MY MOTHER NAMED ME SUNSHINE
  • Home
    • Connecting with our WR Municipalities & Local Democracy
    • Human Rights - Leaning in & Learning >
      • A Human Rights approach to encampments - What does this mean?
      • Exploring the Key Principles of "A National Protocol for Homeless Encampments in Canada"
      • Draft Policy – Encampments on Region-Owned Public Lands
    • Living Rough >
      • Living Rough: Warming & Cooling Centres
      • Info Page: Living Rough: Encampments
      • Living Rough: Victoria/Weber Encampment 1.0: Summer Recap
      • Living Rough: Washrooms
      • Unsheltered: Living the Experince
    • Advocacy - Nickles and Dimes >
      • Realizing the Right: Municipal Policy Responses to Encampments - Waterloo Region Snapshot >
        • CAEH Conference Ottawa 2024
      • Cambridge Evictions - Heatwave 2025 >
        • Dear City of Cambridge RE: Heat Wave Evictions >
          • A Human Rights Approach - Dear City of Cambridge RE: Heat Wave Evictions
          • Extreme heat and health- Cambridge Heat Wave Evictions
          • Eviction Notice Components - Cambridge Heat Wave Evictions
          • Charter Rights and Case Law- Cambridge Heat Wave Evictions >
            • Legal Briefcase - Advocacy tools
          • Challenges of Navigating a Dual-Tier Municipal System Cambridge Heat Wave Evictions
          • $$ Crunching the Numbers $$ - Cambridge Heat Wave Evictions
      • Dear RoW: Your Bylaw is Faulty (& Your Politics Kinda Suck) - Seeking Change: Nickels & Dimes
      • Open Letter: ​Seeking aid for Unsheltered in face of current Extreme Weather Crisis
      • WR Women's Shelter - What's going on? Regional Council Meeting
      • 519 Community Collective: Enough is Enough
      • Me Proposal Jan 13th 2020 Details
      • Unsheltered Campaign Letters to Local Municipalities
      • Unsheltered Campaign 2022 Municipal Candidate Pledge
      • My "nickel": Victoria and Weber Encampment
      • Love, compassion and a whole lot of action!
      • As we start having more of the difficult conversations surrounding Unsheltered lives
      • Social Justice Housing Rally
      • On the right to adequate housing
      • Host Bob Jonkman connects with Regan Sunshine Brusse , Anti-Poverty activist with the Alliance Against Poverty
      • The Record: Letter to the Editor re: oneROOF Funding Loss
      • Community Forum: Videos
      • Alliance Against Poverty Supports Local Grassroot Plea For Aid
      • Blue Sky Horse Radio Segment - Martin Asling, Lesley Crompton, And Terry Kaan
    • Around here - Older content
    • Municipal Meeting Pages >
      • April 23, 2025 Regional Council Meeting & 100 Vic. Proposed Bylaw April 23, 2025
      • WRPS Board Meeting June 12, 2024
      • October 12, 2022 Region of Waterloo Council Meeting
      • August 18, 2022 Regional Council Meeting
      • June 22nd Regional Council Meeting
      • August 9, 2022 Regional Community Services Comittee Meeting
      • Region of Waterloo Council Meeting April 27, 2022
      • May 9. 2022 -Region of Waterloo Community Services Committee Meeting
      • November 15, 2021: 2022 Plan & Budget Development- Com. of Whole
      • 2022 Budget public input session- Regional Council November 8, 2021
      • November 9th, 2021- Committee of the Whole Regional meeting
      • Proposed November 17, 2021 To Waterloo Regional Council
      • June 26, 2023 City of Kitchener Council Meeting
      • December 6, 2022 Region of Waterloo Meetings
    • Advocacy Resources - Broad
    • Social Media
