“Displacement City: Fighting for Health and Homes in a Pandemic,” is focussed around the homeless crisis in Toronto and the immediate effects of city and provincial policies. Edited by Greg Cook and Cathy Crowe, this collection of essays, letters, memoirs, photos, and poetry is a portal into a world that is pushed beyond the edges of humanity, where the necessities of life taken for granted by so many, are nowhere near enough.

How many times have we heard “We’re all in this together” throughout the pandemic? When you read “Displacement City,” any lingering feelings of that statement as truth fall away. While those affluent enough to stay home during the pandemic worked through the challenges that living with Covid-19 presented, other people put their lives on the line to help us all, and many others were faced with inhuman and unimaginable living conditions and choices. Homelessness is a crisis affecting more than 250,000 people across the country each year. With supports like, libraries, community centres, and fast-food restaurants shuttered, people relying upon them found themselves without washrooms or the means to maintain minimal hygiene. An unrepentant system focussed on simplistic and temporary solutions, and often overly punitive measures of enforcement. Overcrowding, unsanitary and unsafe conditions were the norm for people trying to make it through the pandemic. And all of this with an ongoing drug crisis.

The takeaways for me were the reinforcement of the need for the homeless to be able to self-determine, their right to dignity in living and in dying, and a reminder of the humanity of people who face grueling challenges. The term ‘houseless’ was often used in the book, for many people while they may not have a house, have still found a home: in encampments, in shelters, and in myriad other situations which have taken the place of real solutions. As people living in a socialist democracy, in one of the richest countries in the world, we need to do better.