Clarence Square encampment cleared out

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About eight tents were removed from an encampment in a small park area near Spadina Ave. and Wellington St. W. on Sunday morning.

City workers, with police standing by, cleared out the area of Clarence Square at about 9 a.m. According to witnesses, four to six people were living in the park at the time.

One wood structure and one tent remained as of Sunday afternoon.

There is a bylaw in Toronto that prohibits sleeping or camping in city parks.

Eviction notices were issued earlier in June, as is the usual procedure. The notices advise people that they have three days to leave, and city staff offer rehousing spaces indoors at shelters and respite centres.

Some residents of the encampment in Clarence Square accepted spaces indoors.

However, as a street worker said Sunday afternoon, the spaces offered to people sleeping in our parks are often in shelter hotels or other spaces that feel neither safe nor permanent.

Many people facing homelessness have attested to the fact that tenting in a park is preferable to staying in one of the city’s shelters.

Theft, overcrowding and violence are cited as reasons the shelters can be undesirable places to sleep.

Toronto Sun photographer Jack Boland spoke to Devin, who did not give his last name; he is one of the residents of the park space in Clarence Square.

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“People are staying in parks because it’s safer than the shelters,” Devin said.

He said he has been in shelters, parks, in jail and on a psych ward, and shelters are by far the more dangerous option.

As for Sunday’s clearance action, he said, “The solution to homelessness isn’t policing. It’s housing.

“You don’t want people sleeping in a park? Give people housing.”