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TDRC Media Releases |
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January 14, 2002 Mayor
Mel meets with Hell's Angels while refusing With
over 17 requests for a meeting with Mayor Mel Lastman rejected or ignored,
street nurse Cathy Crowe is angry and frustrated as to why the Mayor can
so quickly meet with the Hell’s Angels and not her group – the Toronto
Disaster Relief Committee. Despite
a recent verbal promise by the Mayor to Ms. Crowe to meet with 3-4
delegates from TDRC, the Mayor’s office issued a refusal as recently as
January 7, 2002. In a January
7, 2002 letter to Ms. Crowe from Alan Slobodsky, the Mayor’s Chief of
Staff “…the Mayor’s schedule is very busy…”. This now
counts as the 18th refusal by the Mayor to meet with TDRC. “We
have written, we have visited his office, I have spoken to his staff
numerous times (17) requesting a one hour meeting – just for myself and
3 other Board members of Toronto Disaster Relief Committee – a nurse, an
outreach worker, a professor and a lawyer. We are experts on the crisis of
homelessness and have asked since October 1998 to brief him on the issues.
Why won’t the most senior elected official in this city meet with a
group of people concerned about the homelessness crisis?” asks Ms.
Crowe. TDRC
declared homelessness a national disaster in October of 1998 and was
instrumental in forming the National Housing and Homelessness Network,
campaigning both locally and across the country for the 1% solution.
TDRC has exposed to the United Nations, Canada’s poor track
record on homelessness, and furthermore, on the local scene the fact that
many shelters do not meet the UN Standard for refugee camps, that we now
face a TB micro-epidemic and an unacceptable number of homeless deaths.
For more information, contact TDRC at tdrc@tdrc.net -30- |