  • Home
    • Connecting with our WR Municipalities & Local Democracy
    • Human Rights - Leaning in & Learning >
      • A Human Rights approach to encampments - What does this mean?
      • Exploring the Key Principles of "A National Protocol for Homeless Encampments in Canada"
      • Draft Policy – Encampments on Region-Owned Public Lands
    • Living Rough >
      • Living Rough: Warming & Cooling Centres
      • Info Page: Living Rough: Encampments
      • Living Rough: Victoria/Weber Encampment 1.0: Summer Recap
      • Living Rough: Washrooms
      • Unsheltered: Living the Experince
    • Advocacy - Nickles and Dimes >
      • Realizing the Right: Municipal Policy Responses to Encampments - Waterloo Region Snapshot >
        • CAEH Conference Ottawa 2024
      • Cambridge Evictions - Heatwave 2025 >
        • Dear City of Cambridge RE: Heat Wave Evictions >
          • A Human Rights Approach - Dear City of Cambridge RE: Heat Wave Evictions
          • Extreme heat and health- Cambridge Heat Wave Evictions
          • Eviction Notice Components - Cambridge Heat Wave Evictions
          • Charter Rights and Case Law- Cambridge Heat Wave Evictions >
            • Legal Briefcase - Advocacy tools
          • Challenges of Navigating a Dual-Tier Municipal System Cambridge Heat Wave Evictions
          • $$ Crunching the Numbers $$ - Cambridge Heat Wave Evictions
      • Dear RoW: Your Bylaw is Faulty (& Your Politics Kinda Suck) - Seeking Change: Nickels & Dimes
      • Open Letter: ​Seeking aid for Unsheltered in face of current Extreme Weather Crisis
      • WR Women's Shelter - What's going on? Regional Council Meeting
      • 519 Community Collective: Enough is Enough
      • Me Proposal Jan 13th 2020 Details
      • Unsheltered Campaign Letters to Local Municipalities
      • Unsheltered Campaign 2022 Municipal Candidate Pledge
      • My "nickel": Victoria and Weber Encampment
      • Love, compassion and a whole lot of action!
      • As we start having more of the difficult conversations surrounding Unsheltered lives
      • Social Justice Housing Rally
      • On the right to adequate housing
      • Host Bob Jonkman connects with Regan Sunshine Brusse , Anti-Poverty activist with the Alliance Against Poverty
      • The Record: Letter to the Editor re: oneROOF Funding Loss
      • Community Forum: Videos
      • Alliance Against Poverty Supports Local Grassroot Plea For Aid
      • Blue Sky Horse Radio Segment - Martin Asling, Lesley Crompton, And Terry Kaan
    • Around here - Older content
    • Municipal Meeting Pages >
      • April 23, 2025 Regional Council Meeting & 100 Vic. Proposed Bylaw April 23, 2025
      • WRPS Board Meeting June 12, 2024
      • October 12, 2022 Region of Waterloo Council Meeting
      • August 18, 2022 Regional Council Meeting
      • June 22nd Regional Council Meeting
      • August 9, 2022 Regional Community Services Comittee Meeting
      • Region of Waterloo Council Meeting April 27, 2022
      • May 9. 2022 -Region of Waterloo Community Services Committee Meeting
      • November 15, 2021: 2022 Plan & Budget Development- Com. of Whole
      • 2022 Budget public input session- Regional Council November 8, 2021
      • November 9th, 2021- Committee of the Whole Regional meeting
      • Proposed November 17, 2021 To Waterloo Regional Council
      • June 26, 2023 City of Kitchener Council Meeting
      • December 6, 2022 Region of Waterloo Meetings
    • Advocacy Resources - Broad
    • Social Media
Search by typing & pressing enter

