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Action Campaign Against Home Depot |
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An International Call for Solidarity... 1. Background Guide Here’s why – and how – you should take action against Home Depot On Tuesday, September 24, 2002, Home Depot Canada sent a small army of private security guards backed by a small army of Toronto police to forcibly evict about 125 people from a homeless encampment on their unused property in downtown Toronto, Canada. The site, known as Tent City, has been the home to Canada’s largest homeless encampment for several years. There were about 55 structures in Tent City, most of them built by the residents. The Toronto Disaster Relief Committee has been working with residents for more than two years. We moved several pre-fab homes onto the site, supplied portable toilets, fireplaces and even showers. Just three days before the raid, TDRC organized a clean-up day with 60 volunteers (from university students to seniors) who worked alongside Tent City residents to improve the site. Home Depot has spent tens of thousands of dollars to move against the homeless residents of Tent City. Within minutes of occupying the site, they had erected a new, nine-metre high barbed wire fence, a new security road around the perimeter and high-intensity search lights, not to mention the private security staff and construction crews brought on site. Home Depot removed the residents so quickly that they didn’t have a chance to gather medicine, identification or other personal items. It took hours of intense pressure to arrange for residents to have access to their homes and their belongings. And even then, access was very restrictive. Home Depot has said that it will only guarantee to protect the dwellings and belongings for seven days. And it made no plans for relocation of the residents, not even for temporary shelter. After a great deal of pressure from TDRC and others, the City of Toronto has made an offer to help Tent City residents find proper housing. But Home Depot offered no help at all. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights says that “forced evictions are a gross violation of human rights”. The International Convenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which Canada has signed, guarantees the right to housing. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Canada has also signed, says that everyone has the right to be protected against “arbitrary or unlawful interference” with their homes. The U.N. says that if people have to be moved, they should be given enough notice so that they can prepare for the move, new homes at another location and practical help in relocating. Home Depot didn’t do any of this. They spent a lot of money to throw 125 people who had been peacefully living in Tent City off the land without any thought as to where they would go. Home Depot says that the site was unsafe, but the streets of Toronto are even more dangerous. And there were only 14 beds in homeless shelters in the entire city of Toronto (population 2.4 million) on the night that the Tent City residents were forcibly evicted – another sign of the city’s overcrowded and unhealthy shelter system. Here’s what Home Depot needs to do: 1. Treat Tent City residents with respect. They should have access to their dwellings. Their property and their homes should be protected – not bulldozed after seven days. The portable structures may be moved. Home Depot should help with transportation and storage. They should help residents salvage as much as possible of the structures which cannot be moved. 2. Acknowledge the error of their ways. Home Depot was wrong to evict the residents without any notice and without any help in relocating. Home Depot can make amends by offering $50,000 per unit in capital funding for construction of 55 units of new social housing – the same number of units that were on the Tent City site – for a total bill of $2.75 million. That’s small change for a company that boasted in May of 2002 that it had “a record $5.2 billion in cash on the balance sheet”. An apology is not enough. Home Depot should pay. 3. Adopt the One-Percent Solution. A growing number of groups, including socially responsible corporations, are calling on the Canadian government to restore housing programs that were slashed in the 1980s and cancelled in the 1990s. Home Depot should be an active partner in the One Percent Solution, the campaign for a fully-funded national housing program. You can make a difference: The Toronto Disaster Relief Committee is calling on individuals and community groups, unions, faith communities and all others in Canada and the United States to join in a campaign against Home Depot. This is not a boycott, although consumers of conscience may decide to shop elsewhere. This is a mobilization to force Home Depot to take the specific actions outlined above. The TDRC has already talked to senior officials at Home Depot. But they need to feel community pressure before they will respond seriously. Some tips for action: 1. Contact Home Depot and tell them to meet our demands. Make sure to ask for a response. Organize a letter-writing party in your neighbourhood, union local or faith community. Send a letter directly to Annette Verschuren, President, Home Depot Canada, 426 Ellesmere Road, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada, M1R 4E7. The telephone number is 416-609-0852 and follow the prompts to get to her office. Or send a fax to 416-412-4215. 2. Organize a Homeless Depot solidarity group in your area and arrange for an information picket of a local store. TDRC has tips for organizing an action on our Web site, along with a flyer that you can copy and hand out to customers. 3. If you are a customer of Home Depot, or know others who might be personal or commercial customers, then contact the store to tell them that you expect corporations to show social responsibility. Tell them that you want them to take action on the basic demands. Stay in touch: Look for updates on the Homeless Depot action on the TDRC Web site at www.tdrc.net. Call us at 416-599-8372. Send an e-mail to tdrc@tdrc.net. Or write to Toronto Disaster Relief Committee, 6 Trinity Square, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5G 1B1. Send us copies of any letters that you sent to Home Depot. And make sure to send us copies of any replies that you receive. |