International Overdose Awareness Day

                                            (Frank beside the CounterFIT drug users memorial)

Today, August 31, is International Overdose Awareness Day and while there are more and more calls for access to naloxone a life saving antidote to opioid overdose which people need access too,  we need to also include a call for other methods of prevention of overdose deaths.

We need an end to this capitalist system that sees profits over people and has forced people to live in the very conditions that increase people’s susceptibility to overdose. We need an end to war,  and the classist and incredibly racist drug war. An end to colonization, poverty, mass incarceration, racism, homophobia, exploitation, and patriarchy.

When I think of the various reasons the people I have known, whom I loved and who have died, it isn’t just about whether they had access to naloxone, naloxone wouldn't have saved all of their lives. It is because they didn’t have housing. It’s because they were aboriginal and they were personally and deeply impacted by genocide and colonization, of the 60’s scoop and the residential school system. It was because they lived in poverty and coped with mental health issues where services were lacking and out of reach for them to access. It was because they were incarcerated and forced to be sober and came out of prison and used. It’s because they had their children taken away by the classist, racist children's aid system that makes it impossible to ever get your kids back. It’s because they used without anyone knowing and hid their use because of stigma and shame perpetuated by a society that looks down on people who use drugs. It’s because they had health issues that they couldn’t get treatment for because of a system that discriminates against them and isn’t universal and accessible free from judgment.  It’s because they lived in deep poverty, which had negative health implications making them sick. It’s because they lived with HIV and Hep C and couldn’t get access to meds that could save their lives because they used drugs, and on and on.

When I think of all the reasons why people I know have died from overdose I think about the systems of oppression that we are forced to live under. That criminalize people for what they put in their body and disproportionately target people primarily based on their race and class. When I think about international overdose awareness day I think it’s time we started to expand our demands. Our right to live free from discrimination, criminalization, poverty, war, and colonization. Where people cannot only be surviving but thriving. Where everyone can actually access our basic needs: housing, food, water, health. Where our bodies aren’t profitable and our lives are seen as valuable no matter who we are.

The people I have known and lost are dead because of the systems we are forced to live under. We need to come together and build solidarity amongst each other to fight to live in a better world where we are not governed by the interests of the few. The few who are destroying our world and destroying people’s lives. We need to continue to build resistance in our homes, in our neighbourhoods, and amongst each other and build better systems that are non-hierarchical and inclusive.




Until All Of Us Are Free



Zoë

The Abuse and Harassment Escalated to All New Level.

The last 24 hours have been an emotional experience. It is hard to believe that our landlord/property managers could stoop to this recent all time low but they did. Things escalated again after the fire next door that took the lives of two people. It is my understanding that the rest of the tenants have now been housed which I was so happy to hear about. Unfortunately, our landlord/property manager took this tragic experience to begin an onslaught of harassment. Not concerned about whether our smoke alarms worked or if we were ok, no they concerned themselves with the use of our decks.

About 8 1/2 years ago I moved in to the 1 bedroom apartment in Chinatown/Kensignton Market, where I call home. I was leaving a long relationship that had become unhealthy and was looking to live on my own. I live with post traumatic stress disorder and I thought that living alone might also be helpful in managing my symptoms which can be difficult, overwhelming and hard. I could control my environment, making sure doors are always locked, windows locked, what light I need to leave on etc. My PTSD is a result of some fairly traumatic things that happened to me. Violence I experienced at the hands of men.  I am not in control of my environment completely and nor is it as safe as I wish it could be. I, along with the other tenants  who live in the building also have to deal with abusive nature and harassment of our "property managers/landlord". We also have to deal with the harsh reality of living in a system that allows landlords to perpetuate violent, harassing behaviour with little recourse.

I didn't originally begin renting from the current property managers,  the building belonged to a different owner and a month later the current owners took over as our "landlord". I 'm writing landlord in quotation as I write my rental cheques to a numbered company and the property managers, David and Michael always refer to the landlord as a landlord and not by name, trying to keep secret who it is but we know it's their family and we know they all work in and own the jewelery store downstairs from us. We did a search to figure out who they were when they tried to evict us 8 years ago and they lost.  8 years ago is when the harassment began. It started with letters, and neglect of our units, threats of eviction. It started with interactions with the one property manager, David, who screamed at us in almost every interaction, having no communication skills. It began when they realized that they could be getting double for our units and that we paid to "little". They took us to court, trying to evict us from our homes, my neighbours had lived in these units for 20 plus years and they lost.  They tried to just boldly increase our rents by $300, which was illegal. They make sure we pay a rent increase every year as to the provincial designated amount but don't attend to basic maintenance issues. They make sure to send us harassing letters with threats of eviction with every communication.

(just a sampling of the threatening letters)

This is part of the reality of living in a city where housing is scarce, where you spend way to much on rent, almost all your income, to be sometimes treated in this power imbalanced, abusive, harassing way. I don't want to move. I've thought about it. But where would my neighbours go, they don't have a lot of income? Why should they have to move? My place is my home, their places are their homes and we certainly won't be bullied out of them.

