Just Inadequate!

After being evicted from that furnished room, the barren bench was great support, at least for his back, considering the meager aid he had gotten elsewhere. Once upon a time, you only became a number if you were in prison, school, an institution, or a policyholder of a very large insurance company. Well that has all changed now! The hundreds of homeless folks waiting for relief from their destitute existence have been dealt a further unsympathetic blow. They have been ousted off the benches at Nathan Phillips Square. Now gone, it was one of the last safe outdoor havens, in a public area, with high visibility and the perceived comforts of sleeping in that choice of habitat. Many people remember that space fondly.

One of the most common opinions about why the city instituted this policy was that it was a purely political move. They simply wanted the homeless folks on those benches around the square out of sight of the tourists visiting City Hall this year. No other consideration was given. So once again, all those people were forced to face the nightmarish prospect of worrying whether there was a space for them in a nearby hostel. If not, what were their other options, if any? Did anyone consider that they had chosen the open ground of the square as a safe alternative to the dangers, aggravation and daily frustrations of hostel living?

All, or at least most, of the accessible and free help or referral services are downtown. It is true that some rather athletic and inventive folks have "set up house" under bridges around town. However, there are not a lot of them! I mean the folks that can handle it, or the number of bridges within reach of the downtown area.

Does everyone have to look for his or her own clump of bushes? Hell, at least a quarter of the folks out now already have done that. Digging out a hovel in the centre of some plants or bush on somebody's lawn, or next to the pathway in a park.

Keep this in mind the next time you are out walking your pet and for a moment, you think the bush next to you is snoring! Some people have wedged themselves behind or between buildings where nothing could visit or even easily get at them, except perhaps a kitten, mouse, or squirrel.

Soon the park clearings with their two or three trees and healthy spattering of bushes will remind you of a scene from an old Monty Python skit. When the 'sandwich folks' or the help van comes along and shouts out to anyone either known or guessed living there, "Does anybody need coffee or tea? Soup or some band-aids? Condoms or a blanket? Want a SIeeping bag? Anyone...?" Suddenly and ever so slowly individual heads will nervously pop out from select clumps of greenery, maybe right in front of them where no one had previously been visible, and call out "I do" or "over here!" All suspiciously waiting for the proverbial foot to come down right then and squash them where they stand or an explosive missile launched just seconds ago from somewhere out of view, to come sailing at them and blow them to kingdom come! Talk about the need for a change in Iifestyle. No one has to tie you up, pull your teeth out, or cut you with a razor to feel like you are being tortured. It just is. The day-to-day chores of the dispossessed person, trying to get by in some areas of this city — or while a guest of some support service or drop-in— make it a challenge to just survive until the next morning. Sure, there have been some deaths from the elements.

Others left the living of their own doing or from illness. But what about those who were murdered? Not from greed or jealousy or as an act of revenge but because they were the innocent victims of circumstance; in the wrong place at the wrong time.

There are members of the public and in City Council who wish these persons and the problems they bring would just disappear. If David Copperfield could do it, I am willing to suggest city council would try to hire him.

The reality is that, as the burgeoning numbers of homeless people continue to grow and available spaces dwindle, the only solution I can see is a drastic, rapid change in housing. It will not be conjured by magic!