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'We're everywhere now': Meet the homeless in Canada's largest city – CBC.ca
In a given year, 235,000 Canadians experience homelessness.
That’s a population the size of a small city.
In Toronto, activists say there have never been so many people without a place to call their own. They use the word “epidemic.”
According to the Toronto Homeless Memorial Network, a group that tracks deaths among the homeless, 17 have died in Toronto since the beginning of October 2019.
The thing is, when people talk about the homeless it’s often in terms of numbers and statistics like the ones above — but the issue really hits home when you meet the people.
The National’s Leonardo Palleja and Nick Purdon spent time with a number of homeless people in Toronto, here are some of their stories.
Frenchie
For six months, Frenchie (he says that’s what his friends call him) has slept in a tent under a bridge in Toronto — a few blocks from some of the most expensive houses in the country.
Frenchie says he lost his restaurant job and had some bad luck, and after that things went downhill.
“It’s a difficult life, but we survive. Every day we survive,” he says.
There are about 15 other people living in the makeshift camp under the bridge, a small community where he says he’s treated well. Above ground, on the street, he says people judge him.
We have a different life, but we are still human — we are not alien, we are still people.– Frenchie
“I just want to say to people, we are not that bad,” he says. “We have a different life, but we are still human — we are not alien, we are still people.”
It’s hard to know exactly how many Canadians sleep outside on a given night, but the best estimate is around 35,000 individuals.
Frenchie says he doesn’t worry that much about winter — he has plenty of tarps and blankets, and sometimes he lights a small fire in his tent to keep warm.
Hear more from Frenchie:
Paul
At 43, Paul has been homeless for six years — ever since he lost his job framing houses in Toronto.
“I had a work injury and I also suffer from depression,” he explains.
What’s remarkable about Paul is that if you passed him on the street, you probably wouldn’t realize he’s homeless. He doesn’t fit the stereotypical image of an entrenched homeless person many people imagine when they read statistics about the problem in Canada.
Like the one that says 235,000 Canadians experience homelessness in any given year.
“It’s not just the bums you see on the streets — we’re everywhere now,” Paul says.
“The vast majority don’t look like they’re homeless. It’s people who have fallen on hard times, got divorced, lost their jobs, got a work injury,” he says.
Paul says he’s lucky to have a bed at one of the city’s shelters while he’s on a waiting list for subsidized housing.
A list that is 11 years long.
“We’re a rich country, there’s no reason for this to be happening,” he says.
Paul says not having a place to call his own takes a tremendous toll on his mind.
“You have no hopes and dreams left anymore. You have no nothing,” he says. “People think you are nothing, and so you end up thinking you are nothing.
“You just eventually end up fading, fading away slowly.”
Hear more from Paul:
Kevin Durance
Kevin Durance has become an unlikely activist.
He fidgets on stage as he addresses a protest in front of Toronto city hall.
“I know how hard I have to work just to survive,” he tells the crowd.
Durance has lived in a Toronto homeless shelter for the past six years. He knows how bad the situation is on the street, and he wants the city to declare a state of emergency and open more beds to the homeless.
“It boils down to real humanity,” he says. “We’ve got to start caring about people.”
Activists insist high rent prices in Toronto make it hard for people who earn minimum wage or collect social assistance to afford a place to live.
The number of people sleeping in shelters in Toronto has doubled in the past five years and now hovers somewhere around 8,000.
Still, Kevin’s wish is a small one — for people to see him and not look away when they pass him on the street.
“They don’t see me, they see that stigma. [They think] I’m violent, I’m strange, I’m different — I’m just simple. I need someone to help me.”
Hear more from Kevin:
Scott
Scott used to run a small hotel in downtown Toronto.
The day that closed, he lost both his job and his place to live.
He never thought he’d find himself living in a shelter.
“I always had money, I always had a job,” he says. “It’s getting to the point where I’m getting too old to get a job and my physical features aren’t what they used to be. Who wants to hire somebody with no teeth to go serve tables?”
Scott hasn’t told his friends or family that he’s staying in a shelter, saying “I don’t want pity.”
