Gardiner Protesters Removed By Force

Nearly two-dozen police officers, several on horseback, moved in to a crush of anti-poverty activists in order to forcibly remove them from a homeless man’s makeshift residence under the Gardiner Expressway Wednesday.

Chris, who goes by the last name Gardiner in reference to the location, built the three-room shack at the foot of Spadina Ave. in 1998 and had lived there ever since.

But in recent weeks city officials said he’d have to leave because they were doing construction to the highway.

On August 18 ^th Chris received a note saying he’d have to be gone by midnight August 22nd. That deadline came and went – and he said that if they wanted him out they were going to have to remove him by force.

“Nobody pays anything to God for living on the Earth, right? So why should I pay somebody else to do so?” Chris questioned.

In the end that’s exactly what happened – though the resolution was more peaceful than some thought it might be.

Just after 7am Wednesday bylaw enforcement officials came by with a notice instructing Chris he had half an hour to leave. They informed him that there are housing services available, but the 30 or so assembled protesters – many from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) – scoffed at that notion.

Rather than leaving, they barricaded themselves in the residence by securing Kryptonite bike locks to the chain-link fence entrance.

At about 8am, Toronto Police put up yellow police tape around the scene and ordered media to stay back in case the tense situation got out of hand. They moved in and cut through the locks in order to remove those inside the home. According to reports, Chris had already been taken away by that point.

One by one the other protesters were led away by police – many chanting ‘Leave him alone, this is Chris’s home.’ – and though a scuffle broke out at one point there weren’t any major outbreaks of violence. Seven people were arrested.

As for Chris, the city says they’ll find him shelter. 

This isn’t the first time the homeless and the city or other forces have faced off over living space. Here’s a list of some other famous incidents

Tent City

Probably the most famous skirmish occurred on September 25,  2002 when Home Depot, the owner of a wide parcel of land on Cherry St., decided to reclaim what it owned for what officials called ‘health and safety reasons’.

That meant that hundreds of homeless people living in a self constructed enclave known as Tent City would have to be forced out.

Many of those living on the land had built elaborate, if unfancy, dwellings on the site, with a few even treated to luxuries like TVs and computers.

The company hired private security guards to confront the angry and reluctant tenants, who put up a resistance to being ousted. But in the end, Home Depot had the right to reclaim the land it owned and the squatters were reluctantly forced off. 

They were allowed to return to their homes briefly to get their belongings, but after that  Tent City ceased to exist.

The Bathurst St. Bridge

In a situation that seems a lot like the eviction of Chris Gardiner, the city moved into an area under the Bathurst St. Bridge in May 2004 and evicted homeless squatters living there.

Bulldozers were brought in to raze the makeshift structures they’d put up. Officials were planning to proceed with an extension of Bremner St. and couldn’t begin work until the dwellings were removed.  

The Pope Squat

In an effort to embarrass the Harris government, members of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty took over an abandoned building on King St. West during a visit by Pope John Paul II.

The incident became known as the Pope Squat and residents prettied up the area and tried to make it a decent place to live, as officials pondered what to do – and who actually owned the property.

They stayed while the controversy continued until November 1, 2002 when the province finally admitted they held title to the land and they wanted the illegal squatters out.

Police moved in and despite often fierce resistance from those who had made 1510 King St. West their temporary home, the building was cleaned out.

The anti-poverty activists complained the former tenants were sent into the night with no place to go and that the building wasn’t being used for anything.