On The 10th Annual City Manager's Address...

Here I transcribe my immediate comments upon hearing The 10th Annual IMFG Toronto City Manager’s Address — quotations are from the youtube transcript of Chris Murray’s remarks:

"it's it's always interesting the the the choice of words that uh people use to describe something and so you know the notion of evicting someone from a park would assume that you're evicting them from their home”

Yes, exactly! You're starting to understand--that is where they LIVE! As in, they have no other address to evict them FROM...

”you know park says i think uh not just our bylaws say but the courts have proven uh you know parks are meant for everyone they're not meant for people to live in in the manner which the encampments have and and this notion that these encampments are are are safe and and uh and inviting and everything if you if you you know people that actually see it for themselves and certainly we have it as part of our cleanup uh have spent you know considerable amount of time and money you know addressing what are you know very challenging and uh unsafe places for people to be"

This does not entail that the park is not their home... you've got a leap of logic here...

"everyone's allowed to be in a park it's just that you know living in parks that exclude the use of others is something that you know we've i think we set out in bylaw and as i repeat again i think the courts have you know have spoken as to you know the legality of that"

What is legal is not the same as what excludes the use of others--while municipal code 608, which needs serious overhaul if not complete repeal and a fresh start, does make bylaw violators of everyone in the city, who has probably entered a park after midnight, or possibly even uttered profanity in a Toronto park, both of which are prohibited by the code, to violate code 608 is not necessarily to exclude the use of others: for instance, I can enter a park after midnight without excluding anyone else's use of the park. So why run the two notions together?

Apparently to argue that in this case, upholding the legal principle is just because it upholds the moral principle of not excluding anyone's use of the park, but LIVING in a park also does not exclude the use of the park by others--no encampment has ever prevented me from using a park. By all means, police assault and harassment, which I find available in equal measure from housed and unhoused people I meet in parks, but the mere acts of others living, breathing, sleeping, or erecting tents do not prohibit my use of any park.

"So notwithstanding um if you go back and look at 2020 um we dealt with uh several hundred encampments and and a number of those individuals actually ended up in housing uh i think they think the numbers over 300 and and certainly others ended up in shelters and ended up at hotels and motels that were leased you'll recall in 2020 that there was [Music] there was no police intervention whatsoever 2021 changed"

So basically you fucked up and should have taken the 2020 approach, but why? Jon Burnside basically blamed you in this interview:

What was the catalyst for change? The pandemic still isn't over.

"Housing First is a failed policy in Toronto" http://www.shjn.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Winter-Plan-Final.pdf✎ EditSign

1:16:00 dude, no we don't all agree on housing first, it sounds like you haven't read http://www.shjn.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Winter-Plan-Final.pdf✎ EditSign