Artists and Authors Against Encampment Evictions
John Tory
Deputy Mayor Ana Bailão
Janie Romoff, General Manager of Parks, Forestry and Recreation
Mary Ann Bedard, Shelter Support Housing Administration
The COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated Toronto’s housing crisis. We have seen encampments cleared and their residents and advocates criminalized. The city’s own self-reported numbers have time and again shown a shelter system at capacity and unable to provide proper COVID-19 precautions. The city’s alternatives — places like the Toronto Plaza Hotel and Delta Shelter Hotel — are far removed from people’s communities, and saddled with regulations (curfews, visitation policies and spot checks) that both rob residents of their agency and prevent them from accessing vital social supports and resources. Encampment residents are regularly denied sanitation. Meanwhile, the Landlord and Tenant Board has been escalating its number of evictions.
This is a letter from the city’s authors, artists, cartoonists, illustrators, booksellers, publishers and editors calling for a moratorium on all encampment evictions and the repeal of by-laws that make it illegal to camp. Encampment clearings do nothing to keep Toronto’s unhoused safe and do nothing to combat homelessness. They are carried out in direct opposition to the Centre of Disease Control’s recommendations that cities not clear encampments, because doing so can “increase the potential for infectious disease spread.” It is an unconscionably cruel practice that has resulted in injury, trauma and death.
If the city is serious about treating housing as a human right, it must immediately invest in deeply affordable housing and permanent Rent-Geared-To-Income options. It must provide encampment residents with basic survival gear and ensure them unfettered access to sanitation and washrooms. It must stop treating encampment residents like criminals.
Authors and artists are no strangers to a housing crisis that has displaced our communities and the brutal market logic that has left many of us in precarious living situations. We condemn the city’s encampment clearings and stand in solidarity with the encampment residents creating their own systems of support and survival.
Signed,
AA Bronson
Aaditya Aggarwal
Aamna Muzaffar
Aaron Leighton
Aaron Rotenberg
Aaron Hill
Aaron Tucker
Abby McGuane
Adam Bunch
Adi Berardini
Adrienne Scott
Aeyliya Husain
AGO Youth Council
Aidan Belo
Aidan Cowling
Aisha Ghali
Aisha N
Aisha Sasha John
Ajla Odobasic
Alana Traficante
Alana Wilcox
Alani Caruso-Fitterer
Alessandra Abballe
Alex Bowron
Alex Nierenhausen, Store Manager, Librairie Saint-Henri Books
Alex Tindal
Alex Williams
Alexa Hatanaka
Alexander Carson
Alexandra Molotkow
Alexandra Napier
Alexia Bréard-Anderson, Director, Xpace Cultural Centre
Alexis Fawn
Alexis Kyle Mitchell
Ali Kazimi, York University
Ali Vanderkruyk
Alicia Nauta
Alisha Van Wieren
Alison Lang
Alison Pick
Aliya Pabani
Alize Zorlutuna
Allan Ryan
Allie Harvey
Allyson Mitchell
Althea Balmes
Althea Thauberger
Alvin Luong
Amanda Acorn
Amanda Wand
Amber Helene Müller St. Thomas
Amber Williams-King
Ambera Wellmann
Ame Henderson
Ami Xherro
Amil Niazi
Amish Morrell, faculty member, OCAD University
Amy Gottlieb
Amy Gottung
Amy Lam
Amy Miranda
Amy Siegel
An Nguyen
Ananya Ohri
Andrea Battersby & Geoff Doner, Bureau Of Power And Light
Andrea Fatona
Andrea Werhun
Andrew Buszchak
Andrew Finlay Stewart
Andrew Harding
Andrew James Paterson
Andrew Townsend
Andrew Woodrow-Butcher
Andrew Zealley
Andrew Zukerman
Andy Fabo
Andrea Creamer
Angel Callander
Angela Shackel
Angelica Alejandro
Angélica Granados López
Anita Ragunathan
Ann Dean
Anna Fitzpatrick
Anne Bourne
Anne K Abbott
Anne-Marie Cosgrove
Anne O’Callaghan
Anni Spadafora
Annie Dunning
Annie Koyama, Publisher, Koyama Press
Annie MacDonell
Annie Wong
Anshuman Iddamsetty
Antoine Bourges
Anton Piatigorsky
Anupa Mistry
Arezu Salamzadeh
Aries Cheung
Art Metropole
Arthur Kavanagh
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Aryen Hoekstra
Ashley Driscoll
Astrid Yates
Atom Egoyan
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Augustina Sia Saygnavong
Ava Matin Nejad, Mirror Doodles
Ayumi Goto
B.H. Yael, OCAD University
Bailey Corneal
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Barbara Simms
Beena Mistry
Ben Dugas
Ben Edelberg
Ben Robinson
Ben Wannamaker
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Between The Lines Books
Bill Burns
Benjamin de Boer
Blair Swann
Blythe Haynes
Bojana Stancic
Brad Casey
Brad Tinmouth
Brandon Celi
Brenda Joy Lem
Brenda Longfellow, York University
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Broken Pencil Magazine
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Chaddy-Ann Newton
Chala Hunter
Chandra Melting Tallow
Charlie Tyrell
Charles Bierk
Chip Zdarsky
Chris Curreri
Chris Gehman
Chris Kennedy
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Chris Wiseman
Christopher Willes
Christa Couture
Christian Siroyt
Christina De Marchi
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Christy Kunitzky
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Craig Daniels
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Dana Prieto
Daniel Griffin Hunt
Danielle St-Amour
Danika Zandboer
Darren Rigo
Daniel Rotsztain
Daniel Sarah Karasik, Artists For Climate & Migrant Justice and Indigenous Sovereignty
Daniel Tahmizian
Daniella Sanader
Dave Howard
David Alexander
Davida Nemeroff
Dean Baldwin
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Ed Kanerva, Koyama Press Employee
Eden Frymel, Mirror Doodles
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Ellen Bleiwas
Ellen Fielding
Elsa Delage
Emily Carroll
Emily Donaldson
Emily Fitzpatrick
Emily Fox
Emily Hammersley-Ambroise
Emily Hughes, Hercinia Arts Collective
Emily Nixon
Emma Aurelia
Emma Healey
Emma Sharpe
Emma Steen
Emma Welch
Erdem Tasdelen
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freygl gertsovski
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Larissa Tiggelers
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Laura Dawe
Laura DeHaan, Grace & Victory micropress
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Matthew Forsythe
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Max Lester
Maya Baumann
Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts
Meera Sethi
Megan Franklyne
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shrunken studios
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zoe barcza
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If you are an artist, author, editor, publisher, collective or arts institution that is Toronto-based or Toronto-affiliated and want to be added as a signee, please e-mail authorsartistsesn@gmail.com with how you’d like your name to appear.
