I have hope when I talk with young kids about how the people they see living on our streets are just people. That when they were young, they liked ice cream and hanging out with friends just like them. And just like them, our most vulnerable did not want a life of poverty. Most important, the life they have isn’t their fault.

We make a lot of sandwiches at JCares. We pack a lot of treats. Sometimes, a child wants a treat for themselves. We talk about it. I tell them about the kids whom we serve on outreach and how they run to us because they know that we have treats for them-the treats that our JCares kids have prepared-and that they don’t get a lot of treats because the little money they have goes to real food. They restart packing treat bags faster.

The World’s Greatesr J is a leader in Access and Inclusion and JCares has been a remarkable outlet for our neurodivergent community members. Their challenges outside JCares are huge opportunities inside where they sort clothes, pack food and hygiene kits in a quiet peaceful space. One of our volunteers updates me regularly on the people living in bus shelters and doorways on the corner of Bathurst and Bloor.

JCares provides supplies for Jewish organizations and not Jewish organizations. In the case of the latter, the response has been one of gratitude and appreciation. They know the supplies are coming from a Jewish space driven by a woman wearing a “chai” necklace. JCares stickers on each bag of supplies indicate where things are coming from.

I have weekly interactions with non-Jews who after October 7th and probably before had strong feelings about Israel. Some wear keffiyas. We don’t talk about events on the other side of the world. We talk about the deteriorating conditions downtown as a result of massive displacement, how water is again a needed and scarce resource, and how climate change is going to kill so many people we know.

Are bridges being built? Will the kids we talk to take these experiences into adulthood and do something about it? Will we learn from our neurodivergent friends who seem to grasp the marginalization faster than others?

Who knows.

But I hope. I hope.

Where do you put scenes of families crammed into a converted motel where kids play in parking lots? Or newcomers just off planes who were promised a new stable home and instead put on cold pavement in downtown Toronto to sleep. Or telling a starving human being that you have run out of food under the pretty restaurant lights on Queen St?

Where does that go?

At first, it went to the beat of rave music in the church basement as we prepped for dinner service, then it went to laughing when we served people at the now defunct The Works who told us repeatedly that they were Jesus. Which then turned to disbelief as the encampments were cleared but the people remained displaced. And was replaced by silence as the lines grew longer, the need greater.

My new gig at The JCares Project at the World’s Greatest J on the corner of Bloor and Spadina has given me a new place to put all the feelings. I feel hope when I see little kids talking about helping each other, when someone brings in bread and wants to know where it’s going and I tell them to a safe consumption site in Kensington Market and they respond with “good.” When a teacher asks me to come in and talk to their Grade 3s about what it’s like to not have a home or a bed or breakfast.

I feel determined to explain that Richard who panhandles across the street from JCares is a lovely dude who can’t find work like so many these days and who loves a good bagel. That learning how to handle someone who may have overdosed is civic responsibility. That mental illness is not something to fear but instead something to understand.

So now when my compartment overflows, it has somewhere to go.

And after 5 meaningful days at the new JCares Project at the World’s Greatest J on the corner of Bloor and Spadina, I am so glad I did.

Because as you all know there is a shitload of shit to do.

Food banks are struggling to keep up with demand. Women on the streets who get their periods just like every woman can’t access maxi pads. Water is at a premium. And the provincial government in its infinite wisdom shut down a whack of safe injection sites because of neighbour complaints. So now people will just overdose on those people’s lawns. Some will die.

So much shit to do.

And now a place to get shit done.

On the corner of Bloor and Spadina, there is now a storefront sandwiched between a dry cleaner and a Middle Eastern take-out called JCares.

At JCares, we are the second line supporting the front line organizations helping those who need help. So an organization like Ve’ahavta contacts JCares and says they need men’s clothing. And JCares says: “On it”. And before you can say: “Toronto is such an effin mess, what am I gonna do, I think I’ll doomscroll on the internet.”, JCares has mobilized the community to get those needed men’s pants, sweats, and hoodies and driven them up to Ve’ahavta where they will be distributed with dignity to the men, so many of them working at good jobs and sleeping rough, who need them desperately.

