Amanda Finkle
Homeless in Toronto
Gabriel Spence
Suffering In Silence
Amanda Finkle
Like a tornado it takes only minutes to destroy people's lives. However, the path of malaise, fallen hopes and dreams left behind can never be swept away. It's domestic violence. It includes verbal abuse, spousal abuse, child abuse, molestation and rape. Children are affected the most by domestic violence and one or more negative experiences can leave them feeling stranded with no way out.
Tuesday night 11:30 PM. Crouched on her bed against the wall, clenching her ragged teddy bear, 12 year-old Maggie is praying. Maggie isn't praying she gets a new bike for her birthday or wishing that Matthew in her class would be her boyfriend. She is praying on the rosary. Praying that her door won't be opened tonight. Praying to God that it will stop; even if it's only for one night. Maggie is afraid of going to sleep because she knows that eventually he will have had enough to drink, eventually she will hear his footsteps coming down the hall. It would happen eventually. Maggie's stepfather began molesting her when she was 9 years old. At first it was only once in a while but then it became his evening pastime.
Maggie has tried to tell her mother time and time again but she always gets the same response: "Maggie don't say lies like that you know better, besides you know that Howard loves you," and with that Maggie suffers in silence. This story is not an uncommon one.
Many of today's children and youth are suffering in silence because of domestic violence. There are too many children and young adults in Maggie's situation, but molestation accounts for only 26% of reported domestic violence cases. Stereotypically, it is the men abusing the women, but studies conducted by the University of Waterloo show that in the 1990's women have become more physically abusive toward their husbands and children. Some people say the cause of this increase is related to the increase of women in the work force, which causes more stress.
Another aspect of domestic violence is reported cases. Police polls, as well as studies from the Children's Aid Society of Toronto, estimate that there are some 188,000 unreported cases of domestic violence biannually. Many of these victims don't report the cases because they come from upper class families and they "don't want to cause trouble - besides who would believe me anyway?" This was the comment made by an 18 year-old Jarvis student. Other victims of abuse remain silent because they are ashamed, or afraid that their abuser will get angry and their situation will worsen.
Verbal abuse between spouses seems to has the most negative effect on a wide-range of today's youth. From low-income families to those of wealthy CEO's, verbal abuse takes its toll on the highest number of youth. 88.6% of today's youth are exposed to domestic violence every day. In a brief interview, 16 year-old Aaron T. replied with this comment when asked if he had ever experienced domestic violence: "Sometimes I just want to tell them to shut the f*** up you know what I'm sayin'? They just fight all the time, you know? I don't know how to make them stop. Either my moms is yellin' at my pops or the other way around." When asked how he reacts, he replied, " You know I'm outta there, I split and hang with my boys...they don't give me no grief. I never really thought about how it feels, it makes me piped (angry), I used to cry...but that was just when I was a shorty yo. Don't think I cry no more 'cause I don't. Yo it ain't worth it. My boys and me be chillin' 24/7 yo. They protect me, we protect each other."
Children who experience violence at home have diverse outcomes. Many victims move on and begin leading normal lives with families of their own. Like Aaron, though, more and more children are turning to gangs and street violence to make up for a lack of nurturing at home, or to resolve emotional confusion. Aaron joined the Silver Boys just before his 12th birthday. He says he's thought about leaving the gang on several occasions when the gang leaders make him do something he doesn't want to, like "lift some old ladies purse...what's she gonna do to defend herself?" Aaron would not comment on his initiation for the gang but ended the interview by saying that, "getting out is harder that getting in ...I could get out if I were to shoot my moms or somethin'. I can't do that she's my moms." Life on the streets, to these kids, is sometimes more appealing than a life of abuse at home.
Interviews with several "bums, squatters, street and street involved youth" were very graphic to say the least. Sara is a girl that I have been getting to know for the past three months. She's bright, intellectually advanced, and absolutely beautiful. Sara has the potential to be anything she wants. She spends her Saturdays like most other teens. She plays her guitar and sings her latest song while hanging out with friends. Her voice can be heard loud and clear as she performs atop a stone wall on Wellesley St.
You're probably picturing a nice middle-class school girl who excels academically. Not quite. Sara is homeless, she is dirty and has nits furiously leaping from her long strawberry blond hair. She busks every Saturday hoping to earn enough money to stay in a hostel instead of the shelters. Sara can shower if she stays in a hostel.
Sara didn't choose a life on the streets but it has become her life just the same. When Sara was four her mom began slapping her across the face whenever she spoke. When Sara was seven, her father began putting his cigarette butts out on her arms and back. Even after years of sadistic treatment by her parents, Sara still has a smile on her face.
