Despite court rulings saying they could stay, the Region of Waterloo has spent considerable effort trying to remove people living at the 100 Victoria Street encampment in Kitchener.

Aaron, from Fightback KW! talks about the conflicts the Region, the Police and even social workers instigate to try to push residents out. From the denial of services, a carceral approach and continued court battles, activists have had their hands full organizing to defend the rights of their unhoused neighbours.

The discussion is about the community that exists at the encampment, and the deliberate choices 'authorities' are making to punish anyone surviving in ways that defy the capitalist model.

"The structures that be have a vested interest in the situation of the people at the very bottom to be as bad as possible” - Aaron, Fightback KW

Hosted by: Jessa McLean

Produced by: Santiago Helou Quintero

Call to Action:

• Donate to Fightback KW via e-transfer fightback.kw(at)gmail(dot)com, or
• Drop off donations onsite or at Coven in Kitchener

Related Episodes:

1. Rabble Rant: Housing Half Measures (Sept 2023) On Waterloo Outdoor Shelter 'Community'
2. Resisting Toronto's Tactics Against the Unhoused (Sept 2024) Organizers with Voices for Unhoused Liberation share what they're doing to fight encampment evictions and against the war on the poor.
3. Voices for Unhoused Liberation (May 2024) On strategy building, the limitations of advocacy work and the need for escalated direct actions.

More Resources:

• The Regional Municipality of Waterloo v. Persons Unknown and to be Ascertained – 2025 Litigation – Waterloo Region Community Legal Services
• Region ordered not to evict people from homeless encampment
• Bay Observer: Waterloo Shelter Formula
• Statement: FightBack @ 100Vic Full Time

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Follow us on Instagram or on Bluesky

Greetings, friends. My name is Jess McLean, and I'm here to provide you with some blueprints

of disruption. This weekly podcast is dedicated to amplifying the work of activists, examining

power structures, and sharing the success stories from the grassroots. Through these discussions,

we hope to provide folks with the tools and the inspiration they need to start to dismantle

capitalism, decolonize our spaces, and bring about the political revolution that we know

we need. Good morning Kitchener Waterloo. Can you introduce yourself, please? Sure. I'm

Aaron. He and him are my pronouns. I live in Kitchener, Ontario on block two of the Haldimand

Tract, a land that was granted to the Six Nations and has been reduced to 5 % of its original

allowance. I'm really grateful to be here. It's snowing and just happy to be inside and

warm today. We can't say that for all of our comrades, can we? That's a little bit of why

you're here. You are part of a group, KW Fightback. You'll have to clarify that that maybe isn't

the fight back that a lot of folks are familiar with. A few folks use that actually. have 230

Fightback is a great tenant union in Toronto, but what do you folks do? What does KW Fightback

do in general? Yeah. So we're a grassroots community organization. We don't necessarily subscribe

to any particular leftist tendency. We're just kind of a loose coalition of folks that are

engaged in a lot of like grassroots community-based projects. Mostly for the last couple of years,

one of the biggest projects that we've been engaged with is supporting uh the tent city

in Camman at 100 Victoria in downtown Kitchener, which is the only legally sanctioned tent city

in Ontario. So just supporting our neighbors who live on the street, helping them resist

police violence and displacement and providing mutual aid and just, you know, building community.

Excellent. It's legally sanctioned, but that doesn't mean it's not without legal battle

still, yes? Yes, that's correct. So basically, to give sort of the longer background and

for clarification, I was not around for this entire history. Some of this is secondhand

on my part. But essentially, this encampment was created after another encampment was destroyed

in the large park that was here in downtown Kitchener. And then in 2023, basically Waterloo

Community Legal Services, as well as some of the folks who were defending it at the time,

were able to go to a provincial court and receive a decision from Justice Valente that

the uh region, which was the property owner and the entity responsible for providing

housing at the same time, which is kind of like key to the litigation, was deemed not to

be entitled to evict people from this specific area of public land. because the rest of Kitchener

is covered by a public camping criminalization by law. So they were told that this particular

location, because they don't have enough housing for everybody, I think I have the numbers

elsewhere if we want to get into it, but essentially there's like 350 shelter beds and almost 2,500

unhoused people in Waterloo region, which is Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge. And so

basically it was decided by Justice Volante, by the provincial court that the region was

not entitled to evict people from this location until they could show that they were actually

able to provide housing as they're required to by the charter. And so that means that since

