MY TORONTO
photo contest winners, all of whom have experienced homelessness, showcase what Canada’s largest city means to them,
It was just before sunrise when Distant Thunder awoke to the sound of frantic knocking on the bedroom door.
He was in a downtown Airbnb. It was about 7:20 a.m. and he’d been scheduled to appear on Breakfast Television at 7:12 a.m. sharp, to talk about a photograph he had taken for the MYTORONTO contest.
The screen of his new cellphone was lit up with close to 20 text messages and missed calls. He fired off a text. “I slept in! Oh.” A soft-spoken Ojibwa man, Thunder was one of 100 people, all of whom had experienced or been affected by homelessness, who had been given disposable cameras and were asked to show what Toronto was to them.
His photo was of a spiked metal sculpture that appeared to rise toward the sky like leafless trees from a forest floor. Two rounds of judging had won him a page in a calendar that would be sold across the city.
That mid-October morning he was anxious, afraid he had disappointed organizers, friends and a community who supported him after a dark period in his life.
Thunder, 41, considered not showing up. Then he refocused, adapted and got out the door.
At the studio the production crew had deftly reorganized its lineup and he learned, on live television, that he had shot the cover photo.
“Well, I got off to a shaky start but after I put one foot in front of the other I realized everything was going to be OK,” he said.
The Star has been following Thunder and fellow MYTORONTO contestants since camera distribution day in mid-June, to see the city through their eyes and share what they hope people who look at their photos will take away.
The television appearance was the kickoff for a day of promotional events, tied to the official launch of the calendar and a gallery opening, where the top 40 photos were displayed, alongside smaller prints of photos by other contestants. What followed was a private awards ceremony, speeches, networking, calendar sales, an opening party at the gallery and autographs and ended with Thunder sitting slightly dumbstruck in his apartment about 14 hours later.
When asked to describe his day he uses one word — “surreal.” MYTORONTO was modelled on MyLondon, launched by Café Art, in England, in 2013. It was brought to Toronto through a partnership between humanitarian charity Ve’ahavta and the Toronto Alliance to End Homelessness, with help from the London founders.
The Toronto group included members of the Inner City Family Health Team and Habitat Services, city staff and commercial businesses. Photo judges included Councillor James Pasternak and leaders in Toronto’s photography and art scene, among them Christy Thompson, chief, exhibitions and collections, at the Art Gallery of Ontario and gallery owner Stephen Bulger.
In Toronto, 90 of the 100 cameras were returned and more than 2,400 images were developed.
The top 40 winners got cash prizes and the city issued special licences so they could sell the calendar on the street, keeping half the $20 cost as profit.
Each of the13 people with photos in the calendar had experienced homelessness, or relied on emergency shelters or transitional housing at one point in their lives. All spoke of the need for less judgment toward people struggling to find or keep housing and more places for people to live. The first year of MYTORONTO coincides with what is described as a countrywide housing crisis and a time when the government is poised to make meaningful change, through the National Housing Strategy.
About 35,000 Canadians will not have a place to call home on any given night and about 235,000 over the year, according to the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness.
Toronto’s emergency shelter system can house about 5,660 people, including 85 spots added over the weekend, and by mid-November was at 96-per-cent capacity.
In 2018, almost 270 new beds are expected to be added, according to city staff.
Thunder has an apartment in Scarborough. He had stayed at the Airbnb so he could be close to the Breakfast Television studios, at Yonge and Dundas Square.
He was told to arrive by 6:30 a.m. The crew had pre-taped a segment about his life and photo and the plan was to surprise him with news that he shot the cover photo.
As the minutes ticked by, Daphna Nussbaum, special projects manager, Ve’ahavta and MYTORONTO project co-ordinator filled Thunder’s phone with missed calls and texts. Ve’ahavta’s director of development drove to the Airbnb to knock, unsuccessfully, on the outside door.
As anxiety mounted in the downstairs lobby, segment producer Janina Palhares interjected calmly, “I don’t get worried till it’s 12 after,” the exact time he was to be on air.
“This shouldn’t be indicative of the day,” said Nussbaum, smiling and slightly frazzled, at about 6:50 a.m.
Twenty minutes later, with no sign of Thunder, the decision was made to put MYTORONTO co-founder Mathew Diamond on air.
The cameras were rolling when Nussbaum got a call back from one of the men living in the apartment that they had knocked on the bedroom door and Thunder had just overslept, to her clear relief. He had a new phone and the volume was on low.
