Advocates walk to sound alarm on homelessness emergency
Tracey Rogers and other attendees at the first annual Walk for the Homeless event on Saturday, Sept. 29, 2018. (Photo by Tamas Miko)
By Alyssa Leonard
Tracey Rogers was cold, hungry and struggling with addiction and mental health issues on the streets of Toronto before transitional housing helped turn her life around.
The Windsor woman told her powerful comeback story to more than 100 people at Saturday’s first annual Walk for the Homeless at City Hall Square.
“For the first three weeks, I had nowhere to sleep,” said Rogers, owner of White Feather Holistic Arts on Ottawa Street. “I was cold, I was hungry, I had nothing. I didn’t have a dime to my name.”
She was among about a dozen speakers highlighting the scourge of homelessness, described as a “state of emergency” by one council candidate.
Rogers went from drop-in centres for food and clothing to emergency shelters, before finally finding transitional housing – a free home for up to two years where social workers help the homeless make the transition to low-income housing.
Speaker after speaker condemned the city for not doing enough to combat homelessness and Rogers called on officials to direct more resources to transitional housing.
More than 4,400 people were on the waitlist for low-income housing at the end of 2017, said event co-organizer Patsy Copus, but that number does not tell the whole grim story.
A little boy holds a sign as he walks along Ouellette Avenue in the first annual Walk for the Homeless event on Saturday, Sept. 29, 2018. (Photo by Tamas Miko)
“That is just the total number of applicants,” said Copus. “Not the amount of family members who are on the list.”
The city is planning to build a 150-unit affordable housing complex but more than 500 people had been added to the priority list by February, said Copus, who called on the city to convert old schools into housing units.
Ward 8 council candidate and event co-organizer Lisa Valente said homelessness is a hot topic now because of the election, but that the issue was bigger than politics.
“I believe that we’re in a state of emergency and we have to overcome this homeless issue,” said Valente. “By having an event like this it brings everyone together. Let’s all work together…to deal with this issue and get something done.”
World Homeless Day is coming up Wednesday, Oct. 10.
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