Why Build an Autonomous Zone?

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Why Build an Autonomous Zone?

In Canada alone, one of the wealthiest nations of the world, hardly a day passes when some one doesn't die in poverty. In our cities, people are arrested, and harassed for occupying the streets while they have no where else to go.

In London, beautification processes have been part of the municipal budget to give the illusion of a well-functioning city while the eyes of the nation are on us for the Canada Games, all the while slum housing becomes more decrepit, and the homeless continue to sleep unprotected, with none of the personal safety, and privacy that most of us take for granted.

We are here as independent, concerned citizens, to ensure that issues of malnourishment, homelessness, police harassment, and discrimination towards people living with disabilities, as well as visible minorities, are ignored no longer.

With goals of setting a positive example of a supportive community, we attempt to show that united we can work towards solving these social issues, rather than neglecting, arresting, or paving them over.

The autonomous zone represents a self-governing community, separate from our current political system that does not care for all of it's components. The purpose is not to segregate ourselves,nor to make political statements, rather to be autonomous in making the distinction between real compassion and the band-aid solutions our elected representatives have been providing.

Ideally, we would like to see a situation where such a zone would be redundant because ample care-giving mechanisms would already be in place, whereas currently there is no national affordable housing strategy even though homelessness is a national disaster.

-Written in August 2001 by the Action.Family