2023, this encampment has essentially been legally protected. We have a court order saying that

they're not allowed to evict people, they're not allowed to prevent people from setting

up all this type of stuff. And then the exciting and new legal developments are that last year,

the region tried to pass a site specific bylaw specifically for this location. And we have

ended up in litigation against them once again. And in my opinion, and it seemed at least

initially from some of the questions that the justice was asking at the original hearing,

after which they granted a temporary injunction, meaning basically like until the legal decision

is finalized, the region is not entitled to. evict anybody. And when they did that, they

were asking a lot of questions about like, well, how is this bylaw any different? Like, how

is this any different than the decision that we just made? So I hope that that means that

they will tend to decide in our favor. But unfortunately, we got to keep waiting a couple months to

find out, uh keep sort of like having the proceedings get kicked down the road. I was trying to do

a little bit of my research to my understanding, you don't have a next court date. uh But they

are trying to evict people by April. And the justification that they're using is they

want to use that area as some sort of construction for a transit facility. Am I right? Is that

correct? Yeah. basically uh Kitchener technically has a go station. It's not great. It's really

quite a struggle to get into Toronto. So with this, I do sympathize. And basically they

have been trying to create a new GO station that's A, closer to downtown Kitchener and

B, much larger. And that is not the site of the encampment. 100 Victoria, like the proposed

site of the GO station is at Victoria and King Street, which is about three blocks uh south

of the encampment. But what they want is to have the location that the encampment is at,

B, uh I think they call it like lay down or something like a staging area for vehicles

and equipment. Yeah. So it's just an empty gravel lot basically. And they want to be able to

put all the stuff down. uh But there's like several things that are strange about this.

First of all, there are several pieces of region owned land within a few blocks of the location

of this proposed go station, which they also could have used. And also we, the residents,

the public at large have repeatedly requested that the region simply designate another location

where people can instead set up camps and be protected in doing so and everyone would happily

move. I- don't like that idea? They don't like that idea, no. So basically one of the reasons

the litigation has kept being delayed is that originally I believe the hearing was supposed

to be in November or something like this. And then the region announced that they were willing

to undergo mediation and basically- the because we, you know, like I personally and fight back

are not parties to the litigation. I'm a witness in the litigation. Who is when when you say

we were in litigation, I assumed you were. So who does do that job of launching a court challenge

to prevent the municipality or the region from doing whatever they want? The litigation is

on behalf of encampment residents. So certain encampment residents are named uh petitioners

in the court case. and it's being done by Waterloo Community Legal Services. They're amazing

and they were also the lawyers in the first round of litigation. But yeah, so basically

in- I was writing down their names. No worries at all. Yeah, so basically in the fall, the

region approached Waterloo Community Legal Services and said, we'll go through mediation with you

folks. And basically all the residents who were involved with the litigation, all of the

community members tangential to it were like, great, we have- two things that we would be

happy to receive out of mediation. You can either decriminalize public camping on all public

land or designate a couple of public sites that people can go to. uh You know, like in

my world, there are a lot of things that would be really great to have. I would love a site

where there's running water. I would love a site where there's electricity. uh I would

love a site where there's an indoor location. There are places like this near downtown Kitchener

that are owned by the government. uh I would love a place where there's like grass and trees.

uh Nobody actually likes where it is because it's at a very busy intersection and it's in

a location where there's just like a high degree of confrontation with passing motorists and

stuff like this simply because of its location. The region keeps trying to frame it as if

we fight back, are agitators that are trying to make it so we're defending this site because

we just want to prove a point and we... oh We're just like evil antifa or whatever. And it's

like, we are perfectly happy with any solution that allows all of our neighbors to be safe

and housed in a low barrier way. It's just that all of the structures that exist are A, insufficient

and B, extremely punitive in ways that are very predictively discriminatory against our relatives.

I noted that because we're definitely going to get into the carceral aspect of most solutions

to homelessness. It makes me irate though, like when a state actor needs land, needs

to expropriate land, like they pay landowners, right? Like it's just kind of a given. It's

not sometimes super fair. People don't like to be displaced, but like it's a given that

there would be some sort of compensation. And just the fact that like these folks are

just mere objects to the equation to be moved. And I know I'm not blaming you for offering

these types of solutions. I know you want housing. You are trying to make a point. It's not the

point that they think you're trying to make, like you're defending some gravel land. You

are, it's a concept that we will get into, but the, like the idea that they couldn't then

just provide some sort of actual shelter housing for these people to then just forever have

whatever piece of land they need across the city to have a staging area, right? Because

everybody would have somewhere to go. But none of these reasons, right, the transport hub,

the certain location, none of it is really what the problem is, right? Why don't they want