Sara was removed from the custody of her parents at age 12. Before this, she had not attended a regular class in four months. She was ashamed. Her mother and father had both repeatedly sexually molested her and she felt dirty. Sara was shuffled from foster home to foster home and was continually beaten by her caretakers. Sara says that, " I knew I had to get out of there the day that Will, my foster father, pushed me down three flights of stairs and kicked me three times in the stomach. He did it because I called him a pervert and spit in his face. I left that second and never returned." At the time, Sara was 15.
She has been on the streets now for almost three years. "The worst part of this life is winter, definitely winter, especially if the shelters are full." Sara looks at her friend and they both begin to laugh. "If those shelters are full, you have to either find someplace dry or stand outside all night freezing your butt off..." Sara's friend interrupts, "you know what, we should move to Florida!" Both girls laugh. When asked if she had any future plans for herself, Sara responded with, " I just want to go back to school. I'm probably the only kid on the face of the earth that misses school!" Sara smiles and returns to her singing.
Although these three stories are worst-case scenarios, cases of domestic violence are not isolated to a certain class or culture. An anonymous poll taken right here at Jarvis showed that 56 of the 100 students in the poll either experiences domestic violence on a daily basis at home are or knows someone who does. Another 18 admitted to having been sexually molested by a parent/caretaker at some point in their lives. Whether it's fueled by alcoholism, drugs or simply misguided anger, domestic violence takes its toll on many people. Domestic violence doesn't have to be kept a family secret any longer. The physical pain doesn't last long, but the emotional pain lasts a lifetime. It needs to stop. Fight to stop domestic violence- it's your duty. Where does it end?
Homeless in Toronto
Gabriel Spence
Tuesday, February 15, 2000, Midtown Toronto:
Snow falls lightly at the corner of Vaughan Rd., and Bathurst. Four people load a van with supplies from a storefront operation called Street Help. The supplies consist of soup, sandwiches, candy, hot chocolate, oranges, fruit juice, water, blanketsand sleeping bags to be distributed to as many of the 15,000 homeless people inhabiting the Toronto streets as possible.
Street help is organized and operated by Na-Me-Res, (Native Men's Residence) which occupies the store next door. Cooks at Na-Me-Res prepare the food, and many of the volunteers are Na-Me-residents, doing their required chores to stay at the residence.
Street Help was founded in 1993 by the Anishnawbe, the Ojibwa tribe council and receives most of its goods through public donations, and sponsorship by the Rotary Club.
Tonight is not an unusual occurrence. In the winter in Toronto with sub-zero temperatures, volunteers go out every night to help where they can. Tonight's crew consists of Simon, the van driver, a Native man who livedon the street only six years ago, Elka, an experienced volunteer who donates many nights of her week to fight the homelessness situation, Rabbi Ervin who has no experience with homelessness, and myself.
When I arrived at Street Help I was put directly to work loading the help van. Just before we set off to begin the route, Carey, the Street Help director, grabbed my shoulder. "Did you sign your life away yet?" she asked unnerving me. "You have to sign a waiver before you go on every trip with the van," she noted. Now this seriously upset me. I was already quite unsure what to expect, when she unloaded this on me. "What have I gotten myself into this time," I thought.
Soon everything was arranged and the help van departed. As the van made a few quick stops for people I began to feel my stress level dropping. These people were not freaks, losers and psychopaths like I expected; rather they were regular men and women who seemed to be just down on their luck.
As the van went south on Bloor St., we stopped off at a bus shelter in the Roncesvalles area of Parkdale. In the shelter a man was slumped over with a hood pulled over his face. I jumped from the van and ran towards him. "Street Help!" I yelled, but he did not respond. Elka came over and yelled to at him. He began to slowly jerk about and raised his head. "What!?" he said abruptly. "We're with Street Help, do you need anything today sir?" asked Elka. An overwhelming stench of alcohol surrounded him.
The man was reasonably dressed, wearing a gray jacket and brown pants. Elka asked him a few questions and he slowly was able to respond. His name was "Gregory" and he had wandered off from his detox centre. He slowly began to collect himself, and in a broken voice said, "I really appreciate what you guys are doing here, but I'm done, give the help to somebody who needs it." I said "Sorry we can't do that." He then said, "I'm just an old 60 year old man, the wife's kicked me out, I have two artificial legs, I have no money!" he then paused and quietly said, "Please, just leave me here to die." Elka replied apprehensively, "Sorry that's against policy!" and stared directly at him. He then yelled, "Against policy!" and began to laugh wildly. This broke the ice with him and we were soon able to give him assistance.
