroux.
Not that anyone really had the option to decline cameras in the first place. The supposed "consultations" that were held essentially consisted of the police stating, "Here's what we're going to do. Any questions?" Indeed, one of the police's own reports on the outcome of the "consultations" referred to the members of the public who came out not as "participants" or even "attendees," but as "the audience." And because it's all a "pilot," the police take this to mean that most of the Privacy Commissioner's guidelines [PDF] don't apply. At this point, there's no accountability mechanism. They haven't demonstrated that every other method for reducing crime has been tried or that the loss of privacy is minimal and proportionate. Hell, they haven't even said how many cameras there are. They just keep putting them up. The original deal, and the premise of the first round of "consultations," was that the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services had granted the Toronto Police Service $2 million for fifteen cameras to be spread across the Entertainment District, the Jane-Finch area, Malvern, and one other section of Scarborough. But since the cameras put up along Yonge Street to watch Caribana still haven't come down and the six new ones have gone up in the east side of the core, doesn't that take the count to at least twenty-five? Or have some come down?
Many governments ignore social problems in the hope that they'll magically go away; passively observing them instead isn't much of a step up.
Photos of the press conference and the cameras on the northeast and northwest corners of Dundas and Sherbourne by Jonathan Goldsbie. Press conference poster from OCAP's email press release (but also available on their site as a PDF).
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ocap has it all wrong again...cameras are not about homelessness and afordable housing....they have to do with high crime in that particular intersection...drug dealers, muggings, aggressive panhandling and so on....
um. yeah.
"Hey, why did you give up crime and drugs? Was it the police, the possibility of incarceration ,being shot at, gangs, mugged, raped, kidnapped, beaten, stabbed or an overdose?"
"Naw man, it was those mother-f**king cameras, man, the cameras."
"After you've given us these things," said German, "and you want cameras, we'll talk."
I love the out-and-out sense of entitlement encapsulated in that statement.
I dont know why everyone is so hard on OCAP. I mean at least they are doing something, or trying to do something. How far has complaining got you rapi?
tdotg:
Don't you think that Canadians are entitled to a federal housing strategy? Or welfare rates that actually reflect the cost of living?
tdotg, In the context of the whole article, it seems more that they are upset with budgetary priorities. I think that they are trying to say that spending money on social programs does a lot more good than installing CCTV cameras on street corners.
I find that the use of the word 'entitlement' is generally an attempt to elicit an emotional response and divert attention from the validity of an argument.
Are you saying people aren't entitled to food and shelter? Because I'm pretty sure you're an ass if you think that.
"sense of entitlement"
I love that phrase. Spoken by someone who should choose their words more carefully because someday, they just might need some kind of assistance (and it could be no fault of their own)...then we will see their "sense of entitlement". See, when it's other people, then they're just lazy and they're looking for a hand-out because they feel they're "entitled'.
But when it finally does happen to people like tdotg, then it's, "Hey, I have rights".
Is a "sense of entitlement" now just wanting to get some people food or decent housing (and there is a related article that food bank demands are up) INSTEAD of stupid surveilance cameras? Is the alternative to now videotape people but not feed or help them?
Not sure how OCAPI has it "wrong". They are in the trenches on the frontline of this, I'd say they have a clue what they are talking about.
mark0:
I also think that you need to be careful with using the word "Canadians" in general as relates to a "federal housing strategy." I think that the development of a "housing strategy" as you use the term applies to a particular subset of Canadians; I would be interested to see what the population at large (including all parts of Canada, not just urban Canada) has to say about putting together some sort of large-scale afforable housing project. Do a survey of 1,000 Canadians across the country and ask the question: "Do you support putting $10B towards affordable housing in Canada?" - it'd be interesting to see what the answer would be.
Welfare rates should be enough to provide adequate food and housing to individuals on welfare. Gainful work is key to happiness, think anything we can do to get welfare recipients working (whether "workfare" or otherwise) is helpful for their physical and mental health. We have to be careful that the welfare rate that is not so high that it discourages people from finding real work.
Ben:
As for the "entitlement" comment, it may well be designed to elicit an emotional response, but if you look at the comments of the OCAP representative, I believe it is valid.
