Liberals to consider buying buildings to save affordable housing stock

BY JORDAN PRESS THE CANADIAN PRESS
Posted June 14, 2020
 

A real estate sign is pictured in Vancouver, B.C., Tuesday, June, 12, 2018. 

A new analysis of the country's stock of affordable housing suggests the Liberals' decade-long strategy to provide more of it is starting in a deeper hole than previously thought, and may be further behind once the COVID-19 pandemic passes. 

THE CANADIAN PRESS Jonathan Hayward

A new analysis of the country’s stock of affordable housing suggests the Liberals’ decade-long strategy to provide more of it is starting in a deeper hole than previously thought, and may be further behind once the COVID-19 pandemic passes.

But the pandemic could also mean an opportunity for governments to pick up rental units cheaply.

Carleton University researcher Steve Pomeroy, whom housing groups and governments both rely on for advice, found a decline of 322,600 affordable rental units in the private market between 2011 and 2016. 

Over the same period, federal and provincial investments in affordable housing created about 20,000 affordable units, meaning that for every new unit governments created, 15 were lost.

What that means is the Liberals’ national housing strategy and its plans to create 150,000 affordable units over a 10-year stretch would only be replacing about half of what had just been lost.

The new concern is that the situation will repeat following the current economic crisis brought on by the pandemic, as tenants’ problems paying rents put a squeeze on small landlords and their assets are scooped up by larger real-estate funds with little interest in keeping them affordable.

VIDEO B.C. landlords want to reinstate the right to evict 
https://globalnews.ca/news/7064179/coronavirs-liberals-affordable-housing/

It’s why the federal government is now considering purchasing those assets as part of the next phase of the government’s response to the pandemic.

“My position on this has been, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” said Pomeroy, a senior research fellow at Carleton’s Centre for Urban Research and Education.

If the (real-estate investment trusts) are coming along and buying up these properties, why don’t we let non-profits do the same thing, or enable non-profits to do the same thing?”

In recent days, Social Development Minister Ahmed Hussen has suggested in meetings with housing advocates that he’s open to putting federal dollars behind the idea.

“If this is an opportunity to really put a serious dent in homelessness, then that’s an opportunity we should be taking,” said Jeff Morrison, executive director of the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association.

There is no specific program under the national housing strategy to enable acquisitions, said Pomeroy, who also works as a consultant. Public support like that would be needed to help smaller, non-profit housing providers gain the necessary capital to purchase properties.

VIDEO Coronavirus outbreak: Toronto announces measures to help those who are homeless, in community housing 

https://globalnews.ca/news/7064179/coronavirs-liberals-affordable-housing/

So far, few affordable housing renters are behind on payments. Morrison said that about 10 per cent of units are in arrears or non-payment.

Tim Richter, president of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, told MPs on a Commons committee this week that there’s very real worry that the economic crisis created by COVID-19 could accelerate the losses in affordable units Pomeroy noted, “making Canada’s housing crisis even worse.”

“If we’re in a hole, we have to stop digging,” Richter said.

Pomeroy estimated a realistic target for a federal program would be to buy about 7,500 units annually, which would cost over $1 billion in a mix of equity, loans and grants to purchase and refurbish units.
Those units could be a mix of apartments that could quickly be available as affordable or social housing units, plus other assets like strip malls or commercial office space that could be repurposed into housing, said Leilani Farha, global director of The Shift, a housing-rights group.

“If it’s the case that all of these different possible property types become distressed, it’s then an amazing opportunity for governments at all — local, provincial, and national — levels to consider moving in and buying those assets to increase public access.”

Additionally, there are concerns that motels and hotels will shut down, pushing out homeless people housed in them to avoid overcrowding in shelters and slow the spread of COVID-19.

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Why Che Guevara still lights a revolutionary spark - Stars Insider

https://www.starsinsider.com › lifestyle › why-che-guevara-still-lights-a-re...

2 days ago - A prominent figure in the Cuban Revolution, he became a martyred hero to generations of leftists worldwide after his execution in 1967 by the ...

