I don’t get it. I watched a live stream with Johnny Strides going through a massive encampment at Allan Gardens in Toronto.
He said that outreach workers are in the park all the time (they were also there when he was filming), and they offer beds to the people in the encampment, but apparently, most of them decline.
So… do we have beds or not?
If we are offering beds, and people are refusing them, what else can you do?
Number 1, shelters are extremely dangerous places for some people, ie: trans
Number 2, you can’t take all the stuff you’ve gathered into a shelter with you … so it all gets stolen.
Number 3, you can’t take pets with you into shelters.
Number 4, people who’ve been previously assaulted don’t want to put themselves in danger again.
Number 5, children often aren’t allowed in adult shelters, so the shelter will call social services and children get taken away.
I’m not asking for reasons why someone would decline a shelter bed (I have experience through a close family member), but whether beds are available or not.
The news report seems to contradict the outreach workers.
That said, numbers 1-5 can also apply (often much worse) when you’re homeless and not in a shelter, plus you have a much higher chance of drug abuse or being trafficked, especially if you’re underage.
At the very least, shelters offer services for those who want to get off the street. Quite a few favour women (i.e. men are not allowed) and there are shelters specifically for families available throughout the GTA.
Living on the street is risky and offers no chance to get off the street. At the very least, a shelter is a better situation, or potentially an opportunity to get life back on track.
What news reports are contradicting shelter workers?
And I’ve lived on the streets so am aware of the dangers there and in shelters. I’ve also been a social worker. What expertise do you have in the field?
You’re not asking for the reasons because you don’t want to know the reasons, you just want a clean simple way to convince yourself you have no moral duty to others. Just please silently don’t give a fuck.
What else we can do is address the problems with shelters that make them so undesirable to the population that they exist to serve, like the ones enumerated by another user.
A shelter seems like it should be an obviously better option than the dangers of the streets, so something must be broken if people so frequently decline it
It can be both lack of available shelter, and people refusing shelter as well. They aren’t mutually exclusive. From the article:
“It’s been hard calling central intake for people,” she said. “Since September… it hasn’t been an ideal situation. Sometimes you have to call all day, like three, four, five phone calls and then you might be able to find a bed for someone.”
So there’s no available bed for most of the day until there is for someone after the 5th try. There might be a bed available but it’s in Etobicoke when the person and their stuff is in Moss Park.
Even if you go by just numbers 9000 spots isn’t enough for 10 000 homeless in Toronto. But even more than that, the ability to get a person there, to keep them from smoking a cig inside or taking rec drugs in the room, needing a coffee, getting stressed in unfamiliar situations in some cases, or they have a dog with them. There are so many things going on that mean that just having “enough beds” isn’t enough to get them shelter and the dignity they deserve as a person.
