Voices for Unhoused Liberation
Voices for Unhoused Liberation are folks experiencing homelessness or inadequate housing while organizing their community. Whether its against encampment evictions or the prison like conditions of the Toronto shelter system, these folks are getting things done under incredibly difficult circumstances.
The interview with Dredz Green and Nahum Mann, two community organizers with Voices for Unhoused Liberation, touches on strategy building, the limitations of advocacy work and the need for escalated direct actions. As they describe their lived experience and recent developments, it becomes clear the City of Toronto is actively, and purposely harming the unhoused members of our communities. Under attack, they vow to fight back.
*AUDIO NOTE* at approximately the 1hr mark, there are issues with Dredz audio that lasts about 10 minutes. We opted to not edit this out, so as to not lose any part of his message. There is a transcript available.
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Transcript
Greetings, friends. My name is Jess McLean, and I'm here to provide you with some blueprints
Speaker:of disruption. This weekly podcast is dedicated to amplifying the work of activists, examining
Speaker:power structures, and sharing the success stories from the grassroots. Through these discussions,
Speaker:we hope to provide folks with the tools and the inspiration they need to start to dismantle
Speaker:capitalism, decolonize our spaces, and bring about the political revolution that we know
Speaker:we need. Welcome folks. Can you introduce yourself to our audience please? Starting with Dredz.
Speaker:Hi, good day. I'm Dredz. Dredz Green. My 20 years plus of living experience on the streets
Speaker:between housing, the sidewalk, just the various back and forths that privilege me to be here
Speaker:today to help advise towards the situations that we're facing. I work with Voices and I
Speaker:work with various other groups in anti-poverty activism in states and to try and bring awareness
Speaker:to the homeless condition, the poverty condition in various states. Today, hopefully we get
Speaker:to highlight the homeless addiction state in the best light that we can. We're absolutely
Speaker:gonna do that. Thank you, Dreds, for being here. Nahum. Hey, everybody, I'm Nahum. I'm also
Speaker:one of the organizers. at Voices, and also, yeah, my own lived experience of being on the
Speaker:streets and in shelters and living in poverty is what drives me in this work too. Thanks
Speaker:for having us. We're honored to have both of you because although we have spoken about encampment
Speaker:evictions, homeless evictions, it's... always been from a secondhand perspective. And that
Speaker:is not the way to do things. So I appreciate the way Dreds introduced himself and that he
Speaker:would be here to advise us because that is absolutely what we've invited you here to do. And when
Speaker:I asked what you folks wanted to focus on, the response was quick and concise, homeless evictions.
Speaker:What do you wanna tell people? There's a lot of things that lead to the... unhoused state
Speaker:and pretty much everyone that ends up in the unhoused state you'll end up tempted going
Speaker:to the shelter just a various cycle and when you do take a shot of going to the shelter
Speaker:um the problem is people don't feel that they're heard and that leads to the cycle people adapting
Speaker:to being outside so they no longer want to be in the shelter because they've had the help
Speaker:already and failed them. So they got to living on the streets. And then from there, they're
Speaker:now harassed to try and do minor things, go into the washroom, trying to function, shower,
Speaker:getting basic needs met, even mental health needs, things like that, even being heard,
Speaker:right, as to what needs they may have. So these, the entire state of being unhoused, is very
Speaker:deconstructive to the mental state of the person who is being victimized and not heard. The
Speaker:message is always, I believe the message is always brought across wrong by the staff as
Speaker:to what their duties may be versus engaging and problem solving. So there are a lot of
Speaker:variables that need there, but the bottom line for me is that I feel that people need to start
Speaker:being heard on that ground level to start affecting change. We often hear when there's evictions
Speaker:of the encampments that people go willingly, and it's voluntary. You know, there's, that
Speaker:is the narrative that the city of Toronto is, clearly that's not always the case. So what
Speaker:would you prefer the response from the city because you talk about being adapted, adapting
Speaker:to living inside. And I think, you know, from an outside perspective, we would like to advocate
Speaker:for housing. That seems like a long-term goal, I know it shouldn't be. So in the immediate,
Speaker:rather than evicting encampments and harassing, like we can talk about Clarence Square and
Speaker:the various levels of harassment that goes around tented communities, what could the city be
Speaker:doing? Other than housing, let's assume housing is always the primary goal. Well, we can still
Speaker:assume that housing is their bottom line goal for everyone. But now is it throwing everyone
Speaker:in the first available space that just says available or is it adapting to the needs because
Speaker:you visited the park three or four times, you've spoken to the worker at the shelter and you
Speaker:found out that they were familiar with the labor of being adapted to sensitivity, they're escaping
Speaker:a brand of abuse. All those variables are not taken into consideration. And me being in currently
Speaker:in Metro Toronto housing, for example, at the point in time where I took it, they were, I
Speaker:was told if you don't accept the first offer, you won't get another offer for a long time.
Speaker:So these are now part of the challenges with people getting out. You have to adapt to a
Speaker:neighborhood that you're completely unfamiliar with. You've got to find the resources that
Speaker:you can utilize in that area while pretty much being naked to any information. If you're not
Speaker:a social person, if you already have basic challenges in your life, like I can't read, these things
Speaker:all need to be considered when people are working with their worker. So even in the shelter,
Speaker:when people, before people end up in the unhoused, like, tented state, sleeping in the park. They
Speaker:post rules everywhere that no one relays it in a comfortable fashion. So as soon as someone
Speaker:disrespects the newly posted rules or outside, but there's no, I guess, humanity towards,
Speaker:okay, this is a fresh rule. We've got to give people time to adapt any of that stuff. It's
Speaker:always right to the worst level. And then now as we look at the shelter system as a mimic
Speaker:of the bigger system, like the justice system, we now say things like when a police officer
Speaker:shows up, even though they're there to be a peacekeeper, there are no negotiation tools
Speaker:on their belt. There are cuffs, there are guns, there are tasers, there's everything but something
Speaker:to negotiate with the people with, all that is force. And that's exactly what I find them
Speaker:doing in the shelter system. If you don't adapt to their rules, they force you back outside.
Speaker:And it's worse more so because they've spent. the small windows, the COVID window. They spent
Speaker:the years saying they're adapting these programs to help make transitional shelters to get people
Speaker:out from outside of the park. And now it's five years later, hotels are shutting down, but
Speaker:now the expenses of living day to day is so much. People don't have time to ask where their
Speaker:money's going. Right? What's happening with these programs? Why am I seeing tents back
Speaker:in the park? Right? Just to even ask questions, if you're a concerned citizen, I've seen people
Speaker:getting arrested in the park and citizens have come by and told the cops that they can't do
Speaker:that and they're recording and they threaten the citizen with arrest for being a witness.
Speaker:So it's almost like you're not allowed to stand up for it. If they can get away with it, they
Speaker:will. Right? This is, I feel this is a part of the reason there are no... I guess under
Speaker:house bodies within the decision making portions of where the money goes, when they're trying
Speaker:to figure out what to do with encampments, anything like that. Because if their interest wasn't
Speaker:played anywhere, you would have someone from the community trying to overhaul or pull up
Speaker:at the table to say what the needs are. One of our current examples would be Trinity. Right
Speaker:now they're in need of a porta potty, a stall. and all the restaurants in that downtown core
Speaker:area are closed before they say seven. Usually I've seen it nine, but they say it's seven.
Speaker:So from seven until a drop in opens again at seven or six in the morning, there is no access
Speaker:to a washroom for them. And when trying to negotiate with the city workers that are coming by, no
Speaker:one wants to listen to them. This is contributing to keeping it clean until they can be housed.
Speaker:Yeah, and I also just wanted to add too that like, I mean, this is us like, It's like a
Speaker:carceral system of housing, right? Like, I mean, it's essentially just like warehousing poor
Speaker:folks, whether that's in the encampments or the shelters, the hotel programs, and you know,
Speaker:as Dredz is mentioning, even Toronto County Housing, you're in these buildings, in these
Speaker:spaces that are like severely neglected. in terms of maintenance, just in terms of like
Speaker:healthy, dignified living, mold, bed bugs, mice, all of these things. And then under like a
Speaker:constant surveillance, with cameras around, with more security than there are actual workers
Speaker:to provide essential services, like a constant presence of police. And like just kind of living
Speaker:under this threat, like Dredd's mentioned of like, if you don't follow the rules, you know,
Speaker:like you're gonna be punished. And we're seeing this like, you know, I think it's probably
Speaker:at its most severe in the hotel shelters that were leased through the pandemic. We do outreach
Speaker:at the Delta Hotel. up at Kennedy in the 401. You have like 350 people in a building with
Speaker:two housing workers at best. Sometimes both of them aren't even there. With security and
Speaker:police in the lobby constantly and with this system of, and we'll get into more of what
Speaker:we mean by evictions in the shelter hotels, but this system of living under threat of eviction
Speaker:constantly for anything from speaking up for yourself or staff not liking the tone of your
Speaker:voice when you talk to them to one of our members got kicked out of a city run shelter for eating
Speaker:in the TV room. Just a... an arbitrary and abusive set of reasons to force people back out onto
Speaker:the street. So we're like against, you know, we're all for housing, all for public housing,
Speaker:like let's build more, but not the way it stands, you know, not neglected derelict buildings
Speaker:under constant surveillance. We want dignified housing, accessible housing, right? Immediately.