Born on June 14, 1928, Che Guevara was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A prominent figure in the Cuban Revolution, he became a martyred hero to generations of leftists worldwide after his execution in 1967 by the Bolivian Army.

Already an iconic figure in the 20th century, his stylized visage remains an ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion, leftist radicalism, and anti-imperialism, and his name alone still lights a revolutionary spark in many seeking social and ideological change.

Click through the gallery for an appreciation of the life and times of one of recent history's most idolized and controversial figures.

‘Defunding’ police and funding mental health resources will save lives, experts say

BY LIAM CASEY THE CANADIAN PRESS
Updated June 4, 2020 

VIDEOS https://globalnews.ca/news/7024773/defunding-police-funding-mental-health/

 Advocates say the money saved could go towards programs for racialized communities. Catherine McDonald reports.
TORONTO – The death of a Toronto woman who fell from her 24th-floor balcony while police were in her home has renewed calls for an overhaul of how society deals with people in mental health crises.

Some experts believe “defunding” police – taking some of the taxpayer money going to law enforcement and putting it towards mental health services – is one way to avoid deadly interactions between officers and people struggling with mental illness.

The blowback follows the death last week of Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a 29-year-old woman whose family asked police to take her to a mental health hospital. Police have said they were responding to an assault call, but the family has questioned the role of Toronto officers in her death. The province’s police watchdog has taken over the case.

READ MORE: Regis Korchinski-Paquet’s death reinforces need for major mental health, policing reforms: advocates

“I think it’s unfortunate we’ve come to a place in our society that police become first responders to people who are experiencing a mental health crisis,” said Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Toronto Mississauga.

“What we should do is take back that money, to defund police, and give it over to mental health professionals who are better equipped to help these people.”

He suggested there should be another number to call, rather than 911, for those in crisis, so mental health care workers can intervene, rather than armed officers.

Death of George Floyd renews calls for how law enforcement is funded in Canada 

Toronto police respond to about 30,000 mental health calls every year, out of nearly one million calls that the force responds to, said spokeswoman Meaghan Gray.

The force’s mobile crisis intervention teams, where a trained officer and a mental health nurse respond to those in crisis, attend 6,000 of those calls each year. Those teams do not go to calls where a weapon may be involved.

Lawyer reflects on incidents of anti-black racism, police brutality in Toronto Lawyer reflects on incidents of anti-black racism, police brutality in Toronto

“We have expanded the program over the years and will continue to do so with the resources that are available to us,” Gray said.


“However, it is important to note that all police officers are trained to respond to mental health issues.”

That annual training consists of courses on communication and de-escalation techniques, she said.

“The Toronto Police Service believes that mental health is a complex issue that requires the involvement of multiple entities, including but not limited to community support, public health, and all levels of government, to render any meaningful change,” Gray said.

There have been a number of high-profile cases over the past decade that involved the deaths of people in crises at the hands of police.

Dr. Patrick Baillie, a psychologist and lawyer, has spent 25 years working with Alberta Health Services and the Calgary police and is usually on call 24 hours a day to help the force deal with those in crisis.

Baillie supports the call for more mental health resources to help those in crisis and let police focus on enforcing the law.

“We have made police officers into the people who respond to all sorts of forms of social difficulty,” he said. “At what point do you say, these things aren’t policing?”

READ MORE: Thousands rally in Toronto after death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet

About 10 days ago, Baillie said he received a call from a police negotiator who was stationed outside a man’s home in Calgary with the tactical squad.

A man had been yelling randomly from his porch. When his neighbours told him to shut up, Baillie said, the man made some sort of threat then returned inside. He said police were working on getting a warrant so they could send in the tactical team.

“They tell me the rest of the story: he’s a known police hater, he’s paranoid, …and the police and crisis team has dealt with him before,” he said.

Baillie told police to leave the man alone.

“I said ‘if the neighbours call again, just call me and I’ll go for a drive,'” Baillie said.

