‘I’m running out of options’
Homeless mother appeals for RV to get through the winter
“I’m alone, I don’t have any family for support. I don’t know what to do.”
Victoria Castro
SYDNEY — A single mother originally from Toronto and now living in Cape Breton is homeless and passionately appealing for help.
Victoria Castro, 33, of Sydney, has placed an ad on Kijiji looking for an RV someone might be discarding to help her and her 13-year old daughter get through the winter.
“I’ve been calling the shelters, they don’t have room,” she said. “If I end up forced to sleep outside I do have a tent. Luckily I haven’t gotten to that point but I’m running out of time.”
Castro said she came to Cape Breton four months ago to work as a live-in personal support worker, but it didn’t work out.
An apartment is out of the question. She showed the Cape Breton Post her online bank account balance of $1.79.
“They require first and last rent and I just don’t have that right now,” she said. “I’ve been calling the shelters and there’s no space. I’m alone, I don’t have family or a support system out there. I don’t know what to do.”
UPBRINGING
Castro was brought up in foster care since the age of five.
“My mother had three kids,” she said. “She ended up taking the two younger ones back. I was the one left behind, Crown warded.”
Her years were spent wondering why her parents didn’t want her or why no extended family ever reached out to her.
“I lacked that compassion, care and love that you’re supposed to get from your own parents,” she said. “It was a very lonely upbringing.”
Castro said as a ward of the Crown, once you turn 18-years-old, government assistance is provided until age 21, then you’re on your own.
After graduating high school, she studied travel and tourism in Toronto. Thirteen years ago, after discovering she was pregnant, she changed her career path. Castro attended St. Clair College in Windsor, Ont., where she took a two-year developmental service program, working with people with disabilities and a one-year accelerated personal support worker course, resulting in two diplomas.
TAKING A CHANCE ON CAPE BRETON
Castro has worked as a personal support worker in Ontario since 2013. One day in the spring she noticed a Kijiji ad for a personal support worker for a Cape Breton man. Living in a remote location in Inverness County, he had difficulty finding support workers. Knowing she had the credentials, Castro felt they could help each other. By allowing her and her daughter to reside there, she’d be able to provide live-in support. Castro felt that would allow her to save and someday be able to get a small cabin for herself and her daughter.
“I wanted to be able to say that even without a support system I was able to do it for myself and my daughter,” she said.
Castro found her client Terron Dodd to be a good man.
“He was very kind, very welcoming,” she said. “We had a lot in common.”
Castro wanted to do a good job assisting him but felt there was a lack of equipment in his home to do so.
She said a physiotherapist recommended a specific type of lift that she knew would be ideal. Then his stove broke and he wanted to find one on Kijiji. Although she didn’t mind a second-hand option, a month went by where she was unable to cook, including for herself and her daughter.
Also worried about their remoteness, she suggested a generator in the event they didn’t have water. The family didn’t think they needed any of these things.
“They told me I’d have to shovel snow into a bucket and then boil it or carry buckets of water from the brook,” she said.
Castro said his family felt she was asking for too many expensive things. She also felt the family didn’t trust her.
“I’d rather remove myself from a situation before it escalates,” she said.
HOMELESSNESS
While living in Toronto, she had connected with someone in Sydney who has allowed her and her daughter to stay with them briefly, but now are indicating she needs to find alternative arrangements.
“I don’t even have my own room,” she said. “It’s an uncomfortable situation.”
In desperation, she placed an ad on Kijiji, ‘Wanted: Homeless mom looking for RV,’ but as of Thursday had not received any responses. She’s been turned down for financing.
“I’m running out of options,” she said.
Castro isn’t eligible for unemployment insurance and can’t even receive social assistance until September. She used her child’s tax credit to prepare her daughter for school.
“I’m on my last dollar,” she said.
Castro said life will get better someday. She found two part-time jobs she hopes to start soon, including as a personal support worker for a local company.
The position requires a vehicle — which she doesn’t have — and includes visiting seniors where needed for support care.
“I needed a job and I’m willing to walk to wherever I have to go,” she said.
The second job is with a security company.
However, she said it takes time to receive a first paycheck and every day is a worry.
“I’m alone, I don’t have any family for support,” she said. “I don’t know what to do.”
Castro can be reached through email at Vickcee06@gmail.com.
She has also started a GoFundMe entitled ‘help small family’ at https://gofund.me/ e3f11ab6 in the event of not finding shelter, in hopes of raising enough to get an apartment and keep them off the streets until she starts working.
THE CLIENT
Terron Dodd of Inverness County said he uses a wheelchair and due to his physical condition, needs support assistance. He said Castro arrived in early May and they got along okay.
“We did seem to have a lot in common, we agreed on a lot of things,” he said.
Knowing Castro has worked in senior homes, Dodd feels she is used to people more disabled than he is and is requesting equipment more suitable to those types of environments.
Dodd purchased his home in 1973.
“I was abled-bodied then,” he said. “But I know the power is not off often enough where I need a generator.”
Dodd wasn’t sure why Castro decided to leave. He receives a continuing care subsidy through the health department to hire a support worker. He has since hired someone else.
“I believe it was Victoria who found this person who is helping me now,” he said, adding it was someone who provided relief for her in the past.
“So I knew her and called her,” he said.
In the meantime, Dodd said Castro never abandoned him, waited until there was someone else in place to help him.
“She offered to stay longer if I needed her,” he added.
STATISTICS
According to Statistics Canada, more than 235,000 people in Canada experience homelessness in any given year, and 25,000 to 35,000 people may be experiencing homelessness on any given night.
In an earlier story in the Cape Breton Post, Janet Bickerton, director of health services for the Sydney-based Ally Centre, said two studies on homelessness in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality indicate some 300 people fall into that category and some 40 per cent are under the age of 30.