About Us

Rock For Humanity is a registered non-profit group based in Toronto, Ontario. For over 10 years, the RFH team has raised money and awareness for a variety of social and economic injustices with a strong specialization in homelessness initiatives. RFH has raised thousands of dollars for local non-profits and charity groups including Street Health, Serving Charities, Toronto Disaster Relief Committee, and War Child Canada and various other local homeless initiatives. By blending music and social consciousness, Rock For Humanity provides a platform for youth to speak out and act against things they are passionate about! We are the voice! Together we CAN make a difference! You can do so much by doing so little: Come out to our shows and show your support, add us to your top friends, follow us on Twitter, post our banner on your page and join the fight against social injustices! We can fight poverty, one show at a time. Most importantly, none of our money goes towards administrative fees - WE RAISE A DOLLAR, WE DONATE A DOLLAR!

RFH BLOG

A Call to Action: Does Rob Ford’s “gravy train” include shelter services benefitting the homeless? He seems to think so.

It isn’t too often we have the chance to directly influence the plight of Toronto’s homeless and at risk communities. This month, we all have the opportunity to affect the City of Toronto’s budget and make sure it includes money to maintain the city’s shelters and services.

We hope that you accept this call to action and take part!

On Feburary 28, 2011, city councillors will vote on Rob Ford’s Budget Committee’s proposed budget for the City of Toronto. The budget proposed a staggering amount of cuts that will directly affect Toronto’s homeless.

According to OCAP (www.ocap.ca ) there are 76, 549 people on the affordable housing waiting list in Toronto. Despite this staggering number, Rob Ford’s proposed budget intends to dramatically reduce spending on shelter beds for the homeless. The budget is proposing to cut 40,000 shelter beds which equals about 100 beds per night throughout the city. The 40,000 lost beds will be replaced with 6,000 motel rooms for refugee claimants. Not only will those 40,000 bed spaces lose the food and service supports of the shelter, but refugee claimants will be geographically isolated from the services they need. For residents who can barely afford housing as it stands, the budget hopes to cut $100,000 per person from the fund that assists in representing tenants faced with evictions.

The existing housing and shelter crisis in Toronto will only intensify with Rob Ford’s proposed budget cuts.

Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) is organizing a mass call-in to city councillors prior to them placing their vote on the 2011 Budget. The call-in will take place February 14-18th. You can find your local councillor’s contact information here: http://app.toronto.ca/wards/jsp/wards.jsp


All of the information contained in this post may be found on the OCAP website www.ocap.ca

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Should Crimes Against the Homeless be Considered Hate Crimes?

This issue has been brought up again and again in Canada and the U.S. Just yesterday, Senate Bill 4 in Colorado brought the issue to the forefront once again, proposing that “homeless” should be added to the definition of an “identifiable group” making those charged with a hate crime against the homeless receive an enhanced punishment than if it were a random attack as opposed to a bias-based attack.

Canadian hate crime legislation can be found in Section 718.2(a)(i) which states that the Court should consider the following principles in sentencing:
“evidence that the was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or any other similar factor,”

If the Criminal Code can be amended to include the homeless, a large proportion of bias-based crimes could be addressed. More homeless people are murdered or assaulted due to a bias-based selection than any other of the groups identified in current legislation combined. The recent increase of videos depicting teens and young adults assaulting homeless are just further proof that this is an issue that needs to be addressed by our government.

It’s easy to see the benefit in amending the definition to include the homeless. Advocates argue that due to their increased vulnerability (such as children or the mentally disabled) they are entitled to special protection. I believe such legislation may act as a deterrent while showing that the government is taking steps to protect the homeless. But what are the arguments against? Some argue that the current laws are adequate and by changing legislation to include the homeless, we would thereby be forcing prosecutors to prove that only was the victim actually homeless but also that the accused knew the victim was homeless and committed the crime because of it. To me, this argument seems flawed since we’re already doing this with other groups identified in the current legislation including religion, mental or physical disability and sexual orientation. Moreover, legislation stipulates that the crime must be committed against someone due to a “real or perceived grouping or circumstance”.

Hard data on crimes against the homeless is difficult to obtain. The majority of crimes go unreported by the homeless community and authorities are generally reluctant to collect the data, often blaming the homeless for the crimes committed against them. In fact, data including crimes against the homeless didn’t begin to be collected until 1998, and in most places, closer to 2005.

So what do you do when you can’t close and lock your door to keep the bad guys out? To lock your door and know you are safe from physical harm? Hopefully, you’ll be able to push the government to include you as a protected class so that those who commit bias-motivated crimes against you receive enhanced punishment.
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