No one called. When he checked in on Monday, police told him they went back and said the man was fine and the mental health crisis team took over to help him.

“You’re looking for community support and community intervention rather than law enforcement,” he said.

“If you have a sufficient number of mental health experts available to police, you can have better outcomes.”

READ MORE: Regis Korchinski-Paquet’s family’s interview with SIU on hold after concerns over leaked information

Camille Quenneville, the CEO of the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Ontario division, pointed to two crisis centres in the province that are having promising results.

One is in London, Ont., that operates 24 hours per day, she said.

“This is a place where police can take somebody in crisis,” she said. “They immediately get their mental health needs looked after.”

The centres allow people in crisis to avoid emergency rooms and provide specialized mental health services around the clock.

Ideally, she said, the mental health system needs to be revamped so people aren’t in crisis to begin with. But that would require significant investment in mental health care, she said.

And as people spend months cooped up in their homes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, things will likely get worse, Quenneville said.

“The mental health crisis isn’t looming, it’s here now and we need to act,” she said.

Syrus Marcus Ware, of Black Lives Matter – Toronto, says now is the time to find alternatives to calling police when someone is in the throes of a mental break.

He points to the Gerstein Centre – a 24-hour community-based mental-health crisis centre with its own mobile crisis response team – as one of those alternatives.

“We don’t have to call police if we’re struggling, we can figure out a better way, but we need more of these programs.”

© 2020 The Canadian Press

Approach mental health crises with care, not policing: crisis worker
Rachel Bergen CBC 14/6/2020

© Kerem Yucel/AFP/Getty Images Demonstrators across Canada and the U.S. marched against racism and police brutality following the death of George Floyd. Many people are calling to reallocate money from police departments to social services…

What if a response to a mental health crisis, or a person sleeping in a parkade, was a couple of people in plain clothes asking, "How can we support you?"

Ebony Morgan is a crisis intervention worker with Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets, or CAHOOTS, in Eugene, Ore., which has served its community since 1989.

Through CAHOOTS, medical professional and crisis worker teams provide first aid in case of urgent medical need or psychological crisis. They assess, provide information, referrals, advocate for people and even bring them to another non-profit where they can get additional support.

"We have the trust of our community so when we arrive, we lead with, 'How can we support you? What's going on? What do you need right now,'" Morgan said.

CAHOOTS provides one model of working with — but also independently of — police.
Calls for defunding

The concept of reallocating money from the police has gathered increasing steam in the wake of the protests sparked by the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor by police in the U.S.

In Canada, the role of police in the deaths of Black and Indigenous people who suffered from mental health problems — including Chantel Moore, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, D'Andre Campbell and Machuar Madut — is also coming under increased scrutiny.

Many people have called for defunding the police, in whole or in part, in order to reallocate that money to social service organizations that are better equipped with dealing with the root causes of crime, including poverty, unstable housing, mental health problems and addictions.

Across Canada, city councilors and even Winnipeg's police chief have signalled a willingness for change.

Social agencies have had funding cut back "pretty dramatically" over the last decade by various levels of government, which forces a lot of the work to front-line workers like paramedics and police, Chief Danny Smyth said earlier this week.

He says he'd like to see social services receiving an increase in funding to a sustainable level, then the police service could look at lessening their roles and work instead as supports to those agencies.
CAHOOTS can handle 99.4 per cent of calls

In Oregon, CAHOOTS teams are dispatched by the local police department's non-emergency line and are sometimes sent out with law enforcement. Last year, they were called to deal with crises about 24,000 times and only needed to call 911 for help 150 times.

"That works out to 0.6 per cent. So 99.4 per cent of the time we can handle what we encounter without a police officer," Morgan said.

"The times that we do have to call them in, we're very clear with our clients that that's what the outcome is about to be and the reasoning for it."

The free service in Eugene and neighbouring Springfield has a yearly budget of $1 million, compared to the the local police's budget of $60 million, Morgan says, but it does about 20 per cent of the work.