Speaker:what comes to mind is when you talk about like the sheer number of security, it's like that,
Speaker:well, that money that they're using to pay for the security could be going to actually helping
Speaker:the people instead, right? It's, it's a very easy parallel to draw. Nahum, last time I saw
Speaker:you, we were at the St. Stephan and the Fields Encapment Eviction in Kensington Market. I'm
Speaker:heading over there this Monday because Maggie was just, Maggie the Reverend of the Church
Speaker:was just talking about some continued city harassment there and you know there's still very much
Speaker:people living on that property, a church that protects them, that wants them there, that
Speaker:helps them and yet the city decides that no it's not okay for them to be there. Can you
Speaker:tell me a bit about you know that continued hurt, from what you know of like... the tactics
Speaker:that the city uses to continue harassing people, even when it's not as far as an eviction, just
Speaker:like in the smaller things that we don't get a chance to hear about. Yeah, for sure. I mean,
Speaker:you know, one thing that I think's a common thread across all the encampments, like now
Speaker:and in the past, is this idea of fire safety. Fire gets constantly used as this reason for
Speaker:why we need to mass evict. these spaces, but there's no, I'm blanking on the name of the
Speaker:ruling, but there was like a ruling in the courts that set some precedent around how the city
Speaker:should and the fire department should actually be present, training people, providing fire
Speaker:safety equipment, providing safe alternatives. So you know, you think like people are starting
Speaker:fires, they have maybe little propane tanks to cook on, things like that. And the city
Speaker:just comes in, the fire department just comes in and confiscates things, harasses people.
Speaker:I mean, at the worst kind of examples, like clears the camp, but there's no alternatives,
Speaker:right? I mean, like, I think there would be... probably some positive reception to being like,
Speaker:okay, look, you can't have this propane tank. You know, it's deemed a fire safety hazard.
Speaker:And so instead, like we got these heaters that we've like, we've cleared as a fire department,
Speaker:like they're safe or, you know, plugins to city power, which is what folks at the Trinity Square
Speaker:encampment are dealing with. They're trying to plug in. to city power, which has been on
Speaker:all winter to plug in 10 million Christmas lights near the Eaton Center. But God forbid you plug
Speaker:in a little space heater to try and keep warm in the winter. And the city, the police, the
Speaker:fire department, they come in unplugging people's cables and actually at Trinity Square, like
Speaker:the city escalated to actually just like shutting. those outlets off, like the power is not even
Speaker:there anymore. But without alternatives, right? And so now you put people in a position where
Speaker:they're trying their best to keep warm in the safest way possible. What's the logical next
Speaker:step? I mean, people are gonna start fires, they're gonna light candles in their tents.
Speaker:They're gonna find any kind of way to keep warm and to keep fed. And it's just like a total
Speaker:neglect from the city to the point where folks actually, there is these really cool like fire
Speaker:safety manuals that got made from folks like Greg Cook at Sanctuary and some others who
Speaker:just put in that research and the work to publish things. And they're the ones actually doing
Speaker:the training. They did this down at Clarence Square last year. Oh, you got it right in your
Speaker:hand. I was making a note of it. There you go. Yeah, so it's just like that same old story
Speaker:of the city having these high bars for what an encampment can and can't have, but then
Speaker:providing zero resources, and it's down to folks like us. It's down to... poor folks, unhoused,
Speaker:underhoused folks that are like spending full time hours week in, week out in community just
Speaker:trying our best to pull resources together and keep people safe in a city that has like such
Speaker:an abundance of wealth and resources at its fingertips. So to kind of speak into that a
Speaker:little.
Speaker:When we're talking about alternatives, it literally means if you come and take the propane tank
Speaker:that is sold over the counter in Canadian Tire, various stores in Chinatown, serious convenience
Speaker:stores, and I can get that anywhere, but you can take that and not provide any alternatives,
Speaker:then it's going to be minus 10, minus 20 outside. And your alternative is to move me completely.
Speaker:even if I have a bunch of stuff, the city doesn't try to have any brand of negotiation plans.
Speaker:So there's not a secret plan with public storage. And the City of Toronto, so if you're unhoused
Speaker:and you have a certain amount of stuff, they'll deal with you with the storage if you go to
Speaker:a shelter, for example. That alone should be a fair enough, safest deal. That's encouraging
Speaker:to take a shelter in. and probably uphold the rules there, for example. And that's within
Speaker:their cost. If you wanna do something like heating, and it's outside, I don't know if you guys
Speaker:remember those old black barbecues that were always in parks, they were on the black pole,
Speaker:they could do a solid iron. But you have just blocks of those, no tent within like 20 feet
Speaker:of it, but people can come around and eat, now you have a reason to have a security guard
Speaker:there. So his job being paid by the city is to now watch that eater. So it's on 24-7. He
Speaker:needs fuel oil, radio for it, so it will come with sticks. These are the kind of alternatives
Speaker:they can offer so that people won't have a propane tank inside when they wanna get heat, or a
Speaker:bunch of people gathering around that barbecue outside to see the group, 20 people in the
Speaker:encampment. are going to be able to that many people that are very simple, cost effective
Speaker:measures that they have within their grasp. It's not something they would have to build.
Speaker:They already have those. They probably have to extract somewhere sitting on the part of
Speaker:the city. Or they can just put that cement block underneath it in each area. Maybe one of the
Speaker:north and south of our garden, for example, again, where people are tented. It's not in
Speaker:the means of. even within the city is going to be themselves. So we're going to say we're
Speaker:not trying to encourage people being outside. It's not encouraging until you find the right
Speaker:housing plan for them, help make outside somewhat functional. Help teach them about fire safety,
Speaker:have a regular garden circulation and cleanup, and then teaching them about being community-esque.
Speaker:And these are the things that. to help people not keep the NIMBY effect. I say, hey, those
Speaker:guys look intense, but they're functioning. Like my dog runs over and plays with them.
Speaker:They're all cool people. Just little simple things. So now the person's still gonna feel
Speaker:intimidated if they can't use the part. Becoming a visual appeal or how it may work on the video.
Speaker:That's amongst other things. And it was sheltered under a similar bias as well. So we watched
Speaker:that happen way out there at Delta. There were some people that do walk by and they ask what's
Speaker:happening, but now there's a lot of genetics happening. It was very hard to get people to
Speaker:just stop and intake the real things that were happening inside and to be people in the area.
Speaker:All right, to help work with them as a community. So... It's like, hey, some people work here
Speaker:and they do want a room and they want to get themselves together. These guys aren't helping
Speaker:them out. Their worker doesn't see them. So as Ney and Liz said earlier, there's 350, 400
Speaker:people and only two workers. Even at the 365 day a year thing, if you're working every day,
Speaker:you might see half of those people once. So just to speak more into it. It's getting plans
Speaker:together from the ground, the tentative level, to the shelter level, all allocated towards
Speaker:housing and improvement. And getting more actual counselors that can be reflective, responsive
Speaker:in their craft, immediate, on-site. And I know it's a challenge, but if it takes money to
Speaker:encourage that kind of pay, then they should do it, instead of spending it on security.
Speaker:and the security guard, and the police. And the evictions themselves, even denying folks
Speaker:all of the things that you're talking about likely cost the city money, and they cost the
Speaker:community. Like you're talking about parks, public washrooms, like barbecues, fire safety
Speaker:knowledge. things that you want everyone in your community to have, like regardless of
Speaker:what their shelter system is, like things that make a thriving community, like even the anti-homeless
Speaker:architecture, where there's no benches or the benches are awful, you can't lie down on them.
Speaker:All of those are detriments to the entire community. And so when you look at it from that perspective,
Speaker:it's so maddening because then it's so clearly an attack, specifically. on the unhoused community
Speaker:to deprive the entire community of these items simply because it might sustain their life
Speaker:outside. Because it's ridiculous that anyone is encouraging people to live at the tentative
Speaker:level, right? That no one would be encouraged to do that. That is, like you said from the
Speaker:very beginning, a circumstance people find themselves in because of the systems that we're living
Speaker:under, right? It's not a choice in that way, right? That's a ridiculous statement that they
Speaker:would say to deprive that and our whole community loses. It's funny that the podcast is actually
Speaker:called The Good, The Bad, and The Disruption because even as I look around Delta, I see
Speaker:the death by design. So we see about 10, 15 condos out there. There's no new mall, there's
Speaker:no new school, there's no new grocery store. Those condos are all like 20 stories plus.
