Hopefully This Is The Future Of Other Social In-Activist Groups

Disaster for relief committee Homeless advocacy group appeals for support after acknowledging 'serious financial straits' By Sue-Ann Levy After nearly 10 years of riding the homeless bandwagon, it may be the end of the line for the posse of poverty advocates on the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee (TDRC). A Sept. 24 e-mail sent out by TDRC queen bee and street nurse Cathy Crowe -- and obtained by the Toronto Sun -- says the TDRC is in "serious financial straits." Crowe indicates they're reviewing their options for the future but are faced "with closing down" their Trinity Square office -- effective Oct. 11 -- and operating "only as a volunteer organization. "After more than nine years of struggle on the homelessness front, TDRC is facing a new challenge -- whether we can secure enough funding to continue to our 10th anniversary," the TRDC co-founder and author writes, inviting anybody who wishes to make a "generous donation" to their cause. "Homelessness is our Katrina but it wasn't caused by the weather," continues Crowe, who was awarded a three-year $100,000-a-year Atkinson Foundation fellowship in 2004 to continue her work on the homeless cause. That award was recently renewed for a year. This will come as no surprise to those who regularly follow this column, but I won't be holding any tag days for the shameless self-promoters on the TDRC. Perhaps they've finally outlived their useful shelf life, if they ever had a raison d'etre in the first place. The TDRC was founded in 1998, around the same time former NDP councillor Jack Layton convinced council to declare homelessness a "national disaster." But while they talked a good game about wanting the homeless off the streets -- claiming ad nauseum that conditions there are "horrific" -- they have repeatedly fought any moves to get street people into shelter or proper housing. In 2002, Toronto became the subject of a page 3 article in the New York Times when a weak-willed council under former mayor Mel Lastman, Layton and his TDRC hangers-on allowed Tent City, an encampment of 110 squatters, to flourish down on contaminated Cherry St. lands. Can't work with NDP They haven't even been able to work with an NDP regime -- the very politicians you'd think would mirror their own ideology. During Mayor David Miller's four years in office, the TDRC has vociferously opposed the plan to remove the 90 homeless people once squatting on Nathan Philips Square, the Streets to Homes initiative that has endeavoured to put homeless into private apartments and the city's first homeless census in April of 2006. But last summer a ragtag crew from the TDRC -- particularly Crowe and her sidekick Beric German -- sunk to a new low when they endeavoured to intimidate Coun. Jane Pitfield to resign as co-chairman of the city's homeless advisory committee for daring to push for a "qualilty of life" bylaw to get panhandlers off the streets. The "ballsy" Pitfield hung tough and Crowe and Co. ended up boycotting in a huff the committee they'd stacked and hijacked for months. Since last November's election, the homeless advisory committee has been put on ice -- leaving the TDRC with no official City Hall forum. Crowe couldn't be reached for comment. However Tanya Gulliver, the only level-headed member of the TDRC steering committee in my view, told me last week they'd survived with project funding from foundations and on union donations. But foundations won't typically fund "core activities" or "activism type of work," she said. Asked about the TDRC's proudest accomplishments, Gulliver says she thinks it's the work they've done to raise the issue of homelessness as a "national disaster." She said they've also done a lot of work locally to improve shelter standards and to get more shelter beds. She feels they still have a "friendly relationship" with a lot of city councillors and the mayor. But Maureen Gilroy, who fought council's shelter bylaw, says she always found the TDRC a "pretty self-serving organization. "I just found them to be meddlers for their own purpose," Gilroy said. Coun. Doug Holyday, the lone councillor (of 57) not to declare homelessness a national disaster in 1998, said he wouldn't be sorry in the slightest to see the TDRC go. "They've sure extended whatever life they did have," he said, insisting they've helped perpetuate a "growing" homeless industry. "I don't think these people have done anything to help the homeless situation. sue-ann.levy@sunmedia.ca