I spoke with @namshine.bsky.social on her TVO podcast (Mis)Treated about the historical lack of medical research on women and why that matters. www.tvo.org/video/why-we...

rhe youth accessing the shelter are also residents of the neighborhood

spoke to CityNews: we are in a worsening homelessness crisis and people are protesting shelters. what is dangerous is not the presence of unhoused people; it is the protest and lack of lifesaving services for unhoused people that are dangerous. toronto.citynews.ca/video/2025/1...

unhoused people are frequently framed as a threat to public safety. meanwhile an unhoused person was murdered. an anchor on Fox shamelessly touted using lethal injections to kill unhoused ppl. when we discuss ‘safety’, what do we mean? who do we centre? [1/]

we are yet in another heatwave. the city finally got water to orgs after the civic long weekend, but people are still with no options. the one 24/7 space at metro hall is embarrassingly bad. seeing so many downtown outside. can’t we at least have water fountains?!

i am so honoured and grateful to organize with the Shelter Support Collective, a group of residents across the city welcoming shelters in their areas, and pushing for systemic changes. TODAY WE HAVE AN OP-ED OUT!! read and share! big love to @TUHUnion_ www.torontotoday.ca/local/opinio...

folks upset abt “taxpayer dollars” spent on harm reduction often support things that cost more: police, jails, overdoses, healthcare costs, blocking shelters… tbh if you follow the convo & ask “so where do people go?”, it’s really that they want poor people & drug users to die.

Had an opportunity to be back on The Social to discuss Bill 6. Disguised as a bill to prohibit public drug use, it's really a bill abt criminalizing people who are unhoused. here's hoping we can move the needle on this conversation towards addressing systemic change. youtu.be/9olQ8SrB6gE?...

In Conservative-led provinces, they are finding every possible way to turn our once excellent public system into private fairy dust. They start with people who have less of a voice, so the takeover is inevitable when the rest of us are impacted. Speak. Up. Now. #CdnPoli #abpoli #ONPoli

it is SO hot. 630pm and some of the city’s “cool spaces” have closed. there still is only one 24/7 cooling centre and it has no cots, no food, no privacy. organizations haven’t received their water yet. like are yall just waiting for a death before any urgency?!

imagine wearing these shirts in a housing crisis.

remember when we arrived at the third heatwave and the city still has not distributed water to organizations that serve unhoused and vulnerable people?!?!!?!!? it is mid july.

toronto is under a severely bad air quality alert, and there is ONE 24/7 cooling centre. no cots, no food, just four tables and foldable chairs, right in the middle of the elevator access at a busy Metro Hall - no privacy. how is this acceptable!?

There is a dangerous air quality index alert today & we still have no 24/7 options for people who are unhoused. On outreach last night, our volunteer teams dropped off water, hot meals, & bagged lunches to people who live outside. Now, will the City do their part?

Toronto, May 2025: out of 614 calls to Central Intake, only 12 resulted in a shelter bed. So if you tried to access a shelter bed, you had a 1.9% chance of succeeding. This, in a heatwave w ONE 24/7 cooling centre, the City decides to evicts a few tents today. [1/]

22 out of 111…..

heatwave again. hot outreach! no cooling centres. (the city says they have “cooling centres” but they’re literally just places w AC that close and aren’t suitable as respites). no water to orgs yet. what’s the plan here toronto? this is a public health issue.

This is how the Edmonton approach is going.

"What, to the slave, is your 4th of July?" - frederick douglass

another person died from an encampment fire this AM. The conversation will be framed as the person’s failure to address fire safety & live outside, the fact is all levels of gvt are to blame for neglecting housing as a human right. old clip, same msg👇🏼 www.breakfasttelevision.ca/videos/how-a...

Literal cages. Not even metaphorical ones. Literal ones.

i am really tired of all the rhetoric that says: migrants/immigrants should be welcomed because of how they work the jobs no one wants, or things to that effect. this perspective, imo, perpetuates an ableist idea that people are only valuable if they produce. NO!

HUGE gratitude to Mohamad Fakih at Paramount foods. 🙏🏼 when the city failed to ensure people had access to water, he/his team donated 6 skids of water (~300cases) in 12hrs. the water went to EIGHT outreach groups in the city, including @OOTC_StLukesTO ! will the city to step up?!

Spoke to CityNews today about the City's embarrassing response to the heatwave. Bring back 24/7 cooling centres, for starters. Council meets this week - write your councillor insisting on a way more appropriate heat wave response! youtu.be/nBSFe6w-_3U?...

spoke to the Star. “Summer is not a surprise. We know that summer is coming…The fact that the city…going to look into options for a few months down the road,’ is completely unacceptable, in my opinion. Because, what’s happening in the meantime?” www.thestar.com/news/gta/may...