(our destroyed plants)

Two days ago the landlord , possibly himself with the workers who are building our decks and putting a new roof on, took all our plants and plant pots and threw them in the laneway making sure they were damaged and destroyed.

The Japanese maple that just started to bud, the succulents that have been growing in pots for over 30 years, the red maple, cute and small that lived on the deck for also more than 30 years, the gorgeous lillies that bloom every year increasing in quantity with every new summer.

(my lilies :( )

Clay pots, and rocks that my neighbour brought home from the property she grew up on where her family used to live but was sold after her mother died this last year and the chicks and hens that grew at the base of the maple, they originally came  from Hungary decades ago. The pots that were home to tomatoes, lavender, morning glories, a beautiful vine, echinacea, kale, herbs, flowers.  These were removed and destroyed without notice. Dumped and broken in the lane way.

I called Michael first. David's brother. He denied knowing anything but said he disagreed with his brother and wasn't going to be our property manager anymore. I didn't hate Michael the way I hate David. He didn't start screaming at you right away or threaten you with eviction with every conversation. He wasn't all that nice either but he isn't David. I called David. He played dumb. Said he didn't know there was work going on until I mentioned to him that he was seen on the deck the day before yelling at his brother while the workers were out there working, building the new decks. He said he didn't know anything about anything. But he knew. He stumbled on his words, he's been threatening us with removing them for years. He demanded $12,000 from me for the new deck and new roof.

(2006 - my first garden on the deck)

We had no idea they were even going to do work on them, they had given us no notice. Nor is it our responsibility to pay for the roof and decks. These haven't been replaced in over 30 years. We've battled over the use of the decks. We had to have a lawyer involved to stop him from removing our things in the past. But this time, he just did it. With no shame. We called the police, they came 4 hours later and took a report from my neighbour. My one neighbour discovered they were in the laneway. What pots were not broken were taken before we got to them. When I arrived home all that was left was a pile of soil.

We looked through it trying to save some of the chicks and hens. Who ever was responsible for throwing all of it down off the decks made sure our stuff was destroyed. The clay pots were in pieces. There were over 40 pots on three decks, 2 of our decks are quite large.  We now have to file with the Landlord Tenant Board to be compensated for this destruction of our property, this will take time.


I visited with my neighbour yesterday. We both cried while we spoke about the destruction of our plants and pots, the bullying and abuse. We all know the end goal is to get us out. They forced out our neighbour and her young daughter a few years ago, let the apartment sit empty for a year, did some renos, made one of the bedrooms in to two and doubled the rent. The new tenants pay double what we pay. He could get double.  But we are in this together. We won't be bullied out of our homes. I am crying while I type this. I think of the power we have when we have fought back but I also feel anger and sadness when I think about the destruction of our things. The cruelty of destroying our beautiful plants. This was an act of violence and one I feel incredibly emotional about. My neighbours on either side of me have lived here for over 30 years. They are good tenants and good neighbours. Everyone has a right to a home. One free from violence and harassment. We may get compensated, they may get charged which I am doubtful of, but this doesn't stop the harassment and this certainly doesn't replace what was ours. I am sad but I am also grateful to my neighbours who act unified together.  Where ever you live, you should know your neighbours and I am grateful I know mine and that we look out for each other. We aren't going anywhere, we will fight back and so far the response from friends has been really sweet with offers of new plants and pots. But in our neighbourhoods we need to be organized as tenants, to meet and fight back unified together. This type of abuse from landlords happens throughout the neighbourhood and throughout the city and there are strategies beyond court and tribunals we could and should be using. 

These are the Conditions People are Forced to Live in

Yesterday, March 20, 2014, two of my neighbours were killed in a rooming house fire in the neighbourhood of Kensington Market. Twelve people had to be rescued from the burning semi-detached home, 18 people reportedly lived there including 2 children. This is a huge tragedy and sadly tragedies like this continue all across the city.

(rooming house on St. Andrews (Kensington Market)

(side of building)

(side of building and where my neighbour I said hi to the most lived. )

In 2007 a fire broke out in a rooming house at the corner of Spadina and Baldwin, people were stuck on the roof of the building and needed to be rescued from their rooms, no one died in that fire but many of its residents ended up homeless unable to secure affordable accommodation.   The building was continuously used as a squat until the most recent fire, it has had two subsequent fires since the initial fire posing as a hazard for the rest of the block, one that I fear as I live next door. But it is also land that could be used to build a new building with adequate affordable housing that people living in poverty could once again reside in. These abandoned properties sit empty and derelict all across Toronto.

(rooming house on the corner of Spadina and Baldwin that was destroyed by fires.)

