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Going Global and
The Streets To Homes
The way we talk about globalization would drawl one to conclude that really, globalization is predicated on the annihilation of space by
super-highways of information created by the fiber-optic cables that now wrap the world. With a click of the mouse or a text received by
phone it would seem that space, in this context, simply doesn't matter for those who benefit from such technologies. Yet, at a closer look at
globalization itself, we see it hinges on something quiet different.
Globalization is predicated on the production of certain kinds of spaces. Capital needs to be fixed in place in order to be mobile.
Without centers of production or financial hubs, capital wouldn't have the nefarious self-sustaining ability to stave off its continuous
declining rate of profit. This creates an enormous amount of instability for investments in fixed capital. Or, in other words, the unevenness
of capital mobility produces uncertainty. By offering tax, labor, environmental, and regulatory inducements, cities attempt to regulate their
relationship to fickle capital. In the end, a massive competition ensues between cities and states to attract new investment and to keep
local capital "home".
Image becomes everything. When capital seems to have no need for any particular place to reside, cities do whatever they can to make
themselves so attractive that capital, read- new business and tourists, will want to stay.
What, then, is happening to the everyday life of those living in Toronto who experience and live the urban space in this context?
More specifically, what is happening to those who are being cleansed off the city streets in the name of making Toronto a more
"livable" city? And by "livable" I mean an explicit drive to create a city with spaces that are "global" enough so that cosmopolitan elites
will want to shack up here and do business with our "world-class" facilities. Politicians and managers in the era of advanced liberalism
have turned to erasing the spaces in which those left behind by the global and local economy live their lives.
This is what's so alarming about the Streets To Homes policy to eradicate homelessness in Toronto with its by-law banning
sleeping in Nathan Philips Square. With the eviction of Chris Gardner and more in the Don Valley, it would seem that the policy is a
turn for the worse. Yet the media loves to herald its success stating its housing first initiative is working. 5,052 people were
recorded to be living on the streets last summer, according to the controversial homeless count that only looked at the visibly
deprived in half of Toronto neighborhoods. Of those people, 269 have been housed by Streets To Homes. 94 people out of 269 are
no longer in their first housing placement. Of these 94, 43 people have been re-housed, 30 people originally housed by
Streets To Homes have been evicted or have abandoned their housing, which is often sub-standard housing and vacant of
supportive services. Streets To Homes fast tracks their clients into social housing units, into apartments that have been
turned down by those on the social housing waiting list more than three times. Of greatest concern is the forced migration
of the poor into the outskirts of the city.
Far away from the central supports available in the downtown core, the Streets To Homes policy is a very real and explicit attempt
to herd off the homeless in Toronto away from the city core. Professor Izumi Sakamoto from the University of Toronto argues, "
bare-bones, subsidized housing, on the outskirts of the Greater Toronto Area that functions without transitional or supportive
services is not only unsustainable, but also undermines [homeless peoples] social networks an is isolating."
Even worse, a look at the United Way funding for Winter Relief Grants and by comparing 2003-2005 one can see a massive drop
in the Winter Relief Grants that fund programs providing access to food, winter clothing, shelter, and drop-in services for the homeless
and the under-housed. These cuts mean that drop-ins have been closed, support vehicles eliminated, and hours of support services
reduced. Essential services for the homeless population have been eliminated.
Heroux from Street Health has observed, " We can see how the funding has dropped dramatically from $600,000 to $300,000 in the last ten
years. A lot of that funding is gone and was funding for the Friendship Centre, bus tickets, food allowances at drop-ins.
The Anishnawbe Street Patrol lost a van with food and blankets." In a recent NOW article, nurses working for Street Health say the
"city's aggressive efforts to move people off public property are just pushing the homeless further out onto the margins." Cathy Crowe,
from the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee says, " I have noticed a difference personally, and I think the other nurses would agree that
people are harder to find. They've gone deeper into hiding."
The displacement of the homeless by the Streets To Homes policy in Toronto that is characterized by socio-spatial segregation
and cuts to support services for those living on the street have become essential ingredients in a competitive race among cities
to make urban space safe, clean, and secure for investors, real-estate capital, and the new urban middle classes. For Hannah
Arendt those denied access to the exposure of difference in the public sphere suffer what she describes as the "crippling state of
oblivion". The human urge to appear to others and the ability to exercise it is the freedom to bring new ideas into existence. Those
who are denied the ability to be seen, to interact, to be recognized, suffer a crippling injustice. In rendering someone invisible the
impulse that is the spring of human action becomes disarmed and a condition of abysmal hopelessness prospers. So when you
walk the city streets in the coming days, weeks, and months and the homeless are mysteriously vacant from your gaze,
it's for a very specific reason and most coarsely represents a valuing of certain lives over others.
Contributor: John Rodgers Special to The Toronto Tribune
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