Staff at CAHOOTS travel across the country teaching people the CAHOOTS model, and so far it's been picked up in Oakland, Cali.; New York City and Denver, Colo.

So far there's been no uptake in Canada, but Morgan thinks that should change.

"I truly believe we should be in every city," she said.

"I think it helps gets rid of some of that stigma around needing help when it's just a couple of people that are walking up to you in their hoodies and jeans, saying 'how are you doing? Can we offer you anything?'"
Mental health ambulance

© Annika Bremer/PAM The Psychiatric Acute Mobility team operate this mental health ambulance in Stockholm, Sweden.Meanwhile, in Stockholm, a mental health ambulance has been lauded by advocates and patients for elevating the status of mental health care.

The program, which started in 2015 as a two-year pilot project, became a permanent fixture in the county's emergency medicine response, according to Andreas Carlborg, the managing director of Northern Stockholm Psychiatry at Stockholm Health Care Services.

"If you had a stroke or a heart attack you'd be treated by nurses in an ambulance ... but if you would have an emergency mental health issue you would probably be dealt with by the police. Now, you would be taken care of by trained nurses in the same way as you would have if you would have a somatic problem," he said

Carlborg says police who aren't trained to deal with these issues can focus on other things, and from a medical perspective, patients get a thorough pre-hospital screening to determine whether they need further care.

Although the program is working well, Carlborg says there's room for improvement. The mental health ambulance is called 15-20 times a day, but with just one vehicle, it isn't possible to see all those patients in a timely manner, so the staff attend to the most serious patients — normally five a day.

"I think there's a general need to increase funding for mental health services in society and definitely in Stockholm, Sweden, as well," he said.

There's keen interest in other jurisdictions, including the U.K. and New Zealand. He says there's a similar program in the Netherlands and Norway as well.
'Great need out there' for specialized workers

Police in Winnipeg say they're working to ensure officers have a better understanding of mental health when responding to calls, but it would be ideal to have more highly-trained mental health and social workers in the field.

"Yeah, specialized people in the field, I'm in support of that all the way. There's great need out there and the more people who are out there the better," said Deputy Chief Gord Perrier.

He told CBC News the police receive mental health training and use tools to assess people's history with police to learn how to approach a particular situation.

Currently there's a program that ensure paramedics are sent to certain 911 calls when they're better suited to the situation, and the Vulnerable Persons Unit pairs a social worker with a police officer when responding to some mental health or addictions calls.

Perrier hopes that unit will expand and that more social service agencies will be open 24 hours for people in crisis.

"People can't control their crisis to be between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.," he said.

Morgan worries that people only know to call police in an emergency, when that's not always the right choice.

"The cops don't always have to come, but it's the default to call them, and I think that's where even they get frustrated."

If you're experiencing suicidal thoughts or having a mental health crisis, there is help out there. Contact the Manitoba Suicide Prevention and Support Line toll-free at 1-877-435-7170 (1-877-HELP170) or the Kids Help Phone at 1-800-668-6868. You can also text CONNECT to 686868 and get immediate support from a crisis responder through the Crisis Text Line, powered by Kids Help Phone.

Chief, mayor apologize after report finds 2019 Hamilton Pride police actions ‘inadequate’
Don Mitchell CBC 12/6/2020

© Lisa Polewski / 900 CHML Hamilton Police Chief Eric Girt and Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger speak with media following after a police services board meeting on June 17, 2019.Hamilton Ont., police chief Eric Girt apologized to the LGBTQ2 community in a prepared statement during the city's police services board meeting.

The apology comes following an independent review of the Hamilton Police Service's (HPS) actions before and at the city's 2019 Pride festivities in Gage Park.

"As chief, I take full responsibility for what took place at Pride before, during and after," said Girt, "And I do apologize to the community for inadequate planning and preparation for Hamilton Pride 2019."

