Councillors I am Saleh
Waziruddin and we voted for you to give us a helping hand, not the iron fist.
Using the
nothwitstanding clause would take away not just the charter and legal rights of
the unhoused but also their human rights.
Fines and prison mean
criminalization, don’t let anyone tell you any different. Our eyes are not
deceiving us, the letter signed by a minority of the Ontario Big City Mayors
calls for fines and prison for at least some of the unhoused for just trying to
exist.
How can cities give a
helping hand when housing and health are provincial issues?
Halifax and Kelowna
have encampment areas where staff provide portable toilets and water bottles.
It’s not housing but the cities make it more attractive to camp there than
other places instead of criminalization.
Otherwise unhoused
people are being driven literally underground like in Edmonton where an
unhoused man was found in a cave.
So what should you do to
stop unhoused people camping where people are complaining? Nothing!
This is not just my
recommendation, the United Nations says that in its report on the
criminalization of homelessness and poverty. It says even if people refuse emergency
shelter they should not be punished because that would be punishing them for
the State’s failure to comply with international human rights law. This isn’t
me it’s the UN’s special rapporteur.
In one of your municipal
councils the mayor asked what do you do to stop people who refuse treatment.
The answer again – nothing! From the United Nations report, there are complex
reasons why people refuse treatment or emergency shelter and why treatment may
not meet their needs.
It’s no surprise the UN
report says vagrancy laws can be traced to the ongoing legacy of colonialism,
slavery, and apartheid. The UN report says criminalization costs multiple times
what housing does and just makes a revolving door between prison and the
street.
Unhoused people can’t
comply with laws that criminalize them because they are just trying to exist.
The Ontario Big City
Mayors as a group rejected asking for invoking the notwithstanding clause but
it’s telling that the minority of mayors who did, in their letter invoked the
US Supreme Court decision, but that decision wasn’t unanimous. The dissenting
opinion, by those who weren’t picked by Trump, written by Justice Sotomayor,
said punishing people for their housing status is “cruel and unusual” for what
is a biological necessity, not a crime. Those are the US Supreme Court justices
we should be looking to if any, not the Trump appointees.
It’s no exaggeration to
say the iron fist, or “tough love” as some are calling it, has the smell of fascism
because it’s pandering to the privileged at the expense of the basic existence of
the most marginalized. The Region’s latest homelessness count showed 28% of
Niagara’s unhoused are Indigenous, and your own report called for “culturally
sensitive” solutions, not overriding their human rights.
Thank you.