In a world where there is just so much talk, so much of it nonsensical, so much of it useless, JCares has a simple mandate for the moment: We get shit done.

Can’t you just see that on a t-shirt?

Join us!

To hear more about the fabulous project on the corner of Bloor and Spadina: natalief@mnjcc.org

So to mark the moment, I took an outreach shift last night feeling both grateful to be alive and sad that my dad was not.

I often wonder what he would make of his daughter wandering around the cruel nooks and crannies of Toronto’s dark side. Would he be proud, terrified or mortified?

We went to a building complex where people were living in little indents between the front doors and walkway. We passed houses made of cardboard. Roofless tarps. The rain has been unrelenting this week.

A young couple were slumped over, their heads touching the just used bowl pipes.

“Not tonight…please not tonight.”

I started to shake the woman. Nothing. I shook harder. “Wake up. Please just wake up!”

She moved her arm. I went over to the guy next to her and started shaking him. Nothing. The woman regained her slump.

A Naloxone kit was next to her foot.

“Dad. Don’t let them die. Please. Do not let them die.”

The woman stirred and the guy opened his eyes and saw the nasal spray centimetres from his nose. He giggled and pawed my hand away.

“I know you,” slurred the woman. “Granny panties. You gave me granny panties. I wanted sexy lingerie and you gave my friend and I those cotton granny panties!!! How did you think we were going to get laid????.”

I spent a few more minutes with them, gave them food, and left, eyes to sky in gratitude

On Tuesday morning the world was witness to a call for the annihilation of a country of 90 plus million human beings by a madman. So I took my son to St. Luke’s UC to make meals for hungry Torontonians.

Because what else are you gonna do.

We hit a record: 150 freshly made meals with lots of protein, carbs, and veggies.

The cook insists that the meals are hefty. In a touching moment, he picks up a meal to ensure it is weighty. And puts a sprig of parsley on the top to make it look nice.

He cares so very much. We all do.

My son casually mentions that a ceasefire is in place. No genocide tonight. Instead, someone has donated sausages and pasta. An assembly line is quickly formed and et voila 25 more meals are ready.

Take that you Orange-Tufted POS!

Last night, someone from the World’s Greatest Jcc-a beacon of light and hope for community helping community-donated a bag of bras which I took to the safe injection site on Sherbourne that is closing in a few weeks. There was a super interesting article last week in the NYT about how San Francisco is addressing addiction that had me thinking. But I digress.

Someone’s daughter came out asking what was in the bag. I could have lifted her with one hand. “Bras,” I said.

“Ooooh, I haven’t had one of those in years. Can I have one.”

“You can have many.”

She dipped a tiny hand into the bag and shopped for bras out of a grocery bag outside a safe injection site on the corner of Sherbourne and Queen to the amused glances of people walking their dogs.

There is a community around him. A reverand, a devoted doctor, outreach workers, friends. Even a poet. And me. We rotate during the week to visit, to talk to the nurses, to see how he is progressing. And then we text each other relieved that he is doing better.. We are a case study of community taking care of our own.

The last few times I had visited, DW was sleeping. But last night, he was wide awake.

“Let’s go on an adventure!” I said.

“Yeah, Nat. I need a smoke.”

The nurses move him into a wheelchair and off we go.

I don’t think I have ever been so happy to see someone hold a cigarette. His hands are clearly regaining strength and movement.

“I don’t gotta light. You?”

“Nope. But I’m sure someone will come by with one.”

Sure enough, a young man with a cart overflowing with old food and wet clothes comes up to the hospital’s awning to get a reprieve from the wind. He looks like the old DW, bouncing in place, hands waving, talking to who knows who.

“Hey friend, gotta light?”

He sifts through his belongings and a half eaten, ash-stained bagel falls to the ground.