YOUR CART

City of Cambridge initiating Encampment evictions *during extreme heat wave*

​

Last week, multiple encampment residents were issued notices to vacate the public lands where they currently reside, sheltering outdoors. These particular lands fall under the jurisdiction of the City of Cambridge, who decided it was the right time and decision to enforce its bylaws and the Trespass to Property Act to evict the individuals exisiting in this space--during this period of extreme heat.

These individuals, already failed by our flawed social infrastructures, now face further danger due to their forced displacement and increased exposure to the elements. Stripping away their personal efforts and ability to maintain even the most basic form of shelter amidst an overwhelming housing crisis at all - let alone during an extreme weather event - is not only deeply unjust, but a clear violation of their rights.

What this says of our own lacking humanity really frightens me... We should probably talk about this.
#Unsheltered #HumanRights
Picture
Eviction notices were served June 20th, 2025 by the City of Cambridge. (Viewable in image below)
Picture
Picture
City of Cambridge Bylaw 162-10

Trespass to Property Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. T.21

Dear Cambridge (CC: RoW) RE: Heat wave Evictions 2025
Ongoing topic thoughts and ramblings- convieniently arranged and published in no particular order!
Why not let your experts do their work?
A Human Rights Approach for the City of Cambridge
Extreme Heat and Health Impacts
Eviction Notice Components
Charter Rights and Case Law
$$ Crunching the Numbers $$ : Budgets & Resources
Across the Divide : Challenges of Navigating a Dual Tier System

Picture


​Unsheltered Campaign

Contibutor Statement


​With climate change, we’re experiencing extreme heat and humidity more frequently in our community. High heat is risky, but heat and humidity together are a more dangerous combination. High humidity impacts how well our bodies can cool down via sweating, to a point where we cannot cool our core temperature by sweating. At this point, heat stress and deaths can occur. 
Outreach workers report two separate evictions initiated during the ongoing extreme heat event. City of Cambridge bylaw and Waterloo Region Police Services officers approached individuals experiencing homelessness at two separate encampments within the community, informing them of imminent evictions. In one case officers appeared at the encampment with an environmental cleaning company, intending to remove and dispose of all the inhabitant’s personal belongings the same morning the individual received the notice. Local activists have called attention to the life and death risk attached to encampment evictions. The Federal Housing Advocate has said that “The increase in encampments and unsheltered homelessness across Canada reflects a lack of government action and inadequate allocation of resources for essential programs and services over the course of many years…all governments are also failing in their duty to protect life.” 

Knowing encampment evictions pose a danger to the health and safety of people experiencing homelessness, it is imperative that a pause on evictions should be mandatory during extreme weather events. Once forced out of their outdoor homes, individuals have no other place to go and seek shelter from the weather. Taking away personal belongings adds another layer of cruelty and risk to the encampment eviction experience, removing equipment or clothing that could provide shade and protection from the extreme heat. Bans on evictions during heat events are necessary for the health and safety of community members who do not have a home to return to.

​

Picture

The value of Basic needs - forgotten

There’s irony in the fact that many of us learn about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in our youth, yet seem to forget its most basic principles as we grow older. There appears to be a widespread failure to recognize the necessity of meeting every individual’s fundamental physiological and survival needs before expecting them to progress toward higher levels of growth or self-actualization. When access to basic needs is lacking, and day-to-day survival becomes a constant struggle, it becomes nearly impossible to move beyond these foundational stages.
"Physiological needs are biological requirements for human survival, e.g., air, food, drink, shelter, clothing, sleep, and homeostasis.."
Source: SimplyPsychology.org

Even greater challenges arise when the efforts being made to meet these basic needs are actively undermined or obstructed—such as through the eviction of encampments. Notably, this has been identified and outlined in a multitude of documents (by some really smart people!), yet somehow we persist, seemingly unaware/uncaring of the harms being perpetuated by this selective ignorance. This self imposed status quo is failing us all.

Why are we shaking our own jar?

A while back, I read a post on social media with a story about ants in a jar. It struck me at the time, and has frequently felt deeply applicable since too. 
So it went (ish)... 

There was a jar where several ant colonies had made their home, living side by side. Even though they were different, they managed to share the space, content and healthy.
​
Then one day, the jar was shaken. The disturbance threw everything off. Scared and confused, the ants started attacking each other. The shaking had frightened them, and of that fear, they reacted with violence and retaliation.
Picture
Not one stopped to ask what had shaken the jar, nor questioned why. Instead they destroyed each other, and in so, themselves.

More pages "around here": 

Because there must always be music... 



Website built, designed, and managed by Regan Sunshine Brussé