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Weekend Newsstand: July 25, 2015
Some heavy news for this Saturday morning: police are trying to combat gun crime in the city with SWAT-style raids of families' homes, TCHC wants more power to kick out and ban people, and the city's homeless shelters are working overtime despite the warm weather.
Gun crime in Toronto is in the midst of a dramatic uptick—57 per cent more shootings causing injury or death compared to last year—and one way police are responding is by trying to find illegal guns, especially in certain communities where gun crime is higher. One of those communities is Rexdale, where 14-year-old Lecent Ross was shot recently by an illegal gun. While residents in any community would be happy to see guns off the street, police tactics of doing SWAT-style raids of parents’ homes, sometimes on tips rather than investigations into specific crimes, are also causing significant trauma. Jamestown Crescent, where Ross died, has seen two shooting deaths in the last four months, and police raids of family homes have increased accordingly. “You’re in your bed, and you hear your door fly,” said Janet Delisser, whose home was raided in the spring and who is a mother of three children. “All I could see was guns pointing on you, lights shining.”
The Toronto Community Housing Corp. is looking for more power to ban evicted tenants, kick out unwanted guests, and work with police to stop ongoing crimes on TCHC properties. These were some of the recommendations from an interim report by Mayor John Tory’s task force on housing. TCHC wants the power to ban evicted tenants from re-applying for public housing for two years: right now, an evicted tenant can immediately re-apply for housing, although with the often-years-long waiting lists, it’s unclear if anyone is actually getting in immediately. They also want more security personnel and cameras, and the ability to remove guests from TCHC property. As of now, the TCHC resident hosting someone is the person who decides if they’re allowed to stay. All of these moves are part of a push to end drug dealing on TCHC properties by the end of the year, a goal Tory set that even he now admits is “likely impossible.”
Despite the mostly mild weather this summer, Toronto’s homeless shelters have largely been operating at capacity, and housing advocates are worried. It’s clear to them that the city’s network of shelters and motels is overburdened and in need of more room, but the current information gathered on vacancies (and the lack thereof) is too opaque to be much help in deciding which new spaces need to be built. For instance, some spaces are transitional, for people moving from shelters to permanent housing, while other spaces are temporary shelter beds. There’s currently no good way to know which types of beds are full and which might have more room.