an encampment? Yeah. And to your point even about expropriating, what is happening here

is a land purchase. uh Metrolinx is buying the site from the regional government. And so

they could quite easily be like, okay, we're going to set aside like $200,000, which is

a trivial amount of money to the region to buy out the residents. You know, like, I'm sure

that, you know, $10,000 a piece would get each of these people very far, but they're not willing

to do that. or to work any kind of housing into this massive project when there's a clear

need. It's maddening, but I think once you point out these hypocrisies that we're left

with, then why? Yeah. Why is the region doing this? Why are all these actors uh doing what

they're doing? Do you have a theory? I'm sure you do. have a lot of theories because

another thing too is what money they do spend is spent in really futile ways. One of the

results from the previous round of litigation in 2023 is they created an unsheltered worker

outreach program, which is basically social workers that the region employs. These are

the primary outreach workers that come to the camp. Well, they used to come to the camp.

I actually don't have beef with these individuals personally. I think that for the most part,

they think that they're nice people and they think that they're trying to help people and

in some rare instances, they succeed. But basically, like, they are individuals who are paid by

the region, they actually just were hiring. So I've learned that they get paid $100,000

plus each by the region. Again, wonder how better that money could be spent. And they're,

you know, professional. overwhelmingly white women who come to the site and discuss with

the residents about potentially getting them services, whether it's like getting them into

a shelter of which again, the ratio is five to one and house people to shelter beds in

the area. uh Or in the last few months, they've been engaged in purchasing motel stays for

people. But the motel stays are short and indefinite term. So anecdotally from the people

who stay there. We know that most people have been told they can't expect to stay there beyond

March or April, which is A, the springtime, but B, the predicted date of the litigation.

And they have, I can't say that this was intentional because I don't know inside their minds, but

I can tell you that every resident that I know to be a named participant in the litigation

was offered a motel bed first. And they also overwhelmingly offer these motel beds to white

people. Like as far as I know, like, out of maybe like, basically none of the original

white residents of the encampment when I started coming around in like, 2024 winter are still

around, but all of the black residents of the encampment are still around. The only black

person I know of who has been offered a motel bed is married to a white man. And basically

like, I think that this is like deliberately part of the structure. They're trying to say

that like, their programming is successful. We're moving people out. uh Every time that

the region goes before the judge, they're always saying like nobody of the original resident

stays at the encampment anymore. And that's from like, first of all, a fundamental misunderstanding

of how homelessness works. But also they showed up when they passed, when they were going to

pass this new site specific bylaw in April of 2025, they showed up on one day for a couple

of hours, took down the names of everybody they could talk to at that one instance. and said,

these 30 people are the residents of the encampment. uh Even though at the time I can tell you that

there were 50 people staying there. And also, those people are the residents of the encampment

on that day. Is naturally a changing thing. uh And as long as there is not enough, because

the original court decision does not apply to the people, like the 2023 court decision does

not apply to the people who. stayed there at the time. applies to every unhoused person

in Waterloo Region. And so they deliberately have tried to limit the scope of who they

are considering to be essentially like a deserving recipient of the services. And they're targeting

those people. And then basically anyone who's not a deserving recipient of those services,

whether because they're black or because they weren't on their original list, is just subject

to being kicked out and in many cases incarceration. One of the big drivers of that is that since

the site-specific bylaw was passed, so before the site-specific bylaw was passed, the region

employed Barbara Collins Security, which is a private security company, to have security

guards essentially in the parking lot next to the encampment most of the time, and then every

couple hours they would walk through and patrol. And during that time, I had a passingly polite

relationship with these individuals. uh But basically once the site specific bylaw was

announced, they moved security onto the site. So they are constantly inside their vehicle

on the site watching everybody. uh And the security guards, you know, there's like intense hostility

between them and the residents. uh There's like particularly like numerous of the security

guards, but one of them in particular. really weaponize like calling police or calling ambulance

on people. So there's been lots of instances where someone is like, you know, like a fight

happens or like someone like seems like they're non responsive for a minute. And then security

calls an ambulance for the person. And then like, I've witnessed instances where the person

was so severely triggered by the site of emergency services that they like freaked out and started

screaming and like throwing things and I had to like pull them aside and calm them down.

