Housing is a Human Right

Solidarity with Indigenous and migrant communities includes solidarity with those who are unhoused.
Facebook
Twitter
Email
WhatsApp
Print
A statue of a man in a cloak is inside a cage on the sidewalk
The “Panhandler Jesus” statue at the Church of St. Stephen-in-the-Fields was placed in a cage as part of a protest against the threatened eviction of an encampment.

Over the past year, members of the Turtle Island Solidarity Network have accompanied unhoused people in the city of Toronto who are living in shelter hotels or in encampments. These communities include disproportionate numbers of Indigenous people and refugees who have been dispossessed and displaced by colonialism. In December, the City of Toronto closed several shelter hotels – blocks of hotel rooms which the city leased at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to provide safer shelter for unhoused people. In order to increase the capacity of permanent city shelters, the City has discarded infection control practices such as an increased distance between shelter beds. The City also issued an eviction order against an informal encampment next to the Church of St. Stephen-in-the-Fields, which has been deferred temporarily due to strong community advocacy. However, police harassment of both encampment residents and people living in shelters continues on a daily basis.

As we welcome the new year, we invite you to pray and advocate for social policies based on compassion and dignity. We give thanks for the networks of care and solidarity among unhoused people and their supporters, and we work for a future in which housing is treated as the human right that it is.

Read More Prayers

moutains with a river running in a valley

Under the shadow of war

This month has been one of the most difficult times for civilians in Iraqi Kurdistan. Israeli jets have flown through our skies on their way

Women from Grassy Narrows protesting Bill 5 outside the Ontario legislature

Land Defenders mobilize to Kill Bill 5

Indigenous Land Defenders and their supporters are preparing for a summer of resistance, seeking to overturn an Ontario provincial government bill that rolls back decades

A girl lighting a candle

Where are you? What are you doing?

It is so painful to see the lives of young people in Barrancabermeja collapse, how their strength is extinguished by bullets. The heart is squeezed

Skip to content