“Yup. Here ya go.” He lights it for DW who inhales peacefully.

“Thanks. Wanna smoke yourself”?

“Yeah, sure. I could use one.”

DW goes into his bag of cigarettes which are rationed to him and hands over five.

“Thank you, brother. Mightly generous of you.”

There is a rumour that when the ambulance came to pick DW up, he handed over his jacket to a freezing woman.

We have so much to learn from people who have so little.

The wind picks up and I wrap DW’s blanket around his thin shoulders. His life expectancy is about 30 years less than for me. Whose fault is that? So many would say DW made bad choices. But after almost four years of doing outreach, I know this isn’t the case. We have created a society where people like DW can’t live.

“Guess I’ll be moving along.”

“Stay safe, my friend,” says DW.

“Don’t give up, my brother. Don’t give up.”

“The reason I am not a doc is because I have no patience.”

That’s a good one, Jojo” Fistbumps all around.

But Jojo has a lot of patience. He has been waiting to get into dinner service for a good 30 minutes. The line outside St. Luke’s snakes around the corner of Sherbourne and Carleton. There has to be over 150 people standing there waiting for a hot meal. In Toronto. In the 21st century.

In appreciation of International Women’s Day I volunteer to monitor the line and let people in. Typically this is done by men but I figure what the hell. Who’s going to mess with a middle aged redhead? I take some conciliatory cigarettes just in case. DW taught me that offering a smoke tends to calm irritated folks down.

The poverty/housing/addiction disaster is so clearly visible in this despondent line which is so clearly visible to the traffic on Sherbourne, to the passersby, to the endless drone of police.

It’s a sad line, many of them are Indigenous. I’ve just cried through Michelle Good’s award winning Five Little Indians. I imagine little Jojo. Were his parents residential school survivors? Was he in a foster home? He mentions he has been in jail recently with no real incentive to leave because there was no where to go.

A little chihuahua shivers next to my leg. I grab her a pasta and meat ball dinner that she sniffs happily. “Thank you, Miss,” says her owner, Tom. “Of course”, I reply. “I just live across the street.” He points to Allen Gardens in the far corner which has been occupied by indigenous people for several years.

I want to apologize to Tom and everyone else for all the times I said and led a Land Acknowledgement with such stupid earnestness. It is so obvious walking this heartbreaking line how useless, how inane, how disrespectful, how unbelievably inadequate those words are.

“Bye Miss. Thanks for coming out for us.” Jojo shuffles out sipping hot chocolate despite the warm temperature.

“Gonna get colder later, Miss. Gotta be prepared to sleep in a doorway tonight.”

It’s enough to make one throw up their hands and stare passively at our screens.

But we can’t.

Because people in our communities need our help.

Yesterday at the Miles Nadal Jcc, in celebration of the holiday of Purim where a genocide against the Jews in the Middle East instigated by a man (of course) was thwarted by a woman (of course), the community got together for The Great Purim Project. Together, they packed 1,110 Matanot L’Evyonim - a Purim tradition of providing food for the hungry.

These food bags were then given to other community members at the nearby Scott Mission, Yonge Street Mission, Jewish Immigration Aid Services and Ve’ahavta.

Talk about meeting the moment.

Were people packing those bags worried sick about their family and friends in the Middle East. Absolutely.

Did they check their phones frequently for news. Definitely.

Did they feel helpless in the face of the violence that they cannot control. Probably.

And yet, in spite of all that, they did something.

And maybe they felt peace for a minute or two.

And perhaps the next time they feel helpless in the madness, they will remind themselves that they are not helpless. That they can do. That they can help someone who needs them. Not on the other side of the world, but right outside their door.

Kindness matters. Today and every day.

Yasher Koach to the Miles Nadal JCares Community. Good on ya.

“The “s” means short needle. The “l” means long. The green bag has two glass pipes with bulbs in it, ok. That’s for meth.”

“Meth. methadone? Opioids.”

“Methamphetamine. Crack. Crystal Meth.”

