On Being Good Neighbours

[CONTEXT: On Monday, January 26, 2026, the Committee and Protective Services Committee (CPSC) is meeting at City Hall to discuss a proposal that, if passed, would cause serious harm to some of the most oppressed and vulnerable Londoners, as well as those who do what they can to provide care to said Londoners. This proposal was added at the last minute to the meeting agenda, so that the deadline to apply to speak to the CPSC passed before most people were aware that it had been added. Since that time, numerous people have asked the CPSC Chair, Elizabeth Peloza, to permit other people to speak to the issue at the meeting—because it is within her authority to make that decision—but, thus far, she has declined to do so. Therefore, what follows is a transcript of what I would say to City Council if I was permitted to speak.]

After spending a lifetime trying to find them, I have been forced to conclude that there are no magic words that, when spoken, will miraculously transform cruel people into kind people. There are no verbal formulas that will make greedy people altruistic. There is no special manner of pleading that will make smugly self-satisfied and powerful people suddenly repent and transform themselves into champions of the oppressed.

Smart people have appealed to facts, aggregate data, rigorously peer-reviewed studies, and evidence-based best practices. To no avail.

Kind-hearted people have tried to tenderly guide us all into more caring ways of sharing life together. They have recognized and honoured the humanity in even the most cold-hearted members of our community. But they, too, have failed to break through to the greedy, cruel, and smug who have power over us.

Experienced people, be they courageous sector leaders or well-seasoned frontline workers, have told us how things are “on the ground” and have pointed out ways in which the premature and preventable deaths of loved ones—to say nothing of other forms of suffering like amputations due to frostbite—can be averted. Alas, they, too, have been overruled or simply ignored by brute power.

Conscientious people have appealed to our consciences. Christians hear the language of neighbourliness and “good neighbour plans,” and they remember the story Jesus told about the Good Samaritan when he was asked, “who is my neighbour?” Zakat, charitably giving to those who have been impoverished, is one of the central pillars of Islam. And I have never known anyone, at any time, to go away hungry from a Sikh Temple. Apart from capitalism, all of the world’s major religions assert that the evidence of our goodness is not found in how many goods we hoard; rather, it is found in how we materially care for those who are oppressed, dispossessed, and left for dead by the roadside.

So, I say what I say now, not because I think it will change the hearts of those who brought forward what I take to be a death-dealing proposal, but because I believe that the number of kind-hearted people in this room still outweighs the number of cruel people. I believe that the number of altruistic people outweighs the number of insatiably greedy people. I refuse to accept that the smugly self-vindicating out-number those who tenderly care for others.

In the time that I have, I wish to contextualize the proposal brought forward to the Committee regarding the so-called “Good Neighbour Plan” that municipal bureaucrats wish to impose upon London Cares and, by implication, any service provider working in this sector with the City.

Others who are here will tell you about what London Cares does and why its ongoing existence is essential for our community. I wholeheartedly agree with them. However, I wish to raise questions as to why this so-called “Good Neighbour Plan” has been created to, as far as I can tell, map a trajectory that leads to the termination of all the services provided by London Cares.

According to this proposal, London Cares could have its funding terminated and its doors closed immediately and permanently if, for example, there is too much garbage on the lawn or if there is graffiti on its building that is not removed within 48hrs of being reported (and, in the proposal, Cares is required to run a 24/7 complaint report line and then provide a record of these reports to the parties that are most actively trying to get Cares shut down). More than this, the proposal says that Cares is responsible for activities occurring off of their property within an undefined “reasonable perimeter.” This is vague and concerning language. Clearly what Councillors Lewis, Stevenson, Pribil, and Lehman think is “reasonable” is vastly different than what most people in this room find reasonable. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here.

Part of what is striking about this proposal is how explicit it is that this “good neighbour” standard should not be applied to other parties. Thus, high-ranking municipal staff members, Tara Pollitt and Kevin Dickins, write:
These standards only apply to service providers with whom the City has a funding agreement. It does not impose an obligation on other businesses within the community to be “good neighbours”.

