Almost 100 people crowded into Moss Park on Saturday to rally against the proposed cuts to city services and the recommended sell-off of over 1,000 units of social housing.
On Monday, city council will likely bring forward a budget with the deepest cuts to public services Toronto has ever seen, to counterbalance an anticipated shortfall of close to $800 million.
Libraries, child-care facilities, homeless shelters and community centres will probably be hit hardest.
In the Downtown East, the Parliament Street library is at risk of closing on Sundays and faces reduced hours during the week. Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) apartment buildings and houses are in danger of being sold.
User fees will probably be introduced for adults at three local community centres. Cuts to child-care spaces and funding for subsidies are on the chopping block too.
The Downtown East neighbourhood, one of the most impoverished urban communities in Canada, relies heavily on public services. Cuts to vital supports will only worsen the situation and widen the gap between rich and poor.
Council was set to vote on the proposal to sell some TCHC units to generate the cash needed to clear up part of the backlog of repairs to other units. But the vote has been postponed until January.
There are over 79,000 people on the waiting list for social housing. The wait time is 10 years and in the meantime hundreds of people languish on the streets of Toronto, in the overcrowded shelter system or are forced to pay market rents they can barely afford.
“We have seen and felt the effects of poverty for far too long and know all too well what cuts to public services will mean,” said the Downtown East Stop the Cuts Committee in a written release.
“But this is also a community of amazing resilience and we are fighting back.”
At the corner of Queen and Sherbourne, in front of the city-owned John Innes Community Centre and close to abandoned houses on Sherbourne Street between Dundas and Queen, community activists (including Occupy Toronto) gathered on Saturday afternoon to talk about the impact of city cuts on their community.
“This is a neighbourhood that is already suffering from a lack of housing and services,” said Liisa Schofield, Downtown Eastside Community member.
“And we’re going to see devastating cuts to services in this neighbourhood and to neighbourhoods all across Toronto. And shame on Ford for imposing that on our communities.”
Toronto Stop the Cuts has been organizing communities across the city for the last several months.
On Monday, they’ll meet at City Hall to sit in on the Budget Committee meeting to find out exactly where and how much city council will cut from next year’s budget.
The cuts will be voted on in mid-January and Schofield promised that Toronto Stop the Cuts will do everything possible to ensure that they don’t pass.
When Richard Dalton, a community member and service user, got sick and had to leave his job, he couldn’t get by on social assistance.
“AIDS service organizations, local food programs, libraries and community centres were my lifelines,” said Dalton. “The health promotion programs gave me the supports I needed to rebuild my life.”
Today he’s healthy and has returned to work.
“I’m able to give back to my community because I had these safety nets,” he said.
“The fact that the Ford administration is considering cuts to these already underfunded services and supports is short sighted, disgusting and inhumane.”
Besides reductions to programs and services, the Downtown East neighbourhood is also facing cuts at the provincial level with potential school closures. Regent Park/Duke of York Public School is slated to be closed in September 2012.
“The conditions in our schools must improve and closing them is not the solution,” said Pamela Dogra, an elementary school teacher with 13 years experience.
“So we need to take some direct action.”
After the speeches, the group gathered behind the “Fight Rob Ford, Stop City Cuts!” banner and headed north on Sherbourne Street.
Just south of Dundas and Sherbourne Streets, they stopped outside an abandoned building and hung their banner over the balcony railing.
The largest concentration of homeless people in Canada live in the Dundas and Sherbourne area. Antipoverty activist Beric German lived in the Maxwell Meighen Centre, a homeless shelter for men, when he arrived in Toronto in 1965 as an 18-year-old.
“Things weren’t good then, but they’re worse now,” said German. “There are homeless people outside and they are freezing to death.”
But the area has a long history of fighting back and winning. During the 1930s many homeless people would sleep in nearby Allan Gardens and march during the day.
“Many of the rights that we have today came from those people who suffered and fought during the Depression,” he said.
German pointed across the street to a 3,000 unit affordable housing complex for singles won by neighbourhood activists.
“But a person died for that,” said German. “And many people fought for that and for the right for singles to be subsidized across Ontario.”
Click here to see more photos from Saturday’s march and rally.
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