WannaBin:
I didn't say that OCAP has it "wrong." They have their viewpoints - but so do a lot of others. Would you say that the advocates of lower crime, or the police (who are also in the trenches) have it "wrong"? That it was "wrong" to spend money on cameras over OCAP's priorities?
Because that sounds a lot more like a values decision - the kind that were clearly made in this situation by our elected representatives.
As someone whose parents have worked with homeless people for pretty much as long as I can remember, I gotta say that this worries me.
I am not necessarily against video cameras in every situation, but I disagree with them here.
I was actually pretty o.k. with cameras in the entertainment distract (very happy, even).
It just makes a whole lotta sense with the volume of altercations that have been occurring there recently.
However, the fact that the police have installed these cameras outside of shelters is both not surprising, and disappointing to me.
I myself have noticed that there are some cameras up in places that seem quite odd (like the Dunn Street entry to the Gardiner) until you recall that there are occasionally people pan-handling there.
While it may be true that homeless people are more likely to be drawn into crime (just due to the fact that their hard lives make them more susceptible to things like drugs and theft) the Toronto Police has had an unfair bias towards over-policing them for a very long time now (at very least since Mayor Mel's enforced crackdown).
The police are inclined to simply make them disappear, rather than actually help them. Pushing them away from areas where affluent people are forced to look at them (the downtown core) and out towards who knows where?
The problem being of course that a whole (rather large) group of people can't just disappear.
They have to go somewhere.
How about your backyard?
Or my backyard?
Is that better?
If only they could spin in so food and shelter were seen as crime prevention...
OCAP's priorities seem to be helping the poor...so do I think it was wrong to put up cameras instead of funding more beds and food?
No, I think it was wrong and stupid.
I'd rather see cameras and microphones in corporate boardrooms and politicians' offices.
Maybe if THEY were being monitored, THEY would behave better and be less susceptible to crime...you know, then we'd have that whole trickle down thingy they love to throw at us. But, do I blame someone who has nothing for stealing food or looking for a cheap high, when some piece of shit in a 3 pc. suit who makes six-figures is out there ripping off people of their life savings so he can snort blow off of some model's ass?
The cops are after the wrong people.
Social programs are a provincial responsibility (like welfare, health care, social housing). Why should the City be using its funds in an area that the province should be rather than on purely municipal matters (this is the downloading issue)? OCAP should complain about provincial priorities, not those of the City.
yo tdotg2,
the answerm in probably most parts of the countrym to the question:
"Do you support putting $10B towards affordable housing in Canada?"
would be YES. i come from small-town Canada and also from the Maritimes. affordable housing in an issue everywhere. i've seen it.
yo tdotg2,
the answerm in probably most parts of the countrym to the question:
"Do you support putting $10B towards affordable housing in Canada?"
would be YES. i come from small-town Canada and also from the Maritimes. affordable housing in an issue everywhere. i've seen it.
AnarchX, obviously we'd have to do the survey to find out the answer to that. The fact that neither of the major parties over the last 15 years have dumped billions of dollars into social housing has to represent at least some proxy of popular opinion.
WannaBinToranna,
I don't really know what to say about your posts. It's surprising to me that in this day and age, there are those who carry such outdated, and frankly stereotypical views ("some piece of shit in a 3 pc. suit who makes six-figures is out there ripping off people of their life savings so he can snort blow off of some model's ass"). If you made similar generalized statements about any ethnic group for example, you would be pilloried. You deserve nothing less for stereotyping hard working Canadians.
The reason that there aren't "cameras in boardrooms" are that boardrooms are not statistically high generators of crime. The reason cameras were put at this intersection is that is is a high crime area. Boardrooms are not - unless you consider capitalist behaviour to be a crime, which, if you believe that, is something you should make clear to everyone.
The good news is that your views are well outside of the mainstream. The reason the Conservatives and Liberals get elected is that real, everyday Canadians go to work every day, work hard for their families and kids, and pay their taxes. We should be thankful for these everyday Canadians and the contribution they make to society.
tdottg2 dude:
Where were you a week ago? Did you miss this article?
http://www.thestar.com/article/269416
The UN seems to think there is a housing crisis in Toronto. Why don't you?
My boyfriend is employed full time at a well-paying, white collar advertising job, and when we needed to move closer to it this year, we had trouble finding a place to live that didn't involve cockroaches or basements.