Speaker:And even as they all get filled, you're adding that many families to the community and stressing
Speaker:the resources that are there, driving that food prices everywhere. Because now they're gonna
Speaker:ram the lettuce every hour once those condos are filled. Right? Whoever can't afford it,
Speaker:they're gonna go and steal it, they're gonna start saying, hey, my kid's gotta eat. stuff
Speaker:like that. Right? So you see the destruction of being built. They're not building any of
Speaker:those at the shelters. All those are condos. So it's just going to raise competition. Oh,
Speaker:we don't want this here. Now there's going to be more people in Texas when it hits that unaffordable
Speaker:level. And none of the safeties are there that people think are there in a shelter, for example,
Speaker:that they're outside in a tent. Oh shit. as we still have these people. Like, this is the
Speaker:kind of thing that wakes them up. And I think too, Jess, to your point, like, it is very
Speaker:intentional. Like, capitalism and neoliberalism, like, needs poor and homeless people as a,
Speaker:like, as a threat that keeps everybody working three bullshit. jobs at minimum wage without
Speaker:health care, without benefits, grinding away to pay rent because there's this very like
Speaker:visual, you know, like uncomfortable threat of like living in a park and living in a shelter,
Speaker:being like seen as somebody who's like panhandling or wandering out every day in the streets because
Speaker:you know a lot of these shelters too. the congregate ones, you know, you eat your breakfast and
Speaker:then like you're out. You have to be out all day, right? And so our system, I like, requires
Speaker:this level of poverty and precarity to keep people like tied into this wage system. And
Speaker:so yeah, it is absolutely intentional. and very specific and targeted on our community to keep
Speaker:this visual problem alive and well, even if it is also causing the kind of rifts and deterioration
Speaker:in the broader community like you brought up. It's all by design. I know that. And I don't
Speaker:mean to say like, don't tell me that, but I mean, I didn't say it because I didn't think
Speaker:any of you knew it either. It almost then brings me... to the point of, okay, so then what?
Speaker:Now you know those fuckers are doing it on purpose, right? Like we could go talk to them, we could
Speaker:go talk to Toronto council, but they know they're doing it on purpose. Olivia knows all the small
Speaker:town, big town mayors, they absolutely know what the purpose behind all of these denials
Speaker:are of basic stuff. Like even the most basic stuff, like what kind of city, you want a shining
Speaker:city, but we are so bad, we have no public bathrooms. Everyone knows, anyone who's ever wandered
Speaker:around the city for any reason knows that we are an awful city for that. And so all of these
Speaker:things, all of these things, they know that they're just really purposely to do harm. And
Speaker:so I think of that poster you folks had for the Valentine's Day event outside City Hall.
Speaker:And I know you were outside City Hall, but I know you weren't really speaking to them. I
Speaker:mean, you are. You should yell at them. They deserve it. But you know where their mind is
Speaker:at. It was the Poor People Rise Up that was featured on the poster that really comes to
Speaker:mind because that's what we need. Right? Like, we do need to center— That isn't to dispute
Speaker:that we need to center the voices of unhoused folks when we're trying to talk about solutions,
Speaker:all of them. But not to, like—they shouldn't have to, like, tell their trauma. Right? Like,
Speaker:that shouldn't be necessary. Not to politicians, because they fucking know it. They like that
Speaker:seems like harmful almost. So it's just like absolute rebellion at this point. I'm sorry.
Speaker:That seems so rudimentary, but let's talk about the organizing then. Not because we don't want
Speaker:to hit on these lived experiences, but like, what do we do? Because in a city like this,
Speaker:where you should have some leverage on a mayor with like progressive issues, surely we can
Speaker:make progress here. That's part of the biggest challenge with the unhoused community, right?
Speaker:There is not even entering the shelter and you don't have really any leverage. There's somebody
Speaker:in their installation coming to ask for help. Like, when you're paying rent at an apartment,
Speaker:for example, you're not getting money. They're not doing that. That's right, you're paying
Speaker:a full rent. So same thing at work. You cross in the trees there, you can strike. Now he's
Speaker:not making as much. That kid's not going out. All right, we're in the shelter. They build
Speaker:few beds and keep like 10,000 people out there making it to 580,000 because the shelters will
Speaker:always be full. They'll always take things, they'll take XYZ years. If something, if a
Speaker:riot happens tonight, they'll have a new task force tomorrow, they'll come to the police,
Speaker:I guarantee you.
Speaker:Right? So, so why can't we use that money to produce the positivity production, preserving
Speaker:the people, right? Getting solutions done. We want more people working, for example, to be
Speaker:taxed. Let's help people get settled and then make sure that there's jobs out there for people.
Speaker:Right? Get some people with lived experience to start getting paid for, living in their
Speaker:community and contribute. And that could cut the travel expense and it could also positively
Speaker:impact the community.
Speaker:I'm just a volunteer at social assistance and do this in a small range of training programs.
Speaker:Those training programs get you into somewhere that's 100% employable. Yes, otherwise it's
Speaker:a game. Because it shows that there's a need for those programs, even if they don't employ
Speaker:you. You finish the program at 15 minutes, the social assistance says you can get employed
Speaker:now because you have that 5-D skill. Show me where to get employed with three months of
Speaker:training. I have my African utility to do it. Require two years worth of mastery shift or
Speaker:XYZ license with two years of professional. They have reference. Like, it's a game up there.
Speaker:It's a big game. And that's when you try to play it the honest way. You play it the dirty
Speaker:way, you get arrested. And then you... lose everything and you just don't got to start
Speaker:over anything and be outside.
Speaker:Right? You just don't want to insure. So it's not like you're tied down or you're doing so
Speaker:much work. You're doing the same thing I said. You're doing a free job. You barely get time
Speaker:to see your kids to give them any positive influence that you would like. You might be there answering
Speaker:the bases that you might want to be there to play catch. Right? As if some life things.
Speaker:You might want to contribute to your health, because that's the challenge you're dealing
Speaker:with. It's a lot, maybe play around with it. They have a bell, let's talk, for example.
Speaker:During the entire COVID, I've never seen a bell talk representative walk around the park and
Speaker:check on any of the depressed people that weren't in the park. That's a corporate response, I
Speaker:think. So that's part of what's advertised, that's not real. It's funny how, you know,
Speaker:capitalism has this myth of like voluntary, like we, that we get to choose this idea of
Speaker:freedom that you get the, well, if you want this, you can go on this path, this path, but
Speaker:then you hear, you hear that and it's, it's all coercion is what it is, right? That here
Speaker:are your options and either way we're going to exploit you. It's a horrible system. Nahum,
Speaker:one of the times I saw you before the Kensington one was at City Hall, John Tory budget meeting.
Speaker:And I remember you and a bunch of folks were there specifically to talk about the lack of
Speaker:any help in the budget front house, folks. Well. John Tory's gone, Olivia Chow's here. We've
Speaker:had another budget meeting and there's still not enough.
Speaker:What's it is it? What's the answer here? Because clearly we elected a person who's supposed
Speaker:to do something better, right? Yeah, I mean I think that and you know also to touch on
Speaker:this like talk about the organizing right like I think that There are a lot of complications
Speaker:like dreads sad just in terms of like what are our leverage points as poor and unhoused folks
Speaker:But I think Olivia Chow is a great example. Personally, I don't think that there's too
Speaker:much to benefit in getting into the weeds on criticizing any one person or another in positions
Speaker:of power, but more so just a very clear example that the system's not. going to save us, right?
Speaker:And like, when we kind of like lean on these advocacy approaches, which we also see it in
Speaker:like the labor movement, right? Over the last like, how many decades? Like moving away from
Speaker:direct action, flexing that muscle of power through like strikes and into this idea that
Speaker:like, oh, like we can just like meet with politicians in boardrooms and like they'll pass better
Speaker:policies. I think we're actually in this kind of time right now as well, right? Like people
Speaker:are realizing, um, especially at like the, I call them chapters cause we are kind of building
Speaker:towards thinking of like what a, a union or like a member based org of poor and unhoused
Speaker:folks. would look like the realities they're facing is like, we're gonna get kicked out
Speaker:regardless, right? You know, the Delta for instance, is being transitioned into a refugee shelter
Speaker:and we're already seeing this uptick in service restrictions like discharges from the hotel
Speaker:program, which we call evictions, cause they're evictions, right? And put all the flowery non-profit
Speaker:language around it as much as you want. You're evicting people from their homes, right? And
Speaker:so there is that fear of like getting kicked out of the retribution, the coercion, but also
Speaker:just the reality, this growing reality that like you're gonna get kicked out, right? And
Speaker:so, you know, like kind of, Going back into those traditions of organizing in thinking
Speaker:about the fact that, while 400 residents to two housing workers is shitty for so many reasons,
Speaker:it also is empowering in the sense that we are the majority in this space, right? And as we
Speaker:individualize people at Voices, we do a lot of casework and kind of advocating for folks
Speaker:who face evictions and, you know, really try to pressure the service providers to like appeal
Speaker:those decisions and let people back in. Like it's also about like collectivizing, right?
