By Paul Weinberg
TORONTO, Oct 31 2002 (IPS)

Poor and homeless people, along with their political supporters in some cases, are taking over unoccupied or abandoned buildings in major cities across Canada – until police arrive to kick them out.

Squatting is the latest response by anti-poverty groups to the continued housing shortage in this country, caused by insufficient rental units and a trend among private builders to convert existing affordable housing into more expensive and potentially more lucrative accommodation.

Groups like the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) blame the Canadian government’s 1990s’ decision to withdraw from the business of building subsidised housing for moderate and low-income people as the main reason for the current housing shortage..

In 11 out of 18 major Canadian urban areas, vacancy rates are below three per cent, ”the level considered necessary for a competitive rental market”, says the FCM. (In Toronto, the largest city in Canada, it has recently been below one per cent).

At the same time, the incomes of most Canadian families in the past decade have either stagnated or gone down.

About 4.9 million Canadians (of a population of 30 million people) live in poverty, a jump of more than one million since 1989, according to the National Council of Welfare in Ottawa.

With this ongoing crisis, it is not surprising that housing ‘squats’ in Canada are growing, says John Clarke, an organiser with the activist Ontario Coalition Against Poverty.

He told IPS that Canadian trespass laws essentially ”criminalize” housing squats by allowing property owners to call in police to evict people seeking shelter, even if the buildings have been unoccupied for years.

Clarke contrasts this with a legal tradition in parts of Europe where squatting is a civil matter between the occupier and the property owner, ”and the owner goes to civil court to try and get a remedy”.

A four-storey brick house, one of various vacant addresses in Toronto’s low-income Parkdale district, has been occupied since OCAP took it over during the visit of Pope John Paul II to the city.

Currently housing about 25 people who were formerly homeless, the ”Pope squat”, as it has come to be known, has managed to keep the Toronto Police at bay because of its murky ownership and unpaid taxes.

But an attempt to seize a second vacant Toronto house on Oct. 25 was cut short by a heavy police presence that forced the would-be squatters to leave.

Before this event, Clarke says, Toronto Police had solicited trespass letters from owners of vacant buildings in advance of possible squatting. ”That way they get around having to call up the owner every time they need to remove people.”

More successful for a period of time was Tent City, a community of about 100 squatters who, on Sep. 24, were evicted after living more than two years on a site in the Toronto port lands that was formerly used as an iron foundry and is still contaminated with heavy metals.

The action of the U.S.-based Home Depot retail chain, which hired a private security firm to remove the squatters, was probably illegal, and could have been challenged, says Michael Shapcott, a Toronto housing specialist and a spokesperson for the Ontario division of the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada.

Shapcott points out that Home Depot had allowed the squatters to stay on the land for a period of time so had an obligation to pursue the eviction before a judge. ”They can’t (just) turn around (and say) ‘we decided to change our mind’.”

The trespass law, adds Shapcott, was primarily designed to immediately remove people who occupy a property and ignore the owner’s immediate request to leave.

Canadian law tends to side with property owners and even Shapcott accepts the inevitability of the Tent City eviction. But a hearing would have at least given the squatters time to make alternative living arrangements, he says.

Meanwhile, the former Tent City squatters have since scattered – some benefiting from a Toronto rent supplement programme to access housing.

Housing squats are relatively new to Canada, says David Hulchanski, director of the Centre for Urban and Community Studies at the University of Toronto.

At the same time, many homeless people are secretly living in abandoned and vacant buildings in many Canadian cities in what are non-political efforts. ”They are making the best as they can, with what might be described as non-political squats,” he adds..

Nobody has compiled a list of unoccupied building in Canada’s major cities. Shapcott and Clarke believe that it is unconscionable for property owners to let them stay empty for years during a housing shortage.

Montreal’s St Henri neighbourhood, for instance, has plenty of abandoned warehouses that could be turned into affordable housing, says Jaggi Singh, a writer and activist who has personally participated in squats in Ontario and Quebec.

At the same time, continues Singh, private corporations receive a variety of tax breaks to build more expensive condominiums that are in some cases purchased as an investment.

”If you are a private company and you have left your building abandoned for two years, you have no right to that building,” says Singh. ”There are a lot of mainstream housing groups who are lobbying the government for more social housing, etc. That can only go so far.”

Evicting squatters does not always end the issue. Vancouver city police recently forced a group of homeless people to leave the site of a former department store, which they had occupied for about a week.

But the protestors returned to set up their own tent city in the vicinity of the historic Woodward’s building, which has been empty for nine years.

They want the current Liberal government in west coast British Columbia province to keep a promise made by the previous New Democratic administration to convert the property into low-cost housing. The protesters are now threatening to take over nearby empty publicly owned buildings.

A private developer that is currently seeking to purchase the Woodward’s property and turn it into a mixed retail and housing project, is only proposing a small number of affordable rental units, says community legal worker Linda Mix. ”I don’t know if the people at (Vancouver’s) Tent City could afford them.”

One of a number of vacant premises in Vancouver’s impoverished downtown eastside, Woodwards has become a symbol for local advocates of affordable housing, with squatters receiving donations of money, mattresses, food and tents.