READ MORE: Independent review says police response to violence at 2019 Hamilton Pride ‘inadequate’

On Thursday, the mayor, chief and a number Hamilton councillors on the board heard Toronto lawyer Scott Bergman read the highlights of his 125-page report, which examined whether the HPS acted too slowly when protesters attacked festival-goers.

The report also suggested the HPS "fell short in its planning and preparation for Pride 2019" with months of miscommunication and a lack of communication with organizers attempting to work out a plan with police for the June event.

"We can do better. We must do better," said Girt.

The chief also apologized for comments made on and around a town hall segment with the Bill Kelly Show on Global News Radio 900 CHML in June 2019 when the chief said police were not invited to the event and that forces remained on the perimeter.

“To many, the Chief’s comments on the Bill Kelly Show seemed to imply that policing of the event was contingent upon event organizers endorsing and welcoming police” Bergman said in his report.

READ MORE: Hamilton LGBTQ2 residents react to Pride 2019 review — ‘We knew that we were right about this’

The Bergman report said the public messaging coming from the HPS after Pride was seen by the LGBTQ2 community as an “abdication of the service’s essential function — to serve and protect.”

"I'm also sorry for statements made during and after the event that created the impression our response would have been different had we been invited," Girt said.

"Hamilton Police Service is committed to ensuring public safety where everyone is respected and protected, regardless of whether we asked or invited to participate."

Mayor Fred Eisenberger also offered up an apology on behalf of the Hamilton police services board, saying they "sincerely and unreservedly" apologize to the LGBTQ2 communities for the events prior to and as they transpired.

He also said the city denounces all organizations, groups or individuals that promote "hate, violence, intolerance, discrimination and hate speech" in the community.

READ MORE: Board approves independent review of police response to Hamilton Pride violence

"The board thanks Mr. Bergman, for his report and accepts his findings and recommendations. We commit to work with the chief senior command of the Hamilton police service to implement all 38 recommendations," said Eisenberger.
Bergman suggests LGBTQ2 liaison officer should be a full-time job

During the board meeting, Ward 6 councillor Tom Jackson asked Bergman to elaborate on his recommendation (#22) which suggested that the city's LGBTQ2 liaison officer Det. Const. Rebecca Moran, hired in mid-February as a “conduit” for community concerns, should be a full-time position.

Bergman said he saw "significant issues" within the Hamilton community and that having an officer doubling the liaison job with a full caseload as a detective gives an "image" that potentially the police service isn't taking LGBTQ2 issues as seriously as it could.
Cultural review and organizational cultural diversity audit

In the report, Bergman also suggested improving ties with the LGBTQ2 community with more "in-depth hands-on" training with the community and undertaking a diversity audit or organizational culture review which he says has been done by other police services across Canada.

"The suggestion is to get a snapshot of where the Police Services Act is currently and then figure out where it wants to go and then assess where it is, you know ... six, eight, 12 months after the fact."
OIPRD report on Hamilton police activities around Pride 2019

Two separate police reviews tied to 2019 Pride activities in Gage Park were on the agenda as part of the Hamilton Police Services (HPS) board meeting on Thursday afternoon.

READ MORE: LGBTQ2 comments made by Hamilton police chief during radio interview dismissed by watchdog

The other report was submitted to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) by Hamilton police which was an internal review that concluded that complaints against the HPS were "thoroughly" investigated and found to be "unsubstantiated."

The 110-page report, completed by an HPS staff sergeant in November centred around three reported service complaints. The complaints allege that police failed to properly plan for the Pride event at Gage Park, that officers took too long to respond to the disturbance among "attendees and protesters" and that police failed to arrest protesters.

After interviewing the complainants, witnesses and officers involved, an investigator was "satisfied" with the operational plan, saying it "reflected the most current information and intelligence" available to officers at the time.

The review also said that police followed proper response protocol in deploying 48 officers within a half-hour of being alerted about a confrontation at Gage Park.

Bergman's conclusions in the report were based on interviews with 42 community members, 24 HPS officers and civilian staff as well as submissions from a wide range of individuals and local news stories.