I can’t remember any of it because I’ve never seen any of it. In York Mills, where I grew up, there was weed and booze and house parties in mansions.

“We finally got housed, my son and I”, says Tom. “The shelter system is just awful. All my shit got stolen. Twice. No one cared. My son lost 20 lbs and he didn’t have them to lose.”

The shelter system is what we on the outsidehave decided is an acceptable solution to the crisis on our streets. We can assuage our guilt and our complicity by saying, “THEY can go to a shelter.” As long as that shelter is not near US.”

“30 days clean!” Sophie yelled.

People gather around for high fives and hugs. Like a scene after a home run or hockey goal. I join in genuinely proud of Sophie.

“It’s so hard to stay sober in this weather,” says DW.

“I know.”

“You don’t know, do ya?” DW taps me lightly on the arm. “And that’s Ok. We love you anyway. You are family.”

A dream that a community would push past red tape, egos, endless meetings, obstacles, and just help another community. A community whose members they likely have never met but might have seen. A community in dire need as local government does the absolute minimum to help.

I dreamt that a community would just step up.

Today, I got this message from the Miles Nadal Jcc—an organization that I have been a part of for 20 years and which I have aptly nicknamed The World’s Greatest J.

Dear Friends,

As the MNjcc evolves and grows, we are taking strides to meet the real needs of our community. We will do this through action, participation, and shared responsibility. This is a moment that asks more of all of us and we are committed to offering opportunities for your and your families to give back to our community.

Here you will find ways to gather, learn, volunteer, and give back - all helping to shape a downtown Jewish community where values are lived, not just named. Over the next month, we’re calling our community to action and offering many ways, big and small, to make a difference, from assembling 1000 Mishloach Manot through the Great Purim Project to volunteering at our Community Tax Support Clinic, knitting for unhoused neighbours, and making sandwiches for those in need. With many ways to give back, every person - regardless of age, ability, identity, or experience - has a role to play.

There is something here that needs you. Bring yourself, and help build what matters.

Did you cry reading this? Did you have tears reading phrases like:
-where values are lived, not just named
-This is a moment that asks more of all of us
-There is something here that needs you. Bring yourself, and help build what matters.

This is what caring community needs to look like in the 21st c:
-the breaking down of Us vs Them
-stepping up when others step down
- involving all ages, colours, religions, and genders in the name of higher purpose work.

If you live in Toronto, please come to the World’s Greatest J at the corner of Bloor and Spadina and get involved!
And if you don’t, this is what your community can and should aspire to.

I am not particularly brave. I refused to go on the London Eye for fear of heights. I have a real princess streak when it comes to bathrooms. I hate camping. When December hits, the homing instinct to go to Florida is strong.

And yet, I put on multiple layers, wind pants, two pairs of socks (I did survive a winter in Winnipeg) and stompled through snow to the street car that thankfully was running.

And not just me. Everyone who was scheduled for their shift showed up, removed their layers and got down to it. Our fearless leader, Toby, had been in the kitchen since 10:00 am making hearty beef chili and mashed potatoes.

Now that I’m home and it’s the day after, I cannot help what wonder what drove us to be there. We could have cancelled the shift. But we didn’t. Why?

We Know These People

We have known many of them for several years. They are not just typeset on the local newspapers. We know their names. We know who is a vegetarian. We know who needs travel devices to get around. We know who is in rehab and who has left rehab. It would be highly cheesy to say they are our“friends” but they are part of our community and we worry about them especially when the weather is bananas. We know we need to show up.

We Know that the Social Services Landscape is a Graveyard…

On a good day. On a day like yesterday, we may have been one of the only services open. We know that the warming centres are inadequate. We know that the food that they received from us may be all they have for a few days.

Bragging Rights

I mean, sure. There are a lot of people who like posting about working with homeless people, myself included. But I think shifts like yesterday separate “bragging rights” from those that feel something else. Something that sits in your gut and tells your brain and your heart that you have to help. That there is almost nothing that is going to make you stay home.

