What happened? (click here)

It’s common knowledge that substance abuse is endemic amongst the homeless community, but have you ever stopped to wonder why?

I have met pre teen girls whose addicted mothers started them on heroin or crack and put them to work as prostitutes.

I have met young boys and girls who grew up in homes where alcohol and drug abuse were the norm.

I have met children who left their homes because of physical, psychological or sexual abuse and turned to drugs and alcohol to dull the pain.

I have met aging and dying people who should have become revered seniors in our society who are the result of similar situations.

I have met countless homeless people who never used drugs before society turned its back on them and left them to struggle for survival on the streets. When society turns it’s back and life becomes a minute by minute struggle to stay alive, substance abuse is a natural and nearly inevitable result. Every one of us would seek some kind of comfort from the pain of exclusion.

I have met many others like myself who were unaware of the dangers of drug use until it was too late, We thought the warnings were just more lies from the slave masters of our present socio economic system.

I have NEVER MET anyone who woke up one morning and said to themselves, “What should I do today? I know, I’ll become a drug addict.”

Other than homelessness and substance abuse, these people are NO DIFFERENT than anyone else. They laugh, they cry and they try to survive.

Think about it. Should society penalize these victims and condemn them to a premature death or should we do more to find a way to help them?

An Interview with Jack Layton, The only leader who cares. CLICK TO VIEW INTERVIEW

In this interview, Jack mentions that a homeless person froze to death in a bus shelter near his home. The ciy's solution was to REMOVE THE BUS SHELTER, and the meager protection it allowed. WHAT KIND OF IDIOTS ARE RUNNING THIS WORLD??????

Democracy Is Dead

I recently learned that to have any hope of getting elected, a candidate for the Presidency of the US has to spend FIVE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS on his campaign. What this means to the voting public is that each and every candidate has been bought and paid for and owes total fidelity to the fat cats who back him.

If the 10% rule applies in Canadian politics as it does in most things, Stephen Harper must have spent FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS to get elected last time and will have to spend that much again to get re-elected. NO WONDER HE CONSISTANTLY LEGISLATES IN FAVOUR OF HIS MASTERS.

We make a difference.

Homeless people develop a feeling of disconnection, from other people, from society and from themselves. This disconnection breeds feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness. This is a major contributing factor to the failure rate of attempts to bring them back into society. I know I've been there. I've felt the hopelessness and seen it amongst my peers.

I believe that this photography project which I am fortunate enough to have joined, serves an important role in helping both the artists and the subjects to regain a feeling of self worth and importance. Not only do we take a photograph, but we communicate on a very real and personal level with most of the subjects. The result is a type of bonding which is uncommon within the homeless community. I have witnessed the effects first hand. The group members have become stronger and formed friendships with each other and developed a connection with society as a whole, which strengthens them and improves their chances of rejoining society on a permanent basis. The subjects express gratitude for the chance to talk about their situation with someone who actually cares and hopefully this will lead to further connections for one or two of them. If we help one person take the first step on the road back, we will have been successful.

When I was homeless, several ordinary people took the time to talk to me. Not preaching, you understand. Just listening to what I had to say about myself and my circumstances. The ones I appreciated most didn't try to tell me what to do they just listened and showed that they cared. They helped to restore hope. This gave me the strength to try and eventually I came back.

My Camps (Click Here)

There Is a Solution If you agree with this suggestion, send this to Your political leaders and ALL your friends. YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

More Evicting Chris (click here)

On August 23.2006 city workers with trucks, heavy equipment and a contingency of mounted police demolished Chris Gardiner's home under the on ramp to the Gardiner Expressway. Chris is a gentle person who does no harm. I have known him for many years and can testify that he is supportive and helpful to others. His squat was always neat and clean and he is not a drug addict. Similar scenes occur on a regular basis in Toronto, as authorities pursue a policy of harassment designed to drive homeless people from the city. People who were born and raised here are being driven out to seek shelter in a more friendly location. The same thing and worse has happened to me on several occasions. Each time I gathered up the few belongings that remained after they took my home to the dump, found a new secluded site and started over. Every homeless person who ever had a squat will speak of similar experiences. They don't want homeless people in Toronto, but they won't make affordable housing available. It's cheaper to just drive us away and let someone else deal with the problem. I wonder what an eviction like this costs the City.