Heat Relief Network tells people to go swimming to find relief. Going great, isn't it? 24/7 cooling centres are needed.

bless the private donor for giving water bless the driver who cut through rush hour traffic to get some sauga to toronto shame on the city for being woefully unprepared for the heatwave this stopgap is nice but not sustainable at ALL. will the city step up?

7am. we out here dropping off water and things for our neighbours outside & then waiting for a delivery of more water from a private donor cuz the City doesn’t seem to know summer comes yearly & didn’t get water out to orgs BEFORE the heat wave that we knew was coming weeks ago.

Y'ALL these “500 cooling spaces” are NOT cooling centres. they (malls, civic centres, libraries, etc) are just SPACES WITH A/C. they are NOT open 24/7, do not provide water/food or an option for people to lie down. we need 24/7 cooling centres! they existed pre 2019! www.ctvnews.ca/toronto/arti...

going into a heatwave and the city’s plan to support unhoused people is the “heat relief network”, telling people to stay cool by going to malls, splash pads, pools… this is absurd. bring back cooling centres. deploy water trucks.

Can we just for a moment acknowledge that responding to "you're doing genocide" with "well we have a right to exist" is just gaslighting? If I move into your house, you ask me to leave, and my response is "fuck you, I have a right to exist," you're going to be very confused.

it has been non-stop cold rain & there are no respites for people unhoused. for years we said we need inclement weather respites not just “warming centres” someone riding TTC to stay warm? leave them. someone at a coffeeshop staying dry? offer a drink. ask if they want anything.

🧵 This is a big story and I’m not seeing it get around so take a sec with me here. Clearview AI is a big deal if cops can use it. Basically lets them figure out who anyone anywhere is based on social media and internet facial recognition scraping. Protests, you name it. 1/

no water for a week, no timeline for restoration. no showers, no laundry. 6 portapotties for 250 people cleaned every several days. the city calls this an "inconvenience". No Elise, this is a public health & human rights violation. You go pee outside. www.cp24.com/local/toront...

the shelter hasn't had running water for over a week and residents are told to go outside to use the bathroom. unhoused people are treated without dignity. if any other building had no running water for over a week, there would be such outrage esp if told to remain. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpmI...

"Since Somerset West closed two months ago, I feel like I'm going to be found in my apartment when people start smelling me 'cause I've died in my apartment alone 'cause I no longer have the safety of Somerset West to use," SAID A DRUG USING PERSON WHO WAS INTERVIEWED www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

lots of folks are always asking how they can help. HERE'S A CHANCE!

PP -- first of all, we have to condemn Hamas and Iranians who planned Oct. 7 Bitch 70000 people have been murdered by Israel. #debate2025

"Will your tough on crime platform make prison overpopulation worse for Indigenous people?" PP -- actually, Indigenous people are the victims of crime. Talks about James Smith Cree Nation tragedy while seemingly forgetting what the nation's name was

Spoke to CityNews re SCS Charter challenge. "The gvt's decision to shutter these sites will kill ppl.... Who deserves access to safety, survival, healthcare? If we close down the sites, we are saying the lives of drug users don't matter." I am SO grateful for all fighting. youtu.be/CyOp20w7MF0?...

may your anger and outrage around the treatment of ukraine and america’s support of russian invasion match your outrage around the ongoing genocide in palestine and the western world’s complicity in it.

"This new legislation is modeled after the Protection of Children Abusing Drugs Act (PChAD)...allows parents/ guardians to forcibly admit youth to an abstinence-only facility w/out requiring a medical assessment...the province does not monitor outcomes..." breachmedia.ca/media-politi...

winter storm out here and the city didn’t even open up surge sites. ok.

What police mean by "housing and well-being" in Victoria:

Congratulations to Super Bowl LIX champion Kendrick Lamar

Bob was released from Niagara Detention at the end of January, with nowhere to go. A shelter couldn’t take him because of an outbreak. He froze to death, from hypothermia, a couple days after. I didn’t know Bob, but I sure feel like I do. www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/news/niagara...

Neo-Nazis appeared in Lincoln Heights (metro Cincinnati) Ohio and got ran out of dodge… but not before locals stole and burned their swastika flag in the street.

what's the purpose of needing to say they're chile nationals? what the hell is 'nationals'? why didn't you say "Toronto arrested Canadian national in 1998 murder" in a previous headline? Stop perpetuating xenophobic narratives.

it’s not about the drugs. the toxic drugs crisis is not about the existence of drugs. it is about the unregulated and unpredictable supply of drugs, and the tainted supply is killing people in alarming rates. [1/]

The globe is telling us to accept as fact that the fentanyl czar is a necessary thing rather than an intentionally crisis-intensifying demand of an inept criminal bully