[mobglob-discuss] 'Pope Squat'

[Bella]

Wow, you guys ROCK !! Keep up the pressure, keep up the drive !! 
SOLIDARITYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY !!!!!!!!
Bella


--- Graeme Bacque <gbacque at colosseum.com> wrote:
> With the eyes of the world currently focused on Toronto as  World Youth
> Day 
> events get underway here this week, attention has been brought to our 
> escalating crisis of homelessness with a spirited march through the 
> Parkdale neighborhood ending in the dramatic takeover of an abandoned 
> building on King Street West.
> 
> Organized by the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, the Pope Squat aims
> to 
> bring international attention to a situation where over 60,000 families
> are 
> waiting for up to ten years for subsidized housing; where conditions at 
> many of our emergency shelters  fail to meet even the minimum standards 
> established by the United Nations for refugee camps, and where upwards
> of 
> 500 economic evictions happen every week.  The Provincial government has
> 
> stonewalled repeatedly on any new housing initiatives, and just last 
> Thursday Toronto mayor Mel Lastman publicly expressed his wish to be
> able 
> to 'sweep' Toronto's homeless from the streets.
> 
> This event also highlights a growing political squatters' movement in 
> Canada, following on the heels of similar actions in Montreal, Ottawa, 
> Quebec City, Vancouver and Toronto within the past year.  With
> governments 
> having apparently abandoned any effort to meet the needs of  poor people
> in 
> Canada, it has become increasingly apparent that the only way people can
> 
> obtain  housing is to take it for themselves.
> 
> As the Pontiff received hundreds of thousands of youthful pilgrims at
> the 
> nearby Canadian National Exhibition grounds, people began to gather in a
> 
> small park near Queen Street West in Toronto's Parkdale neighborhood.
> The 
> crowd quickly grew to more than 1,500 as hiphop music blared from a 
> portable sound system and a delicious venison stew (many thanks to the 
> residents of the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory for providing this!) was
> being 
> served. A sizable cadre of helmeted cops hung back across the street, 
> accompanied by a priest wearing a Kevlar vest. (Maybe the Boys in Black 
> were looking for divine intervention?)
> 
> Following a number of short speeches the crowd spilled northward out of
> the 
> park, quickly filling all four lanes of Queen St. W.  Led by a group of 
> drummers and a saxophonist and chanting 'Fight for housing, fight to
> win!' 
> and 'What would Jesus say? "Build housing today!" ' the crowd moved
> west, 
> stopping briefly outside another abandoned building where a fire had 
> claimed the lives of two female tenants several years earlier. Doubling 
> back east along King Street, the march soon arrived outside a large 
> boarded-up house. A huge banner descended from a third-storey window and
> a 
> 'no trespassing' sign was torn from the fence as a speaker declared the 
> Pope Squat to be open!
> 
> Speaking over a megaphone from inside the building, squatters re-stated
> the 
> demands of the action, which include the restoration of rent controls,
> an 
> end to economic evictions, restoring the 22%  which was cut from social 
> assistance in 1995 and the construction of at least 2,000 units of new 
> social housing a year in Toronto.  Leaflets were handed out to people
> with 
> a schedule of planned events at the site, and small groups began fanning
> 
> out to forage for discarded furniture in the surrounding neighborhood.
> 
> The site proved ideal for a number of reasons, being a large, attractive
> 
> building located on a major street, with a sizable backyard. The place
> had 
> once been a rooming house until the company which owned it arbitrarily 
> evicted all the tenants more than ten years ago, after which the place
> sat 
> empty. This company has since dissolved and has defaulted on the
> property 
> taxes, which has essentially left the ownership of the place in a
> complete 
> legal limbo.
> 
> Following their brutal handling of another building takeover on March 22
> 
> this year during  the Tory leadership convention (during which people
> were 
> tear-gassed, Tasered and more than 60 arrested) the cops appeared 
> remarkably cautious in their approach to this event. While there was a 
> large police presence, they kept pretty much to their own side of the 
> street throughout and made no attempt to interfere with people. As of
> four 
> AM more than a hundred people still lingered outside the building,
> watched 
> by approximately a dozen uniforms from across the street. On our side, 
> participants have handled themselves in a consistently responsible and 
> disciplined fashion and the organization of the whole action has been 
> outstanding.
> 
> A full schedule of community-oriented events has been planned for this
> site 
> for most of the next week. including a clean-up and repair party today, 
> movies being shown tonight, and a big street festival happening all day 
> Saturday. Solidarity has been strong, with different organizations
> agreeing 
> to take support shifts outside the building or prepare meals. The
> squatters 
> themselves have affirmed they have no intention of leaving. The planned 
> outside events will also go ahead even if the squatters are evicted.
> We're 
> not going anywhere!
> 
> Graeme Bacque
> July 26, 2002
> 


=====
talk-action=nothing

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