Mayor Eisenberger said recommendations from the report will be addressed at a board meeting in September.

Hamilton, Ontario to consider calls to defund police despite skepticism from board

Don Mitchell 13/6/2020
© Lisa Polewski / Global News Activists rally in Gore Park in Hamilton, Ont. on June 1, 2020, a week after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Hamilton's police services board has agreed to look at a potential 20 per cent defunding of local police following protests across Canada and the U.S. by supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement in connection with the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.


City councillor and police services board member Chad Collins said the move was in response to the city's inbox being "inundated" by emails from a number of Hamiltonians asking for the redirection of funds to social programs.

"I think this motion will help in responding to the messages that we've received as a board and as a council," said Ward 5 rep Collins who admittedly was less than supportive of the possibility, saying his constituents want "more policing, not less."

READ MORE: ‘They’re targeting us’: Why some advocates want to defund Canadian police

"To me, it means less resources for police, which will ultimately lead to less police officers. And it's become quite obvious that the defund the police campaign, whether it's here or elsewhere, is an attempt essentially to neuter the police," Collins said.

A 20 per cent cut would equate to about a $34 million reduction in the city's current policing budget of $171 million, according to the board.

On June 2, a list of demands was issued by organizers of a series of virtual protests, live-streamed from Toronto’s Black Lives Matter Twitter account, with some filmed from various locations across Hamilton.

Gachi Issa, one of the protest organizers, told Global News that anti-Black racism is pervasive in Hamilton and needs to be addressed by elected officials in the city.

“It not only happens in Canada, but it happens in our city,” said Issa during an interview on Global News Radio 900 CHML’s Bill Kelly Show.

“We should focus on it and we should work toward a more just society for Black and racialized people. And that means defunding the police, that means allocating these resources back into the community.”

READ MORE: ‘Defunding’ police and funding mental health resources will save lives, experts say

Dr. Greg Brown, from the department of sociology and anthropology and legal studies at Carleton University, says the current ideology of defunding is a theory that potential deadly interactions between officers and people can be avoided through preventive investments in communities, mental health services, and social service programs.

"I think it's sort of coalescing is around a definition of the police maybe eliminating or transferring some of the current work that they do, outside of core law enforcement, responding to citizens in distress, nine when one type of calls, and downloading that service onto another," said Brown.

Hamilton Police Association president Clint Twolan says 89 percent of the city's police budget goes to staffing costs and that a 20 percent cut in the budget means a significant decrease in staffing.

Twolan says he doesn't believe that redirecting policing funds will remove police from dealing with confrontation in a given community saying officers are a downstream institution that deals with the social issues that have come as a result of shortcomings of institutions above them.

"Whether it's health care, whether it's mental health, whether it's education or socio-economic issues involving housing and drug addiction, those kinds of things. We are the ones who we are the catch basins, and we deal with those people," said Twolen.

READ MORE: Activists call for defunding of police to address anti-Black racism in Hamilton

Mayor Fred Eisenberger concurs with Twolen's assessment, saying that a lot of the "social ills" in society have ultimately landed on police.

"It's a very complex issue that has many layers," said Eisenberger.

"Certainly social services and supports that are out there being delivered by federal and provincial governments have been and continue to be inadequate to serve the very people that are in need those resources and services more than ever."

— With files from Lisa Polewski

Activists call for defunding of police to address anti-Black racism in Hamilton

BY LISA POLEWSKI 900 CHML Posted June 4, 2020
 

A group of Hamilton activists took over Toronto's Black Lives Matter Twitter account on Tuesday to call for changes to address anti-Black racism in the city, including defunding the Hamilton Police Service. (@BLM_TO on Twitter)

A call from local activists to defund the Hamilton Police Service is the latest addition to a growing conversation about anti-Black racism in policing.

That call was among a list of demands issued by organizers of a series of virtual protests, which were live-streamed from Toronto’s Black Lives Matter Twitter account on Tuesday and filmed from various locations across Hamilton.