Speaker:Collectivizing that struggle, taking up space, taking ownership of the spaces that people
Speaker:are living in. And so, you know, at the Delta, we're having organizing meetings. We're really
Speaker:taking a lot of lessons and kind of models from more historical union organizing to identify
Speaker:leaders, like finding those people who have trust in the community, finding those activists
Speaker:in the shelters, and starting to think about like... What are the tactics at hand, right?
Speaker:I think often when we're in conversations, folks have these really intense emotional responses.
Speaker:I'm just gonna push my bed in front of the door and not let staff in. And when they come to
Speaker:us with that idea, like they're, it's kind of like. wrapped around this sense that they have
Speaker:that like, oh, that's like, I'm just angry, you know, like that's like, that's not actually
Speaker:doable. And I think it's really important to change that narrative, like something that
Speaker:we do in our conversations is like, is it not doable? Or like, or are we like not at the
Speaker:place in which that's like a tactic, right? And I'm not necessarily saying that that's
Speaker:here or there, like anything that's being planned explicitly, but I think it is really about
Speaker:like reframing those conversations to say like, yeah, you know what? At the end of the day,
Speaker:we've tried all the other things, right? Like we've tried to ask nicely, we've sent letters,
Speaker:we've had a petition to city council. and the mayor to stop service restrictions, to stop
Speaker:camp clearings. And like we're met with the same thing. We're actually met with, like in
Speaker:the midst of us launching that campaign, No Homeless Evictions campaign, shortly after
Speaker:the St. Stephen's eviction, the city put trespass notices on all the tents at the Trinity Square
Speaker:encampment, right? And so... It's not only that they're not listening to our maybe more diplomatic
Speaker:approaches to find solutions, but they like they double down on the very harms, right,
Speaker:that are causing us to take these steps. You know, the delta is being transitioned. There's
Speaker:rumors going around that the Bond Hotel is going to mass evict everybody. from their beds there,
Speaker:you know, Clarence Square, the hotels like across the city facing this sorts of things. So, you
Speaker:know, I think as scary and as unknown as it is, because like this kind of organizing and
Speaker:like mass mobilization hasn't really happened so much. There aren't very many like super
Speaker:clear examples of people taking action in this way. Like we are as voices, like, in this space
Speaker:of entertaining, like, oh, wait, well, what does that look like? And as impossible as it
Speaker:might feel to take mass action, to mass mobilize in a space, let's instead ask ourselves a question
Speaker:of, like, what do we need to be able to do that? Right? And what are the steps that we take
Speaker:people on that go from where we are today to some kind of mass action? at a hotel. And so,
Speaker:you know, petitions are like a great entry point. You know, at the Delta, there's some very,
Speaker:what we feel are kind of like low hanging fruit things that most folks in the program agree
Speaker:on and can get behind. And like taking people up this ladder of engagement and some might
Speaker:say like ladder of risk in terms of organizing. that like get us these small wins, but less
Speaker:so the wins and more these like feelings that people have that when we work together, when
Speaker:we organize together, that we can make victories, right? And so something as small as one of
Speaker:our first victories at the Delta was getting every shelter in Toronto is supposed to have
Speaker:a monthly resident meeting. Right? And the Delta operated for two fucking years without a single
Speaker:meeting. And so we were able to collect, shout out to a fantastic organizer at the Delta who
Speaker:was able to collect like 150 signatures on a petition, deliver that petition, and now we
Speaker:have these monthly meetings, right? I mean, those meetings are shit. They're... poorly
Speaker:managed. All meetings are shit, don't worry. There's no minutes, there's no notes, there's
Speaker:no follow up. But we got that, right? And people have this taste of like, oh, we did something
Speaker:together and got it. So now come back to the table to say, what's next? Okay, we're gonna
Speaker:make those meetings a little bit better, right? Then we're gonna start to think about what
Speaker:are our real tangible demands, putting those demands forward. And one other thing I wanted
Speaker:to talk about in terms of the organizing we're doing too is like building these bridges between
Speaker:labor, right? Between the workers' struggle and poor people's struggle, not only for the
Speaker:just reason of like solidarity and like labor should be supporting like these social justice
Speaker:issues. but also for the fact that workers are sleeping in their fucking cars, right? Workers
Speaker:are accessing food banks. And when we look at the Delta, for instance, run by Homes First,
Speaker:is a charity that runs lots of spaces across the city. In 2015, they locked out all their
Speaker:fucking workers because they were trying to unionize. And what are they doing now? They're...
Speaker:creating like very tailored exploitative contracts to hire folks who are incredibly precarious
Speaker:lots of newcomers Lots of poor folks putting them in these contracts that don't give them
Speaker:benefits that don't give them job security and I mean as much as like we fight against the
Speaker:abuses that unhoused folks face from shelter staff like We also have to be able to take
Speaker:a step back and say, well, if shelter staff are not trained, not resourced, living in super
Speaker:precarious situations with no job security and no benefits, like what do we expect other than
Speaker:these like high tension points where staff default to kicking people out when things get tense?
Speaker:when they're faced with situations that they're just like completely untrained and unresourced
Speaker:and unprepared to deal with. And so it's OPSU workers at the, at Homes First, at the Delta.
Speaker:And we learned that they actually are like in bargaining, had to bring in the Ministry of
Speaker:Labor because 90% of their workers rejected the deal from Homes First. So these are places
Speaker:of of solidarity that we're trying to build. They just had a really awesome meeting yesterday
Speaker:with quite a lot of unions and labor organizations to start to build those things because we wanna
Speaker:join you on the picket, right? And we want you to join us on our pickets because at the end
Speaker:of the day, it's these, just like in the corporate wage world, it's these fucking corporations,
Speaker:these charities. that are dead set on their bottom dollar on building a level of like management
Speaker:and executive positions that are well comfortable and stable and secure at the complete exploitation
Speaker:and disregard of poor folks, whether they're living in the shelter or working in the shelter.
Speaker:And so those are some of the things that we're talking about as well. at Trinity Square, you
Speaker:know, it's about moving the needle, right? We've seen encampment defense, and I think that was
Speaker:very powerful and galvanizing for folks. But like, let's move the needle into like, not
Speaker:just being reactionary, not being on the defense, but being on the offense. Let's take spaces.
Speaker:Let's own them. Let's build the kind of like... you know, infrastructure that people want and
Speaker:need to live dignified lives until that the housing that Dreds was talking about gets delivered
Speaker:to them. So I think we're in a place of seeing like so much precarity in the city and that
Speaker:precarity creeping so much more into like what we might've called like middle class people
Speaker:in the past that The time is now, right? I think we need to just be kind of rooted in the reality
Speaker:that like, shit's bad, shit's getting worse. And so the risks and the fears we might feel
Speaker:in taking action, you know, are wrapped in the context that like, things aren't gonna get
Speaker:any better, right? And whether it's today or in six months or in a year, you might actually
Speaker:be forced into some kind of like, risk taking, action taking, because the boot is just like
Speaker:pressing on our necks harder and harder day in and day out. Jess, I feel like you got it.
Speaker:You're burning with a question over there. I wanted to, okay, Santiago came into the studio
Speaker:one day and he was frustrated. He's looking at me going through. That happens constantly,
Speaker:so I just give you anything. Okay, he's like, which time? There was an Acampment eviction
Speaker:that... people, some people had responded to in body, right, in person. And I think there
Speaker:was an itching by those that had responded to physically resist the eviction. But that's
Speaker:not their call, right? They are coming because they were called, but not for that. And when
Speaker:you asked earlier, you know, and talked about the lack of leverage and you said, what would
Speaker:be our leverage? Like my notes, I go numbers, right? And you hit on that, I'm not telling
Speaker:you anything new at all. Labor and other, like the rest of the community needs to come together
Speaker:in a way that you can breach that threshold where you can safely physically resist. Cause
Speaker:I get it, if it's just a handful of people and you've got to defend a space, open wide park,
Speaker:I mean, just the logistics, if you're thinking of like battle plants, that's probably not
Speaker:going to end well. It's that... that critical threshold of numbers. And I'm really happy
Speaker:to hear that, you know, there's movement being made in terms of labor because there's really
Speaker:two ways, because you talk about spending your days and nights really doing a mutual aid as
Speaker:well, like scrounging together resources for whoever needs what. So not only can they play
Speaker:a role in terms of boosting numbers, but there's... there's some resources that folks, that I imagine
Speaker:would make your job a lot easier because part of organizing when poor and unhoused is like
Speaker:energy time. If that's all spent trying to survive and to get the basic stuff that should already
Speaker:be there. like meetings, you know, if you're having to spend all of your energy just to
Speaker:get what you've already been told you're supposed to have and other basic necessities, that's
Speaker:less time you could be spent doing more resistive, more proactive organizing, right, to put you
Speaker:on the offense. Because it's actually, it's so doable to take a building. It's so doable.