He says all he wants is to get back to work full-time and have a place of his own.
“Just get back up there where I used to be, where I get up in the morning and I’ve got a place to go.”
Hear more from Scott:
WATCH | The National’s feature and learn from those living it what it’s like to be homeless in Toronto:
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The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is proposing to require flight attendants receive at least 10 hours of rest time between shifts after Congress had directed the action in 2018, according to a document released on Thursday.
Airlines for America, a trade group representing major carriers including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and others, had previously estimated the rule would cost its members $786 million over 10 years for the 66% of U.S. flight attendants its members employ, resulting from things like unpaid idle time away from home and schedule disruptions.
Aviation unions told the FAA the majority of U.S. flight attendants typically do receive 10 hours of rest from airlines but urged the rule’s quick adoption for safety and security reasons.
Under existing rules, flight attendants get at least 9 hours of rest time but it can be as little as 8 hours in certain circumstances.
“Flight attendants serve hundreds of millions of passengers on close to 10 million flights annually in the United States,” the FAA said, adding that they “perform safety and security functions while on duty in addition to serving customers.”
It cited reports about the “potential for fatigue to be associated with poor performance of safety and security related tasks,” including in 2017, when a flight attendant reported almost causing the gate agent to deploy an emergency exit slide, which was attributed to fatigue and other issues.
The FAA estimated the regulation could prompt the industry to hire another 1,042 flight attendants and cost $118 million annually. If hiring assumptions were cut in half, it said, that would cut estimated costs by over 30%.
After the FAA published an advance notice of the planned rules in 2019, Delta announce it would mandate the 10-hour rest requirement by February 2020.
FAA Administrator Steve Dickson is testifying at a U.S. House Transportation subcommittee hearing on Thursday.
House Transportation Committee chairman Peter DeFazio said on Wednesday that it was “unacceptable” to delay the FAA adopting the flight attendant rest rule and mandating secondary flight deck barriers to better protect the cockpits on all newly manufactured airliners.
Attorneys at the FAA “need a little poke” to move faster on rules when ordered by Congress, DeFazio said on Thursday at the hearing. “Do not screw around with it for three years… you just do it.”
Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants representing 50,000 workers at 17 airlines, said the rule was critical.
“Flight attendant fatigue is real. COVID has only exacerbated the safety gap with long duty days, short night, and combative conditions on planes,” she said. “Congress mandated 10 hours irreducible rest in October 2018, but the prior administration put the rule on a process to kill it.”
During the pandemic, flight attendants have dealt with records numbers of disruptive, occasionally violent passenger incidents, with the FAA citing 4,837 unruly passenger reports, including 3,511 for refusing to wear a mask since Jan. 1.
The FAA proposes to make the new flight attendant rest rules final 30 days after it publishes its final rules.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Jason Neely and Bill Berkrot)
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Canada’s federal government and the 10 provinces have agreed on a standard COVID-19 electronic vaccination passport allowing domestic and foreign travel, government officials told reporters on Thursday.
The deal prevents possible confusion that could be caused if each of the provinces – which have primary responsibility for health care – issued their own unique certificates. The officials spoke on the condition they not be identified.
The document will have a federal Canadian identifying mark and meets major international smart health card standards.
“Many (countries) have said they want to see a digital … verifiable proof of vaccination, which is what we’re delivering,” said one official.
In addition, federal officials are talking to nations that are popular with Canadian travelers to brief them about the document.
The Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced earlier this month that from Oct 30, people wishing to travel domestically by plane, train or ship would have to show proof of full vaccination.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Alistair Bell)
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National Transportation Safety Board(NTSB) said on Thursday that both the driver and passenger seats were occupied during an April 17 fatal crash of a Tesla Model S in Spring, Texas.
Local police previously said witness statements indicated there was nobody in the driver’s seat of the Model S when it crashed into a tree. The NTSB said a review of vehicle data show “both the driver and the passenger seats were occupied, and that the seat belts were buckled when the (event data recorder) recorded the crash.”
(Reporting by David Shepardson)
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