Displacement City: Fighting for Health and Homes in a Pandemic by Greg Cook

Displacement City: Fighting for Health and Homes in a Pandemic Reviews

• 
  Christina Barber

  “Displacement City: Fighting for Health and Homes in a Pandemic,” is focussed around the homeless crisis in Toronto and the immediate effects of city and provincial policies. Edited by Greg Cook and Cathy Crowe, this collection of essays, letters, memoirs, photos, and poetry is a portal into a world that is pushed beyond the edges of humanity, where the necessities of life taken for granted by so many, are nowhere near enough.
  
  How many times have we heard “We’re all in this together” throughout the pandemic? When you read “Displacement City,” any lingering feelings of that statement as truth fall away. While those affluent enough to stay home during the pandemic worked through the challenges that living with Covid-19 presented, other people put their lives on the line to help us all, and many others were faced with inhuman and unimaginable living conditions and choices. Homelessness is a crisis affecting more than 250,000 people across the country each year. With supports like, libraries, community centres, and fast-food restaurants shuttered, people relying upon them found themselves without washrooms or the means to maintain minimal hygiene. An unrepentant system focussed on simplistic and temporary solutions, and often overly punitive measures of enforcement. Overcrowding, unsanitary and unsafe conditions were the norm for people trying to make it through the pandemic. And all of this with an ongoing drug crisis.
  
  The takeaways for me were the reinforcement of the need for the homeless to be able to self-determine, their right to dignity in living and in dying, and a reminder of the humanity of people who face grueling challenges. The term ‘houseless’ was often used, for many people while they may not have a house, have still found a home: in encampments, in shelters, and in myriad other situations which have taken the place of real solutions. As people living in a socialist democracy, in one of the richest countries in the world, we need to do better.
• 
  Nicola Cansdale

  This book is extremely eye opening and a must read for everyone!!!!
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  Eric Shatosky

  Displacement City brings together a community of activists, nurses, frontline workers and unhoused people to tell the story of how they handled the COVID-19 Pandemic at its peak in the neoliberal city known as Toronto. Each chapter has a different author and brings a different perspective. Anyone who cares deeply about the issue of solving homelessness and the people who have dedicated their lives to fighting for solutions, will find both solace and motivation to fight for a better world after reading Displacement City. Each and every death from being unhoused is preventable, each and every death from being unhoused is social murder. This book will be remembered years from now and will be looked back on by generations of activists.
• 
  Samuel Poon

  A compilation of stories and essays from workers, activists, and marginalized people by the housing crisis in Toronto during COVID. Did an insightful job of emphasizing the stories of people’s real experiences while providing commentary on the policy failures of the city.
  
  Still very relevant today and I highly recommend to everyone. I thought chapter 11 (Zoë Dodd’s letter) was particularly powerful.
• 
  Laura

  An important current read for this city. I appreciated hearing of the specific actions and approaches taken during the pandemic. Some of which I knew well and others only a small segment of. An issue we are continuing to see played out daily in this city.
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  Lex

  An eye opening read about homelessness during the pandemic in Toronto.
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  Tasha

  This book is eye opening and needs to be read by everyone. Three years later and more people are homeless then ever before and this book warned it was going to get worse a lot worse.
• 
  Kristie Vezina

  An indepth look at how the pandemic impacted Toronto's houseless population and the many ways the city of Toronto failed to protect this population or ensure their access to basic human rights.