Annex residents sideswiped in shelter dispute
On Jan. 29, a neighbour of the new temporary homeless shelter at 348 Davenport Rd. wrote to the office of Ward 20 Councillor Joe Cressy asking how she and others could help. Did the facility need food? The neighbour said she and her husband would be happy to prepare meals and they were also happy to donate clothing. “Please let us know how we can help,” she concluded.
This heartening letter represents everything good about a city, doesn’t it? Welcoming neighbours reaching out to an emergency shelter that was opened quickly by the city to help mitigate the acute shortage of shelter spaces this winter. Indeed, it’s a very local manifestation of the citywide outrage that built in December and into the new year as Mayor John Tory and a majority of city council members resisted opening more emergency shelter beds as temperatures plummeted.
The kindness contained in this letter happens all the time in the background, but what’s notable about this one is the offer of goodwill came from the owners of what was, for a few weeks, the most famous car in Toronto: the Annex Tesla. Four days earlier, a director of the Davenport Triangle Residents Association (DATRA) spoke to the press of his organization’s opposition to the shelter going into their neighbourhood, implicating the Tesla and its owners in the opposition, suggesting they were worried about their car being vandalized out of “jealousy.” This came after a DATRA newsletter declared the Annex had enough “social problem” housing already.
It seems the good couple were thrown under the Tesla, as it were.
After I wrote about the issue two weeks ago, they got in touch to say they were and are supportive of the shelter, and forwarded the letter of support they had already sent to the councillor’s office as proof. Though they wish to remain anonymous Good Samaritans, it’s important to set the record straight.
The Tesla owners say that when they sent their email to Cressy’s office they weren’t aware of the DATRA newsletter or the comments made in the press implicating them. Nor, perhaps blessedly so, did they know their car became the focus of ire on various social media platforms afterward.
Indeed, because they did not identify as the Tesla owners in their email — and why on earth would they, in a normal world? — the councillor’s office didn’t make the connection between their offer of assistance and the Tesla in the news. Their offer of help was part of a wider community effort to embrace the shelter and push back at the opposition.
On Thursday, a group called the Interfaith Coalition to Fight Homelessness released a letter signed by 23 religious leaders from Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities in both Ward 20 and across Toronto supporting the Davenport shelter and calling for 1,000 more beds and a change in how all of Toronto deals with this chronic problem.
“This new approach will see many more shelters like the one at 348 Davenport Rd. in every ward throughout Toronto,” read the letter. “They will be a part of the communities they are built in, and not apart from them.”
What’s most important here is the call on the entire city to begin to take on homelessness, as it isn’t just an inner-city problem, though often services are concentrated there. The groundswell of support for the Davenport shelter and opening the armouries last month indicate there’s political support for such things, and it would be an issue councillors could support in their own ward if they have the courage to face some inevitable opposition while knowing others are supportive.
Even DATRA, in their most recent February newsletter, is much more accommodating of the shelter: they’re supportive, but have some concerns over a few issues, a much more reasonable approach than the language used in their previous newsletter. It also notes that the DATRA board member who made the “unfortunate” comments about the shelter also resigned from their board.
All of this is a reminder that residents groups don’t always speak for everyone in the neighbourhood and, even within such groups, there’s disagreement over issues. Local organizing is good, but the trouble is the squeaky wheels and the booming voices get the attention. It takes a considerable amount of energy to disagree with people who are opposed to something, whether it’s a shelter, a new residential building coming to the neighbourhood, or perhaps a bike-share rack in a Cabbagetown park. People with a bone to pick have endless reserves of energy, and who needs the hassle of a neighbourhood fight?
As for the Tesla owner, she wishes the city and citizens could work together to solve the issue. “Homelessness is a problem that grows exponentially each year and we may have been able to pay it little attention when it was sequestered and out of sight,” she wrote in an email to me. “Now that it’s in our back lane, I feel I have the opportunity to actually participate in the solution and make a difference in the lives of the vulnerable souls that use the facilities.” Shawn Micallef writes weekly about where and how we live in the GTA. Wander the streets with him on Twitter @shawnmicallef.