Toronto's Tent City began to take shape in 1998, when a group of squatters erected lean-tos and makeshift huts on the former site of an iron foundry in Toronto's port lands. The "city" started with only a handful of squatters but grew to a community of more than 100 people before being shut down.
In November 2000, the Ontario Ministry of the Environment ordered Home Depot, which owns the land, to evict the squatters, saying the site was contaminated with heavy metals left over by the foundry.
Early the next month advocates for the homeless defied the order and brought Tent City's first prefabricated structure to the site. Soon, unsigned notes appeared on the doors of the squatters' homes stating that Home Depot had to "secure" the site, and requesting occupants to leave. On Dec. 20, 2000, Home Depot placed concrete barriers at the entrances to the site, saying they wouldn't allow any more shelters to be brought there.
One day later the company relented and allowed two portable homes into Tent City. The city reassured Home Depot that it was busy scouting for a new, safer shelter location in the port lands.
Within a year Toronto city councillors approved a plan to establish a community of prefabricated houses near the Tent City site. The federal port authority objected to the location because it might one day be needed to unload heavy cargo from freighters in the dock.
On Aug. 29, 2002, the Toronto Star reported that Home Depot was attempting to set up manufactured shelters on the Tent City site before winter. The company had joined with Homes First, a non-profit housing agency, to get the housing on the site, but a company spokesperson said those efforts were blocked by city hall.
Lyons said city officials told her the land could not be registered as an emergency shelter and that Home Depot would have to go through a re-zoning process that could take up to two years to put housing on the land.
One month later, security officers hired by Home Depot forced the squatters off the Tent City site and a new fence was erected to prevent the site from being squatted again.