Speaker:You don't even actually need that many people. You just, you need allies that perhaps the
Speaker:police aren't willing to remove as easily. You know, Fred Hawn, perhaps chained to the front
Speaker:door would have a different impact, I'm sure. And actually, like, I just, just to build on
Speaker:that too, because I'm from Colombia originally. And one thing you see in Colombia is,
Speaker:You have neighborhoods, barrios, typically on hillsides, that don't technically exist. Like
Speaker:they're not, these are not planned areas, there were no approval processes. But people who
Speaker:were displaced, because we're an incredibly displaced country, and who had nowhere to go,
Speaker:came together with brick and plaster. And they built thousands. of tiny houses and they live
Speaker:in these communities. Something like that is unheard of here in Canada, right? When we tried
Speaker:to build tiny houses out of, I forget the word. Some municipalities won't even let you build
Speaker:a tiny house. Yeah, the tiny houses that they tried to use in Alexandra Park and whatnot,
Speaker:those got removed, right? But the idea is if you hit. with like the right resources, with
Speaker:the right planning, we don't have to wait for the country, the city, the province, whatever
Speaker:it is to come in and give us solutions, we can just do it ourselves.
Speaker:Anyways, it's just one, because like that idea is so foreign, right? And like even like in
Speaker:my home city of Bogota, we have a... in our largest park in the middle of the city with
Speaker:an encampment that's been there for years full of indigenous folks that they wouldn't dare
Speaker:touch because they know that it's untouchable, right? Because people there are organized different.
Speaker:It is a matter of numbers, a matter of resources. These things are doable. But anyways, just
Speaker:to add on to Jess's point. take up any more space there. But like just that idea of integrating
Speaker:into the community though, like when Dreads was talking about the person walking the dog,
Speaker:it was such an anecdote but it spoke to a larger problem, right? That these parks are surrounded
Speaker:by people in homes. People who should give a fuck. Right? When their community members are
Speaker:being harassed by the police, take their propane heaters taken away, like, that resistance doesn't
Speaker:have to only come from inside, from the tent level. It shouldn't. And, like, if you knew,
Speaker:right, if you walked your dog every day and said, good morning to Dredz, and then you saw
Speaker:the police harassing him, like, because you know he is part of your community, right? It's
Speaker:the separation that, that's why I kind of made a face to it, and I was talking about the barrios.
Speaker:I get it, like, you know, housing is, but then that's still like an ostracization. It's still
Speaker:like, that's its own community. And like, maybe that's the necessary, right? But. Finding ways
Speaker:to get people to understand that those are, that's their community too. Not just, and I
Speaker:use that language too, the unhoused community, fucking language. It's really a struggle, but
Speaker:it matters because it's how you think about it. Like as though it's a separate community.
Speaker:It's not, right? And that separation is denying them the leverage they need to get like the
Speaker:most basic stuff, like forget housing. the most basic stuff is being denied because they know
Speaker:that the fuss isn't that much when it's denied. We don't make a big enough deal about some
Speaker:of these things. And I think because they're not looked at as a whole. You know, like public
Speaker:bathrooms. If you talk about public bathrooms, people just roll your eyes. Like, there's so
Speaker:many bigger problems out there. Why are you talking about public bathrooms? That's not
Speaker:a big deal. Why are you talking about benches? Why are you talking about fire retardant tents?
Speaker:It's like each individual just seems like not—but it's— as this whole, right? It's like this,
Speaker:I don't know. I'm really struggling, I think, to formulate my thoughts. Yeah, but I think
Speaker:that, I know Dreads, I wanna let Dreads jump in just one second, but I think you're absolutely
Speaker:right, and this is also maybe a place for people that are listening that wanna think about how
Speaker:to support this kind of work too, right? It's like, somebody does need to be, Dreads was
Speaker:talking about all the condos up around the Delta Hotel, right? Like, Um, it's the sea counselor
Speaker:in that ward, Nick Mantis, um, he's pretty dead set on like closing, right? Like the whole,
Speaker:the whole reason the Delta is being transitioned to a refugee center is because, is because
Speaker:of him, right? Like, um, moved a motion to kind of tweak the, the vote to renew all the hotels.
Speaker:He said, well, we'll renew the Delta as long as It gets transitioned to a refugee center
Speaker:and everyone gets kicked out basically. And, you know, I've worked in politics enough to
Speaker:know that he probably feels informed by like a bunch of condo owners, right, that are calling
Speaker:and complaining. And those condo owners are the people that are voting for him, right?
Speaker:And so I think like, yeah, we actually do need some crews of canvassers that are gonna...
Speaker:going and have like probably pretty shitty conversations, but like to talk and listen to folks and like
Speaker:find that space to build connection, to build some empathy. I mean, if you're not facing
Speaker:housing precarity yourself, like I bet you your kid is, right? I bet you there's someone you
Speaker:know who like is realizing that they can't live in this city anymore. Right, and so like that
Speaker:is also kind of unsexy work that needs to happen because if the city councilor starts getting
Speaker:a bunch of phone calls from people on his voting list saying, I just had some a really awesome
Speaker:conversation and you need to keep the Delta open, this is crucial. Like that is definitely
Speaker:gonna change his mind more than like me and Dreads who are. kind of typecast as like shit-disturber,
Speaker:lefty activists. Like he doesn't care about us. So that's like another kind of really foundational
Speaker:piece that, you know, we talk about this, we talk about defunding the police. Like, yeah,
Speaker:we can get all the progressive folks in the city together to sign a petition to defund
Speaker:the police. Like we need like white middle-aged homeowners central Etobicoke to be calling
Speaker:their councillor and saying, yeah, actually we need to defund the police. Because those
Speaker:people don't care about anything except their re-election bid in the next cycle. And the
Speaker:only damn thing that's going to move them is if they're looking and going like, oh, this
Speaker:is Jessa, they're on my voting list, they vote for me every four years, and they're telling
Speaker:me... that this thing needs to happen, like that is now actually like a risk to me and
Speaker:my job and the power that I hold, right? And we've seen that like historically in Georgia,
Speaker:like flipping from Republican to Democrat, we've seen like the overthrowing of like anti-trans
Speaker:legislation in Florida, all from the same thing. Like I said, it's not sexy work, right? That's
Speaker:like a 20 minute conversation at the door with somebody who probably doesn't have the same
Speaker:political views as you. And you have to make some space and listen and put your reactionary
Speaker:self aside and put the stats aside and connect with people. Get into that feeling and that
Speaker:emotion because I believe that that's what. moves people on a deeper level than me just
Speaker:saying like, well, the stats here show that like you're wrong. Like that's not gonna move
Speaker:anybody, right? So anyways, just wanted to throw that in and Dredd say, you haven't chatted
Speaker:in a while, so I wanna toss it over to you. I just feel one of the biggest challenge is
Speaker:the consistency of quality resource, even though it doesn't work so. Even when we're there doing
Speaker:outreach, one of the main questions we had for a minute was, everyone wanted to know the lawyer
Speaker:thing, right? So they wanted to know who they could talk to if they had a human rights situation.
Speaker:So even council just regularly appearing for that, a volunteer, a student, something to
Speaker:kind of encourage along the way. Like, if you're going to have people coming in there, the security
Speaker:guards or whatever. Baby's close my baby sort of thing. So you might as well have some people
Speaker:there that are trying to follow themselves and other career paths I think kind of inspiring
Speaker:to go towards their Their mastery their community It's just saying whatever Right different brands
Speaker:of agency government Earlier they were talking about some of the games that the city plays.
Speaker:So just to show it's on the multi-level. Oh, well, I was in the park. There was an ex-police
Speaker:officer that ended up working for the city and helping to clear encampments. And they ended
Speaker:up walking around and spying on us for like two weeks. So we ended up taking pictures of
Speaker:them before they came and cleared people one by one out of the park. So that was one example
Speaker:of the one that Mayam was talking about that was for Tridy Square. And so the eviction notices
Speaker:the week after the Spadina and the college encampment, when we investigated that one as a follow-up,
Speaker:I forgot what Mayam was doing, but the city said that they... didn't mean it, they did
Speaker:it to try and teach, show an example or a lesson as to what they could do if they really wanted
Speaker:to, like something to that effect. And it was really, to me that's really ignorant. With
Speaker:all the education and power and what you're paid to do and the amount of problems that
Speaker:people have in the city, if you have time to grasp what people are on paper with an example.
