Opposition to a Ford government bill aiming to crack down on homeless encampments in the province has gone international.
Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group National Homelessness Law Center is calling on Premier Doug Ford to bail on Bill 6, saying that the legislation would import “some of the U.S.’s worst, least effective, most expensive policies to address homelessness and addiction.”
The Safer Municipalities Act would prohibit the consumption of illegal drugs in public spaces, including parks, and change Ontario’s trespass law to higher fines if someone is deemed an "occupier" of a property.
If passed, the bill would allow fines of up to $10,000 for people found to have broken trespassing or public-consumption laws. Breaking the new consumption law could also mean a six-month jail sentence.
National Homelessness Law Center’s Eric Tars, who penned the advocacy group’s letter to Ford, says that while the U.S. has unfortunately been a “global leader” in efforts to crack down on homelessness, Ontario’s bill is unique.
“We have not seen legislation exactly on this model in the U.S. that links individuals being arrested for drug-related causes to the right to evict them and criminalize them for camping,” says Tars, who added he’s concerned American lawmakers might borrow from Bill 6.
The bill, which was proposed by Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Rob Flack, was initially introduced last year with the support of mayors of at least a dozen Ontario municipalities who asked Ford to pass legislation to break up encampments.
By the province’s count, there were 703 encampments in Ontario as of March.
Tars says legislation that criminalizes homelessness and addiction allows the cost of crackdowns to be hidden in police budgets, while root causes like the lack of affordable housing remain inadequately supported.
“It's very politically convenient for the elected officials who don't want to make the tough decisions to raise taxes or put regulations on their wealthy developer donors. It's convenient to blame the people experiencing homelessness for their condition and say they chose to be there, rather than our collective choices that have put them there.”
The Trillium asked Flack about the National Homelessness Law Center letter and he said the government believes tent encampments in parks and other public spaces “should not be there.”
“Parks and public spaces are for families. They’re for kids. They're meant to be enjoyed for fun, not fear,” he says.
As part of its plans for addressing homelessness and addiction, the province has promised hundreds of millions for Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs.
The hubs, which are not allowed to provide safe drug consumption and have been criticized by harm reduction advocates, aim to provide health care, housing and treatment to people looking to get clean.
Nine former supervised consumption sites became HART Hubs April 1, including four in Toronto. The Trillium previously reported that the new hubs were not providing many promised services due to funding not yet being in place.
A spokesperson for Health Minister Sylvia Jones said Wednesday the province is continuing work to open HART Hubs in 19 other communities, but did not say whether new funding had flowed to support all promised services.
Flack told The Trillium he believes that investments in HART Hubs will ensure those experiencing homelessness and additions will get the services they need.
“We're not being cruel, we're being helpful. We're trying to help people transition into a better life.”
The letter to Ford followed local organizer Diana Chan McNally reaching out to the National Homelessness Law Center to consider weighing in on Bill 6.
Chan McNally, who is part of the Encampment Justice Coalition, says the government has been pushing an ineffective “abstinence-based model” while a range of services are needed, including harm reduction, to help those battling addiction.
She also says that, by giving police more powers to punish people living in encampments, Bill 6 is “misdiagnosing” the problem.
“Ultimately, what you're going to see is that people are going to cycle in and out of prisons or just be moved from park to park, because if there's no affordable housing available for them, there is ultimately no solution to the homelessness crisis.”
As of Wednesday, Bill 6 has reached second reading and has been debated in the legislature three times.
MPPs from the NDP, Liberals and Greens have criticized the bill.
