‘GO TO HELL’: Vulgar flyers raise unholy terror about new shelter
The flyers come as City Hall’s aggressive shelter rollout has become something of a political football
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Critics of a new homeless shelter on Adelaide St. are being told to pluck out their “f—— eyes” in a series of flyers loaded with profanity and religious themes.
“Don’t want to see homeless people? House them, you d— goon,” one flyer says, above smaller script that reads: “God says lazy-a– nimbies go to hell. Read Matthew 25:44-46.”
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The Scripture in question refers to a parable in which Jesus says whatever is done to the least of one’s brothers is also done to Him.
“Is this what neighbourhoods can expect if they express concern for public safety?” asked Diane Chester, of Niagara Neighbours for Community Safety, which opposes the shelter on 629 Adelaide St. W., just west of Bathurst St.
Chester said her neighbours have told her they witnessed the flyers going up Thursday evening.
In video and photos shared with the Toronto Sun, it appears two masked cyclists – a man and a woman – put up the plain white flyers with a large paint roller.
Chester lives very close to the shelter, which partially opened late last month. A city representative said residents are still being moved in gradually.
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Chester has publicly complained about a number of issues tied to the shelter, from concerns about violence and open drug use – the shelter is close to rowhouses, a school and a church – to issues with outdoor flood lights that shine into neighbours’ windows at night.
While the problem with the lights seems to have been taken seriously, Chester said most of her worries have been ignored by City Hall and the St. Felix Centre, which operates the shelter.
The Toronto Sun reached out to the St. Felix Centre but has yet to hear back from anyone there.
Chester said if the flyer campaign is a response to her group’s advocacy, it’s a “very disturbing” one.
“Don’t like to see homeless people? Pluck out your f—— eyes, sinner,” one flyer says.
“Hate the unhoused? Jesus said you go to hell,” another reads.
“Hate shelters? Homes first is the cheapest way to end homelessness,” yet another says.
That focus on “hate” came as a shock to Chester.
“I personally wasn’t saying anything like that,” she said.
“It kind of just confirms our fears … that the whole kind of atmosphere around shelters causes a lot of social disorder in neighbourhoods,” she added.
“That kind of language doesn’t make a neighbourhood feel safe.”
Chester’s part of Toronto has seen an increase in public drug use and homelessness as of late. The Sun reported last year on narcotics use at St. Mary’s Church, near what was then a supervised injection site. Alexandra Park, notorious for its use as an encampment site, is just north on Bathurst, at Dundas St.
The flyers come as City Hall’s aggressive shelter rollout has become something of a political football. City Council has discussed the matter often at recent meetings and York Centre MP Roman Baber recently waded into municipal politics to oppose a planned shelter at 1220 Wilson Ave., near Keele St.
“It seems, for lack of a better description, outright crazy to me that Toronto City Council would agree to place a homeless shelter between a daycare centre and a middle school,” Baber told the Sun in July.
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