Help Make Panhandling in the PATH a Success

Low income tenants and homeless people are being driven from central Toronto to make way for an oversupply of higher income housing. Public housing is being replaced by condos. The homeless are having their services and shelters closed. Forced onto the streets to beg, they are being hounded under the so called ‘Safe Streets’ Act and criminalized for trying to survive.

On December 12, we are going into the largest underground complex of retail outlets in the world, the PATH underground system, to panhandle on a scale the City has never seen. Usually when poor people go in there to escape the cold and ask for money, they are rapidly dealt with by mall security. On December 12, they’ll have their work cut out. The ugly, covert operation to push out the homeless will now have to deal with the fact that people are standing up and resisting.

In order to pull off this action we will need to do a huge job of outreach- we want to put up posters all over the downtown and hand out thousands of leaflets. We also plan to put on a very decent meal for all those who come out to participate that day and will need to book space in the downtown core. Moving around the PATH will require TTC tokens and we want to provide materials to help people panhandle. It will be an expensive undertaking and we are asking everyone to pitch in to make this day a success. Please send donations to help us meet these costs. Mail cheques to:

OCAP,
10 Britain Street,
Toronto, ON
M5A 1R6