Community organization fights provincial act that fines the homeless

A community organization fighting to stop the ticketing of Toronto’s homeless presented the province’s Attorney General’s office with a year’s worth of evidence on Monday, following their constitutional charter challenge to the province’s Safe Streets Act last year.

Lawyers and law students from Fair Change Community Services filed the challenge in June 2017. They say the act that sees police officers fining panhandlers and homeless people violates a number of basic rights and freedoms, including the right not to be subject to cruel or unusual treatment or punishment

Police have handed out approximately four million dollars in fines to Toronto’s homeless over the past decade. Less than one per cent of those fines are ever paid.

Fair Change says enforcing the act is cruel, criminalizing those who are victims of poverty or addiction.

“They’re already on the streets, they’re already doing the most desperate thing imaginable, and now we’re making it illegal to ask for money,” says Chris Hummel, co-director of Fair Change.

Hummel says the fines and charges have wide ranging practical and emotional consequences for those trying to get off the streets and integrate into society again.

“It’s a hindrance in a lot of ways. First, it’s a practical hindrance because … you’ve secured housing for the first time but you’re getting calls from collection agencies, it’s hard for you to get a driver’s license,” he says.

“It’s also an emotional burden because for a lot of people, they’ve had these traumatic experiences, they’re trying to leave a life on the streets behind,” says Hummel. “And they’re constantly feeling like they’re being treated like a criminal by the justice system. That can be really difficult for people … especially if they’re already dealing with mental illness or addiction.”

Enforcing the act also costs the province approximately two million dollars each year in court costs alone.

“It’s a huge waste of our tax dollars,” says Hummel. “Those resources could be very easily directed towards something to help (a person) recover from addiction.”

In 2017, Fair Change found that Toronto police handed out over 3,500 tickets under the Safe Streets Act (SSA) — almost 10 per day — adding up to more that $340,000 in fines. Only 3 per cent of those fines were collected.

In addition, court time was set aside for trials under the SSA at least 285 times. In a vast majority of the cases, the person charged failed to respond and was found guilty.

“Keeping our streets safe and secure is a top priority for our government,” the ministry of the Attorney General’s office told CityNews in a statement last year. “The Ministry is open to hearing from stakeholders about the impact of the Safe Streets Act and will make any decisions based on evidence.”

Fair Change Community Services has spent the last year gathering that evidence and putting together a large record of evidence about the impact of Ontario’s restrictions on panhandling. Now that it is before the Attorney General, he has the right to respond.

If the ministry chooses to defend the Safe Streets Act, the matter will have to be decided in court.