It almost seems as if they were never here in the first place. The park is empty except for the people cutting through the grounds on its concrete paths. 

Birds fly overhead as squirrels scamper up tree trunks and rummage through wood-chipped gardens. 

Christmas lights remain wrapped around tree trunks and their limbs. The winter sun peers through naked tree branches and shines brightly on a park that nearly 500 people called home for 40 days last fall. 

The muddy lawn has been replaced with a beautiful new field of grass. The shadows have grown longer.

People shuffle through the park as if Occupy Toronto never existed. 

More than 100 people assembled in St. James Park on National Housing Day for a rally to highlight the need for a national housing strategy and bring attention to the growing homelessness problem in Toronto and across the country.

Between 150,000 and 300,000 people are homeless in Canada. Almost 142,000 households are on the waiting list for affordable housing in Ontario.

Canada is the only major industrialized country without a national housing program even though it has signed international treaties guaranteeing housing as a human right. One in nine Canadians will be homeless or face homelessness in their lifetime.

Click here to see more photos from Day 31 at Occupy Toronto in St. James Park.