‘Nobody is homeless by choice': Niagara couple collecting donations for people experiencing homelessness
A report received by Niagara Regional Council dated Feb. 14 from the region’s Commissioner of Community Services Adrienne Jugley said the region is reviewing the ruling and the implications for a Niagara encampment strategy “that remains under development but has also, in its draft form, helped to support Niagara’s approach over the last two years.”
The report goes on to claim that the region does not clear homeless encampments until they are abandoned or accommodations are found for all clients willing to access the shelter system.
The same report, however, admitted that Niagara does not have adequate funding for a shelter system that is large enough to house every person experiencing all forms of homelessness, and that shelters that are available are not necessarily accessible to all who may need it.
“If the available spaces are impractical for homeless individuals, either because the shelters do not accommodate couples, are unable to provide required services, impose rules that cannot be followed due to addictions, or cannot accommodate mental or physical disability, they are not considered to be low barrier and accessible to the individuals they are meant to serve,” the report said.
Reverend Karen Orlandi of Silver Spire United Church said shelters that do exist are often operating well over capacity as it is.
In the winter months, the downtown St. Catharines church hosts overnight shelters for those in need, working alongside Westminster United Church.
“Nobody is homeless by choice,” she said. “When we just shuffle people around, all we're doing is moving the problem.”
The heart of the issue, said Brock University assistant professor Joanne Heritz, is a lack of affordable housing.
“The issue with the housing that is going to be built is that a lot of the housing will not be affordable for most people who are experiencing homelessness,” she said. “Even people in the lower quintiles of income won't be able to afford these new builds. So that that's where the housing crisis lies, is that there isn't safe and affordable housing for people who are in low socioeconomic level strata.”
Research she did in collaboration with YWCA Niagara Region showed that people who are working full-time and making minimum wage cannot afford to rent a one-bedroom apartment in Niagara.
Heritz research also said recent increases in social assistance come “nowhere near” addressing housing and food costs.
With the recent increase, the amount of money that someone on Ontario Works can get in one month is $733.
According to online rental listing site Zumper.com, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in St. Catharines is $1,550.
“People just need to be reminded that the unhoused people are just that: they're people,” said Marlatt. “Sometimes they're desperate. Sometimes they're just having a bad couple of months. And I don't think any of that really matters. They're people who need someone to talk to, and they're people who need another person. Why not do that for someone else?”
“Someone has to do it,” added Elliott. “It might as well be us.”
A report received by Niagara Regional Council dated Feb. 14 from the region’s Commissioner of Community Services Adrienne Jugley said the region is reviewing the ruling and the implications for a Niagara encampment strategy “that remains under development but has also, in its draft form, helped to support Niagara’s approach over the last two years.”
The report goes on to claim that the region does not clear homeless encampments until they are abandoned or accommodations are found for all clients willing to access the shelter system.
The same report, however, admitted that Niagara does not have adequate funding for a shelter system that is large enough to house every person experiencing all forms of homelessness, and that shelters that are available are not necessarily accessible to all who may need it.
“If the available spaces are impractical for homeless individuals, either because the shelters do not accommodate couples, are unable to provide required services, impose rules that cannot be followed due to addictions, or cannot accommodate mental or physical disability, they are not considered to be low barrier and accessible to the individuals they are meant to serve,” the report said.
Reverend Karen Orlandi of Silver Spire United Church said shelters that do exist are often operating well over capacity as it is.
In the winter months, the downtown St. Catharines church hosts overnight shelters for those in need, working alongside Westminster United Church.
“Nobody is homeless by choice,” she said. “When we just shuffle people around, all we're doing is moving the problem.”
The heart of the issue, said Brock University assistant professor Joanne Heritz, is a lack of affordable housing.
“The issue with the housing that is going to be built is that a lot of the housing will not be affordable for most people who are experiencing homelessness,” she said. “Even people in the lower quintiles of income won't be able to afford these new builds. So that that's where the housing crisis lies, is that there isn't safe and affordable housing for people who are in low socioeconomic level strata.”
Research she did in collaboration with YWCA Niagara Region showed that people who are working full-time and making minimum wage cannot afford to rent a one-bedroom apartment in Niagara.
Heritz research also said recent increases in social assistance come “nowhere near” addressing housing and food costs.
With the recent increase, the amount of money that someone on Ontario Works can get in one month is $733.
According to online rental listing site Zumper.com, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in St. Catharines is $1,550.
“People just need to be reminded that the unhoused people are just that: they're people,” said Marlatt. “Sometimes they're desperate. Sometimes they're just having a bad couple of months. And I don't think any of that really matters. They're people who need someone to talk to, and they're people who need another person. Why not do that for someone else?”
“Someone has to do it,” added Elliott. “It might as well be us.”
