Jamestown

I saw this article, the other day, and it broke my heart. Toronto Community Housing has decided to start evicting families, if members of the family are suspected of being involved with gang activity. Little Johnny was seen hanging out with some gang members? Sorry, Mom, you’ll have to find somewhere else for the family to live.

There are so many things wrong with this:

• How is this in Toronto Community Housing’s mandate?!? Their job is to provide housing—gang activity has nothing to do with them.
• Where are these people supposed to live? These are families that are living in community housing; they don’t have anywhere else to go.
• Whatever happened to a little thing called “due process”? TCH suspects your son of being in a gang? Well then, he must be guilty! Forget the court system, we’ll dispense justice ourselves! I mean sure, he’s not in jail, so there isn’t actually enough evidence against him for him to be arrested… but details, details. We think he’s guilty, and that’s good enough for us!

Unfortunately, it’s not just a plan, it’s an already active program. According to the article, they’ve evicted 13 families in the past year.