Why don’t we expect others to be, quote-unquote, “good neighbours”? Why the use of quotation marks here and nowhere else? Is it perhaps that the people behind this proposal know that, in fact, what they are pushing for has nothing to do with being neighbourly—especially when it comes to being good neighbours to and with those who are impoverished? Or is it because they know that if any kind of standard of good neighbourliness was applied to them, they would be found exceedingly wanting? Let’s consider a few examples of what I mean by this.

In November, 2025, a few hours before the first major snow squall of the winter hit London, the Coordinated Informed Response (CIR) team visited the campsite of a 62-year-old man. CIR determined that his campsite was “too messy” and that he was not cleaning it up “fast enough” and so they took his tent and sleeping bag (presumably part of the “mess”), leaving him with no shelter. The snow squall hit that night and, two days later, this 62-year-old man was found when the snow began to melt. Alive, but barely, he died in hospital. This death was tragic but the way in which it was accomplished was absolutely unexceptional. CIR does things like this all the time. So, what would happen if we established a 24/7 complaint line to field all the reports about moments when CIR steals, trashes, or otherwise destroys people’s possessions, shelters, and lives? What would happen if those reports were anonymized shared with the public? What would happen if we defunded CIR so that we could direct money into services like Cares so that we don’t end up talking about defunding one essential service (like low barrier highly supported housing) in order to fund another essential service (like drop-in space in the winter), as the current proposal suggests we should do?

Here is one more example which, once again, is selected not because it is exceptional but because it is so common. Earlier this winter a homeless fellow I know was in an alleyway trying to stay warm behind a dumpster. Allegedly, London Police officers approached him and told him he was loitering and had to move along. Allegedly, they then determined that he was taking too long to pack up his belongings—his fingers were frost-bitten and it was hard for him to gather his things—and so, as this man stated to me, the cops “gave him the boots” and beat him up. Is this good neighbourly activity? Would cops still beat up homeless people with such regularity if we said we would defund them for being bad neighbours? Why is this suggestion, defunding the police, considered “radical,” but taking money away from Cares and leaving homeless folx with absolutely nowhere to go because of garbage on the lawn considered reasonable?

Because, of course, nobody would even consider writing a termination clause into contracts with CIR or LPS. No one expects or requires them to act as “good neighbours.” As trained violence workers, their raison d’être is to be anything but good neighbours!

But similar questions should be raised about corporations and neighbourhood associations, like the Midtown Community Organization, some of whose members—according to the document they have submitted to council—appear to be so biased against impoverished people that they will not go to meetings on the same city blocks where service providers are situated! If you are too scared of your neighbour to be within 200 feet of them, are you being a “good neighbour”? But, even if those parties aren’t services funded by the City, we all know about the tax breaks and kick backs that businesses—especially real estate developers and major corporations—receive in London. We know about how municipal boundaries were expanded in order to maximize the capital gains of the major developers who bought up land immediately outside of the old boundary and then pressured the city to expand the boundary to include that land. We have an idea of how rich they are getting because of our municipal priorities, regardless of if they pour boiling water on homeless people outside of their businesses (as happened downtown), regardless of if their garbage is spilled out on the sidewalk (as happens all the time), regardless of if they call the cops on people because they are Indigenous or Black and are out in public (as also happens all the time), or regardless of if they get together with other NIMBYs and mask-up and go down to encampments to slash tents and beat up homeless folks (as campers report is happening more than ever before in London). Why is the standard of good neighbourliness not being applied here? Why do these people not face the possible and imminent termination of their tax breaks, licensing agreements, and so on, if they are found to be crummy neighbours?

It comes down to this: how brutally one treats the already-impoverished and -dispossessed is not a factor in the understanding of a “good neighbour” that is applied here. Rather, being a good neighbour comes down to requiring the impoverished, and those who genuinely care for them—as London Cares does—to never ever, not even once, not even a little, make more “privileged” people feel uncomfortable. Regrettably, as long as services like London Cares exist, those who demonize the impoverished will feel discomfort. Therefore, at the end of the day it comes down to this: by the standard set out here, the only way that London Cares can be a good neighbour is to stop existing so that people who are forcibly deprived of housing and shelter can fuck off and die somewhere else.