We are all Secret Adrenoline Junkies

Perhaps we are all all drawn to the chaos of outreach work: the mitigating of rules and protocals to save lives, the adrenoline rushes, the whistling or singing that people do to calm their nerves (yesterday we sang every song that had the phrase “Bad Boy.”)Maybe we are all secret adrenoline junkies.

To those who showed up yesterday for whatever reason: to make meals, to hand a freezing human being a warm hot chocolate, to serve our most vulnerable, thank you.

It was minus 7845 degrees last night in Toronto. The content expert was speaking from his heated office. I was listening in my heated office. Many of our socioeconomic problem downtown” were freezing on the streets.

The security content expert pointed to a thick dot on a map where the socioeconomic problem was a significant security issue and mumbled that we should “check it out” sometime.

The thick dot was, of course, on the east side of Toronto: Church, Jarvis and Sherbourne. The socioeconomic problem likely included the 225 people we served Sunday night at St. Luke’s United Church, the community we have been serving for years. I’m not sure exactly what the security content expert defined as a “significant security issue” A person using drugs in a basement bathroom? A person yelling in frustration that he had nowhere to sleep that night? Someone overdosing in the hallway?

Here’s the thing. I’m not going to pretend the “socioeconomic problem downtown” does not pose a security risk. That would be naive and wrong.

However, I am far more afraid of a white male experienced with firearms and equipped with army and police training.

Statistically, the security content expert is far more likely to be a significant security issue than the people I have met on the streets of Toronto a.k.a: the socioeconomic problem downtown.

Sheesh.

It’s unbelievably frustrating.

Perhaps like me, you have had wise mentors who taught you that rules are arbitrary, after all, rules change when the rulers change. Perhaps you have watched these same mentors break protocols to get shit done particularly when the shit has significant moral weight and is a matter of life and death. And perhaps, you have even seen these mentors override all obstacles and got the job done themselves.

Having had such wise mentors in my life, I have developed a very healthy skepticism of rules and authority and bureaucracy especially when these obstacles prevent necessary work from getting done. As I get older and the filter that prevents my inner thoughts from reaching the outside world weakens, I have found myself less inclined to have in-person or online arguements with people in charge about doing critical work. Increasingly, I am drawn to just getting stuff done myself and absorbing the consequences as they come up.

A very very very very small example. On New Year’s Day, I created a rudimentary collection box for canned foods outside my house to be donated to local organizations working with people facing hunger and poverty. I had been trying to for years to get similar things in various public places but to no avail. A myriad of reasons were provided “This will attract those people wandering on our property.” “Where are we going to put such a thing?” “Who is going to take responsiblity for it?” “Will we need a User Manual?” Fair enough, right? Introducing a donation box takes work and people are busy.

Except that people are starving.

Shouldn’t that override the rules?

While you ponder such a question, consider just doing something yourself this year. Set up a collection box for non-perishables, mittens, socks. Whatever you want. My neighbour across the street has created a shelf out of bricks and a plank of wood that is now serving as a shoes pantry for people to give footwear and for others to take footwear.

Be creative.

Just get it done.

“Yeah, sure, Nat. But I need to ask you. How are you doin? I mean, since Bondi. How are ya?”

“The truth? I hate how I feel. I’m angry. I’m sad. I worry that my son works at a Jewish organization. I’m tired of anti-semitism. I’m tired of the preoccupation with anti-semitism. I mean, just look out there. Look at all those cold, exhausted people eating dinner here tonight. Can’t we for once just focus on that?”

Stevie is one of our volunteers. Like so many of us helping out tonight, he grapples daily with crippling mental health issues that he tries to mask. Here he knows he is safe.

“Can I give you a hug. I know you aren’t a huggie gal, but…”

“Bring it in, big guy!”

DW limps in. His ongoing health issues remain a mystery. His shoes are untied. Another volunteer and I kneel down and tie his shoes.

“Thank you ladies!”