Evicting Chris Gardiner (click here)

This article appeared in the Toronto Star Pubdate:August 24, 2006Page: A12Section: NewsEdition:MET Length:498 Highway shanty knocked down. City bulldozes shack by Gardiner Man lived there for several years Byline/Source: By Christopher Maughan Toronto Star Photo Caption: TORY ZIMMERMAN TORONTO STAR Ron Craven, a friend of Chris "Gardiner," was among those who objected to the removal of Chris' shack beneath the downtown highway. He was so at home he named himself after the place. But after eight years living there, a homeless man who became known as Chris "Gardiner" has been evicted from his makeshift house underneath Toronto's downtown highway. City officials and Toronto police arrived at around 7 a.m. yesterday to try to persuade Chris, 44, and five other residents to agree to move into social housing. An hour and a half later, police dragged all of them from the home, taking him and three others into custody. Then the bulldozers went to work, trashing the walls of his small, three-room shack. About 30 people showed up to protest the eviction. Many knew Chris personally and wondered why he was being targeted now, given that he had lived there peaceably for so many years. "He's an easygoing, gentle person," said Ron Craven, an elderly man who lived with Chris while he was still on the streets. "There's no criminality in him at all." Shawn Simpson, who was evicted yesterday morning but not taken into custody, said he thought he knew why the shack was torn down. "See behind there, the condos being built? Nobody in there wants to look at this," he said over the roar of nearby dump trucks. Still, it's hard to see how people would have even noticed it, tucked underneath the on-ramp, inside a chain-link fence around an old hydro transformer. Chris had put up sticks on the fence to screen off his shack. Inside, he had a propane-stove, a TV and light running off batteries, even a sink. It took him almost two years to scrounge up boards, nails, and scrap metal to build the place, after police tore down an earlier shack. Simpson said he'll remember Chris' shack as a welcome spot. "He would cook Christmas dinner for all the homeless people who get a little depressed that time of year. But no matter what I say, people won't understand, they'll just judge us." But Iain De Jong, an outreach worker with the city's Streets to Homes project, insisted he had Chris' and his roommates' best interests at heart. "My message is pretty clear: we're there to provide services and we're there to provide help." He said the eviction is due to refurbishment being done on the underside of the highway. Since it began a year and a half ago, the Streets to Homes project has successfully gotten 730 people into social housing, De Jong said. This article appeared in the Globe & Mail