We can not afford to purchase a home in this city, despite having some savings (which is impressive at our age), and will not be in a position to do so for quite some time yet.
And when we are able to afford something (5-10 years from now) it will likely be a small condo, or something in the suburbs, miles away from where we would like to, ideally, live.
Where are you living?
Under a rock?
Housing IS a very important issue in Canada today, especially to average-Joe Canadians and just because the political parties currently in power (and the media to a lesser extent) would rather distract us by focusing on sensational subjects, like attacking each other, taxes and religious schools, does not make it go away.
1. I cannot understand why the UN doesn't spend more time dealing with more legitimate housing crises that one might find.... in Africa for example, or how about the slums of India/Bangladesh?
2. Define "in the city"
Unfortunately, real estate values in Toronto are going up, not unlike what they've done in New York and London. In New York, the result is that more people are living in Brooklyn, the Bronx, etc. You're seeing the same thing in Toronto - people moving east of Yonge. This seems to be the new "frontier" of housing - I saw a new 1 bedroom, 650sf, available at Wellesley & Sherbourne recently for $200K. I don't know how much less you want to pay for a nice place?
I don't know what more the government is supposed to do - build housing for everyone to bring the price down? When you price real estate below market rates, you just end up creating huge queues for housing (which is what you see now) because getting in on it is likely hitting the lottery.
Beth: I'm sure the homeless would love to hear about your plight of being forced to live outside the city in a big house in the 'burbs and not a spacious and beautiful condo in the city. Boo hoo.
I hardly think you fall within the scope of the housing crisis here. What's an issue here (as you presented in the article) is affordable housing - meaning low-income housing for those truly in need, not "wah wah I can't live in the city" housing.
Firstly, the disparity between the haves and the have-nots is what drew the UN's attention. Basically they believe (rightly) that a society with such wealth should find ways to share it, and should start in their own backyard. What does it say about us that we have so much wealth right now (with our sky-rocketing dollar) and yet so many live in poverty?
Secondly I don't live anywhere near Younge. Or any subway lines. Or any trendy, expensive 'hood. Or even within the traditional boundaries of the old city of Toronto. Right now, I live in Parkdale (pretty much as close to Brooklyn as you can get in Toronto), and I'm moving to the east side.
Your argument is diminished by making snap assumptions.
My only requirements for living someplace (other than being pretty, clean and vermin free) are that the neighborhood I live in is relatively safe, and has a good infrastructure making it possible to walk/bike/take transportation in addition to driving.
We are lucky, the only reason we found a nice place to live, is because we were able to join a local Co-Op. It is not subsidized by the government, but it works.
If more programs similar to our Co-Op were fostered by the government, we might have a different housing situation our hands.
We can not, at the moment, easily aquire a mortgage for something at 200K. Besides, have you looked at the floorplans for those "starting at 199K!" condos? They are basically studios. They're not terribly livable. Especially not for 2 people and 3 cats.
By the way, Toronto is in no way Manhattan, nor is it's housing situation comparable to it.
Different country, different government, just different.
Antiboy:
If people like me are having trouble finding housing (and they are) then what does that say about the housing situation in this city (if you make less than 100K a year it's not lookin' real good).
People who work in a city need to live in a city, and that's true at all income levels. It's better for the enviroment, and it's better for society.
Geeze. That'll show me for using a heartfelt personal anecdote to illustrate an argument.
hi, everybody...just got back to this thread and i am totally amazed at the turn it took....what if someone proposed the money for cameras go to funding for the arts....or cancer research...or you name it...you are all MANIPULATED by ocap to think cameras are related to housing....THEY ARE NOT, they are, however, related to the fact that this area of cabbagetown is unsafe, full of drug dealers and no, you cannot bike or walk without being acosted by extreme panhandling...
...and by the way...if you substitute the word "homeless" with "artist" and "affordable housing" with "funding for the arts" all of the above comments become an equally valid argument....that has nothing to do with "cameras" whatsoever
beth: My point is that your problems are miniscule compared to people who are living on the street. You can afford home. These people can hardly afford to eat.
Beth, I'm pretty sure that Parkdale is in the old City of Toronto, which went over past Swansea in the west (or at least to High Park prior to annexing Swansea).
This is by far the worst neighbourhood ive lived in. I am moving away from all of the BS and constant crime.
I welcome any sort of security device.