ah And then there's been other instances where like, allegedly, that I was not personally

there, but according to several people who were there, there was like, individual who stays

at the camp for a long time, who I know to be an incredibly nice man, who happens to be a

black man. He was like putting his pants on as he walked through the encampment. And so

he was like holding his belt, like it was just in his hand. And the security guard was like,

he threatened me with his belt and he subsequently went to prison for several months. as a consequence

of threatening the security guard with his belt. And I know of at least two occasions where

this has happened involving this particular security guard. So we're starting to get an

idea of the carceral aspect. Now, I had, we have spoken to folks where motels are purchased

like blocks or shelters are operated like jails, right? With curfews, with no visitors, with

this threat of eviction hovering over you, you know, with noncompliance all the time and like

that. is easy to describe as a jail. But we kind of get excited when we hear, not excited,

but, know, legally sanctioned encampment. It's like that sounds like progress, but then

it also does allow that extra level of enforcement, right? Where it's almost just another site

for the state to control in that way. Yeah. I mean, we have an We have a site here in

the region called a better tent city, which in my opinion is a concentration camp. I also

have experienced similar sites in British Columbia, which in my opinion are simply concentration

camps for homeless people. They're just shipping containers in, you know, the one here is out

by the dump. It's not next to any services. There's no ins and outs. There's no visitors.

You can't even have overnight visitor if they're your partner. Someone died last winter because

of that, because he needed life saving medical care and there was no trained staff. The region

bragged about building this. We covered that, right? And we were like, this is, this looks

horrific. It was nowhere near transit and it had, so how did that turn out? Awful.

mean, people have, numerous people have died there, not just this one instance and numerous

of the people who stay at 100 VIG say that they tried to stay there and they were trespassed

or they couldn't. you know, have their pets or have their partners or use or have in and

outs or couldn't access services or whatever, for whatever reason, they were like, it's

actually not tenable for me to live here. And so they chose not to. And the thing also is

like, I want to make it abundantly clear that the level of, you know, like security presence,

police presence, constructive evictions that the region has engaged in have continued to

escalate since the region passed the site specific bylaw, despite the injunction. because prior

to the site-specific bylaw, security was not present, the level of criminalization was much

less. At least one person that I know of has been trespassed from the site. Actually, I

think maybe two people that I know of have been trespassed from the site by the region, which

they're still entitled to do under their bylaw if the person is, I can't remember the exact

wording, like engaged in disruptive behavior, which like... It's a fucking homeless encampment.

Like, people, like, I'm sorry, people are crazy here. Like, that's intrinsic. Like, just don't

worry about it. It's an excuse to then criminalize, right? To say, you don't want this in your

city either, right? They've also increasingly been doing that to the few services that they

do provide. So previously I said the social workers used to come. uh They used to come

when the litigation was active before this injunction, like over the summer. They would

come like two and three days a week and they would try to talk to people. And then the region,

due to us basically putting pressure on them, has like very minimal port-a-potty servicing

and very minimal garbage servicing, uh which in and of itself was like, this is such a

digression, but like a huge battle because they were using the garbage servicing as a way basically

to like... take space back from the residents by putting way too many dumpsters on site and

forcing people to move their tents every time they were trying to clear the garbage. And

basically the region has increasingly militarized this process. So now like every Thursday,

the region facility staff come. It's the only time the toilets get serviced. It's the only

time the garbage gets picked up. It's the only time anything gets salted, even though it's

been the snowiest winter on record out here. And they bring police with them every single

time. because allegedly the porta potty truck man was maced by somebody once, which like

I've been going to the encampment for like a year and a half. Like I've gotten into arguments

with people. Like people have really gotten mad at me and like no one has ever physically

threatened me. And like I, you know, this is going to be audio. I have a deep voice, but

I'm literally five feet tall. Like I'm not a physically imposing person and I have never

felt afraid for my safety there. And now The social workers also claim that they feel afraid

for their safety when they're on site. And so now they always show up with police. And so,

you know, this also contributes to the criminalization because they show up on a Thursday when all

of the disruptions are happening. you know, like, so, yeah, this incident happened three

weeks ago where this gentleman, he was freshly released from incarceration because the security

guard claimed that he was threatening him, even though he alleges that he was not. um He went

to prison for several months. He gets out of prison. He's freshly back, the social worker

walks up to him with a cop behind her and is like, hey bud, how's it going? I haven't seen

you in a while. How you been? And so he quite understandably crashes the fuck out. He's like,

what do mean how have I been? How do you think I've been? I'm fucking homeless and I just

got out of prison. And he's like yelling at her and he's like, you know, like, it's like,

oh, we can try to get you services like blah, blah. And like. You know, she's, you know,

trying to do her like white woman social worker voice. And the whole time the cop is like edging

up behind her, like closer and closer. And I'm like trying to stand in front of the cop, like,