STORY BEHIND THE STORY: After hearing about the ruling on encampments in Waterloo, reporter Abby Green wanted to find out how and if it would affect Niagara, and speak with people who are doing their best to help.
ZenXGenius
Tayna Elliott and Chris Marlatt just want to help people.
The couple call themselves ZenXGenius, with Elliot being the "zen" and Marlatt being the "genius." Their goal is to help those that are unhoused in St. Catharines.
“During COVID, we thought about how everyone was struggling, and then we started thinking about the unhoused and how much they must have been struggling,” Elliott said.
Being Gen X-ers. Elliott said she remembers back in the '80s when she was living in Toronto and could just go out and volunteer for a soup kitchen or hand out blankets.
Together, she and Marlatt decided to bring that back, and go out multiple times a week to spots in St. Catharines where they know people struggling with homelessness gather.
They hand out food, blankets, socks, and more.
“Socks can change a person's life,” Marlatt said. “One of our unhoused friends right now, he has trench foot, and he's going to see a third doctor now to find out if his toes should come off. He's 24.”
But it can be hard, as unhoused people are often forced to move around a lot.
In 2021, the city of St. Catharines spent $283,000 dismantling homeless encampments.
But that may soon change, as an Ontario Superior court judge ruled that the region of Waterloo does not have the right to evict people from a homeless encampment because there was not enough space for them in the shelters.
A report received by Niagara Regional Council dated Feb. 14 from the region’s Commissioner of Community Services Adrienne Jugley said the region is reviewing the ruling and the implications for a Niagara encampment strategy “that remains under development but has also, in its draft form, helped to support Niagara’s approach over the last two years.”
The report goes on to claim that the region does not clear homeless encampments until they are abandoned or accommodations are found for all clients willing to access the shelter system.
The same report, however, admitted that Niagara does not have adequate funding for a shelter system that is large enough to house every person experiencing all forms of homelessness, and that shelters that are available are not necessarily accessible to all who may need it.
“If the available spaces are impractical for homeless individuals, either because the shelters do not accommodate couples, are unable to provide required services, impose rules that cannot be followed due to addictions, or cannot accommodate mental or physical disability, they are not considered to be low barrier and accessible to the individuals they are meant to serve,” the report said.
Reverend Karen Orlandi of Silver Spire United Church said shelters that do exist are often operating well over capacity as it is.
In the winter months, the downtown St. Catharines church hosts overnight shelters for those in need, working alongside Westminster United Church.
“Nobody is homeless by choice,” she said. “When we just shuffle people around, all we're doing is moving the problem.”
The heart of the issue, said Brock University assistant professor Joanne Heritz, is a lack of affordable housing.
“The issue with the housing that is going to be built is that a lot of the housing will not be affordable for most people who are experiencing homelessness,” she said. “Even people in the lower quintiles of income won't be able to afford these new builds. So that that's where the housing crisis lies, is that there isn't safe and affordable housing for people who are in low socioeconomic level strata.”
Research she did in collaboration with YWCA Niagara Region showed that people who are working full-time and making minimum wage cannot afford to rent a one-bedroom apartment in Niagara.
Heritz research also said recent increases in social assistance come “nowhere near” addressing housing and food costs.
With the recent increase, the amount of money that someone on Ontario Works can get in one month is $733.
According to online rental listing site Zumper.com, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in St. Catharines is $1,550.
“People just need to be reminded that the unhoused people are just that: they're people,” said Marlatt. “Sometimes they're desperate. Sometimes they're just having a bad couple of months. And I don't think any of that really matters. They're people who need someone to talk to, and they're people who need another person. Why not do that for someone else?”
“Someone has to do it,” added Elliott. “It might as well be us.”
Calls grow to declare Toronto homelessness a public health crisis after extreme cold
By Tyler Griffin The Canadian Press
Posted February 5, 2023 9:45 am
TORONTO — Councillors in Toronto are set to consider keeping warming centres open 24-7 for the rest of the winter amid growing calls for homelessness to be declared a public health crisis in the city.
Most of Ontario was under extreme cold warnings late last week, with frigid temperatures presenting greater risks for those without proper shelter.
Calls to keep warming centres open around the clock in Toronto have been growing, with community workers and medical providers saying the city policy to open them once temperatures reach -15 C, or -20 C with wind chill, is cruel, not based in evidence and could be causing preventable cold-related injuries.
The centres open at 7 p.m. on the day an alert is issued and stay open until noon on the day an alert ends.
Coun. Alejandra Bravo — who helped introduce a motion that recommends the city provide 24-7 indoor warming locations until April 15 — said a lack of available spaces to take shelter from the cold means those experiencing homelessness are taking refuge in unsuitable public spaces.
