A recent press release revealed that the City of Toronto spent $1.99 million violently evicting homeless people from Trinity Bellwoods Park, Alexandra Park, and Lamport Stadium. The additional costs of scattering homeless people around the city brings the price tag to well over $2 million. Community members were outraged that the city spent such an obscene amount kicking homeless people to the street and brutalizing community members when that money could’ve been spent on public housing.
Out of that $2 million, $840,127 was spent on “trespass enforcement”, a euphemism for police grabbing homeless people, throwing them in vans, indiscrinantly pepper spraying crowds, beating community members with truncheons, and even using knee-on-neck techniques reminiscent of Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd. Police deliberately provoked crowds and arrested dozens of encampment defenders. The $2-million price tag was just another slap in the face to activists who fought so hard to keep homeless people off the street.
The city claims that there are other options for homeless people. The ironically-named “Pathway Inside” program was ostensibly founded by the City of Toronto to provide support to encampment residents, but in reality, only eight per cent of encampment residents made it to permanent housing since April. The rest received only temporary, COVID-ridden shelter with no privacy, then were kicked to the curb. The idea that these evictions from city parks were for the residents’ own good is an insult to our intelligence. If they were truly offered quality housing, why did the city need an army of cops to force them to go there? Are we supposed to believe that people want to live in tents if they have better options?
The city currently spends $663.2 million on homeless shelters and $1.08 billion on police, its largest single budget item. Despite widespread calls to “defund” or even “abolish the police” last year, Mayor John Tory refused to cut the police budget while threatening to cut $860 million in services if the other levels of government don’t step in. These budgetary priorities are justified by the idea that Toronto is under siege by violent crime, despite the fact that Toronto is the second-safest city in the world, and has by far the most homeless people in Canada. A U.S. study found that police spend only four per cent of their time responding to violent crime while spending about one-third of their time responding to nonviolent calls, of which harassing the homeless surely makes up a large proportion.
All of this begs the question—why do governments spend so much money policing homeless people when they can more efficiently use that money to end homelessness? As previously explained, unemployment and homelessness aren’t an exception under capitalism, but the rule. Capitalists require there to be a permanent reserve army of labour competing for jobs to drive down wages. Similarly, landlords require there to be a permanent army of homeless people competing for housing to drive up rent. The fact that housing is treated as a commodity, and not a public good, is what created the absurd situation where there are 10,000 homeless people in Toronto and 66,000 people-less homes.
Community groups have valiantly stepped up to defend homeless encampments, but need solidarity from the entire labour movement to win. The group Labour Against Moss Park Evictions is calling on labour leaders to mobilize thousands of workers to defend homeless encampments and fight for more public housing. This is an important initiative for the here and now, but ultimately, removing the profit motive from housing is the only way to end homelessness for good. A socialist planned economy could put homeless people in empty homes and put unemployed youth to work building more quality housing. Homelessness will exist as long as capitalism exists, but capitalism doesn’t need to exist forever.
For a labour-led movement to stop police evictions!
End for-profit housing!
Fund housing, not police!
