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23 Jun, 4 tweets, 2 min read
1/ Today, a friend messaged a chatroom we're in, "I'm sorry I was there yesterday". They corrected themself a moment later, they had meant to say "wasn't", but...

I'm sorry that I had to be there yesterday.
2/ I'm sorry that our elected representatives made violently clearing encampments an official policy goal on June 8th and kicked the decision on how to implement that goal over to @TorontoPolice

I'm sorry that our housed neighbours have shown a willingness in the past to turn...
3/ a blind eye to the violence the @cityoftoronto enacts against our communities on a regular basis. Not just the unhoused community, but our friends and neighbours in Black and Indigenous communities, in LGBTQ+ communities, in immigrant communities.
4/4 I'm sorry that our province and country have engineered a society where housing is a commodity, to be bought and sold as an investment vehicle, instead of a #HumanRight, available to all Canadians, all Ontarians, all Torontonians.

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More from @Gruesomebrat

Gru Profile picture
24 Jun
Seen on Facebook this morning: a friend mentioned an old story about Margaret Mead, an anthropologist who, when asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture, responded by talking about a 15,000 year old fractured femur.
This leg bone had been broken and then healed, a process that takes about 6 weeks of rest, something that modern society takes for granted, along with the healthcare system including plaster cast, that allows us to maintain some level of mobility with a broken leg.
Mead explained that in the wild, a broken leg is a death sentence, and thus the owner of this fossilized femur must have been cared for by their community, their civilization, in order to have survived the ordeal of a broken leg.
Read 10 tweets
Gru Profile picture
23 Jun
1/Only going to share one more conversation today, and then I'm done, I promise, until tomorrow

@nejsnave said to me earlier "I'm sorry you're so frustrated, it's a very difficult situation", but with all due respect to her (and that is a lot, holy shit does she put in the work)
She's wrong. It's not a difficult situation. Capitalism makes it difficult because this system needs people to step on in order for the people at the top to pretend at greatness, but the solutions to social problems are simple social programs.
There are people who cannot afford to live in the city they have made their home.

Make housing affordable. Better yet, make housing available independent of income. Simple.

Nobody should be homeless, but nor should anyone have to pay 60, 70, 80% of their paycheck to a landlord.
Read 8 tweets
Gru Profile picture
23 Jun
1/ Current plan puts 150 "affordable" rental units in the planned redevelopment. Those damned well best be massive fucking units.

This pressure from @HousingNowTO is a step in the right direction, but it is only a step. Even in their best-case, we're looking at ~1200 units.
2/ There are 81,000 households waiting for affordable housing, another 35,000 facing eviction over arrears due to COVID. 1200 units provides 1% of what is needed.

What would it take to pressure @cityoftoronto into using Section 37 of their Planning Act to force developers
3/ to commit to making 25% of every new build in Toronto affordable? What political levers do we need to pull? Whose palms do we need to grease, or better yet, evict from office?
Read 4 tweets
Gru Profile picture
23 Jun
Where were you, Mike? You and your colleagues were specifically invited to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with us in solidarity the next time the bulldozers rolled in. Did you think that because the dozers came in after the cops cleared us out, you weren't needed?
Do we need to send you a gold-plated invitation for you to fucking show up for your unhoused constituents? Who the fuck do you think populates the Roehampton, other than people who have been forcibly displaced from encampments no different than yesterday's?
We are your constituents too, no less than any other citizen of Toronto.
Read 5 tweets
Gru Profile picture
23 Jun
Morning. After 24hrs in Trinity Bellwoods Monday/Tuesday, I got back to the shelter and immediately passed out for 10hrs. Still exhausted, but thankful to all who came out yesterday to support their unhoused neighbours, to witness the City's violence against us, and to fight back
When I left, it looked like a bittersweet win. We lost Bruce Lee City, and the beautiful artist's space that was there, but seemed to have been successful in negotiating housing for the few people in South Park. Seeing video on the news of @ESN_TO volunteers being pushed out...
by police, as I wake up this morning, is devastating. I hope to hear from people I recognized in those live videos on the 6:00 news that they're OK

Next step for me is to make sure that not abiding by the Novotel's 1am curfew (cause y'know, I'm a child, not a 31yo man)...
Read 4 tweets
Gru Profile picture
19 May
How fucking dare so-called journalists come into established encampments, misrepresent themselves, cosplay as a homeless person for a matter of hours without contributing to the community or even bothering to get to know the people therein, and then write a smear piece...
Fuck you all the way to hell, @RosieDiManno.
You think the couple hours you spent in our camp gives you insight into our minds, our hopes, our dreams, our creativity? You don't know shit, and you obviously didn't learn shit, or want to, from your little poverty tourism excursion
Your attempt to dehumanize encampment residents is disgusting. Referring to us as transients, feral, indigents... as though we're not, first and foremost, human beings who have fallen between the cracks of your capitalist society, failed by everyone we come into contact with
Read 9 tweets

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