Voices for Unhoused Liberation is a group of activists and community members who have past or present lived experience of poverty, insecure housing and/or being unhoused.

Voices was formed out of solidarity work around the closing of the Novotel shelter hotel by OCAP. When OCAP folded we decided to continue the work as Voices from the Shelter Hotels.

At the Novotel, we fought alongside residents to have their agency respected in how and where they were moved, especially since the shelter hotel program was supposed to be a pathway to housing. What we witnessed was a brutal displacement process often involving police, 3 am evictions with little notice, accompanied by the loss of belongings. Voices was able to witness and document these events and, alongside residents, made a set of demands which were given to Gord Tanner at a press conference at Metro-Hall and then to the Novotel management in an occupation of the front lobby. While protesters were aggressively removed by police, we managed to get the situation in the media which highlighted for the public, some of the many brutal shelter practices.

Since many of the residents of the Novotel were moved to the Delta shelter hotel in north Scarborough - we moved our work there too.

We continue to build community through doing Out-Reach once a week where we offer coffee and snacks, ‘know your rights’ literature, and other necessities. We organize with residents to launch campaigns based on their demands and to challenge the shelter on it’s harmful practices. We also do case-work to support individual residents on the harms they are experiencing, especially service restrictions.

We recently changed our name to Voices 4 Unhoused Liberation. We continue to centre the voices of the unhoused community members with whom we work. As abolitionists we strive for liberation of poor people from the carceral structures that contain, control and punish.

As an intersectional social strata disproportionately made up of Indigenous, Black, disabled, queer, trans identified people and women, as among the most vulnerablized, criminalized, and stigmatized - Voices sees the struggles of poor people to be a vital perspective in the fight for a transformed future that is sustainable, redistributive, and based on care and reciprocity.