With key input from advocates and people with lived experience in encampments and shelters, the Toronto Drop-in Network has co-authored a letter, A Path Forward, demanding that Mayor John Tory and the City end the forcible removal of encampments and police use-of-force against unhoused people, and commit to a human rights-compliant approach to engaging with unhoused people.

This letter has been co-signed by 61 local organizations, including key city partner agencies such as Inner City Health Associates and The Neighbourhood Group, 41 community leaders, including former mayor John Sewell and former councillor Roger Hollander, and 104 creatives, including Serena Ryder and members of Broken Social Scene. Collectively, we are asking Mayor Tory to adopt it as city policy.

We are asking you to help too: tell John Tory and City Council adopt the recommendations in the letter immediately. Forcibly removing encampments does not end homelessness; it only pushes it into more remote outdoor locations, and inflicts trauma on unhoused people.

We are also asking you to support a motion from Councillors Mike Layton and Josh Matlow requesting a judicial inquiry — that is, a public inquiry into encampment evictions by a judge of the Superior Court of Ontario. While the Toronto Ombudsman has recently announced his intention to investigate the city's forcible removal of encampments, he cannot investigate the actions of Toronto Police. A judicial inquiry has the authority and ability to investigate the actions of Toronto Police, which is imperative in regard to encampments.

Indeed: a militarized approach is not the way forward. A human rights compliant approach is. Toronto must choose a better way.