Dear City of Cambridge...
(CC: Region of Waterloo)

RE: ​Cambridge Encampment Evictions (Heatwave June 2025)

More of my thoughts and ramblings on this topic... Convieniently posted and published in no particular order! 
Although I currently live in Kitchener, for many years I lived in Cambridge and have often proudly referred to it as my hometown. My youth brims with memories at places like Churchill or Soper Park and the Riverbluffs. I treasure these places. 

This issue in particular is important to me, as I was myself once a homeless youth in Cambridge. I have slept in places like Riverside park, panhandled at the Delta, and struggled to survive like so many of our local unsheltered population do. This was before landing safely at Safe Haven and experiencing the services of oneROOF. I was fortunate. Not everyone is. 

Why not ​Let your experts do their work?

June 27, 2025
The City’s eviction notice suggests that local services are actively working with the residents at these locations. These Regionally overseen services are experts in their fields, so why not allow them to continue their essential work, rather than evicting the very individuals they are trying to support?

Forcing displacement disrupts these critically needed services and provisions, adding complex barriers in assuring their uninterrupted availability following relocation. 
"People surviving the best way they can.
Outreach workers, working their butts off to get people better housing solutions.
But the city isn't even giving them enough time to do their work...do they not know we have a housing crisis? Playing wacamole with people with nowhere to go"
Marjorie Knight

A human Rights based Approach for Cambridge

June 28, 2025
There are a multitude of areas where the City of Cambridge could immediately make improvements to better align with a genuine Human Rights Approach in this situation... This failure affects not only those directly impacted but the overall health, safety, and cohesion of our entire community.

View also:​​

Eviction Notice components

The objective ability to choose from clear alternatives—including the option to at a minimum forgo enforcement—implies this eviction is unnecessary.
While it’s true that these individuals are in breach of the bylaw the only reason this becomes an infraction at all is through the choice to enforce the bylaw itself. Why are we not better accounting for the broader context of these situations in our decisions of "when" to enforce local regulations?

Charter Rights and Case Law

Extreme heat and health

The City of Cambridge’s approach imposes an increased risk to the health and safety of these vulnerable residents. By initiating these evictions during a period of extreme weather, there is a display of clear disregard for public health guidance and the well-being of it's own community members.

View also: 

$$ Crunching
​the Numbers $$
​Budgets and REsources

Considerations around budget and the broader impacts of enforcement actions are critical. Evictions deplete local available resources that could instead be redirected toward other areas by all involved.

Across the municipal Divide
Challenges of Navigating a Dual-Tier Municipal System

​We really need a better approach between the levels of our local dual-tier municipal government when it comes to housing instability and the relative use of public property as a space for people to survive.​

View also:

theoretically Intended Topic/point coverage
(basically some currently unexpanded trains of thought I may or may not get to)


Stay tuned... More brain vomit to come! 

More pages from "Around here":

Because there must always be music...