After the release of a report the Street Health and Neighbourhood Link I.D. services, Homeless people, members of the downtown east community, health care workers and supporters mobilized to march on Street Health on Wednesday, May 12th. They demanded the reinstatement of Gaetan Heroux and the restoration of services to the Neighbourhood.
The “Report of the Investigation Into Provision of ID Services in the Dundas-Sherbourne Neighbourhood” by three prominent community members and activists was later released to the public for the first time.
Investigators wrote :
"We feel that the overall evidence strongly suggests that [Gaetan] Heroux was forced to move because of his support of the union drive by Street Health…We cannot find a reasonable explanation for making this
change, and we find that it will cause delays and problems that will negatively impact ID services and cause service users to give up on the process altogether, leading to significant problems getting and
maintaining social services and income support."
Four months ago Street Health and Neighbourhood Link moved the administration office of the PAID I.D. Project out of Street Health, where it had been for the last ten years, and relocated 5 miles away from Dundas and Sherbourne,. “Making people travel five miles to access the administrative office is cruel and harmful to people who don’t have the
money for TTC to get all the way out to Danforth and Victoria Park,” says Gaetan Heroux, fired I.D. program worker.
Despite numerous demonstrations, public meetings, and two series of petitions signed by homeless men and women, community workers, and anti-poverty activists, the people who run Street Health and Neighbourhood
Link continue to ignore the demands of the community.