By Sophie Wallace

Disclaimer: This piece mentions overdose and substance abuse. 

“Be careful, there are a lot of crackheads around.”

I looked back in surprise at the well-meaning student who uttered these words. I had met him at a protest at Toronto Metropolitan University. From first impressions, he was kind, left-leaning, progressive. But apparently, these ideals don’t always stretch to include everyone.

There is an irony to the phrase “visible homelessness.” I have lost count of the number of times I have been on the subway, the streetcar or walking down Yonge Street and heard people crying out for help, for a dollar or in one particularly disturbing incident, for someone to come and end it all. No one stops, looks, helps. The stigma goes beyond even what I have seen in my home country. And that bar is a low one—the U.K. is not well known for its humanitarian social policies.

The pervasive narrative about substance users is that they are dangerous, dirty and unpredictable. We do not wish to bear witness to the suffering of the marginalised ‘other’, whose behaviour and appearance violates the norm. It is us and them, and they make us uncomfortable.

Is the fear and discomfort of sharing public spaces proportionate to the risk of harm? Would the risks perhaps dissipate if the city shared a collective responsibility of care to its most vulnerable residents?

The lack of safety net is at best, inadequate, and at worst, criminal negligence

Since moving here last August, I have noticed that two Torontos exist in parallel. Downtown restaurants are lit warmly from the inside, office workers buy $9 coffee on their morning commutes and condominium buildings stand tall and shining. Concurrently, people sleep on top of the subway vents for warmth or, with nowhere safe to go, overdose—slouched in doorways.

The Ford government is slowly eroding the support once available to Toronto’s most vulnerable. The closure of Ontario’s safe drug consumption sites has only exacerbated stigma against users, despite data showing that crime was lower in neighbourhoods with these sites than in the rest of the city.

With the U.S. trade war and soaring cost of living, more and more people are falling into poverty and the ones in charge are doing little to catch them. For people without a leg up in life, the situation really is impossible. The lack of safety net is at best, inadequate and at worst, criminal negligence. Let’s examine it.

The average monthly rent in Toronto for a one-bedroom apartment is $1,715. According to Stefanie Cepuch, the program coordinator at Avenue Road Foodbank, in some cases, people working full-time on minimum wage spend between 50 and 100 per cent of their income on rent. If unable to work, or find work, people are eligible to receive a maximum of $1,408 per month through the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), or $733 per month through the Ontario Works benefit. 

Thus for many residents, private rentals are inconceivable. As an alternative, the City of Toronto has a number of subsidized, Rent-Geared-to-Income properties. The waitlist has increased by 23.3 per cent in the past two years alone, to over 100,000 people. The expected wait time is up to 15 years. 

I am asking you to consider an alternative narrative

The lack of housing options is demonstrated in the high number of individuals relying on Toronto’s shelter system. According to data from the City of Toronto, almost all shelters in the GTA are operating at 95 to 100 per cent capacity. Over two thirds of the homeless population are “chronically homeless”, meaning they spend at least six months per year on the streets. 

There is a complex and multifaceted relationship between homelessness and substance use. Whilst the two are not mutually exclusive, and there are a plethora of reasons why someone might misuse drugs or alcohol, housing instability has been linked with substance use and worse physical and mental health outcomes. 

What does it do to a person when the world has no space for them? The vicious cycle continues. It is near impossible to stop using when not in a supportive environment, and as anyone who has ever been in the throes of addiction will know, helping yourself is sometimes the hardest thing imaginable. 

Maybe you’re someone who understands how broken the system is, but you feel powerless in the face of it. To that, I ask: keep spare change in your pocket, for when you come across the diabetic man begging on the corner of Bloor West and Spadina. Carry naloxone. Question people when you hear them use stigmatizing language, and gently point them back to their humanity. 

I am asking you to consider an alternative narrative. One where, whilst the authorities continue to harm through systemic neglect, we as individuals make the world a slightly kinder place.