“There’s still time,” texted Nussbaum. “Let’s do this. We want you here!”
A taxi was called and he got to the studio around 7:45 a.m.
Thunder was deeply apologetic and appeared composed. “Inside I was a wreck,” he said. Hiding feelings is a trick he used in customer service, he explained, and one he taught himself to cope with years of abuse.
After a quick breakfast at a nearby diner, then a brief prep in studio, Thunder was on air and told he was the winner.
“Wow,” he said, managing only a few words, before the segment wrapped up.
Moments later, the news Gord Downie had died spread through the studio and the focus of the crew shifted to paying tribute to a Canadian legend.
Distant Thunder was born Kenneth Strong, in the Lake of the Woods District Hospital, in Kenora and is the second youngest of five kids.
Thunder, he explains, is his spirit name given at birth and one he now chooses to use. At the age of 2 he was placed into foster care by parents who, he said, wanted him to have a better life.
Those hopes were elusive, however. Thunder described a tormented childhood where physical and sexual abuse left lasting scars on a soft-spoken and thoughtful kid. The violence contributed to his later struggles with drugs, alcohol and emotional issues.
His teen years included four years in the United States. He then returned to Canada where he says he faced bullying and went to three high schools, all with his sights set on getting out of Thunder Bay.
Toronto is the ninth city he has called home, and a place he decided to move to after he hit what he described as rock bottom in Montreal, in late 2015.
Thunder identifies as two-spirited, and was seeking a place where he could receive support in a community setting.
A search on the internet led him to Native-Men’s-Residence, a multiservice agency, shelter and housing provider for Indigenous and marginalized men. He packed two bags and was in Toronto in days.
There he found a home where staff got him into transitional housing, helped him heal, encouraged him to be creative and gave him the confidence to seek out opportunities, like the contest.
For five days in October, Thunder’s photo and the photos of his fellow winners were on display at Artscape Youngplace, a community art hub on Shaw St.
On opening day, Thunder, travelling with a team, was the first participant to arrive. “I had to take everything in,” at first and then there was “the surreal moment, when I saw my work on the wall.”
Later, standing at the podium at an early afternoon awards ceremony, he expressed gratitude for Na-Me-Res, thanked the MY TORONTO crew and all contestants and wished them luck for next year.
The ceremony was a joyful event. Participants visited with friends, thanked supporters, sold calendars, shared stories and spoke frankly about the hardships that come with being precariously housed. Overcoming social anxiety was a challenge for some, as was relying on public transportation. One weary contestant had just been released from hospital, following a bout of pneumonia.
Another calendar winner, Gui-
“But after you breathe and you actually wake up and realize what is going on, that it is OK to go wherever it is that you are going to, that is courage.” DISTANT THUNDER MY TORONTO CALENDAR COVER SHOT WINNER
seppe Carulli, who was staying at NaMe-Res in June, was back to couch surfing and said he was struggling with drugs and depression.
His photo was a painted image of a planet, with the words “Don’t Judge,” taken beneath a bridge where Carulli, 47, used to play as a child. It was one of two he had in the top 40.
Homelessness and the endless instability that comes with it is a new experience for him. He hoped sharing it would help people understand how hard life can suddenly and unexpectedly become.
“It is very hard to get respect, which in my life I’ve given respect all the time so when I don’t receive it back it really hurts.”
Most of the contest winners, after the awards show, left Artscape Youngplace to tackle the rest of their day. Thunder, with a handful of win- ners, stayed on for a public and packed gallery opening, filled with friends, judges, sponsors and fans of the project. At one point, Thunder was signing calendars, with a thin ink pen. “I need a Sharpie,” said Thunder, clearly amused by his peculiar day.
Thunder’s first Toronto home is in Scarborough, less than a 10-minute walk from Bluffer’s Park and a lifetime away from his rock bottom moment in Montreal.
On launch day, after almost14 hours on the move and positive and intense public exposure, that quiet one-bedroom apartment was his final stop. “When I got home, I put down my bags and I just sat there with my coat on and was just like, ‘What happened?’ ” Thunder said. “Then, of course, I reflected on Gord Downie.”
He stayed up until 2:30 a.m., looking at photos and thinking about his future.
Life is unpredictable, requires patience and gratitude and sometimes things will not go as planned, he said, and you have to adapt.
“But after you breathe and you actually wake up and realize what is going on, that it is OK to go wherever it is that you are going to, that is courage.”
To learn more go to mytorontocalendar.com.