OCAP Give it or Guard it Housing Protest
(Toronto October 26th 2002)

Photos & Report by Gary Morton photo
*photos have been reduced in file size for the Internet.

- Police Warn Organizers to follow a route set by police or get arrested
- Speaker from Tent City
- Horseback Cops Ride into Protesters
- Bike Cops Block Access to Potential Squat
- Protesters on the Sidewalk
- We keep meeting up with more and more Police
- Protest Organizers Across from Abandoned Buildings
- Gray Outfitted Riot Cops
- Riot Line
- Rent Banner and Protesters
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Guarding it with an Army
   Today police decided to guard abandoned buildings in Toronto. The other option would’ve been to give them up to protesters that wanted to open them as squats for the homeless.

   Police action really began with a Friday night raid on the Pope Squat. Lisa (from the squat) said they came in and broke down all the doors, looking for a person with a gun. They broke her door down and smashed her computer, so obviously this was more of a malicious raid by police. Squat residents were allowed back as the legal status of the building is still unclear.

   The rally began at Tent City, and I went by early. All summer and fall I’ve been passing there about three times a week. Either on a mountain bike or roller blades to feed a colony of feral cats that live by a lumber yard not far from there. In early August Tent City didn’t look bad, there were some nice little houses, and if they would’ve had municipal services it would’ve been as nice as any other local community.

   Now the residents have been evicted and I pass and see all sorts of security guards. Instead of ending the squatter problem they appear to be squatters of a new sort. Sitting around in lawn chairs burning stuff and roaming aimlessly about.

   We passed by one day recently with two kittens we rescued … then stopped when we saw a guard feeding a cat. He wanted us to phone Home Depot and help rescue the cats and kittens still around there. Apparently he feeds them and has to pay for the food out of his wages. Home Depot won’t help animals. In the end we did call but Home Depot simply never returns our call.

   So I fed the cats Saturday and by the time I got back to the rally at one pm, all kinds of police were buzzing about outside the fence. There were cops from York Region, Barrie and Toronto … with an assortment of vans, bikes, horses, paddy wagons and motorcycles. Their uniforms were various … a lot of gray riot cops, black horseback guys, the silly looking bike cops and plainclothes undercover guys.

   When the police spokesman came over it was to tell the protesters that cops would be leading the march on their route. Otherwise there would be arrests. By the day’s end three people did get arrested. Jeff and Paul got grabbed and treated brutally by bike cops. Other people got punched, roughed up and clubbed.

   I ran back and tried to get a photo of Jeff (from the Pope Squat) being taken. First I got chased off the road by a nasty cop with a stick. He was in a sort of panic and screaming Get Back! Get Off the Road! Then I got jostled twice by OCAP organizers telling me to keep moving and ended up with a photo of the top of a building and another of a person’s foot. Later I was told that Paul was snatched off the sidewalk by police, for no apparent reason … and Gaetan and others were pushing us away and telling us to move because they were ready to make quick snatches on more people.

   The third person arrested (this was later) was a Ryerson student from the Coalition Against War and Racism. Right now Toronto police are under police union orders to fight back against people that charge them with being racist … especially Toronto Star reporters. The Ryerson kid had a banner that included the word Racism and got arrested because of that.

   Before the arrests I had been ahead of the march and was planting myself in a spot to take photos. At that point a woman came out of a building. She was from South America and saw horseback cops with helmets come up and then the beginning of the arrests. She told me that Toronto cops scare her more than police in South America … and she had a point. The lines of bike and riot cops, hollering and screaming and riding into protesters … it looked more like the beginning of a police massacre than an attempt to guard some abandoned buildings. Mainly they wanted to prove they could bully us off the road and be meaner than us.

   One guy said “Pigs are white in Toronto”. Personally, I prefer the real barnyard animals to the uniformed kind. Cops are nasty and so are many homeless people. I’d rather feed homeless animals. The reason is that some homeless people will bite the hands that feed them. Shelters and the streets make people mean, so I don’t support shelters or the street, but support providing real housing.

   In spite of police the march went on through the downtown east side, stopping at abandoned buildings that should be converted to housing. The final stop was the proposed squat … across the street from public housing and beside an agency for teen mothers. It has been boarded for several years.

   A police army converged to prevent the squat from being taken. Since that location had already been announced on the Internet in activist posts, there really was little chance of it being taken anyway.

   I heard that two people did get inside another squat location to hang an OCAP banner from a window. They escaped successfully when the army of cops came to bust in.

   If October 26th wasn’t a complete success it was because the numbers were missing. We didn’t have enough people to take a squat and the demo also conflicted with Stop Esso actions. Next time more people and a better plan are needed.
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Facts on the October 26th 2002 Give it or Guard in Demonstrations.

   Activists comprising a unified squatting/housing movement held a series of housing actions across Canada today.
Some of the reasons for this are
- Affordable housing is out of reach for all but a select few as vacancy rates drop and rental rates increase.
- In Ontario the Tenant Protection Act has made it easy for landlords to evict tenants and extort any amount for a rental unit.
- A 22 % cut to social assistance.
- Shelters overcrowded, hundreds have died on the street, and affordable housing is not being built.

    OCAP reports that hundreds of buildings have been boarded up by their owners and left to fall into disrepair. It's done solely in the interests of profit without regard to the impact on the community. Housing that is truly affordable to low income people is a vital and scarce a resource, especially when 50 to 60 thousand homeless people live in the City of Toronto and waiting lists for public rent geared to income are backlogged to 10 years and longer.
   OCAP views the squatting activity that is now spreading across the Country as a healthy example of positive community based action. People have waited long enough for action by the levels of government and are now taking it themselves to create housing.

Actions that took place today include:

Halifax
People are barricaded in the old Halifax Infirmary. Supporters are outside in driving wind and torrential rain

Guelph
   A Rally took place in Guelph. Contact  gan@dojo.tao.ca

Montreal
   Activists planned to occupy an empty building slated to be replaced by luxury condos. contact claclogement@yahoo.ca

Sudbury
   The Ontario Common Front - Sudbury and S-CAP held a rally for social housing Friday. A free meal was served, stickers were place on empty buildings to point out potential housing, and a march went to St. Alouysius, a large unused school building where a banner was dropped from the 3rd floor demanding social housing. Contact ocfsudbury.cjb.net

Vancouver
   Woodward Tent City. The tent city of homeless people continues to grow on the sidewalk surrounding the Woodwards building in downtown Vancouver. A sense of community has developed as up to 180 people have made the tent city their home. The Woodward's Building has been scheduled to be converted into social housing for years, but the government has pulled out several times, leaving the building empty since 1993.

Ottawa
   The Ottawa Coalition Against the Tories (OCAT) and Anti-capitalist Community Action (ACA) held a community free store, rally and march on Saturday, October 26th.

Toronto
    Give it or Guard it protest and march. In Toronto it was the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, Toronto Action for Social Change, Toronto Disaster Relief Committee, Union supporters and others.
http://www.ocap.ca/
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