Excerpt:

By Paul Weinberg
TORONTO, Oct 31 2002 (IPS)

Poor and homeless people, along with their political supporters in some cases, are taking over unoccupied or abandoned buildings in major cities across Canada – until police arrive to kick them out.

Squatting is the latest response by anti-poverty groups to the continued housing shortage in this country, caused by insufficient rental units and a trend among private builders to convert existing affordable housing into more expensive and potentially more lucrative accommodation.

Groups like the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) blame the Canadian government’s 1990s’ decision to withdraw from the business of building subsidised housing for moderate and low-income people as the main reason for the current housing shortage.

In 11 out of 18 major Canadian urban areas, vacancy rates are below three per cent, “the level considered necessary for a competitive rental market”, says the FCM. (In Toronto, the largest city in Canada, it has recently been below one per cent).

At the same time, the incomes of most Canadian families in the past decade have either stagnated or gone down.

About 4.9 million Canadians (of a population of 30 million people) live in poverty, a jump of more than one million since 1989, according to the National Council of Welfare in Ottawa.

With this ongoing crisis, it is not surprising that housing ‘squats’ in Canada are growing, says John Clarke, an organiser with the activist Ontario Coalition Against Poverty.

He told IPS that Canadian trespass laws essentially “criminalize” housing squats by allowing property owners to call in police to evict people seeking shelter, even if the buildings have been unoccupied for years.

Clarke contrasts this with a legal tradition in parts of Europe where squatting is a civil matter between the occupier and the property owner, “and the owner goes to civil court to try and get a remedy”.

A four-storey brick house, one of various vacant addresses in Toronto’s low-income Parkdale district, has been occupied since OCAP took it over during the visit of Pope John Paul II to the city.

Currently housing about 25 people who were formerly homeless, the “Pope squat”, as it has come to be known, has managed to keep the Toronto Police at bay because of its murky ownership and unpaid taxes.

But an attempt to seize a second vacant Toronto house on Oct. 25 was cut short by a heavy police presence that forced the would-be squatters to leave.

Before this event, Clarke says, Toronto Police had solicited trespass letters from owners of vacant buildings in advance of possible squatting. “That way they get around having to call up the owner every time they need to remove people.”

More successful for a period of time was Tent City, a community of about 100 squatters who, on Sep. 24, were evicted after living more than two years on a site in the Toronto port lands that was formerly used as an iron foundry and is still contaminated with heavy metals.

The action of the U.S.-based Home Depot retail chain, which hired a private security firm to remove the squatters, was probably illegal, and could have been challenged, says Michael Shapcott, a Toronto housing specialist and a spokesperson for the Ontario division of the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada.

Shapcott points out that Home Depot had allowed the squatters to stay on the land for a period of time so had an obligation to pursue the eviction before a judge. “They can’t (just) turn around (and say) ‘we decided to change our mind’.”

The trespass law, adds Shapcott, was primarily designed to immediately remove people who occupy a property and ignore the owner’s immediate request to leave.

Canadian law tends to side with property owners and even Shapcott accepts the inevitability of the Tent City eviction. But a hearing would have at least given the squatters time to make alternative living arrangements, he says.

Meanwhile, the former Tent City squatters have since scattered – some benefiting from a Toronto rent supplement programme to access housing.

Housing squats are relatively new to Canada, says David Hulchanski, director of the Centre for Urban and Community Studies at the University of Toronto.

At the same time, many homeless people are secretly living in abandoned and vacant buildings in many Canadian cities in what are non-political efforts. “They are making the best as they can, with what might be described as non-political squats,” he adds.

Nobody has compiled a list of unoccupied building in Canada’s major cities. Shapcott and Clarke believe that it is unconscionable for property owners to let them stay empty for years during a housing shortage.

Montreal’s St Henri neighbourhood, for instance, has plenty of abandoned warehouses that could be turned into affordable housing, says Jaggi Singh, a writer and activist who has personally participated in squats in Ontario and Quebec.

At the same time, continues Singh, private corporations receive a variety of tax breaks to build more expensive condominiums that are in some cases purchased as an investment.

“If you are a private company and you have left your building abandoned for two years, you have no right to that building,” says Singh. “There are a lot of mainstream housing groups who are lobbying the government for more social housing, etc. That can only go so far.”

Evicting squatters does not always end the issue. Vancouver city police recently forced a group of homeless people to leave the site of a former department store, which they had occupied for about a week.

But the protestors returned to set up their own tent city in the vicinity of the historic Woodward’s building, which has been empty for nine years.

They want the current Liberal government in west coast British Columbia province to keep a promise made by the previous New Democratic administration to convert the property into low-cost housing. The protesters are now threatening to take over nearby empty publicly owned buildings.

A private developer that is currently seeking to purchase the Woodward’s property and turn it into a mixed retail and housing project, is only proposing a small number of affordable rental units, says community legal worker Linda Mix. “I don’t know if the people at (Vancouver’s) Tent City could afford them.”

One of a number of vacant premises in Vancouver’s impoverished downtown eastside, Woodwards has become a symbol for local advocates of affordable housing, with squatters receiving donations of money, mattresses, food and tents.

Excerpt: