Tent City

I found an article from the Toronto Star about homelessness with particular attention to Tent City. This article reminded me of a similar reading we did titled by Neil Smith about homelessness. In this article, the author talks about how in 2002, a bunch of homeless people gathered and decided to form their own little community near the waterfront in downtown Toronto on land that the Home Depot owned at the time.

What ended up happening was they were force to leave by police and all the homeless people had to re-locate elsewhere. Even though they were kicked off, they did get publicity through the media and even had a politician – Jack Layton even supported this movement.

When the homeless moved into this area and had tents, trailers, or even some had built their own home, they had occupied a space in which they truly believed they belong. There was a video about Tent City in one of my geography classes and everybody a part of Tent City felt like it was their own home. Even though it probably did not belong to them nor was it probably not legal, they nevertheless felt as if they created their own little community. Neil Smith talks about how homeless would live in cars well in this case, the homeless would live in tents on a piece of land known as Tent City.

Article (note again you will need to access your York account to log in)

http://proquest.umi.com.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/pqdweb?index=7&did=1246185081&SrchMode=1&sid=1&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1175488814&clientId=5220

Andrew Grant