please back up. You're just making him more stressed out. And then the cop who herself

was a white woman was like, I don't understand. I have a right to be here. I'm a member of

the public too. And I'm like, you're harassing this man in his home and he's freaking out

because you people. are just using this as an opportunity to send him back to prison. Like

that's what this actually is. Right. And he, he quite like honestly kudos to him. He was

like, you know, y'all keep talking about these motel rooms and it's just bullshit. Like, you

know, it's motel rooms for the white people and Maplehurst for the rest of us. And like,

she was just gobsmacked. Like she was like, ah, and then she just like kind of walked

away. And then the cop kept trying to approach and I was just like, leave him alone. He didn't

do anything. There's no reason for you to be here. And she's like, I have a right to be

here. And it's like, don't. It's his house. Maybe you can't say it, but I can. Like any

social worker that shows up in a homeless encampment with cops is not fucking good people. That's

what I'm saying. they've got the knowledge and experience to know how triggering that is,

what kind of power imbalance that creates. Right. And that kind of circumstances that that's

just collecting a paycheck. That makes me really mad. I mean, it is horrifying. And that's

I get to that and I go, what the fuck do you do about all these are so many little battles

like I'm talking like the dumpster battle, the social workers behave in such bad the garbage,

like the toilet cleanup, the trespassing even though they shouldn't be the legal cases.

Aaron, this is a lot like, how are you? It's like a two part question. How are you all coping

with this kind of battle? It shouldn't be this hard to just take care of our unhoused members

of our community, right? Like that should be like a mutual aid network, right? Like we can

do that. We can live as a community and then we can figure out housing. This is an onslaught

for advocates, right? And for the encampment residents. How y'all coping with that? Yeah,

I mean, it's been a lot. mean, first of all, like, it's not just me, obviously, and it's

not just like the small, like, inner group of folks who, like, do direct support. Like, we're

kind of embedded within sort of like a growing and tentacular, like, mutual aid network of

people who are a lot more, like, casually involved, who just, like, bring supplies. We've been,

you know, very heavily engaged all winter in making sure there's firewood, ah which has

been really important because, again, it's been, you know... snowy winter on record out here.

But honestly, like, it's, it's, it's not been the most fun. I'm not going to lie to you.

uh It's, it's been a pretty stressful time. I think that something that's really important

to me about it is like, I first of all, like value tremendously the symbolic importance

of a space like this, not just for the people who stay there, not just for the region who

knows that they have to continue to deal with us, but also for other people who try to do

this kind of work because I've tried to do this kind of work elsewhere in worse situations

where it's like, you know that this person has set up a tent and they're going to be moved

tonight. They're going to be moved tonight every single night. You know, at least in this situation,

like people have full blown cabins. Like one of the cabins there has a kitchen and three

bedrooms. Like, you know, like Defending people's right to have like an actual place to stay.

It's not perfect Sometimes there's violence and there's a lot of theft because people live

among each other in poverty but at least as a place that they have control over to a certain

extent and can actually stay in and like honestly like the company of the residents is what keeps

me going like, you know, I I say all the shit and we're like fighting and stuff but like

most of the time when I go there I just like show up start a campfire and then just like

smoke joints with the residents until my shift is over, you know, we just like hang out and

talk like and like that's the part that's really like enriching and healing about this kind

of work to me is like, you know, the folks who stay there are awesome. They're just really

nice people. They have so much more sense of like, you know, again, not that there's no

conflict, but to me, actually, the conflict is a sign of health because I see people

who stay at the encampment like really fight each other. Like I'm talking like screaming,

I'm talking like fist to cuffs. And then like the next day they'll be like, oh, this is my

brother, like here, please, like, this is my last cigarette, please have it. Like, you know,

like people have genuine real conflict with each other and then genuinely resolve it, which

is something that for me as an abolitionist is just like a dream to witness in real life.

And to understand that like all of these structures that people think are required to have society

are actually in the way of real human society. And it's the people that live with the least

structure that have what I think of as the closest to real human society. Community, even if

it's created here by necessity for survival, it's an alternate model of living, right? That's

mostly sustained outside of the capitalist system. and has even been able to exist despite

the onslaught from the capitalist system. And that's incredible, especially when we're

trying to find alternative ways to live. No, we don't want people to be without shelter.

ah But I think that's what you're getting at with the symbolic nature of the encampment.

Because I'm sure you're faced with a lot of the question. So you want people living in

encampments is that you're trying to protect this kind of living, right? This kind of harsh,

even though you just described community and a lot of humanity, these are harsh living

conditions that people probably mostly would rather not have to try to survive every day.

