War of words divides neighbourhood
New homeless shelters in mid-town community spark a volatile debate
Joyce Rankin works with Toronto’s homeless for a living.
But now she’s watching in distress as a controversy over two new homeless shelters in her midtown neighbourhood drives a wedge through the community she loves.
Rankin, a nurse and clinical manager for Street Health, a front-line service for the city’s homeless, lives near the shelters, one on Broadway Avenue, near Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue East, that houses 150 people and opened in April, the other sleeping 174 people in a site that opened its doors in early July in the Roehampton Hotel near Mount Pleasant and Eglinton.
The Broadway shelter is closing down at the end of this month. The city leased the aging apartment buildings, but they are slated for demolition that will make way for a private condo development.
But the shelter in the hotel will remain operating because the city recently signed a two-year lease extension with the building owner, with an option for a third year.
Opened amid the coronavirus pandemic, the two sites are among several buildings in the Toronto core — mostly hotels — that have been turned into interim spaces to enable the homeless to social distance from one another. Thousands were quickly moved out of crowded homeless shelters in the city, and many homeless people have also been relocated from makeshift outdoor encampments.
But the Yonge and Eglinton shelters, located in a bustling area that is home to towering condos, busy, walkable streets and expensive homes, have ushered in deep divisions in that community, including the vitriol playing out in posts on a Facebook group created by locals.
Some owners of property and businesses in the area want the hotel site closed down or for it to cater to a different clientele, such as single women with children or a facility for refugees.
Others, like Joyce Rankin, are sympathetic to the plight of the homeless and want the shelter to keep operating as it is.
“I’m worried for the population I work with,” Rankin said in an interview.
“I love the community I live in. It’s fun, and there’s lots to do. But I feel sorry there’s a group of negative-minded people who have an incorrect perception of the people I work with,” she says, adding the shelters sorely need more supports, including enhanced harm reduction services inside.
“We have to work with the people in the hotel. They are as much a part of the community as we are,” says Rankin, who has lived in the area for more than 15 years.
Local tensions have heightened after the stabbing of a city worker who was on her shift last week at the Broadway site. A resident of the building was charged with assault with a weapon and other offences.
And this week a 25-year-old man identified as a resident of the shelter was arrested by Toronto police and faces multiple firearms charges after a modified pellet gun containing ammunition was located in the area, according to investigators.
There have been other incidents at the site including the overdose death of a client and a fire.
Toronto police announced they are beefing up patrols in the neighbourhood.
Much of the division over the shelters is playing out on the private, 4,000-member strong Facebook group called Community Safety — Midtown Toronto, which launched about three weeks ago.
That’s where some community members are complaining that the shelters have brought unwanted crime including break-ins, bike thefts and drug dealing, along with litter, discarded dirty needles, public urination and other problems.
But critics of the Facebook group who have reached out to the Star, including Rankin who was recently kicked out of the forum, say many of the comments from members are often toxic, elitist, closed-minded, “NIMBY” (not in my backyard)-driven and hostile.
One member of the group sent a screen grab to the Star showing an example of the nasty back and forth on the forum.
“Please, go give more burgers to the people sh---ing on our sidewalks and stabbing shelter workers. You guys are true winners,” reads a comment from one member, who later writes that her son’s daycare was broken into.
Another member follows up, saying the tone of the burger comment isn’t welcome.
Another responds to the first comment, saying there are 300 people in the two local shelters. “You don’t think even one of them deserves a little compassion and help because of the actions of one person, or the assumed actions of a few people?”
Melanie Ward, a local resident and one of the administrators of the Facebook page, defends the forum, saying it was created to enable community members to have a safe space to talk about what’s going on at the shelters. “Some members want (the Roehampton shelter) closed. I don’t think that will happen,” Ward says.
Ward, one of the proponents of having the Roehampton turned into a respite for homeless women and children or refugees, says she doesn’t believe all the shelter residents are bad.
“Not everyone in the shelters, but a small handful are committing crime. Some people in there need a helping hand,” Ward says.
Incidents at the shelters have left the broader community emotional and upset, Ward says.
Businesses in the area have been hit by the economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus, traffic disruptions brought on by construction on the Eglinton Crosstown LRT and “now the shelters,” Ward says.