Tony is busy scrubbing pots. His right arm has a swollen spot and blood covers the gauze.”

“What happened to you?”

“ I had to get blood work. The doc just jabbed the needle here when I told her it was better to do it here. Now look at it. It’s a fucking mess.”

I also got blood work done the day before. The insertion site is clean, healing. I wonder, for the millionth time, whether I get the better treatment because of how I look and speak compared to Tony. Actually, I don’t wonder at all.

Stevie and I get the First Aid kit. We don’t have an ice pack, but we do have a frozen stick of mozzerella. Tony ties the mozzerella to his arm and continues to scrub pots.

“If that starts to hurt, you go right back to the hospital,” says Stevie.

I wander out to the dining area to the beat of munching.

“Hey Natalie. Do you celebrate Chanukah?”

“I try.”

“Can I ask you something?” Kenny doesn’t wait for my answer. “Did you lose anyone in Australia? Did you know anyone.”

“Thankfully no. But so awful. So unbelievably awful.”

“Do you think that the Enlightenment was good for the Jews?”

Kenny is a savant. I am stunned by his knowledge, his memory. It kills me that this magnificent man with this magnificent brain is here.

I really need to get back to the kitchen. The meals that Stevie and I put in are probably burning and people are hungry, but I sit down for a few minutes of connection and of light.

My shift ends, Mark holds the door open.

“Thank you, sir! Merry Christmas,” I say cheerfully.

“I don’t have anything at home that says “Christmas. Nothing. It might as well be any other time of the year.”

I reach onto my head and grab the Christmas reindeer ears that all of the volunteers wore today.

“Here you go! Take these!!”

Mark puts them on his head, reaches into his pocket, and presents me with a pink Chanukah candle.

Like so many Jews, I have been listening to the news out of Australia. In the midst of the carnage reporting, the word that kept coming up was “community.” The community helped out before the emergency crews showed up. Ahmed al Ahmed, the man who disarmed one of the shooters and apparently was injured himself in the process, was a community member who owned a nearby store. Did he love the neighbours he was saving? Who knows. But he helped out in his community. As did so many others.

The night before, I listened to Rachel Maddow and Timothy Snyder talk about how to save democracy in Chicago. The destination was intentional for it was the people of Chicagoland who successfully stood up to ICE in their communities. One the people they discussed and who was in attendance was Baltazar Enriquez. This hero started wearing a whistle in his Little Village community blowing it to warn his fellow neighbours of impending ICE raids. This idea caught on: a community response of resistance and protection of neighbours.

Does Baltazar Enriquez know all of his neighbours, all of his community. Probably not. But he knew that he had a responsibility to help and protect them.

And so do all of us.

Most of us have members of our community who need help be it in the neighbourhoods where we live, where we work, where we pray, where we go to school. Do we know them? Probably not. But like Baltazar Enriquez and the people who helped out on Bondi Beach, that isn’t really relevant. We don’t have to know them. What we must internalize in that we want our neighbours and community to help us when we are need. If we are in a life-threatening situation, we want the Ahmed al Ahmeds and Baltazar Enriquezs and the homeless man sleeping on a grate in our community to help. And if the Ahmed al Ahmeds and Baltazar Enriquezs and the homeless man sleeping on the grate in our community are in a life-threatening situation, we need to help them. Because you never know when you are going to need their help, but you do know when they need yours.

We are living in a moment when governments around the world whether by choice or circumstance are non-reactive or unable to react in time to crisis. This is why communities need to step up and help their neighbours.

To Love Your Neighbour as Yourself can no longer just be a biblical injunction. It must form the backbone of our resistance to this current moment of violence and hate.

My two great loves in life are kids and dogs.

A stop at a family shelter is both my favorite and my most difficult.

Last week, when the weather finally turned colder, we had a long line up. Toddlers holding on to their mom’s hands shivering.

We are supposed to serve in an orderly line, one at a time, but the sight of mittenless three year olds in the wind has to bend the rules. I get out a bucket of mitts and hats and hand warmers and start walking the line.

