Vocal majority tests faith in humanity

Scarborough community meeting welcomes all walks of life — but not a men’s transitional home

If you’re in the mood to have your faith in the human spirit stomped on, I suggest spending your evening at a community meeting discussing a proposed homeless shelter.

At one such meeting on Tuesday at Markham and Kingston Rds., an impressively multicultural, multigenerational, mixed-income crowd of about 200 residents joined together to give voice to their abundant fear and loathing of “those people,” as more than one speaker put it. This meeting was held in a banquet hall near the eastern end of a strip of Kingston Rd. that is dotted with motels, holdovers from a time when this was the main eastern route into Toronto. The strip has in recent decades become known locally as a home to rough customers.

At the meeting, residents were clear on the effect of this: One young woman spoke of walking over needles, broken glass and condoms on her way to school.

During the first hour of the meeting, Councillor Gary Crawford and Gordon Tanner of the city’s shelter, support and housing division explained the city’s plan to buy up two motels on the strip near Bellamy Rd.

One would be demolished, its lot used for a park or some other community purpose as yet to be determined. When this was announced, the crowd broke into loud, sustained applause.

The other would be converted into the new home of the Birchmount Men’s Residence. Crawford and Tanner were joined by Birchmount residence manager Emese Kis to explain what that facility is all about: It is a “transitional” home for formerly homeless men older than 55, mostly senior citizens, referred by the downtown emergency shelter Seaton House. They live at Birchmount long term — some for a few months, some for years — receiving nursing and social support and help in trying to transition into stable housing.

For some, that means moving back into employment and a private apartment, for others that means a long-term-care medical facility. For some others still, Crawford told me on the phone later, this becomes “their last resting place.”

This is not an emergency shelter where random people line up to secure a bed for the night, the speakers onstage repeatedly emphasized. It’s a home. Many of the residents have severe mobility issues and seldom leave the facility. All have gone through a screening process that excludes sex offenders, among others.

The pastor of the Baptist church near the existing facility spoke about what a treasured part of his church’s community the residence has become.

The vocal majority of residents in attendance were having none of it.

A line of residents came to the microphone one by one for more than an hour. Some spoke with local working-class accents, some with Spanish or Vietnamese or Scottish accents, and one woman had that vaguely British posh accent Madonna sometimes adopts. But they all expressed similar anger at the proposal.

It was repeatedly suggested the place would bring drug addicts and other criminals to the neighbourhood. Many speakers suggested it would be an obvious home to pedophiles and rapists.

“We don’t want these people up here,” one man shouted into the microphone. Then he turned and addressed his fellow residents, telling them they could expect to have people sleeping in their doorways and vomiting on their lawns if the shelter opened. “You’ll have your windows broken! Get some alarms on your houses, your insurance is going up!” People cheered. After perhaps 20 people had given voice to their fear and their rage, a former resident of the shelter got up to speak. He had grey hair and black skin, and he hunched and held onto a rail to steady his aging body as he spoke. He said he’d lived in the Birchmount residence for three years, getting back onto his feet and finding a permanent place to live, and that while he understood people’s fears, he had never seen any — not a single instance — of the kind of problems they were talking about.

“It’s old men,” he said, his voice slow and shaking, “I’d ask you to give these people a chance. They have nowhere else to go in this world. It’s a place to find a home, find friends, find a place to live.”

His own frailty seemed a testament to the absence of a safety threat from people like him. He said he’d been raised in a Christian home. “Whatever happened to ‘love your neighbour as you love yourself?’ ” he finished.

The crowd applauded politely for a moment. The next woman came to the microphone and began, introducing herself as local resident and a realtor. “If a shelter goes in, absolutely your home prices are going down,” she said, to loud cheers.

Another man stood up to say it didn’t matter to him if the shelter was well-run or peaceful or basically a hospital. “No one wants to live next to a shelter!” he shouted.

Too true. No one wants to live next to a shelter, even one that’s more of a home, even one for frail senior citizens. No one wants to live next to a shelter, no matter how reasonable it is.

So where are people with nowhere else to go supposed to go?

(“Downtown, where they’re more used to it,” a heckler shouted helpfully at one point.)

Towards the end of the meeting, in response to a question about next steps, Councillor Crawford stood up and told people the proposal would go to the city’s executive committee Dec. 1, where these residents, if they wish, will have another chance to speak about it. Then the matter is scheduled to be heard by city council Dec. 9.

“I understand the majority of the residents here oppose this. I have supported this, and I will continue to support this at city council,” Crawford said.

Boos rang out through the hall. Hecklers shouted. Crawford sat back down.

And yet another resident came to the microphone to berate him. Edward Keenan writes on city issues. ekeenan@thestar.ca. Follow: @thekeenanwire