TORONTO -- A man who has been living under a highway off-ramp for the past eight years was evicted from his makeshift home yesterday morning, following a standoff between police and activists who accuse the city of treating homeless people without respect. Chris "Gardiner" - named after the roadway that sheltered him - was arrested along with five friends who stood by his side as police entered the small three-room house built out of scrap wood. They were all released yesterday afternoon, after being charged with trespassing and failure to leave the premises when directed, and fined $70 each. TD "It is the end, but it's also the beginning," Chris said in an interview after his release. "The city has not heard the last from me. They have no idea what's in store for them." A 44-year-old with a bushy brown beard, glasses and long, brown dreadlocks tied up under a navy blue bandana, Chris held his ribs in pain, saying police had "dropped him" during the arrest. His eviction follows a year of formal requests by the city that he move on so that construction could begin on the pillars that hold up the highway above. On Friday, he received a written notice from the city warning him to leave his shack by 12:01 a.m. yesterday. Nearly 30 bystanders, many who camped overnight to support Chris, chanted "Shame" and "Leave Chris alone" yesterday morning as officers handcuffed and carried him out of his shack. The dwelling, complete with a well-stocked kitchen, a propane-powered camping stove, a sink (but no running water) and a light bulb hanging from the ceiling, powered by the same battery that ran his stereo and hand-held television, was torn down by hydro workers shortly afterward. His belongings, city officials said, have been "put away in safe storage." Chris said later that he doesn't want any of his possessions back. In fact, he has refused to accept anything from city outreach workers, who have offered him an apartment and other help. Iain De Jong, manager of the city's Streets into Homes project, said he has been trying for months to convince Chris to move into subsidized housing. "Look around, this is a construction zone," Mr. De Jong said. "There's work being done in this area, it is not a safe environment to be living in. There will be equipment, there will be trucks going in and out, there will be dust and debris falling down from overhead." In anticipation of the construction, Mr. De Jong said an intensive outreach program has had city workers visiting homeless people underneath the Gardiner "multiple times each day" for the last month. But Kolin Davidson, once homeless but now an activist with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, said such programs don't respect people's rights. "You don't send outreach workers down simply as a precursor to an eviction notice," said Mr. Davidson, who was one of the supporters arrested yesterday. "Chris was a lot safer [underneath the Gardiner] than in the slums that are available to him. The City of Toronto has a lot to learn about building trust with people." Mr. De Jong argued that moving people into special housing is the only way the city can solve homelessness. "I've seen people's lives change for the better when they make the move from living underneath bridges or out in parks and into safe and affordable housing," he said. Between February, 2005 and June, 2006, the city's Streets into Homes project moved 730 people directly from the street into housing, Mr. De Jong said. According to a city report, only 11 per cent of those people became homeless again. "When we bring someone from the streets to a house we don't just say goodbye after that," he said. "There are dedicated staff who follow up with these individuals." Chris says he makes $35 to $50 a week returning empty beer bottles and picking up dropped change. Originally from Montreal, he came to Toronto when he was 19. At 31, he said he went through "a kind of revelation" and adopted religious convictions that include a rejection of the notion of land ownership. "You can worship your false god - the law - and claim that he owns everything. I do not," he said. "I claim that the real God owns everything including the Gardiner Expressway itself, the land under the Gardiner Expressway and the air over the Gardiner Expressway."

Squats (click here)

Squats are what we call our makeshift homes. When you see someone sleeping on the sidewalk and you think there are so many of us, you're only seeing the tip of the iceberg. I never slept on the sidewalk. I ALWAYS had a squat hidden away somewhere, a place to sleep in safety, to store my few possessions, to relax, to get high. So, although I was homeless in the traditional sense of the phrase, I was never without a home. If you look in the hidden places you will find that most of us are squatting in tents, in homemade shacks, in abandoned vehicles, in abandoned buildings, in culverts, in containers, under bridges, anywhere we can find to be safe, invisible and sheltered from the weather. There are a lot more of us than meets the eye. the disgrace of homelessness in our town is much worse than you could imagine. Here are some squats that were photographed by an outreach worker from Street Survivors, a program attached to Central Neighbourhood House and dedicated to helping the homeless. There is a whole industry that has been created in response to this problem. Services such as health, outreach, drop in centres, shelters, housing search assistance, legal assistance, advocacy groups and more have been implemented at a cost far in excess of what it would cost to prevent the problem in the first place. AFFORDABLE and ACCESSIBLE HOUSING.

Alleys (click here)

There used to be a swing in there where I would sit and smoke a joint and rest. Now there is a fence. We try to stay out of sight as much as possible, so Rooftops, Lanes and Alleys are our natural habitat, but the authorities are fencing off all of our hiding places and forcing us to stay out in plane view. This seems counter productive to me. They say that all the homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks is bad for business, so why do they force us out of our hiding places? We don't want the tourists to see our misery any more than you do.

The Art of the Street (click here)

Graffiti is an art form which exemplifies the lifestyle out here. It is bold and free in spirit and totally irreverent. Many of these works are produced by homeless people, but most are created by others. The artists all have a common link, they are drawn by the magnetic appeal of a wild and undisciplined lifestyle. The rules that society places on us all are ignored or, more often flagrantly broken. While the authorities view graffiti as vandalism, many property owners actually post signs inviting the artists to apply their skills. Because the venue is usually in secluded and perceptively dangerous locations, the so called normal citizens rarely see the best of it. The range of styles, subject matter and talent is limitless and the effect on our environment is a testament to the times in which we live.