I give a young girl a hat but she wants one with a pom pom and who can blame her. Another spies a Blue Jays toque.

“Can I please have that one? I love Vladdy!”

The one word everyone in this shelter has heard way too often is No. No you can’t play in the parking lot which is your only play space. No you can’t have that toy, it’s too expensive. No you can’t work here because even though you were a nurse in your home country, you don’t have Canadian qualifications.

The one word I try to avoid is No.

“Of course…here you go. And some blue gloves to match.”

“I hope they sign Bo.”

“Who’s your fave player”, another boy asks rummaging through the bin.

“Mad Max. If I was a player, that’s who I’d be.”

“Not me! I’d be Ernie!”

“I’d be Captain Kirk!”

“Jays suck man, go Raptors.”

“I hate sports. I want to be an influencer.”

“What do you want to influence?”

“Ummm….cookies. I want to tell people the best cookies to get.”

“Love it!” I show her a You Tube of Cookie Monster singing “I lost my cookie at the disco.”

“Nat, Nat…come here,” says a mom. She is pointing to a hallway where a dozen kids of all shapes and colours are eating the food we have brought. I fill a bag with chocolate chip cookies and give it to them.

“See how happy your visits make them. We love when you guys come by.”

We drive away to our own world where kids hear Yes, the mittens are plentiful, and the path to continued comfort and security is guaranteed.

After spending several weeks in the hospital, he wanted to hang out with his community on the east side. I picked him up and because traffic in the city is beyond, we had a lot of time to chat.

In another world, DW was a successful business man, married, 2 daughters. What changed?

“My fault,” he says. “All my fault.”

His daughters don’t speak to him. Don’t know their father is ill.

“Too many broken promises. Too many chances. My fault. All of it. I would have done to the same to my father.”

I wonder about the word “fault.” So many blame the homeless for their situation, “It’s their fault. They made bad decisions.”

Is that true? Is it the fault of an adult on the streets raised in the child welfare system? Is it the fault of a teenager who ran away from home because their parents objected to their being trans? The man whose wife died and lost his home because he couldn’t pay the rent and now lives in an encampment?”

And what about the fact that I, too, have made some very bad decisions in my lifetime but have not wound up on the streets?

Is it possible that when you have so little going in, one bad decision can be more devestating? If that is the case, whose fault is it that people begin their lives at such disadvantage?

And why is it that so many of our homeless are men, indigenous, or racialized? Whose fault is that?

Perhaps we need to think about who is really at fault here.

I have a dress for you. It is warm and colourful and you can layer something under it. I think you would love it.

We met a few months ago. You are one of the main characters in Maggie Helwig’s award winning book Encampment about the St. Stephens-in-the Fields encampment. You spoke at the book launch at the church that was part of your community for so many years. Afterwards, I asked you to sign my copy.

The next day, I brought you some dresses and boots but you weren’t there so I put everyting on top of your red tent.

A few weeks later, I read in an outreach report that one of my colleagues resuscitated you. I came by to check to make sure you were OK. You were sitting with Kaitlyn chatting. I was relieved.

Every time I dropped off food or clothing at the encampment, I asked after you. I told people to tell you that the middle aged redhead outreach worker said Hello. I hope you got my messages.

I was away last month when I heard that your home had been destroyed and replaced with what looks like gravestones - the day after Encampment won the Toronto Book Award.

There is now a sign where you used to live saying you can’t live there anymore.

I get that there were safety concerns with fire. I get that the encampment was noisy and messy.

SO WHY THE FUCK DIDN”T THE CITY BUILD SAFE AND AFFORDABLE HOU}SING FOR YOU…

Instead of throwing you out to nowhere.

Because, Artist, there is no will to help you and the 15,000 other homeless people in Toronto.

Because, Artist, people don’t give a shit about people like you.

Because, Artist, people have decided that whether you live or die is not important to them.

Where are you, Artist?

I have a dress for you.