Speaker:There's just too many different little... pads around the labor, just getting bad at it, despite
Speaker:that they want to try and show. Right, there's anywhere from the Olympic bid, for example,
Speaker:when they made Pan Am the labor. There's as old as Penn City, if people remember, there
Speaker:was the Occupy protest, no matter how big it gets. They'll literally tell you to pack up,
Speaker:go somewhere, but we'll do something. They don't want to make positive change in the fact that
Speaker:child balance has to scale. It's almost like they need to upkeep their payouts to make people
Speaker:who are working and see like they're paying the taxes and their taxes are going to go.
Speaker:And it really sucks that they just won't stop in the few years they always put things in
Speaker:their mouth without expecting a seizure. save the people. They're not expecting, at some
Speaker:point, though, the scales to be balanced. They'll show things, for example, like Vespa, no matter
Speaker:how blind she is, that scales are going to be balanced. I look in front of City Hall, for
Speaker:example, and I have a new courthouse right beside it, and it has a balance being with a lamb
Speaker:and a lion on it.
Speaker:But now the scale just looks else. It is hard to try and get them to be fair at their own
Speaker:game. And they have the advantage in their role. They can't see the game towards helping people.
Speaker:I believe. I was in a better, better state. I lied about it just long enough to make sure
Speaker:that when the new mayor came in, now a whole bunch of other cases. But it's very easy if
Speaker:you've made marijuana legal, for example. But you didn't make overall people's lives easier,
Speaker:so there's a lot of jobs that still consider you a drug dealer. There's some you can get
Speaker:without cover. There's a lot of jobs that still consider you a drug dealer. So you can't get
Speaker:past certain statuses, so.
Speaker:Right? Well, each job you do, you need a coping mechanism, as a natural path medicine to help
Speaker:people steer away from other things, these treatments. Right? Some people in the shelter could use
Speaker:that support. So they've been giving needles for years, bowls for years. I mean, they've
Speaker:been giving needles for like 20 years. They've been giving needles since Pearson, for free
Speaker:outside. Okay? And they will not give you... $5.00 bag of weed that's really cheap. You
Speaker:can go to a native store, get a pack of $50. Have a finger cap to that box of units. You
Speaker:can't leave your own gatekeeper or natural path and it'll be your option, anything like that.
Speaker:Right, there's people on the DOLADA program, for example. And if you do anything involved,
Speaker:you can get caught selling it, whatever, get arrested. They put you on methadone and jail
Speaker:and you'll be on the program. People are on the program. They get 28 pills per day, despite
Speaker:any other medication you're doing. You're expected to do those 28 pills. That's keeping you on
Speaker:the system. They're willing to keep you on that system. Can't see your medication, any sharpness
Speaker:drug mark, you end up throwing air, your shelter changes. Why can that not be part of your medical
Speaker:and housing plan? You're in a wellness plan. So we know the housing and the pharmacy is
Speaker:familiar with something that's not the ASAP. None of that becomes an option. Okay, you're
Speaker:working, let's hope you have a say in your value. But what if you get a reference? So what if
Speaker:you get a case and you just go there? That's it. There will only be a reference to say,
Speaker:yeah, she went there, you were a good tenant. And that's it. Not to be extra, like, Oak Ridge
Speaker:out there or any of that stuff. Nope, they were good tenants. But we heard challenges where
Speaker:people had gotten their houses and workers and messed it up for 10, 15 years on a maintenance.
Speaker:And a new worker is supposed to help them get out. We were hearing that as recently as yesterday's
Speaker:episode. So. There's a lot of points where they rather abuse the power that help you get in
Speaker:what they should be having in every shelter. Regular needles, if not manual, are kind of
Speaker:bored in that area. The Metro Toronto housing in each area, finding a way to bypass the red
Speaker:page since most people that are unhoused have problems with their ID. You use their police
Speaker:documents, their medical documents, their medical records. with the bypass that they take to
Speaker:look at the house, right? Help people who are mentally and well-housing their hospitals.
Speaker:So now you can have medical programs that include the buildings that are around it. It's very
Speaker:easy, right? A few little shuffles, they'll say everything's a test. Nothing's a test.
Speaker:It's a little shuffle that already exists, right? That includes property and everything. Anything
Speaker:you don't wanna build on, you wanna build a mall on it later, sorry, but it's a modular
Speaker:housing, I tell you, build a mall on it. to all those people in modular housing that were
Speaker:building across the street that's gonna house them permanently. Very easy. I still remember,
Speaker:it's a story I tell a few people actually. There was a gentleman that was building some steps.
Speaker:He built some steps, I think, over in Hyde Park. And it ended up costing him $1,000 in cement.
Speaker:He wrote the government about it. They told him it cost $100,000. They told them to take
Speaker:it down and they spent like seven thousand or eight thousand on it. They don't go the same
Speaker:steps. But the old man built himself, he didn't know what to speak, he didn't see when they
Speaker:needed a solution. So this is equally in favor of things like Kaleo. Right? Use his resources,
Speaker:don't make extra time, there's nothing to do. That's allowed to resolve problems, made a
Speaker:cross-effective solution, it won't be costing anybody anything. And then there's time and
Speaker:trends. resources and skills and many as part ordered and not build anymore. Please help
Speaker:me keep that. and they ordered him to not do that. The city is helping people, does this
Speaker:make sense? Would you not have this person transition as going to teach each person how to do it?
Speaker:And say, listen, if you find a safe piece of land, you can build this as a module as it.
Speaker:You can get a ticket number. Now there's security on the lot.
Speaker:like there's so many things that you don't say about the police is million dollars like you
Speaker:build a rocket, send some money overseas and there's nothing wrong with being nice along
Speaker:with others but you're not going to carry home well either. That's why I hate the like cost
Speaker:benefit analysis argument even because at this point everyone probably knows that it's actually
Speaker:cheaper to house people than to deal with all of the things that we're talking about, like
Speaker:all of these layers of bureaucracy and shelter systems and enforcement and surveillance and
Speaker:permits and I mean it's endless the work that goes into being awful to poor folks and it
Speaker:would be cheaper to not but there's just such purpose. behind it, right? It's not driven
Speaker:even by a cost benefit analysis and it's not driven by any kind of ethical code because
Speaker:it's completely unethical. So that's what makes it so frustrating. And when, Naeem, you talked
Speaker:about organizing and having those difficult conversations. It needs to get done. My only
Speaker:thing that I wanted to like yell at you is like, okay, but I would rather the counselor just
Speaker:fear that we would take it and like I don't even care what they think about their jobs
Speaker:anymore I want the elites and the upper class to just know they can't fuck around because
Speaker:the poor people will rise up and just take something or they will cause some shit like they at this
Speaker:point it's their political careers aren't even important enough because they get jobs after
Speaker:like that is true in politics some career politicians are so useless they may not be employable afterwards.
Speaker:But they've made so many friends that they'll just get some bored, paid job anyway, gigs,
Speaker:books, whatever. So that's not enough fear. They need to really be scared, right? Like,
Speaker:they need to know that society will not function when you try to oppress such a large portion
Speaker:of it. And that still requires having those awkward conversations. Just, I would like to—and
Speaker:they still should make those— fucking phone calls to their counselors. I'm not telling
Speaker:people to not, because you need victories, like even small ones. But it's that larger goal
Speaker:of really finding our power and being willing to use our bodies in ways, not just our voices.
Speaker:I agree with that. And let me just be really clear, like we're not doing the door knocking.
Speaker:in the political lobbying, like, we're a direct action-oriented group, and I think, like, you
Speaker:should very much anticipate that, like, shit's gonna get real this year. You know, the things
Speaker:that we've done so far have been fairly defensive, like I mentioned, like, you know, being there
Speaker:and trying to use our bodies to stop— horrible shit from happening. But we very much are looking
Speaker:forward in 2024 to what it means to be, yeah, putting our bodies out there proactively taking
Speaker:spaces. And even like the disruption we helped organize at City Hall for the budget vote,
Speaker:like that's gonna continue, right? and city hall, committee meetings, catching politicians
Speaker:in public, like absolutely that is what folks should anticipate this year is that like business
Speaker:as usual is done and we're moving away from the fear and the kind of reactionary state
Speaker:that I think we've been growing out of that over the few years and I don't wanna try to
Speaker:suggest that like, it's all voices, like there's been a big kind of meh-loo and mix of things
Speaker:that have gotten us to this point, but look man, like if there's nowhere to go, if our
Speaker:quote unquote new progressive council is just carrying on the legacy of the last. hundred
Speaker:years of conservative fucking politics in this city and we're just gonna continue to Fund
Speaker:I mean the on the 14th. I just have to say it boggled my mind to think that like in Olivia
Speaker:Chow's office is like Michael Hay who founded Progress Toronto and folks from the Toronto
Speaker:York Region Labour Council Who well this city? Those folks are inside City Council, inside
Speaker:City Hall, about to pass motions to give the cops more money. The organizations they founded
Speaker:are outside protesting against a police budget increase. Like, I can't even imagine what being
Speaker:in Olivia Chow's office is like these days, but like that's the state of things, right?