Um, what, what is your answer to that? Yeah. I mean, like I, you know, as someone who is

not. always lived here, uh as someone who has lived both outside of Canada and outside of

North America, it is evident to me that capitalism is collapsing and the increasing numbers of

people here and everywhere else in the world are finding themselves already in these situations

of precarity. I am not the person who is putting someone in a position where they have to stay

there. I am just the person who shows up when they stay there the first night. And I'm like,

here's a tent, here's a sleeping bag. I'll come check on you in the morning and make sure you're

okay. And to be clear, not just me, you know, like we, the people, ah but I'm not putting

the person in the position where they couldn't make their rent, where they got kicked out

by their abusive parent because they're trans, because they're a Sudanese refugee, because

you know, the UAE in Saudi Arabia are having a proxy war in their country and they ended

up here. Like so many of the people who stay at the encampment are refugees, are queer,

are trans, are disabled. And it's like, I want the world where they all can be safe and housed

and enjoy middle-class life like I do, but that's not the world that we live in. And I simply

want. them to have the best experience that they can have when they're in this situation

with the understanding that increasing numbers of people over the coming decades will end

up in that situation until eventually it'll probably be all of us. so let's hope we figured

out like how to do it, you know, how to navigate through that. But I think the sense of community

that it builds is part of the key there. Yeah. And for me, like I, you know, like I relate

a lot to a lot of anarchist theory. And I think that I think of what we're doing as sort of

like dual power building in the sense of like these other structures are collapsing and

that's kind of an over here problem. But in the meantime, we have like our little area

over here that we can build a structure in that can be stable, that can do the work. And like

this structure over here doesn't even need to fully collapse for this structure to start

like building, expanding, taking the people who are leaving anyway and like making something

good so that, know, whatever happens over here with the big structure, we're kind of like,

if it falls apart, great, we're here, everyone can come to us. Otherwise, like, we have a

better thing going here on this side anyway. Imagine that, you know, I think that would,

for me, it's a moment to realize that, yeah, we're over here, they can come to us, that

statement that like, that alternative way of living that we've looked down upon and demonized

and mom, or even like, you know, felt bad for, could actually hold a lot of the secrets um

to this inevitable transition that we're going to go through that a lot of us are trying

to resist, right? Especially like shit lips, right? They see the decline, but they're like,

no, we're going to salvage some of this. And like, that will be a rude awakening when they

do end up, you know, in that moment of crisis. yeah, I think there's some irony there. I

don't know what to do with that irony though. Well, and to me also something that's worth

saying is like the structures that be have a vested interest in the situation of the people

at the very bottom to be as bad as possible. Because, you know, if somebody told me like,

oh, you don't have to work a job, you can just set up a cabin in the woods and like trap and

like have a camp and live there with your friends like. I wouldn't work a job anymore. They

want you to see that the homeless person on the street has to sleep on a sewer grate to

stay warm every night and can't set up a structure so that you can be like, oh shit, guess I better

work at Tim Horton's then. That is necessary. Part of what you're saying, why are they doing

this? They don't consciously know that, but that's part of it. They don't want people to

be able to drive past and be like, oh. m I don't know, these homeless people, like they got

cabins, they seem to be chilling, people bring them food, like I could do that. That's probably

better than staying with my abusive parents, right? Yeah, I think some of them consciously

do, right? The system does consciously punish folks working or being able to eke out a survival

or an existence rather outside of the market, right? Sex workers face the same kind of

stigma. Right. It's like must be punished, must be ostracized so that you do not even

consider non-compliance. It makes me think of, um, cause you know, you mentioned like

outside of Canada, um, in, my home country in Columbia, um, cause we're an incredibly

internally displaced people, right? A lot of refugees from various parts of the country.

And one thing that people have always been able to do. because the government doesn't

actively stop them from doing this is there's a mountain, build a community. People bring

bricks, they have no homes, they build communities. And eventually those communities, eventually

the government has to bring electricity and bring things because, you have a town here,

this is fully set up. And that's what happens when... when we don't actively stop it. Like

what's happening here is the government is actively stopping us from being able to build

anything, to do anything. Like we could go farther, but they stop us, you know? Like... Yeah, yeah.

And very much to your point, like there used to be an encampment here uh in the woods,

like outside of town. in an area that was deliberately out of the way that people chose to be like,

we can set up, can, you know, like trap and like do whatever and take care of ourselves.

