On the first floor of Toronto City Hall, an exhibit of old photographs showing Toronto streets and homes bears the title, “Your Home, Our City: 100 Years of Public Control Over Private Space.” A living counterpoint to this statement was found on the second floor of the same building last Tuesday, when former residents of Tent City stood outside Mayor Mel Lastman’s office protesting the demolition of their homes.
Public control of private space ceased to exist in Tent City when Home Depot, the owner of the property at the lakefront docks where approximately 100 squatters had built up a community of makeshift dwellings over the past three years or so, ordered a surprise eviction.
Police and private security had erected a chain-link fence, sealing the area off. Some of the ex-residents hung around outside. It wasn’t clear exactly what was happening inside, especially since media were excluded from the premises.
In a press release addressing the eviction, Annette Verschuren, president of Home Depot Canada, said, “Home Depot Canada has always had two primary concerns—people and their safety… After learning about the worsening conditions at the site, we had to do the right thing and remove these people from a dangerous and deteriorating situation.”
The chronic overburdening of Toronto’s homeless shelters makes it unlikely that alternate arrangements will be easily found.
After being informed that Home Depot was holding a press conference at the Holiday Inn on King street, protestors—ex-residents and others—made their way to the posh hotel.
After being told they would not be allowed into the conference because they did not have press passes, the protestors caused enough of a disturbance to disrupt the proceedings, resulting in its cancellation. They then moved on to City Hall, followed by the media, where the group marched to Mayor Lastman’s office and asked him, through a megaphone, to come outside.
The mayor chose not to make an appearance.
A large police presence, approximately equal to the number of protestors, accompanied the proceedings, which were loud but peaceful.
The mayor did say, as quoted in the Toronto Star, that he supported Home Depot’s right to evict squatters from their property: “Let’s be clear, it is their property,” he said. “Home Depot has the right, as you or I, to have trespassers removed off their property.”
