An Open Letter To David Miller, Barbara Hall, and John Tory:

Dear Mayoral Candidates: We address this letter only to the three of you since it is a matter of virtual certainty that, in so doing, we are putting our grievances and demands before the next Mayor of the City of Toronto. Given that none of you have responded to us in any clear fashion at all candidates' meetings, we are taking the liberty of setting out our concerns in the form of this open letter.

On November 8, a couple of days before one of you wins the right to occupy the Mayor's Office, we will be taking over one of the many empty buildings that have been left to rot in this City. We'll be demanding that it be opened up as housing for homeless people. This action, however, will be directed at more than the creation of housing for a small number of those who have been put onto the streets. It will represent a rallying call in the struggle to defend poor communities under attack. In the east end of the downtown area where our organization is based, condo development, coupled with a relentless drive to erode low income housing stock, is changing the face of the community. It will not be enough to provide a token number of 'affordable' housing units in order to respond to this unfolding process. Rather it will be necessary to ensure that low income neighbourhoods are protected from a process of veritable social cleansing. Accordingly, when we take over the building on November 8, we shall call on each of you to respond to six concrete demands.

1. The occupied building must be turned over as decent housing for homeless people.

2. The process of condo development must be frozen in the east end if the area is not to be destroyed as a community where poor people live and raise their families.

3. A concrete plan must be developed to counter the pervasive driving out of low income housing stock in the area.

4. Enough social housing units must be created to house the homeless shelter population in the area.

5. City housing inspections must be stepped up to the point where existing housing is protected and the right to decent living conditions respected.

6. The incoming Mayor must meet with those who take over the building on November 8 and negotiate with them around their demands. He or she must also undertake to ensure that this action is treated as a legitimate expression of social grievance that should not be responded to with a beligerant police operation that seeks to stifle it.

Each of the three of you, in one way or another, has made issues of housing and the renewal of communities a part of your electoral campaign. There is, indeed, a huge crisis in poor neighbourhoods but it won't be addressed by tokens and platitudes. Communities under attack are being defended and, as of November 8, we intend to remove all doubt as to which side each of you will be on in this contest.

The Members of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty