Evicted and homeless, Gord Smyth squatted in a downtown park. Now he’s housed but forever scarred

A hot shower. A freshly baked cake. A locked door. A roof over his head.

The simple things have made the difference for Gord Smyth after a period of homelessness in a downtown Hamilton park.

I wake up. I see what the weather's going to be like, and, just one day at a time, plan my day," Smyth says.

But the spectre of somehow again landing on the street still haunts him more than a year after moving into a CityHousing highrise.

You always have that fear that it can happen again. I don't think that will ever leave me."

Smyth became homeless in June 2021 after his landlord told him and others to clear out their James Street North apartments ahead of demolition plans.

The 55-year-old, whose ordeal lasted until late November that year, sees the same scenario leaving others in the lurch without strong policies to protect renters when homes are knocked down for redevelopment.

If city regulations had forced his former landlord to set up him with another apartment at roughly the same rent, he wouldn't have wound up pitching a tent in a downtown park, Smyth says.

It would have made a difference - 100 per cent."

The city is working on such rental-replacement regulations to set conditions for demolitions and condo conversions aimed at retaining affordable units and casting a safety net for displaced tenants.

But tenant advocates - including Hamilton ACORN, which Smyth has joined - are concerned recently passed provincial housing legislation could derail that effort. They are holding a news conference at Smyth's former apartment building Tuesday to draw attention to the issue.

A provision in Bill 23 - the More Homes Built Faster Act - allows the minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to impose limits and conditions" on local powers to regulate demolitions and conversions.

What that will mean for Hamilton's ongoing efforts remains unclear.

The ministry says the legislative clause doesn't wipe out such municipal bylaws, in Toronto and Mississauga, for instance, but opens the door for analysis.

While the goal of those rental replacement bylaws may be to preserve affordable rental units, it may also be limiting the supply of new rental units and leading to deteriorating housing stock," a ministry spokesperson wrote in an email.

That is why we are seeking feedback on what measures, if any, are needed to ensure best practices are in place to help promote additional supply of revitalized rental housing stock while also continuing to protect tenants."

City planning director Steve Robichaud figures the minister, through Bill 23, may want to evaluate to what degree demolished buildings should be replaced like for like."

For example, if a tenant loses a one-bedroom apartment in Stoney Creek for $800 a month with free parking, should those very conditions be replicated?

Is it exactly the same, or can it just be a unit at the same rent price adjusted for inflation?" Robichaud asks.

Generally, the city's goal at the very least" is to ensure demolished units are replaced and displaced tenants land in affordable homes, he says.

A staff report into the initiative notes there have not been a large number of rental units" demolished in Hamilton in past years, but with planning policy emphasizing building density in urban areas, redevelopment pressures have been increasing."

On that front - the gentrification of affordable, older apartments into more expensive rentals - Bill 23 won't help, Smyth argues.

It's just all around bad," he says of the wide-reaching legislation that also affects conservation authorities, local planning and development charges, sparking protests and pushback from municipalities.

Before he became homeless, the former systems analyst who'd fallen on hard times after a car accident years earlier, lived in a modest bachelor pad in a small, older building on James Street North at Ferrie Street.

At around $500 a month, Smyth could afford the rent on his meagre disability pension.

I was happy. I was comfortable. That was home," he says, noting there were 13 units between two neighbouring buildings.

But as the property changed hands, from one corporation and would-be developer to another, Smyth saw the writing on the wall:

He was about to lose his home of about five years and wouldn't be able to afford the escalated market rates.

Moreover, downtown demolition regulations (which Robichaud said the city aims to build upon and expand across urban Hamilton) didn't extend to his North End address.

So Smyth braced for life on the streets, spending time with homeless people to learn how to survive.

So in some sense, I was lucky. I had years to prepare, whereas some people, they don't."

He pitched a tent and set up camping gear - cooking appliances, heaters, a generator, an outdoor showering kit - in Central Park off Bay Street North, hunkering down with Daisy, his pint-sized pooch.

Smyth, who, like others, was reluctant to stay in shelters, found himself on the front lines of the city's homelessness crisis and the overlapping tribulations of addiction, overdoses, theft and violence.

He witnessed tragic death that summer, coming across a man deceased in a tent on the other side of the park.

The survival skills that I picked up during that time, I don't think will ever leave me."

His stay in the park, in defiance of a city bylaw, also sparked testy exchanges with authorities in a political climate that called for encampment clearings.

To make matters worse, some passersby would hurl obscenities at him, Smyth recalls.

You know, they had no idea who I was, but they would scream, Go out a get a job, you bum!'"

As summer turned to fall, he watched his physical and mental health deteriorate, while he held out hope for an affordable apartment.

Now, more than a year later, he's better, seeing a dietician for his diabetes. He's also picking up hobbies again, revisiting his passion for photography.

I never in a million years thought anything like that would happen to me, and now I know it can happen to anyone."

But what's just as unbelievable to him - galling, in fact - is that nothing has yet materialized on the empty parcel of land where his home was knocked down over a year ago.

Which is a year that we could still be there."

Teviah Moro is a reporter at The Spectator. tmoro@thespec.com