On Monday, July 7, around supper time, a young Somali man in his mid- twenties was found dead in the Salvation Army Maxwell Meighen Hostel. On Thursday morning, July 10, Denis Bowen, 42, a native man known to many of us in the community, died outside a social housing building at 200 Sherbourne St.

Action Notice:

Join us THURSDAY, July 17th, to protest the city’s refusal to address poverty in our community and to speak out against the recent deaths of two homeless men who died last week in our community.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 17, 2008
TIME: 11 AM
LOCATION: Queen and Sherbourne St.

Today we went to City Hall to demand that Mayor David Miller immediately restore shelter beds in the downtown east side. We've lost over 350 shelter beds in the downtown core, and tens of thousands of meals over the past year, and the City has done nothing.

"They closed University Settlement for renovations today, so where am I supposed to sleep now?" asks Chris. "I'm sleeping in parks, under bridges. They got empty rooms here in City Hall tho, maybe we should stay here?"

As part of our challenge to the neglect and abuse faced by Toronto Community Housing tenants, OCAP has been collecting up photographs of disrepair in TCH buildings. On March 26, we came to City Hall and put up a photo display that showed some of what we have seen around the City.

The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) and supporters came to City Hall Monday to draw attention to the lack of services available for poor and homeless people in Toronto while demanding to know where those in need will seek food and a place to sleep as shelter closings plague the downtown core.

By now, most Out of the Cold (OOTC) Programs, volunteer initiatives that provide emergency shelter to the homeless community during the winter months, have closed their doors resulting in a loss of 130 beds per night. Over the past year, OCAP said the City has allowed three large rooming houses in the downtown East End to be shut down and five major shelters – providing 300 beds - to be closed.

PROJECT REVIVAL: POOR PEOPLE SWEPT INTO JAIL AS CITY CUTS SERVICES

Yesterday, the Metro Toronto police announced almost 300
arrests in a sweep of one of this city's poorest neighbourhoods. The
arrests took place in the area bounded by Gerrard St. E., Queen St. E.,
Church St. and Parliament St. Developed through the 51 Division
"Community Police Liaison Committee", the sweep involved undercover
officers in a 6 week operation, code named "Project Roundup" and
"Project Revival".

(Note: Please see Robert Maurice's ex-wife's response below)

On March 4, OCAP held a protest in city council around the freezing death of a homeless Native man named Robert Maurice which had been reported in various media. Twelve days earlier OCAP, and a number of agencies attended a committee meeting to express our concerns about the closing of over 300 shelters beds, which has led to serious overcrowding in Toronto hostels. We expressed our anger at Mayor David Miller and city politicians who had remained silent around Robert’s death.

On Wednesday February 27, 2008, a homeless Aboriginal man was found frozen to death in a downtown stairwell.



The death of this man rests with City officials. Rather than claiming adequate services exist for homeless people, as City officials did just two weeks ago, the municipal government must take responsibility for this preventable death and ensure not one more such terrible loss occurs.