Speaker:And I think like- I love that you're laughing, because- The veil. I'm not there yet. What
Speaker:else can you do, right? I mean. I know, I know. But like that veil is dropped, right? And like
Speaker:people, even if you're housed, like people can't afford fucking groceries, they can't afford
Speaker:rent, their kids are moving out of this city. Like things are gonna escalate. The RCMP report,
Speaker:I don't know if you guys read about the RCMP report about how they say one of the biggest
Speaker:threats to national security. is going to be people in their 30s realizing that like, shit's
Speaker:never going to get better and they can't afford to live in this country. Like, I don't know
Speaker:why I left that part. That's the reality. And I think that like, folks listening to this
Speaker:podcast should definitely expect to see like more action, more bodies, like the parallels
Speaker:even to what's happening in Gaza, right? This is like a worldwide effort to militarize the
Speaker:streets, militarize the state and trample on poor folks. And we were really like, we're
Speaker:really blessed to have, you know, folks from Juicy No to genocide support our efforts around
Speaker:the budget. And we show up as well in solidarity to their actions like. This is what we should
Speaker:expect to see this year in encampments, in the shelter hotels, but also at City Hall and the
Speaker:places where politicians and decision makers congregate. Well, for all of that, shoot me
Speaker:a text and I'll be there with a camera and a microphone. I'll make the drive. And writing
Speaker:an article about it and. talking about it here on Blueprints. And actually I wanna say also,
Speaker:even if there's an eviction from, like even one person from a shelter, let me know and
Speaker:I'll go and cover that as well. That's really great to hear. I would just be quick to say
Speaker:that when we talk to folks, I think that that's something that they don't see or are aware
Speaker:of, right? Is that like, I'm here. I maybe have a couple of friends that might help me out,
Speaker:but it's like scary as hell. And when we've asked people at the Delta, like, oh, well,
Speaker:what do you need to take more action? It's allies. We need allies, we need support. We need to
Speaker:know the media is gonna be there. We need to know that folks that are housed are gonna show
Speaker:up for us. And so thank you for that. And I hope that message can come out in this podcast.
Speaker:more people will DM us and share similar pledges of support because that's gonna go a long way
Speaker:for people to take that feeling of empowerment and start to build out tactics and strategies
Speaker:in the places that they live. So much love, appreciate that. Nahum, when you were talking
Speaker:about. getting to a point, you know, and I'm not gonna take it anymore kind of point, you
Speaker:know? You're like, it's not just us. I wanted to yell over you. No, we all feel it, brother.
Speaker:Like we can all feel it, even when we're not personally feeling it, it's in the air. And
Speaker:a lot of people are just done and frustrated with the stagnation of our movements. Definitely,
Speaker:definitely. I think that's what makes, yeah, I think that that's what, what I love about
Speaker:Voices is that like, we're not, I mean, we can, our faces can present lots of different ideas
Speaker:of who we are, but like, we're poor. Like all our members, we're poor, we're homeless. If
Speaker:we're not homeless, we're severely underhoused and going to bed every night wondering when.
Speaker:We're gonna be homeless. And so this is a struggle. It's not us doing work on behalf of other people.
Speaker:Like this is us. So yeah, thank you for that acknowledgement too. Dreads, before we go,
Speaker:is there anything else you wanna share with folks? It's also to say that a lot of death
Speaker:occurs out there as well. Not just like the threat of people ending up out there. Like
Speaker:while they're out there, there's people who don't submit themselves to the wrong kind of
Speaker:drugs. You can't tell people what to do for their own solution, but some things are not
Speaker:for everyone, so... Some people submit themselves to the wrong kind of drugs, they're like, company.
Speaker:Right? So it's trying to avoid you getting into those toxic relationships. That's also the
Speaker:thing about getting people out of these, through these kind of threatening... grants and supports.
Speaker:So hopefully, everyone starts getting more solution based. We need more decision makers that have
Speaker:economic control or who always get high end decisions. We need more people from the sidewalk
Speaker:and certain committees.
Speaker:two shelters and a condo in a hospital, or it's gonna be five condos. All right, it's gonna
Speaker:be people from the community involved in these contracts. Right, because now money's just
Speaker:being taxed and spent and you're seeing it's big open and empty lots. All right, doesn't
Speaker:sound like community plans are involving the community anymore. It's just that the community,
Speaker:we're gonna make and we're gonna live in it. We don't care if it's gonna cost 10 times what
Speaker:it costs now. Like, realistically, a house should not cost a million dollars. For one coin a
Speaker:million dollars should be comfortable. Now, you'd be lucky in Toronto to get a house for
Speaker:a million dollars. That's crazy. And that's the entire living expenses. They can't even
Speaker:provide as many jobs in Toronto to support as many houses. But they have more houses in condos
Speaker:than people. Like, it's... It's crazy. First, there's people on Lensdowne for example. The
Speaker:other thing that Lensdowne and Broke are gonna do, that they stated that some of their condo
Speaker:buildings are only 30, 50% full, right? So to me, those things don't make sense. It doesn't.
Speaker:Not one bit. People don't start making that. It's gonna be a hole in their pockets, their
Speaker:lifestyle, their time. And as I said, more off community. do not know that they'll potentially
Speaker:end up here. I think the oldest person I met that came out here for the very first time,
Speaker:completely naive to the streets, was 64 years old. And I took that gentleman out of Canada,
Speaker:no, they didn't stay with me until we got into Delta. And when we started doing outreach at
Speaker:Delta, we still did. But this is just to speak to where it appeared to you. And Todd, that's
Speaker:just sudden. It's just the potential where you can bump into somebody kind of like myself.
Speaker:You know, to have you in the in-camp, to keep things clear. Right? Other people out there,
Speaker:if you're using things like that, taking their money out of the prime, and when you're young,
Speaker:someone's looking out for you. All right? You're going to grow old, you're a kid, something
Speaker:like that. And you're an elder when you're an adult. And you're in a mentally under-estated
Speaker:state. It's about to make you look out for you. So. It's pretty crazy out there. Crazy out
Speaker:there. So you gotta put the supports back where the supports are for you so everyone gets mentally
Speaker:well secure and safe when you're listed here. Putting challenges out there to these multi-billion
Speaker:dollar corporations and million dollar corporations. Like let's buy a house and have a six person
Speaker:program in it. Let's start having a bell-ringing house. If you can open. get there, hey, you
Speaker:get a chance to work for us. You want that realistically, Rogers, whatever it is, right? Not just shelters,
Speaker:solution programs, right? Because not everybody wants to sit there and just deal with nothing.
Speaker:Some people want to engage in stuff. Right, some people don't know what to do with themselves.
Speaker:You show them certain opportunities. Some of them need to straighten up right off of the
Speaker:substance they're dealing with. So hey, this is a realistic opportunity. And then we got
Speaker:the chance to go to Soil. I was just coming in my dad's backyard. Right, I've got a couple
Speaker:of new friends, saw down some parks. They did, now I got the chance to work for Roger's here.
Speaker:I might want to straighten up. I let that forward a little bit. Right, for some people, yeah,
Speaker:so did we. Now we're at a new big glass space, we can go out there and figure through the
Speaker:program. Now it's a transitional space. We're getting to make a successful plan. I remember
Speaker:new shelters, for example, within the first two days, you needed to meet with a worker.
Speaker:Within two weeks, if you did not meet with a worker, they would pick you up. You don't need
Speaker:shelters. I feel the adult shelters should have the same thing as the shelter hotels. You have
Speaker:to meet with your worker every week. So now there's no programs like that. And you don't
Speaker:jump in. That's why it's prone to all the other excessive dangers. You jump right up to the
Speaker:other abuses. Alright, so. Change has to be all levels. You want to drop at a time and
Speaker:overnight, but steps kind of respect. Any direction is going. forward to the third, but the government
Speaker:likes to step backwards. The promises, the lies, the foolishness. I can't spend any money. Right.