“It seems like this area just can’t catch a break,” says Ward, a15-year resident who works as an executive assistant.
Another member of the group, Tammy McLean, a single mom who has lived in the community since 1969 and who operates a salon near the hotel, echoes the view that only the “criminal elements” in the shelter are affecting the community.
She says the premises where she operates her salon had two break-ins last month and computers and salon-related products were stolen, and there was another break-in attempt, the first such incidents since she began operating seven years ago. The community believes crime is up in the area, and they blame the shelter residents.
(Toronto Police statistics for 53 Division, a boundary that takes in the shelters, do not show a noticeable increase from April to July compared to the beginning of the year in the category of break-ins, assaults or thefts. A spokesperson at the division, Det.-Sgt. Scott Bradbury, said the statistics are for a large area and may not fully capture what is happening near the shelters. He declined to comment about a link between the shelters and crime.)
McLean, who wants the hotel turned into a shelter for women and children, is organizing a rally for the community Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Northern Secondary School on Mount Pleasant. The event is billed as a “crusade to restore safety for residents in the area” and will focus on what’s happening at the shelters.
“In the meantime, we’re waiting hour by hour for the next (incident),” McLean says.
(A counter rally in support of the midtown shelter residents and calling for more affordable housing is planned for the same day and start time, and is slated to take place at North Toronto Collegiate Institute, on Broadway Avenue).
Meanwhile Ward, the administrator of the Facebook group, says she deletes comments from the forum if they are personal attacks or rude. She says she has kicked out members if they are “calling us NIMBYs” or being a troll.
“We’re all neighbours. I just want people to be kind to each other,” Ward says.
But critics of the Facebook group say the ongoing war of words has been emotionally draining.
One member, who, for fear of being harassed, asked she be identified only by her first name — Jenny — said she decided this week to “step away” from the “bad energy on both sides” of the online discussion.
“It was making me miserable,” she says, adding that her husband recommended she take a breather from the group after noticing a change in her demeanour.
Several of the online comments complain about the city signing a lease extension on the hotel without telling the community.
In a statement to the Star, the city said under council and city bylaws, the city’s Shelter, Support and Housing Administration has the delegated authority to choose shelter sites in locations that meet zoning bylaws without consultation with the community or approval of local councillors.
“Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the resulting state of emergency (including the emergency powers granted to enact needed programming to save lives) and the guidance from the Ministry of Health to create physical distancing in our shelter system, our normal engagement process of notifying and working with the community before a shelter opens was not possible for a number of reasons,” the city’s statement said.
“The speed at which we had to move to open up over 30 new temporary shelter sites to avert potential outbreaks in shelters to save lives and minimize the spread of COVID-19 in shelters and the community more broadly” was one of those key reasons, the statement said.
Toronto Mayor John Tory has stepped into the fray, defending the shelters publicly, saying, “We have to look after vulnerable people, especially during a pandemic.”
In a later interview he said: “When you have priorities — keeping communities safe and peaceful but at the same time looking after our most vulnerable populations, sometimes those things will be a challenge to reconcile.”
Prior to the stabbing, Tory spoke to members of the local BIA and oversaw the implementation of several significant security changes put in place to deal with the community’s concerns, including the establishment of “community safety teams,” a contracted company that will patrol the area around the clock, monitor the shelters, nearby schools, business and any “hot spots” community members identify.
Several additional security cameras have been put in place at the hotel.
Josh Matlow (Ward12, Toronto-St. Paul’s) the local city councillor, said “Each and every valid public safety concern” expressed by community members has to be addressed while the shelters are in place.
“In no context is it acceptable to leave needles on our streets and school yards, harass people, break into stores, steal, defecate in public or make people feel intimidated and unsafe,” Matlow said after the stabbing.
The city’s shelter services staff will lead an online information meeting for the community on Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m.
Matlow hastened to add that the city is also facing an opioid crisis and a severe housing shortage, all amid a pandemic.
“We have to face all of these realities.”
Regarding the dialogue on the Facebook page, Matlow, who has been the target of online rage over the issue, believes the majority of participants are “sitting quietly trying to get information,” but a handful of are attacking each other and name calling.
“That amplifies anxiety and fear,” Matlow said.