TDRC Media Releases

Release Date: Thursday, December 18, 2003
 

For the first time in 5 years a Toronto Mayor will officially meet with homeless

and housing activists!


(Toronto) On Friday, December 19 at 2:30 pm Mayor David Miller will meet in his office with members of the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee (TDRC). Why is this unusual? In 1998 the TDRC requested their first meeting with former Mayor Mel Lastman. Twenty formal requests and 5 years later TDRC was never allowed access to the inner chambers of the Mayor’s office.

TDRC staff and Steering Committee members will be joined by a homeless man who sleeps outside at Nathan Phillips Square and a woman who used to live at Tent City and is now housed thanks to the emergency rent supplement program.  They will deliver an enormous home made Christmas card signed by former Tent City residents who wish for more rent supplements to help other homeless people.

The delegation will describe for the Mayor the desperate conditions outside and in the shelter system, and outline solutions that could save lives this winter: the opening of an emergency shelter, 1000 rent supplements by the end of the winter, and speedy action by the city to improve shelter conditions that allow tuberculosis, flus, and bedbugs to thrive.

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For more information, contact TDRC at tdrc@tdrc.net

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