Simon and I helped Gregory into the van. He did indeed have two artificial legs, which made him very slow, and in some positions virtually immobile. We quickly drove him just up the street to St. Joe's hospital, in the middle of Parkdale, and helped him get admitted into detox and were on our way. We drove by two squeegee kids who were sitting on the curb. They did not need anything from the van, but their circumstances raised a very important issue. The recent bill passed which made panhandling and related work illegal in Toronto has damaged the homeless greatly. The original idea was to make squeegeeing illegal on the streets of Toronto, but as the bill was passed it was very broad and spread to many other unrelated areas.
One major impact of this bill is that, since it prohibits "aggressive panhandling," homeless people can no longer sell Outreach, a newspaper whose distribution system is made up of homeless people who sell the Outreach for cash. Now that they can no longer solicit people to buy the paper, they have lost a major source of income.
It seems that even people acquainted with homelessness cannot explain why there are so many homeless people. Quite often, once homeless people hit the streets, they are there until they die. Everyone has a different story to why they are homeless, but the dependency on substances and lack of self-esteem seem to be the key reasons why people remain on the street.
John Stackhouse, a writer for The Globe and Mail, wrote an article on how many of the homeless people in the G.T.A. make a quite a large amount of money. Stackhouse, in a journalistic exposé, revealed that in a day if a homeless person was placed in the right spot, during the right time they could easily net anywhere from $100 to $250. The region of SkyDome to St. Andrew's subway station and Avenue Rd., is known as the corridor, and is the highest paying region for panhandling in the city. This is due to the high concentration of businesses.
Stackhouse's exploration of the homeless issue was thought by many to be very damaging, including all of the staff at Street Help. Many people feel he gave the impression the situation is brighter than it actually is. What Stackhouse did successfully prove was how hard itis to escape the hardcore street life. Many of the homeless people in the G.T.A., who are in the more desired or reputable areas of the city are placed under control. A pimp of the region often monitors them, charging a large fee for poor protection of them and their spot. These people are often local crack dealers who have the beggars depending on them for their supply.
As we drove through the city, anger for Stackhouse and his piece swirled through the van. Simon, being a person recovering from the streets' life, feels that a writer, or anyone for that matter who lives in a stable home with working family, or are successfully able to provide for themselves, can't actually understand how it is on the streets.
Just because someone can survive on the streets for a few days does not mean that it is easy to survive successfully. Anyone from a stable home can go to the streets and survive for a little while if they try, because they have coping mechanisms. They are able to make strong, thoughtful and rational decisions that can keep them out of trouble for a while. Most people on the streets did not have strong coping mechanisms, that's how they ended up there. With so many having mental problems or substance abuse problems, they are nowhere near as capable of dealing with problems as a stable person ought to be.
Simon rooted from the bottom of his heart a story of how tough it can be on the streets. It can be very tough to survive, but often even tougher in a homeless shelter. Simon explained how he himself had experienced how tough shelters can be, and doesn't blame people for avoiding them. He explained how he stayed in a shelter once, and it was one of the worst experiences of his life. Simon apparently had many of his belongings stolen, he was beaten severely, and witnessed a sexual assault on another person staying there.
There are some people who even choose to stay on the streets over living in a home. Most of these people have lived on the streets for a long time, and don't feel comfortable re-entering society. There are even a few that feel they are living better on the streets, than amongst society because they can remain free. Unfortunately the flaw in this is that every single person on the streets is dependent on aid organization for survival.
By midnight, the help van headed towards the area known as the cannery. It is just off Lakeshore Blvd. A small burnt out building marks the road where to turn. The cannery is a large field where at least half to a dozen people live. Everyone here is very positive, and seems to be of a higher class in the homeless situation. Everyone here has their own huts, many of which have working utensils like battery operated radios and lamps.
As I learned on my second night out, many people in the cannery are involved with job placement facilities, where they don't require an address to work. They simply schedule a time by walking in, getting a job placement, and going for as long as they are required, being paid minimum wage. People often think that it is just laziness that keeps people on the streets, but the fact of the matter is that it is very hard to find work if you don't have an address. Secondly, most of the homeless people don't have appropriate identification to get a job. Another setback is who would actually want to hire a worker that rarely bathes and changes their clothes. There are only 3 non-gay bathhouses in all of Toronto, which makes it difficult for homeless people to maintain their cleanliness.
There are many quick solutions to improve the situation, but unless long-term plans are put into effect, the cycle of homelessness in Toronto will always be with us.
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