“We’re in a situation where public libraries, the transit system, 24-hour restaurants, all manners of buildings people can access are actually de facto shelter spaces right now,” said Bravo.
“They’re showing up in emergency departments, putting a huge strain on emergency departments simply because they want to get inside … that’s not a recipe for the health of anyone or social harmony.”
Bravo’s motion — set to be considered Tuesday — includes a call for the declaration of homelessness as a public health crisis. It further requests a review of the procedures for the opening of city-run warming centres.
According to the city’s daily data on shelter occupancy, 99 per cent of warming centre spaces were occupied on Friday when an extreme cold warning was in effect — with only one space unoccupied.
The Ontario Human Rights Commission on Friday expressed concern about the “significant lack of cold weather services in Toronto, and across the province, for people experiencing homelessness.” It called on all levels of government to limit what it called “historic and ongoing systemic discrimination” faced by homeless people.
“Keeping members of our community from freezing to death on the streets is part of that essential work,” it wrote in a statement.
City spokesperson Alex Burke said the four city-run warming centres don’t turn anyone away.
“If a location is at capacity, staff facilitate referrals to other spaces as space became available and support with transportation,” Burke wrote.
In a statement Friday, the city said it had increased its warming centre capacity from 142 spaces to 195, while opening 237 temporary contingency spaces at various shelter sites. It also said it added 432 additional spaces to the shelter system.
The city was not able to provide specific costs associated with operating the warming centres, stating they vary depending on factors like location and the number of days a site is open.
Unity Health Toronto, a hospital network in Toronto, said last month that it has seen an increase in cold-related injuries like hypothermia and frostbite this winter. It said its hospitals have also seen injuries from strategies used to survive outside, like sleeping in unsafe areas, overdoses due to substance use or unhoused patients coming to emergency departments to warm up.
“Without places to go, many of our patients face unnecessary challenges completing their recovery,” it wrote in a statement. “At the same time, keeping patients in the emergency department or on a hospital ward for longer than is medically necessary reduces the availability of acute care beds.”
A 2019 research review of coroner’s records and emergency department charts from five downtown Toronto hospitals found that most cases of injury and death due to cold happen in moderate winter weather. The research by the MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions found that between 2004 and 2015, 72 per cent of hypothermia cases in people experiencing homelessness occurred in temperatures warmer than -15 C.
Diana Chan McNally, a harm reduction case manager at the non-profit All Saints Church, said the city needs to prioritize funding for more spaces for unhoused people over increases to the police budget.
Toronto Mayor John Tory announced a proposed $48.3-million increase to the police budget, which would in part go toward the addition of about 200 officers and bring police funding to just over $1.1 billion for 2023.
“Why is it that we’re arguing for something as basic as a warming centre, a place for people to go to not freeze to death?” Chan McNally said.
In nearby Hamilton, the municipality said it is re-evaluating its cold response policy after “a realized gap” in its winter response services in December, when recreation centres used as warming centres were closed for staff holidays, as well as increased demand for shelter spaces.
Hamilton city council voted in January to spend an expected $415,000 to add daily overnight warming spaces and keep them open until the end of March.
However, Rob Mastroianni, manager of homelessness and housing support, said the 21 available spaces at the Hamilton’s only coed overnight drop-in centre have generally been at capacity in recent days. As a result, users have to be cycled in and out every hour, he said.
In St. Catharines, Ont., outreach worker Emily Spanton said options for homeless individuals are limited.
The city’s only warming centre runs from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. daily, she said, and there aren’t enough shelter beds or overnight emergency shelter spaces to accommodate hundreds of unhoused residents.
At the city’s breakfast program for unhoused individuals recently, Spanton said she attended to many people with frostbite, including one man whose toe came off when she changed his socks.
“It was fully blackened,” she said. “He told me that he was considering breaking into an abandoned building just to stay warm.”
Adriana Di Stefano, a Toronto doctor and member of Health Providers Against Poverty, said cold-related injuries like the one Spanton saw are preventable, and can be traumatic for people experiencing homelessness, who often don’t have access to followup care.
“The solution seems very simple: provide shelter, provide warming centres, provide supportive housing, provide long-term housing,” she said.
“There’s a lot of talk about these things but we need action now, because it’s cold now. The injuries are happening now, the hospitals are overloaded now.”
TORONTO — Councillors in Toronto are set to consider keeping warming centres open 24-7 for the rest of the winter amid growing calls for homelessness to be declared a public health crisis in the city.
Most of Ontario was under extreme cold warnings late last week, with frigid temperatures presenting greater risks for those without proper shelter.
The city’s only warming centre runs from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. daily, she said, and there aren’t enough shelter beds or overnight emergency shelter spaces to accommodate hundreds of unhoused residents.