And the region went in and kicked them out. So like, they, you know, like, they often say,

like, these people are in the way, these people are in the way. And it's like, it's not because

they're in the way, you just don't want them to do that. Like, you don't like, yeah, like,

there's something about like, not wanting to have this sort of like, landless peasant

core that's not actively part of the capitalist structure that they're like, no, we can't

have that. We have to destroy those people. They have to go to prison so we can enslave

them or we just keep moving them along until they die of exposure. Yeah. Here in Toronto,

like it's always like the encampments that are under bridges or hidden or stuff. Those get

torn apart and barely anyone even notices because it's hidden. there's a safety in in being

in the public eye, you could say, you know, because then, then it exposes their violence

when it happens. Exactly. Yeah. And there's other other aspects of safety too. Like that's

always why I explain to people who uh donate to the encampment and also to people who like

stay there and then leave. And then, you know, why, why do you focus on this place, particularly

there are other places and it's like the fact that this place is public, is visible, is large,

is so important. The oversight that we're able to provide to make sure that the government

isn't harming people as much as they could, right? For all the struggle that it is, there's

so many victories. People have had cabins set up there for two and three years now. And there's

so many women and queer folks who stay there, black folks who stay there who are like...

If I were to stay individually on the streets, I would be subject to so much more violence

as opposed to here. Like, no, I'm not saying that no violence happens obviously, but like,

you're not the only woman on the site. You're not the only queer person on the site. You're

not the only black person on the site. So if something happens, someone will stand up for

you. talked about the motivations, but kind of in a really vague way, right? The system

and these players, but there's a real economy, even like a local economy that relies on homelessness.

Those folks are motivated in this cycle, right? In perpetuating this cycle. Can you teach us

more about that? Yeah, I have a lot of issues with a lot of the service providers in the

area, like even individually. So actually right now, the encampment is across the street from

uh one of the locations of a service provider, which is a nonprofit organization. Sorry, I'm

American, so the Canadian nonprofit industrial complex is a little opaque to me. uh But my

understanding is they're a nonprofit, but they're primarily funded by the regional and provincial

government. I could be wrong about this. uh But they operate a soup kitchen across the

street. It's also where a lot of people's benefits are processed through and stuff like this.

these locations, again, The people who are staffed there have a vested interest in their

salary. And so they have a vested interest in not solving the problem. And they also participate

very heavily in the criminalization of folks who stay at the encampment. I personally am

banned from the site of the soup kitchen because I tried to prevent them from arresting a 20-year-old

black boy for jaywalking with four cops. So now I'm never allowed to go back. And I like,

I think again, like, I don't like, don't interpersonally know how to feel about these frankly, overwhelmingly

white women again, because they all like, pose themselves as being concerned about wanting

to help people having this altruism, being a caring person, having this expertise. A little

halo. Yeah. And then like, everything that they do is standing in the way of whether that person

is actually able to get out of this situation, including quite frankly, collecting 100 bands

off these people's backs every year. Like that money, like quite directly, if you just disseminated

that hundred bands to the people who stay there, it would have a measurably better impact than

paying this woman to come once a week. Like. And I think that that, like, I just, like,

I have to assume that there's a level of cognitive dissonance happening because I can't imagine

that a person, like, would keep telling themselves, I'm a good person, as they're, like, calling

the cops on these people, as they're, like, twiddling their thumbs while this person freezes

to death. Like, Because otherwise it's like, okay, I guess you're just my enemy and you're

evil, you know? You've got to hope that there's a way to reach those kinds of people because

like some of them are spending their energy and what they think is a good cause, right?

So as opposed to being a nimby, right? They are in a way when they call the cops, like

they're not the ones like we've got folks like they will pick it in and can't be right that

will just like petition their counselors to all ends of the earth to get rid of whatever

home uh folks have. These folks seem reachable, but it's uh yeah, a little bit of that liberal

ideology kind of masks some of those harms. Yeah. When I think a lot of it comes back to

the idea of like deservingness, like whether they think it consciously or not. I think that

they think that for a person to deserve the services that they have to be of a certain

presentation, have a certain level of gratitude and subservience that is really challenging.

I think that a lot of it also is like, I don't mind if a person... screams at me. I don't

mind if a person threatens me, especially because I have security in knowing that someone might

verbally threaten me, but they're not going to do anything. And I also have a deep understanding

of like, if you have been living on the street for more than I mean, I imagine myself like

I get so dysregulated if I sleep less than eight hours a night in my own home in my own bed.