Councillor Adam Vaughan, the councillor for the ward, took to the media yesterday demanding further licensing for rooming houses and never once in his statements to the media did he say anything about the need for adequate affordable housing. We are in the midst of a housing crisis. Everywhere you look in this city you see one condo development after another for people who can “afford” to buy their home. These new developments are often being built on and or existing where more affordable housing once stood or could. And many of these units are sitting empty  and/or  bought up by property companies and rented at high rental rates.

Many people in Toronto are priced out of the housing market in a city with no rent control, a less than 1% vacancy rate, and 90,000 households on the waiting list for social housing. A wait list that will take decades to clear. The building of social housing ground to a halt in the 90’s by all levels of government and “revitalization” projects are decreasing the social housing stock. Our emergency shelters are overflowing and turning people away nightly. They are full because of the very lack of affordable housing.

Many of us renters are renting places that are not adequately repaired or maintained. Desperate for accommodations people are renting places that are not suitable for living in, cockroach infested, bed bug infested, broken appliances, lack of exits or windows, apartments and rooms divided in to small spaces that do not equate to the amount of rent they are charging. Competition for rental units leaves many people scrambling for places to live and taking what they can even if it’s not suitable to live in. (like the rooming house on St. Andrews) It’s a landlord and property owners paradise out there. They have to do minimal work to maintain your home, can rent out "illegal" units or units not up to code if they want and can charge basically whatever they want because the demand is high and so are our rents. Landlord rights give them a right to also increase your rent yearly. You obtain a rental unit at one price and your rent can keep increasing every year. It doesn’t matter if your income isn’t increasing or that your unit hasn’t been maintained or that you live in a dump.

If you know the system and how to navigate it, you know that you can contact the city to have an inspector come to your home to deal with complaints of maintenance and repairs but you also know that these inspectors have very little power in terms of fining or forcing your landlord/property manager to actually repair or maintain your unit. And it can be a risk to start having inspectors in as this can sometimes escalate abuse from a landlord/property manager to harass and work on ways to force you out. There is very little protection from this. If you are living in Toronto Community Housing, you are often waiting months, even years for repairs and maintenance on your unit and/ building. This is unacceptable. Legal clinics that offer services to people on low income to help fight landlord tenant issues are facing proposed cuts by the province and reduced ability to meet the ever increasing demand for services. The local legal clinic helped my neighbours and I fight our landlord when faced with an illegal eviction. They continued to help us for a few more years to deal with our landlord who not only neglected our units, was constantly finding ways to disrupt the enjoyment of our homes but was also verbally abusive to us. We know the system and how to navigate it, (I had a familiarity with it through work) but many people do not and there are many many barriers that exist to them accessing it. 

The people who lived next door to me, on St. Andrews in what is being called an “illegal” rooming house were reportedly paying $400-$500 a month for a small room with access to a shared kitchen and shared washroom. Apparently there were 10 small rooms on two levels with a narrow dark stair case. One entrance and a roof exit with limited access. 18 people living in this space. People are forced to live in these conditions because people cannot afford the rents that exist today. They cannot find reasonable affordable accommodations and many people are living in poverty without enough income to pay the exorbitant amount of rent required to live in a “better place”.

The issue with the building on St. Andrews was not just about licensing, or the harmful neglect, greed and exploitation by the property owners. It is a continued war on people who cannot afford to live in this city. It's a continued war on poor people, on working people. On people who cannot afford the rent due to low incomes, low wages and low social assistance rates. And it is the neglect of all levels of government, on all political parties, in making housing (and income) a priority and actually doing something about it. This has gone on for decades. It has created the conditions in which landlords and property owners can get away with renting inadequate and unsafe housing. The type of housing that can lead to someone's death. Even Councillor Vaughan had the opportunity to make housing a political issue, make the links and he didn’t. This is a disservice to those who lost their lives and their homes yesterday in the 3 alarm fire.  

And while we continue to live in this capitalist system with  property and land ownership, of landlords and property owners, we as tenants, as residents, as neighbours need to be organizing and making demands that the city, and the government improve the conditions of all current housing rental stock, give back tenants rights, rights lost during the Harris government and never returned by the Liberals, to bring back rent control and implement licensing for all landlords and property owners and to build some affordable, safe, accessible and adequate housing.  I would go further and suggest that there needs to be a moratorium on the development of condos, an increase in rental property and revitalization projects should only exist to improve the housing conditions of the people already residing there. And the same energy that has gone in to fighting big box stores in Kensington Market with multiple  community meetings, petitions, fundraising, organizing efforts should be the same energy used to fight for better housing in our neighbourhood. Kensington Market isn't just about the "businesses" it's also and more importantly about the people who live here.

These tragedies will continue. Everyone should have a home. One that is safe, adequate and affordable.

May the two men whose lives were lost, rest in peace.

People should be angry. We should be uniting and fighting for better, adequate and affordale living conditions for everyone. Enough is enough.

In Sol,

Zoë Dodd