High housing costs pose a crushing financial challenge for refugees in Canada
Ikran Ahmed Mohamed and her husband were so exhausted after her 24-hour labour that they had no idea why a nurse lifted up their new baby — like Rafiki holding up Simba in The Lion King — and called him “the lucky boy.”
He may not be a king, but little Amiir — whose name means “prince” in Arabic — was greeted with fanfare when he arrived, weighing 8.3 pounds, at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Day. A clutch of reporters and cameras was waiting to greet the first baby born in 2020.
“We didn’t even know it was already the new year,” said Amiir’s father, Deeq Mohamed Farah, who had been in and out of Humber River Hospital with Ikran over the holidays after the baby missed his due date of Dec. 22. “He’s a New Year surprise. We didn’t expect a New Year baby.”
Farah said his wife was readmitted late Sunday for induced labour and the delivery was taxing for the first-time parents, who were both Somali refugees living in Djibouti, a tiny country in East Africa, before he fled to Canada for asylum in 2014. Ikran joined him here last year after Farah was granted refugee status and became a permanent resident.
“Neither Ikran nor I have family in Canada. Now we have a baby boy in our company. He is going to be our new best friend,” said Farah, who has been working as an Uber driver after graduating from a computer and network support technician program at Humber College in April.
“It’s hard to become a father. Back home, we did not have a future. We struggled so hard and we want to give our baby the best opportunity in Canada.”
The couple, who were busy sharing the news of their arrival with their family in Somalia through texts and video calls, hope Amiir’s arrival will mark a new beginning for their young family, after being uprooted by civil war and unrest.
“I want Amiir to grow up becoming a teacher, doctor or engineer like his father,” said Ikran, looking admiringly at her husband. “It is not easy to get an education when your country is at war. We want our son to get a good education to teach others, help people and save lives.”
According to UNICEF, an estimated 1,004 first babies would be born in Canada on New Year’s Day in 2020, representing 0.25 per cent of the estimated 392,078 babies born this Jan. 1 around the world.
“The beginning of a new year and a new decade is an opportunity to reflect on our hopes and aspirations not only for our future, but the future of those who will come after us,” said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF executive director. “As the calendar flips each January, we are reminded of all the possibility and potential of each child embarking on her or his life’s journey — if they are just given that chance.”
Ikran Ahmed Mohamed and her husband were so exhausted after her 24-hour labour that they had no idea why a nurse lifted up their new baby — like Rafiki holding up Simba in The Lion King — and called him “the lucky boy.”
He may not be a king, but little Amiir — whose name means “prince” in Arabic — was greeted with fanfare when he arrived, weighing 8.3 pounds, at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Day. A clutch of reporters and cameras was waiting to greet the first baby born in 2020.
“We didn’t even know it was already the new year,” said Amiir’s father, Deeq Mohamed Farah, who had been in and out of Humber River Hospital with Ikran over the holidays after the baby missed his due date of Dec. 22. “He’s a New Year surprise. We didn’t expect a New Year baby.”
Ontario woman offers homeless man job on the spot, now working at farm
Ontario woman offers homeless man job on the spot, now working at farm
An Ontario woman’s decision to hire a man experiencing homelessness to work on her farm on a whim is showing the power of kindness and the ability of community to change lives.
Three weeks ago, Danielle MacDuff said she saw Brian Bannister reading a book and collecting change in her town of Newcastle, Ont. She decided to strike up a conversation, she said,.They ended up talking for 25 minutes before she invited Bannister to work on her farm the next day.
“It floored me. It just came from the heart with her and I got to thank her every day,”Bannister told CTV News Toronto Wednesday.
Bannister said he was living in a shed when he was approached by MacDuff. The 60-year-old said he has overcome addiction, survived abuse and lost two wives, one in a crash, the other to cancer, and over the past two years had “given up”. Then came Danielle’s offer.
“He’s so kind, compassionate, he’s amazing with my children, my animals,” MacDuff said. “And his willingness to help me on the farm is very, very much appreciated.”
A tale of two tent cities: What rulings in Ontario and B.C. mean for homeless encampments
A tale of two tent cities: What rulings in Ontario and B.C. mean for homeless encampments
ast winter, tents began appearing on a property adjacent to the intersection of Victoria Street North and Weber Street West, in Kitchener by the GO station. By summer 2022, 100 Victoria was home to more than 60 tents and 50 residents. That’s when the region, which owns the address, issued an eviction notice.
But not everyone left, and the region went to the courts seeking an injunction that would allow it to clear the encampment. Arguments were heard at the Superior Court in November. At issue: whether the residents’ Charter rights would be breached by an encampment clearing.
On January 28, 2023, Justice M.J. Valente issued his ruling: to evict these residents when there was inadequate indoor shelter space would violate their rights to life, liberty, and security of the person under Section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.