Ontario Superior Court of Justice rules that evicting an encampment in downtown Kitchener would breach Charter rights, raising questions about encampment evictions in Hamilton
cw: mention of predatory behaviour
On Jan. 27 the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that the Region of Waterloo would be violating charter rights if they were to evict an encampment in Kitchener, given that the city could not provide immediate, adequate shelter for its occupants.
On Jan. 27 the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that the Region of Waterloo would be violating charter rights if they were to evict an encampment in Kitchener, given that the city could not provide immediate, adequate shelter for its occupants.
This ruling came after the Region of Waterloo filed to have tents removed from 100 Victoria Street, a property that it owns in downtown Kitchener.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects democratic society and Canadians’ rights to life, liberty and personal freedoms. In its proceedings, the court found that the Region of Waterloo would be violating the charter rights of those living in the encampment if they were to enact their proposed eviction.
This court ruling could have implications for the City of Hamilton, which has also struggled with inadequate shelter space and encampment evictions. There are several local activist groups challenging Hamilton’s bylaws on behalf of those living in encampments, including the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic.
The HCLC is a local organization that provides legal services to low-income individuals. Currently, the HCLC is representing 19 clients fighting to stay in encampments, most of whom are women.
Following the court ruling, HCLC released a statement calling for the city to move away from law enforcement in encampments and redirect focus to affordable housing, opposing the addition of two Hamilton Police Services officers tasked with enforcing encampments.
Sujit Choudhry, who works pro bono at HCLC, spoke to the Silhouette about the ramifications of the Waterloo ruling in Hamilton. He spoke to the dire situation of those living in encampments and he doubled down on the message in the HCLC statement saying that the end of unconstitutional evictions was inevitable.
“The city is doubling down on a failed and ultimately unconstitutional strategy. And let me reiterate, [HCLC] will prevail in court,” said Choudhry.
Choudhry also spoke about the clients represented by the HCLC and why they choose to live in encampments, rather than trying to find shelter in Hamilton.
“There’s a dramatic shortage of women’s shelter beds in Hamilton . . . male predators station themselves outside of women shelters to prey on women who can’t get in at night,” said Choudhry.
Ward 2 Council Member, Cameron Kroetsch, also spoke about the issues of encampments in the context of the of Hamilton and its city council.
“Until we can find places for people to go, so they stay out of the extreme cold, enforcing encampments is not the right answer,” said Kroetsch.
The City of Hamilton will continue to discuss the issue of encampment enforcement in council meetings, as the HCLC continues their pursuit of challenging what they call unconstitutional methods of encampment enforcement.
Hamilton is a city of stark inequalities. As the city’s economy booms, many Hamiltonians are swept to the sidelines as a result of a housing crisis and employment insecurity. Compared to other cities in Ontario, Hamilton also has a high proportion of working class people, disabled people and refugees, who are often the first to feel the brunt of these changes.
Health outcomes over the past decade have been bleak, and according to many disability justice and healthcare advocates, show no signs of changing unless bold steps are taken to support Hamilton’s marginalized populations.
In 2010, the Hamilton Spectator released Code Red, a project that mapped the connections between income and health across Hamilton to explore the social determinants of health. Using census and hospital data from 2006 and 2007, the report showed strong disparities in health outcomes between the Hamilton’s wealthiest and poorest neighbourhoods.
The Code Red project shows that social and economic inequalities lead to health inequalities. The lower city, which experiences disproportionately higher rates of poverty, also has significantly poorer health outcomes.
In February 2019, an updated Code Red project was released using data from 2016 and 2017. The updated Code Red project found that in general, health outcomes in Hamilton have declined and inequalities have grown.
Since the first Code Red project in 2010, the average lifespan in parts of the lower city has declined by 1.5 years. Furthermore, the gap in lifespan between Hamilton neighbourhoods has grown from 21 to 23 years.
These results come as no surprise to Sarah Jama, an organizer with the disability justice network of Ontario. According to Jama, given the lack of political change coupled with changes in the city of Hamilton, it was inevitable that poverty would worsen and inequalities would deepen.
Jama notes that health care and social services tend to be compacted into the downtown core, which has tended to have a higher concentration of people who rely on these services.
However, rising costs of living within the downtown core has meant that the people who access these services are being priced out. According to a report by the Hamilton Social Planning and Research Council, eviction rates have skyrocketed in the past decade. As a result, the people who rely on these services have to make compromises about whether to live in a place with supports available close by, or a place that is affordable.
“The more compromises you have to meet with regard to your ability to live freely and safely in the city the harder it is to survive,” said Jama.
Denise Brooks, the executive director for Hamilton Urban Core, works directly with people at the margins of Hamilton’s healthcare system. Brooks noted that the 2010 Code Red project was a wake up call for many.
“For me one of the biggest takeaways [from the first Code Red project] was even greater resolve that this really is a political issue and that it hasn't been looked at and is not being looked at as a crisis,” stated Brooks.
The 2010 Code Red project sparked projects including the Hamilton neighbourhood action strategy and pathways to education program. According to Brooks, while these initiatives were beneficial, more robust policy is needed to substantially address poverty.
“... [C]an we see any change in policy orientation? Did we see a reallocation of resources? Did we see a redistribution of priorities in any way? I would have to say no,” said Brooks.
The updated Code Red project calls for a restructuring of the traditional health care system to include social and economic programs that contribute to people’s overall health.
However, recent political changes have led many health advocates to worry that the coming years will see change for the worse. Matthew Ing, a member of the DJNO research committee, notes that provincial cuts to a slew social assistance programs threaten to further exacerbate the existing inequalities in Hamilton.
In November 2018, the provincial government announced reforms to Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program that aimed to streamline social assistance and incentivize people to return to work. Among many changes, this includes aligning the definition of disability to align with the more narrow definition used the federal government.
According to Jama, narrowing the eligibility requirements for disability support makes it likely that people will slip through the cracks. They will put the responsibility on the municipality to provide services, meaning that care is likely to differ between providers.
“The onus is going to be on individual service providers on all these people to really decide who really fits this idea of being disabled enough to be on the service versus it being like sort of supervised by the province,” stated Jama.
Additionally, in February 2019 the provincial government announced plans to streamline and centralize the health care process. Under the proposed model, Ontario Health teams led by a central provincial agency will replace the existing 14 local health integration networks across the province.
Brooks noted that this has not been the first time that the province sought out to reform healthcare. Having worked in community health for years, Brooks remarks that the changes that are made to healthcare frequently exclude people on the margins.
“It's always the people who are the most marginalized, the most vulnerable, the socially isolated and historically excluded that remain on those margins all the time regardless of the change that go through,” said Brooks.
Currently, patient and family advisory committees work to inform the work of LHINs. The government has not announced whether PFACs will be retained under the new model, but Ing worries that a centralized model would leave patients and families out of the decision making process.
However, Ing recognizes that the current system is far from perfect, noting that disabled communities were not adequately represented on PFACs. According to Ing, this speaks to the much larger problem of political erasure of people with disabilities.
“Disability justice means that we must organize across movements, and we must be led by the people who are most impacted,” writes Ing.
The DJNO was created in order to mobilize disabled communities and demand a holistic approach to healthcare reform. According to Jama, this includes seeing race, income, and disability as fundamentally interconnected.
However as social assistance measures are cut at the provincial level, the future for disability justice is murky. The results of the updated Code Red project paint a sobering picture of the state of health inequality in Hamilton. Given the direction that healthcare reform is taking on the provincial level, health and poverty advocates worry about the future of healthcare equality in Hamilton.
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