Like if I slept on the street for a week and a half, I would be what I call the yelling

person, the person who's screaming to themself all day long. Like that, like, I think that

they're not trained and not resourced. Like I want to give them that small credit because

I see them genuinely, like I see a lot of workers in this situation and I've been workers in

this situation to be clear where they like, they set out to do something good. They're

very under resourced. They're directed in such a way that what they're able to do is very

limited. Um, and then they continually are the person who has the person who has had their

life fall apart, screaming at them. And so they burn out and become exhausted and then

they just become hardened and bitter toward that. But my answer is get another job. It's

quite simple. If you are hardened toward the work that you are doing, you should stop doing

it. Because if you think as a service provider, like at least I had good intentions when I

came into this, therefore that will carry me through as a good person. Now the fuck it won't.

Stop doing it. Yeah. I mean. We say this to cops, but I think a certain kind of person

becomes a cop in the first place. Right. But I do see people at the line kind of pleading

with them or even with ICE, you know, they were singing to the federal buildings the other

day, you know, you can change your mind. And I was like, it's a little more than that, but

like we could get there. So beyond the legal challenges though, and the kind of direct

support, how are you folks organizing? to protect these community members and, you know, defend

the right to even have an encampment. Yeah, I mean, I think that a lot of it has been uh

keeping public awareness on the site. This is not really part that I participate in, but

like the comms team does a really amazing job of like outreaching to our local community,

like explaining to them, like continually like putting out things that like address these

types of questions like why, why do we need this place? Like what don't Do the people there

just want to be unhoused for the fun of it? Kind of addressing these pieces. I think that

for me and for all of us, it really remains to be seen what's going to happen uh in the

litigation. uh But in terms of for myself, I've just been making sure as much as I can, which

has been, again, just an ongoing and constant battle that whatever. constructive eviction

behaviors that the region tries to engage in that we like observe them, prevent them as

much as possible, uh document them, and then raise that to the larger community and to

the legal team. Because they like, as I said, ever since they passed the site-specific bylaw,

even though they're currently enjoined from enforcing it, many, many things have changed

since before they did that. And they'll say that that's not bylaw enforcement, but that's

what they're doing. ah And so we just have to continually watch them. And I think for me

also, like a big part of it has been like increasing the residents agency and participation in that.

So we have a couple of like members of our organization who are current or former residents of the

encampment. And then just like for me personally, like every time I find out someone has a cell

phone that they're able to keep reasonably charged, I'm like, here's my number, I'll text you and

I'm going to come and like you please text me if you need anything. And like now I have like.

six or seven of them who can text me. at any time I can be like, Hey, is XYZ on the site?

Like, can you go check for me or whatever? And like, I think that that, you know, the thing

about mutual aid is that people, it has to become mutual eventually, right? Like, you know, we

all start from this position where obviously like things are unequal and the provision of

aid will be one way for a while, but like, that it's not about becoming transactional, but

it's about gaining a sense of mutual responsibility for one another. And so, you know, for example,

like yesterday wasn't feeling so hot and it was the garbage day and I usually show up and

make sure that their region workers don't like steal propane tanks from people because they

do that all the fucking time. And I was able to just like text one of the residents and

be like, Hey, my other friend is going to come like, just, know, hear the things I'm worried

about, try to make sure they leave you some salt, blah, blah, blah. And he texts me back

and he's like, okay, great. I hope you feel better. Blah, blah, blah. Like, you know, like

Progressing to the point, I try to express this a lot, and it's something that I struggle

to express to white organizers a lot, that it's not just about dissolving the service provider,

service recipient boundary, though that's also huge part of it, but it's about genuinely becoming

neighbors and relatives and community members to each other in an honest way, where we honestly

care for and look out for each other. And I think that that is something that... will

only become more valuable as time goes on regardless. Regardless of what kind of conflicts we engage

in, I think of all of the organizing that I do as like, especially like mutual aid, like

ground building work is like, we are preparing to have a network for a crisis that we don't

know about yet. And when that crisis happens, hopefully we'll already have this network,

but it could be anything, right? Like, who knows, maybe the US will invade, maybe like. Maybe

we'll all get deported. Like, I don't know what's going to happen in 10 years, but I know that

like, I know these people, they all live near me. We all have a sense of mutual responsibility

for one another. And that is something that the encampment and this type of organizing

is like worth creating for me regardless. is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints

of Disruption. Thank you for joining us. Also, a very big thank you to the producer of our

show, Santiago Helu-Quintero. Blueprints of Disruption is an independent production operated

cooperatively. You can follow us on Twitter at BPofDisruption. If you'd like to help us

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