Policing the TCHC can be a fine blue line
Enforcing trespass act can clean up drug dealing, but some tenants may feel unfairly targeted
A jerky video image captures Toronto police as they confront a small group of residents of Mornelle Court, a TCHC complex well north of Danzig St., the public housing complex that only a week earlier was the site of the city’s worst mass shooting.
The exchange in July 2012 is being filmed by a resident.
The situation is strained as police zero in on one man, asking for his identification, which he has so far refused to hand over.
“Leave him alone. Get out of here. Go to Danzig,” a woman yells, as she wraps herself protectively around the man and the two fall to the ground.
The disturbing imagery of the residents surrounded by eight officers is an example of the heightened tensions that can occur in Toronto Community Housing in the wake of a tragedy like the one that summer.
At such times police are often on site to enforce the powers given to them by TCHC to enforce the provincial Trespass to Property Act.
“I’ve seen it. I’ve been in the community for years,” says Olu Quamina, a youth worker who has witnessed the police reaction to violence in the Alexandra Park complex near Chinatown.
“TAVIS (Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy, a unit of the Toronto police) comes in and shuts the community down. They’re aggressive. They block off entrances and exits. Anybody coming through is stopped and carded.
“Grown men being searched,” he says. “Working-class people coming home at the end of the day.”
The standoff at Mornelle Court ends only when the woman reaches into the man’s pocket and gives police his identification.
“I didn’t need to give you my ID, bro,” says the man. “I’m sick of this s---, man. I didn’t murder anyone.”
The Mornelle incident is an example of how police can enforce the trespass act in public housing complexes across Toronto, where officers stop and document — or card — people heavily in an attempt to identify who shouldn’t be on the property.
The reasoning, according to the head of Toronto Community Housing, is that the people committing crimes in public housing don’t actually live there.
“You’ll see that most of the residents that get shot or killed or so forth do not live on TCHC property,” says Gene Jones, CEO of the housing corporation, who gained experience in several U.S. cities before coming to Toronto a year ago. “They’re visitors. That’s a fact.”
As the head of housing in Indianapolis, Jones had his own police force that he used to close down streets in complexes and card everyone going into the development to catch people with outstanding warrants.
“If you don’t belong here, if you’re not having a legitimate visit to a leaseholder on that property, you shouldn’t be there,” says Jones. The CEO says he’s never had a complaint about carding, although residents have said they don’t like the way some police approach them.
There is no denying that rivalries between residents in different community housing complexes in Toronto have sparked violence.
Quamina says tensions between a few young people in Alexandra Park and Regent Park are alarming.
“Young people are polarized even though they’re on the same street,” he says. The two TCHC properties are on Dundas St. W. and Dundas St. E., respectively. “Yonge St. is the unspoken boundary. If you cross on the other side, you’re not safe.”
Quamina worked for Toronto Community Housing this summer as a motivational speaker during Midnight Basketball, a program brought up from the States by Jones.
Teenagers were bused in from separate TCHC housing developments to U of T’s Scarborough campus, where they were given dinner and attended lectures about conflict resolution and long-term goals, before getting on a court to play.
The Friday night program, designed to divert kids from the streets between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m., is one of many sports programs run by the housing provider, which employs hundreds of youth workers and mentors and helps thousands of kids through summer baseball and soccer leagues.
Quamina, who is executive director of Concrete Roses, a not-for-profit that educates people on the impact of violence, said the pilot project was a success.
“We’ve had some tremendous feedback from some young men,” he said. “That they’re able to connect with the message. That they’re interested to go back to the community and work towards their longterm goals.”
But the other side of TCHC is a close relationship with Toronto police that can be a heavy burden for the thousands of innocent people who live there.
Residents in community housing are stopped not only by local police, but by TAVIS officers, who card at the highest rate.
A Star investigation shows the result is that males aged 15 to 24 account for 22 per cent of people stopped and documented in a five-year period despite making up just 6 per cent of the city’s population.
An analysis of police data obtained by the Star also shows that in many of the city’s patrol zones, the number of young black males carded in a neighbourhood over a five-year period equals the total number of black youth living there.
Their personal information — name, address, “associates” — is entered in a massive police database that is used for investigations.
Both Jones and Deputy Police Chief Pe-
“You’ll see that most of the residents that get shot or killed or so forth do not live on TCHC property. They’re visitors. That’s a fact.” GENE JONES CEO, TORONTO COMMUNITY HOUSING CORP.
ter Sloly say the feedback they receive from TCHC residents is positive.
Local residents “want our cops in those neighbourhoods, in those stairwells, in the community meetings, at the resident group meetings,” says Sloly, “visible, accessible and ready to tackle the tough problems in there with them.”
That means in areas of the city such as Flemingdon Park, near Eglinton Ave. and Don Mills Rd., the police presence has been stepped up in the last few years.
Although Sloly says the area has always had a problem with violent crime, local Councillor John Parker says that was in the past.
“Flemingdon is a pretty peaceful, quiet community with folks who are just doing their best to cope with the challenges of life,” he says.
“There’s a lot more good happening in Flemingdon than bad.”
Despite that, youths like 17-year-old Isaac Bobb say they are stopped at least twice a week.
The teen, who hasn’t had any legal trouble, says drugs are a problem in the complex and that police are doing their job.
He worked as a youth mentor during Midnight Basketball to serve as a role model.
“I’ve seen kids turn from good or respectful young men to drug dealers,” he says, “but I wanted to show them that isn’t the path.”
But he acknowledges that the police presence is so heavy that once you do something bad, “police will be on you every day.”
“Every day, they’ll come see you,” says Bobb, who has lived in the area his entire life.
“The more drugs are brought into the community, the more police are brought into the community,” he says, and “the less of a chance these kids have to grow and succeed.”
Some youth advocates say the relationship between Toronto police and TCHC is a controversial way to use the trespass act to legitimize carding.
“Police use this trespass enforcement power as an excuse for stopping people when they don’t have any other reason,” says Mary Birdsell, executive director of Justice for Children and Youth, a nonprofit legal clinic.
“It really is policing of a whole other layer and order of people who live in housing,” she says.
“It absolutely smacks of discriminatory policing policy.”
The clinic hands out cards to youth with information about what they are legally required to do when stopped by police in community housing. As Birdsell notes, the act doesn’t require a person to identify himself.
What it does say is “that if you aren’t supposed to be on the property then you can be asked to leave.”
But if young people try to enforce their rights it can lead to disastrous interactions, like the one on Neptune Dr. in November 2011 that was caught on video.
Four youths—15-year-old twins and two friends aged 15 and 16 — were walking through a common area of the public housing complex near Bathurst St. and Highway 401 when they were stopped by TAVIS officers enforcing the trespass act.
Things got ugly when one of the kids tried to assert his rights and walk away. The teens were on their way to a mentoring program that helps keep at-risk youth in school.
At one point an officer pulled his gun and punched the youth. The teens were eventually arrested and charged with assaulting police, charges that were later withdrawn.
Birdsell says she understands that TCHC tenants are worried about their safety and they want to know drug dealers aren’t hanging around.
But she says the frequency of the interactions cause many young people to question why police are stopping them when they didn’t do anything wrong.
“It leads to a mistrust of the police.”