Hi Everyone,
Earlier this week, Sue-Ann Levy, a journalist for the Toronto Sun, wrote an article titled, Respite Shelter Forces ‘Hood’ into Lockdown. The sub-title is, Fed up with vagrants and drug dealers, shelter’s neighbours take matters into their own hands. It is a very good article and I would encourage everyone to read it. This is what I mean.
One of my friends told me about this article and as my luck would have it, I was on my way to the library and I photocopied it. I have read it several times because, as usual, Sue-Ann nailed it.
In the third paragraph Sue-Ann writes that a “….small community—just north of Church and Bloor Sts.—has been “inundated” with people needing help and that has resulted in vandalism, over-flowing garbage, discarded drug and alcohol paraphernalia (including harm reduction kits), noise at night, overuse of the surrounding parks and urine and feces on their properties.”
If the above seems like an exaggeration, then I would invite you, and perhaps some of your well-built friends to go to that area. Stand in front of the respite at 21 Park Road and judge for yourself. Go there today and then on cheque day, so the end of the month. That is next Thursday and Friday. I believe the article because I have seen that type of behaviour at Margaret’s 24-hour Drop-In Centre at 323 Dundas which is at the corner of Sherbourne and Dundas. It is another area mentioned in the article.
I call Sherbourne and Dundas, “Crack Corner” because that is what it is! You really have to have your street smarts about you when you walking there. Not only will you see people buying crack you will see them openly smoking it too! And that my friends and foes is just the beginning. I have walked past “Crack Corner” a number of times and there has never been a dull moment.
And that is the problem.
If you have worked at enough respite shelters, or the like, then you have seen it all. So when people in communities, like the one in the article, comment about how their neighbourhood has changed, (and not for the better) and the respite shelter workers “downplay” most, if not all, the negatives of their clients and their clients behaviour I (kind of) understand why. To them their clients could be doing a lot worse, because they have seen worse and quite possible from the people they are currently helping. And something that a lot of people may not know, is that it is my understanding that the majority of people who work in the shelter system are either from it or a similar system. They are hired for those positions because they can “relate” to their clients, because they have “been there”. That makes sense.
People who are from the same or similar worlds, circumstances, “get each other”. It is hard for anyone with life experience in any area to not sympathize or empathize with people who are struggling with what they are, or were, struggling with themselves. Let’s not forget that people in the area mentioned in the article are not considered poor. That is not only because of the actual or perceived value of the area but to people who are homeless and are in need of help, anyone with more money can seem like they are rich. After all, they have a home, that is, assumed to be warm, with at least one bed with proper bedding, more than one toilet and at least one shower and a kitchen.
All of the above can be considered luxuries to some and/or right—even if it is at the expense of others. But that is for another blog. Back to this one.
Do I believe that men were climbing over the fence of the private school and schooling the private school students on their privates? YEP! When things like that happen, is it any wonder that the area residents are taking matters into their own hands? No one else seems to be.
Please read the article. It is a real eye-opener, if you want to open your eyes that is.
Thank you for reading, A. Rebel’s Rant! ;D
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