READ MORE: Toronto lawyer reflects on local incidents of anti-Black racism, police brutality

Gachi Issa, one of the organizers of the protest, said anti-Black racism is pervasive in Hamilton and needs to be addressed by elected officials in the city.

“It not only happens in Canada, but it happens in our city,” said Issa during an interview on Global News Radio 900 CHML’s Bill Kelly Show. “We should focus on it and we should work toward a more just society for Black and racialized people. And that means defunding the police, that means allocating these resources back into the community.”
https://t.co/0NQqZDFOJ0
— Black Lives Matter — Toronto (@BLM_TO) June 2, 2020

Issa and the other activists argue that some of the money that the city has dedicated to the police budget — which is $172 million for 2020 — could be better spent if it were used to fund anti-racism initiatives and social programs, including food security and housing.

“We have to question if police actually keep us safe,” said Issa. “Because I would say Black and Indigenous and people of colour don’t feel safe around police. So who are they really serving? Not us.”

READ MORE: ‘We have to stand up’: 10-year-old Ontario boy releases poignant video on racism, George Floyd

Greg Dongen, a student from Bernie Custis High School, was among those who appeared in the live-streams. He said the demands listed in those videos are not issues that sprung up overnight, but have been growing in importance for young racialized people for a long time.

“These demands have been long in the works,” said Dongen. “I feel like the support we are getting from the community — we’ve been getting the signatures on our petitions, as well as people just trying to reach out and figure out how they can support — and I feel like that in itself is helping the community come together behind the demands.”
2:23George Floyd death: Freeland says ‘there can’t be any tolerance for racism or bias’ in Canadian police forces George Floyd death: Freeland says ‘there can’t be any tolerance for racism or bias’ in Canadian police forces

The group’s live-streamed protests also included demands for the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board to end its program with police that puts officers in Hamilton high schools, which they say disproportionately target Black and racialized students, and for the province to restructure the Special Investigations Unit, which is in the midst of investigating the death of a Black woman during an interaction with Toronto police.

READ MORE: Regis Korchinski-Paquet’s death reinforces need for major mental health, policing reforms: advocates

Mouna Bile, a social worker with the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic, said the city has the power to appoint Black people in leadership positions, including the Hamilton Police Services Board, which has been criticized for a lack of diversity.

“We need folks that understand — through not only experience — but experts that can apply an anti-Black racism lens in the way that these officers operate, in the ways that they respond to mental health crises,” said Bile.

“I think there are opportunities where the city can certainly take a leadership role, and by taking that first step — that meaningful first step — it will hopefully influence other institutions in doing the same.”

Bile said she can understand why marginalized people are frustrated and calling for funding to be distributed in a different way, simply because there are situations that police may not be trained to handle.

“The police aren’t social workers. The police are not counselors. We can use our funds, our money, our taxpaying dollars toward these social services and programs that will actually support and help and use trained experts to deal with these issues, as opposed to calling an officer to respond to them at all times. Officers are not meant to deal with all of the elements of our society.”

In an emailed statement to Global News, Hamilton police spokesperson Jackie Penman said the service “remains committed to growing with, and learning from, all of our communities.”

“We know we are not perfect and there is much work to do,” the statement from Penman reads. “We appreciate the issues raised by Black Lives Matter and look forward to engaging in an open and transparent dialogue.”

READ MORE: Bill Kelly: Are we part of the problem or part of the solution?

Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger, who is chair of the city’s police services board, also issued a statement on anti-Black racism on Wednesday.

“I understand that I will never experience the pain and injustice experienced by Black people,” the statement said. “I will, however, continue to further educate myself on the Black Lives Matter movement and reflect on what I, as an individual, can do to work better together with our Black-led community organizations.”

“My role as Chair of the Hamilton Police Services Board enables me to provide guidance and recommendations to our police force. I am committed to having these conversations on how we can continue to serve and protect all members of our City equitably and respectfully.”

© 2020 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.