CANADIAN ANARCHIST MOVEMENT-TORONTO:

OCAP STREET TAKE-OVER TOMORROW:

Molly has blogged on this event before, but she received an update today, and the event deserves as much publicity as possible. So...from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) here's what will be happening down Toronto way tomorrow.

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TOMORROW: OCAP Street Takeover: We will not be pushed out, priced out or policed out!‏:
OCAP STREET TAKEOVER:

We will not be pushed out, priced out or policed out!

Saturday October 4th, 2008

12 Noon

Pigeon Park

at Gerrard & Parliament

Free Meal

On Saturday, October 4th, OCAP is taking to the streets in the downtown east end, a neighbourhood that has one the largest concentrations of homeless people in Canada, and is also one of oldest working class neighbourhoods in the country. We are doing so because poor and homeless people are being dispossessed and displaced, as the neighbourhood is systematically destroyed and rebuilt as a refuge for the city's wealthy.

We refuse to be pushed aside. It is time for us to stand up for our neighbourhoods, and the services and spaces we need and deserve. It is time to expose the anti-poor agenda of this municipal government and demand what is ours.

Calling it "one of the world's finest examples of housing projects", the City of Toronto acts as if its "Streets to Homes" (S2H) program can replace all other forms of social support for Toronto's homeless population. This means we have watched the City defund shelters and meal programs across Toronto, resulting in the loss of over 300 shelter beds in the past two years. Many of the people housed through Streets To Homes have been uprooted from their downtown communities, to be housed on the edge of Toronto in substandard and expensive units, with little to no access to medical and social services or public transit. While the City pats itself on the back for the perceived "successes" of S2H, people are stuck in units that don't meet basic standards for repair, far away from loved ones and crucial services.

The City has also used the police to harass and intimidate poor people. Over the past year alone, the cops used the so-called Safe Streets Act to slap 10,000 tickets (and resulting prohibitive fines) on poor and homeless people in Toronto, the same cops who openly encourage resident and business associations to target poor people and the places we congregate. Upscale housing is replacing social housing, and poor people are being sent to jail.

This is all part of a bigger plan to drive poor people out of the neighbourhoods we've lived in for decades, to make room for rich condo owners and other wealthy people.

Join us as poor people and our supporters take over the streets in the downtown east end, as we march yards away from Regent Park with its new luxury homes, to celebrate that we have not, and will not, be pushed out of our community.

Saturday October 4th, 2008

12 Noon

Pigeon Park

at Gerrard & Parliament

Free Meal

We will not be pushed out, priced out or policed out!

For more information and access accommodation, call OCAP at (416) 925-6939

or email

ocap@tao.ca