Speaker:You'll knock on your door for your vote. I say knock on your door to see if you're okay. So
Speaker:I, I don't get it. Right. And this will tell you your whole counts. So what about my Wallace?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:because the police have no tools on their note. It's a negotiation. Yeah, the way that you
Speaker:describe the shelters, it's almost like they're trying to drive people out of them from the
Speaker:beginning to a set of discomfort, harassment, or living conditions. It's, I think it goes
Speaker:back to the beginning of that cycle, right, like it's supposed to be a cycle. for those
Speaker:that are designing it, right? Because there's no logic. They're struggling to find logic
Speaker:in any of this is I think what just slows you down. Like why, why would they do this? It
Speaker:doesn't make sense. Why would they pass this policy? Why would a caseworker treat me this
Speaker:way? Like it makes no sense. Don't they understand? And it's just, yeah, there's sometimes just
Speaker:no finding any sense of it, but that doesn't mean you can't like. What sensible people become
Speaker:mentally unwell. from being in the shelter system just too long. They ended up leaving and going
Speaker:right to a tent and leaving Toronto.
Speaker:There's been a few things and they were getting the supports from two people that were sexually
Speaker:abused and the staff wouldn't do anything for them without them going to the police. So they
Speaker:wouldn't even look into it, check the cameras, anything. So for the three days until this
Speaker:person went to the police, this person was still there, the person was well named, doing whatever.
Speaker:So there were steps to those kinds of actions. even the attentive support that need to be
Speaker:there. Okay, we don't know what happened, so for your safety, you can't be on the same floor
Speaker:as the person. In this case, the person needed to pass the elevator every time to pass that,
Speaker:they have to pass their room to get to the elevator. So every time they needed to go downstairs
Speaker:and on the hotel, they have to pass the address or two. So it's like what steps were taken
Speaker:by staff at all. So like you spoke earlier, the training, as I said, the training goes
Speaker:to know the difference from a seizure and an overdose, for example.
Speaker:All right. Now we have a handle, a cut, wrap a wound. All right. Simple stuff. Head wound,
Speaker:a leg wound. All right. Make a quick split. You know, something until the ambulance gets
Speaker:there. For the house, the case workers and the housing workers, something like the Delta?
Speaker:Yeah. All the workers, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:should be mandatory. What do they, what purpose do those folks serve just essentially like
Speaker:property managers that evict or are they supposed to be like social workers? Some of them are
Speaker:supposed to be housing. Some people said they haven't seen their housing worker in the entire
Speaker:time they've been there. I know it's two years, six months, a couple of weeks.
Speaker:They say there's a special diet. That's one of the incidents that led to somebody getting
Speaker:discharged. There's rumors leading to abuse and discharging. There's quite a few. They
Speaker:don't monitor. They just seem to let things happen. And once they build, they let the problem
Speaker:against the out-hands or whatever staff may be seeing it. Then they just say, oh, you're
Speaker:not reacting right. And if you don't listen to whatever demands they may have at the moment,
Speaker:like stop that or whatever it be. So you might say, hey, you didn't give me my food. Stop
Speaker:that. You're yelling at me. I'm not yelling. I'm mad because it's dinner time and I haven't
Speaker:gotten my diet all day. And I've been here for free. Like then the next thing you're getting
Speaker:it, you're discharged. You have an half an hour to pack your stuff. So now you're, now you're
Speaker:furious. Now you're throwing your food and all kinds of stuff. By now when the paper comes
Speaker:out, your kickbacks are throwing your food. Wait a minute. You were discharged before you
Speaker:threw your food, but the cameras don't work. Or they work but they don't have sound. Or
Speaker:10 staff saw you throw your food. All this retribution. Like that, those are the abuses. Those are
Speaker:the abuses of power. Dreads and Nahum, do you worry that organizing will have you evicted
Speaker:from any... shelter that you might be in or other police extra police scrutiny is that
Speaker:a reality for you? I can speak to this quickly I don't know what name I'm gonna say to it
Speaker:but I was already consequenced for organizing an overtel. I was charged for inciting a riot,
Speaker:creating an unsafe environment for the staff but they did this like hours, hours after the
Speaker:incident happened. And then they called police afterwards and said they called the police
Speaker:and that was the reason because I was assaulting staff. So one, they had two sheets of paper,
Speaker:one said three reasons, and the other discharge paper had another three reasons. So none of
Speaker:it was matching up, made sense. So that was like one element of it. so people can get discharged.
Speaker:And there needs a threat of discharge. One of the people that actually aided us in getting,
Speaker:one of the main people that aided us in getting the signatures towards the resident meeting,
Speaker:their tenancy at the hotel for participating with us was threatened, and it was for introducing
Speaker:something that was external to the program. But. what we did was get them to assist in
Speaker:petitioning for the resident meeting that was their right. So this is it's like it's their
Speaker:right to do it so now the resident meeting is happening but now they're the propaganda is
Speaker:speaking to speaking to us is trying to get the staff in trouble with losing jobs so that's
Speaker:now making the negative impact on the residents that don't know that are unaware. the residents
Speaker:that are aware try to tell people, no, this is what we're about. Right. So those are some
Speaker:of the challenges that we were dealing with in the means of support site and the challenges
Speaker:to their tenancy and like they really do. Right. So there's a threat of incidents that have
Speaker:happened to like myself. There's other members, but I don't know if they want to be named.
Speaker:So that's why I just
Speaker:But also, I mean, I'll just say that at the Delta, they already treat us like we're rioters
Speaker:or something for handing out coffee and trying to stop people from, or trying to help people
Speaker:get back in after eviction. So my take is, look, if you're gonna treat me this way for handing
Speaker:out cookies on a Thursday, then. Like we might as well take some action, right? Though, obviously
Speaker:I know like people's level of risk and precarity is different. I'm not, definitely not speaking
Speaker:on Dread's behalf because what went down at the Novotel was pretty bad. But you know, I
Speaker:also just wanna say too, like we, for those who aren't familiar, like we started. organizing
Speaker:at the Novotel down at the Esplanade a couple of years ago. And when they announced that
Speaker:it was closing, we did a series of escalating actions that led up to an occupation of the
Speaker:lobby. And they came down pretty hard. The cops, security, everyone came down pretty hard on
Speaker:us. And a couple weeks ago, we noticed that there were cops positioned at the Delta lobby.
Speaker:Every time we showed up there, cops kind of permanently there. And then very curious, not
Speaker:sure why all that's going on. And then a week, 10 days later, all the residents got these
Speaker:letters saying that the shelter's getting transitioned into a refugee space. So to me, that's a signal
Speaker:of fear, right? And I actually had a... the fortunate opportunity of a friend who sat in
Speaker:on a meeting after we occupied the Novotel with Holmes first staff. And it scared the shit
Speaker:out of them, right? That people took action, that disruption happened. And so no doubt they're
Speaker:gonna put cops in the lobby, right? Like they're worried about. that kind of level of response
Speaker:and reaction. They're using union busting tactics on you, right? They know how to do that. And
Speaker:they're applying it preemptively to the community there. Absolutely. Fuckers. Yep. Well, they're
Speaker:clever, but are they determined enough to stop? We're clever, too.
Speaker:Yeah, no doubt. And a lot more determined, I think.
Speaker:I want to thank you both so much for advising us and taking the time to come on here. And
Speaker:like I say to all my guests, even more so for the work that you're doing. Like thank you
Speaker:for persevering through all that shit and continuing to fight and try to pull people along with
Speaker:you that should already be coming along. And you're actually being quite gracious with the
Speaker:fact of how...
Speaker:with allies that should be doing more.
Speaker:Thank you again for coming on and sharing your stories too. Your perspective is important
Speaker:and we'll be sure to... Our show notes, if people are listening, are gonna point you right to
Speaker:Voices for the unhoused. So their social media accounts, various things that they've mentioned
Speaker:here on the show. And please, please show your support for us folks. All the more things.
Speaker:And then once the, then what's the, we have our podcast piece as well. This week's good.
Speaker:The, um. Yeah, we do.
Speaker:We do have a podcast called. Trial by Shelter. Folks can... We only have our first episode
Speaker:out. Our next episode's in editing right now. And also just... that like we would love, we're
Speaker:really looking for folks who can support us as like a monthly supporter and just like having
Speaker:that kind of consistency allows us to do the outreach, the mutual aid work that we do and
Speaker:just kind of gives us that consistency to know that next month will be okay, right? that do
Speaker:rely on that regularity of us showing up. So I'll share the link with you, Jess, so that
Speaker:you can share in the notes as well. And yeah, thanks for having us. Thank you very much.
Speaker:That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints of Disruption. Thank you for joining us. Also,
Speaker:a very big thank you to the producer of our show, Santiago Halu-Quintero. Blueprints of
Speaker:Disruption is an independent production operated cooperatively. You can follow us on Twitter
Speaker:at BPofDisruption. If you'd like to help us continue disrupting the status quo. Please
Speaker:share our content and if you have the means consider becoming a patron. Not only does our
Speaker:support come from the progressive community, so does our content. So reach out to us and
Speaker:let us know what or who we should be amplifying. So until next time, keep disrupting.
