City of Toronto staff move to clear out Allan Gardens encampments

City of Toronto crews have begun clearing encampments at Allan Gardens that have been at the downtown park in recent years.

City parks and shelter support staff showed up at the park, located on the west side of Sherbourne Street between Carlton Street and Gerrard Street East, Friday morning and could be seen removing belongings and debris.

CityNews also saw Toronto police officers a short distance away from the park, but they were not actively participating in the clearout.

As Toronto continues to experience a severe shortage of affordable housing units and shelter spaces, Allan Gardens became a long-standing spot where people sought refuge. In the summer of 2023, officials said there were up to 60 people and 100 tents and structures in the park.

Elise von Scheel, a spokesperson for the City of Toronto, said outreach staff have been at the downtown park for the past 450 days trying to work with residents experiencing homelessness. During that time, she said approximately 400 people moved to indoor spaces and 100 of those individuals have moved into long-term housing.

As of Friday morning, von Scheel told CityNews there were nine people with encampments at the park. She said seven out of the nine have accepted accommodations at indoor spaces.

“It’s an all-hands-on-deck approach and it requires that to meet the needs that we’re seeing here,” she said.

“We want to make sure this is collaborative and respectful as much as possible. Obviously, it can be a situation where tensions can rise, but we haven’t seen that recently.”

Officials said the decision to move in on Friday was made in order to shift the enhanced supports such as daily on-site staff, washrooms, etc. are needed at another site. It was confirmed that there is only enough funding to support three encampment sites at a time under the current budget approved by Toronto city council.

When asked about what staff are doing to help, von Scheel said representatives from community organizations were brought in to help and added police officers were asked to come “as a precaution.” She said they’re working with people to see what belongings can be brought to a shelter, what items that don’t fit can go into storage and addressing other short-term needs such as getting new government identification to access services.

“The work continues here and so we’re here to assist the remaining individuals in getting the supports that they would like. Every person is different, every experience is different and so we’re working here to make sure we can tailor those supports to the individuals,” von Scheel said.

“Encampments are a symptom of a lot of problems. We’re seeing it across the country as well as in Toronto. It’s housing affordability, it’s mental health and addictions, it’s income supports and so the solutions to that are going to take some time. It requires all partners to be at the table and so our work in encampments really needs to put people first. It needs to focus on housing, which is the ultimate solution to homelessness.”

Crews were expected to remain at the park throughout Friday. City staff added the designated Sacred Fire site at Allan Gardens and the associated structures aren’t part of Friday’s efforts.

Diana Chan McNally, a community worker who helps people experiencing homelessness on a daily basis, called Friday’s actions “egregious” with not enough available housing and shelter space.

“It doesn’t actually solve the problem of homelessness but rather we are committing harm to people,” she told CityNews, adding the process of potentially losing many belongings and the removal process as a whole can be traumatic too.

“We often see people again entering crisis, they may start using drugs to mitigate that crisis, and we actually do see an increase of overdose death(s) as a result of these kind of evictions.”

Chan McNally said the current state of shelters isn’t adequate in terms of restrictions, privacy, space, health concerns, theft and violence.

“There’s a lot of reasons why people may not want to stay in that shelter because objectively they aren’t actually safer. For a lot of people, [shelters] actually entail a lot more risk and harm.”

When asked about the enhanced encampment services that have been offered to residents at Allan Gardens, Chan McNally said the loss of those supports and with no long-term housing being offered to those impacted on Friday would lead to continual displacement.

“Having an enhanced approach only in select places, you’re going to see again and again that they make these priority decisions about who deserves it and who doesn’t when everybody deserves this enhanced approach,” she said.

Chan McNally noted nearby Moss Park has the lowest life expectancy and a lot has to deal with homelessness and drug toxicity. When asked who is to blame for the current situation, she said fault rests with many.

“We’re seeing all levels of government fail egregiously to actually honour people’s human rights and treat them with compassion and care just as they deserve,” Chan McNally said.

CityNews visited Allan Gardens in advance of the 2023 Toronto mayoral byelection to speak with people who were living at the park at the time. Lynn Walker, a 63-year-old woman, said she lived in Allan Gardens for nearly two years.

“This is a community, and it’s also a family … They’re all family to me. I have friends, I never had friends before,” she said in June 2023, adding the park became home for her and many others.

Walker maintained that most people in the park would leave if they had housing.

“They need a place to live. They shouldn’t have to live in a park,” she said.

While Walker told CityNews she felt safe, she noted there were many issues with living in a park such as no running water, no bathrooms, and rats burrowing under the tents. Walker also said there were issues with fighting, stealing, and drugs.

When asked about concerns raised about more recent concerns about Allan Gardens not being accessible to all neighbourhood residents, Chan McNally rejected that the park wasn’t able to be used by all.

“There’s a difference between being uncomfortable and actually being unsafe and in this case you’ll see lots of people every single day using Allan Gardens facilities … so to suggest that it’s only one group and that they’re forcing people out from using these facilities is not actually true,” she said.

Allan Gardens encampments ‘difficult’ with successes seen: councillor

Toronto Centre Coun. Chris Moise, who was elected in 2022 to represent the area, said the desire to bring a resolution to the situation has been there for a year-and-a-half.

“To be honest, it’s been difficult. It’s taken a lot of resources not only in my office, but City staff as well and a big piece of that is educating people along the way,” Moise said, adding his office has tried to inform all neighbourhood residents.

He said he created an Allan Gardens task force in 2023 with various departments to address the myriad of issues that arose, adding there has been “a lot of great success” with nearly a quarter of all those who set up encampments in the park being offered long-term housing.

“We’ve used a housing-first approach to make sure that people are properly taken care of. It’s not dispersing people outside the park but just really making sure that they are supported in every and each way possible,” Moise said.

When asked about concerns raised about the quality and safety issues raised about the existing supply of shelter beds, Moise didn’t directly address the question but said the City has worked to try to create more spaces.

“We continue to engage people. We want them to be comfortable, we want them to be safe and that’s why we’ve taken a housing-first approach,” he said.

As for the current budget to offer enhanced encampment services and whether council needs to add more, Moise said the conversations are ongoing and that Mayor Olivia Chow has committed to looking to add more resources.

“When this group of staff leaves Allan Gardens, they’ll go elsewhere in the city. We have many encampments in my ward alone … I do recognize that the need is great, there are encampments right across the city and we’re doing all we can with the resources that we have,” he said, adding he hopes the staff and supports will stay in the ward.

Meanwhile, Moise said broader work on redeveloping Allan Gardens with various improvements such as an improved leash-free dog park will continue to move ahead.

“There’s a lot of great things going in the park. It’s not just about encampments. We have residents who live around the park and use a daily basis,” he said.

With files from Meredith Bond and Cynthia Mulligan