Many of the people who spend time here are in the throes of what park regular and recovering addict Craig Harrison knowingly calls the most harrowing circumstances a person can find themselves in.

“These people have no homes, this is where they go,” Harrison said. “They come where they’re comfortable.”

In the six years since the onset of the pandemic and the social and economic turbulence that came with it, this small park next to The 519 community centre has become both a lifeline to a vulnerable community and a source of local fear and frustration.

With the support of the area councillor, some long-time neighbours are pushing the city to close the park overnight — a last resort response to what they describe as escalating violence and vandalism.

Others, including Harrison, say this will only shunt people in need somewhere else, away from their chosen families and the volunteers who help keep them alive. It could also limit full-time access to two important memorials.

Barring access to the park at night “is the only solution,” said Karl Lohnes, who has lived overlooking the park for two decades. “They tried everything else. People are starting to demand more get done to protect us.”

In the past few years, Lohnes said he has been woken up by anguished screams coming from the park. He says he witnessed a sexual assault take place there, and saw what he believes to have been a dead body. There have been tent encampments in the park from time to time, though there hasn’t been one there since last year. 

“If you can imagine it, we have seen it,” said Lohnes. “It takes a toll over time.”

Suzanne Calder, another longtime resident of the area, said she fondly remembers taking her toddler to use the swings in the park many years ago.

“I’ve seen it function as a park, but that’s all gone now,” Calder said, adding that she saw an early-morning fight there on Monday. “Now it’s just a liability, a scary place.”

She acknowledges a night closure, with some kind of barrier, wouldn’t solve all the problems there but thinks it could help enforce existing bylaws.

“I’m not saying, ‘Don’t help people.’ Of course I want people to get help,” she said. “I’m saying stop the crime.”

The park has reached a “state of crisis,” said Toronto Centre councillor Chris Moise. He has put forward a motion, set to be debated at Economic and Community Development Committee on Tuesday, that wants staff to study closing the park overnight.

Local residents and city staff haven’t felt safe there in several years and attempts to make changes haven’t worked, Moise said in a statement.

The park, and the AIDS and trans memorials within it, now routinely experience “litter, vandalism, petty theft, confrontations, urination, defecation, drug use, broken glass, used syringes, rodents, and insects,” Moise said. 

Regular police bike patrols, social workers, park ambassadors and city-contracted security guard sweeps haven’t been able to mitigate the problems, which are in part due to a rise in opioid use, he said. 

Toronto police told the Star they have responded to calls at the park for overdoses, threats, thefts, robberies, assaults and “drug-related offences” but could not provide information on whether there has been an increase in incidents in recent years. 

Maura Lawless, executive director of The 519, said what is happening in the park next door “reflects ongoing gaps in housing, health, and social supports that require sustained, systemic responses.” 

An overnight closure would not address the “underlying conditions that lead people, particularly those who are unhoused or underhoused, to rely on public spaces,” she said. 

On a recent evening in the park, a volunteer brought out a cart with meals to distribute. Later, Harrison passed out donated cans of sparkling water. 

Harrison said closing the park overnight would be a mistake, and worries putting in a barrier like a fence could impede emergency response.

“Imagine if someone climbs the fence and overdoses,” he said. “This park is going to become a gravesite.”

Tonia Peterson, who used to sleep in the park in the nineties, said people come for the camaraderie and the resources provided by outreach workers like herself and The 519.

“People feel safer sitting in the park than they do out there,” said Peterson. “If something happened in here, you know everybody’s going to rush in.”

Solomon Christiansen, a homeless man, said he’d be “furious” if the park was closed overnight. 

“We need a place to go or else we’ll end up on some street corner somewhere,” he said. “By then half of us will be dead from overdosing.”

Closing the park could also mean limiting when mourners can visit the trans memorial and the AIDS memorial.

The AIDS memorial, a series of stone pillars inscribed with thousands of names, opened at the height of the epidemic in 1993 and is one of the largest in the world.

Alphonso King Jr., a longtime activist who hopes his name will be among them one day, can’t bear to see what has become of it. Weeds grow at the base. Graffiti and excrement sometimes cover it.

“It’s really disrespectful and we really need to do something,” he said, adding that he thinks his complaints about the state of the memorial have not been taken seriously.

“I don’t mind if a fence goes up around it, so long as the city stops neglecting the memorial,” he said. 

Others abhor the idea of any closure. Tim McCaskell, another veteran AIDS activist, says it is common for mourners to visit and grieve late at night or in the early morning. It isn’t fair to keep them from a place where, for some, the ashes of their loved ones have been scattered, he said, adding that in his view closing the park off at night just pushes those in need elsewhere.

“I think the idea to revitalize the park will help link it to the new generations who don’t remember the crisis, the devastation and the sacrifices people went through to help push for treatment,” McCaskell said. 

He said he agrees the AIDS and trans memorials deserve a space that “upholds the dignity of loved ones.” If the park was physically closed from midnight to 6 a.m., that would largely reflect city bylaws that already stipulate public parks should be closed in that time, he said. 

Nighttime closures have happened at other parks, the city said, including the Sculpture Garden and Paul Martel Park.

Whatever happens with the future of Barbara Hall Park, it will take into account extensive community input, Moise said. 

“As the city councillor for the Village, it’s my job to ensure that everyone gets a seat at the table, while making sure that no one pushes away any of the other chairs,” Moise said.

If Moise’s motion passes and is approved by city council, staff would assess community support for an overnight park closure and whether a fence or another approach would work best. But no changes are imminent. The report would be due back next spring.