Inquests to shine a light on deaths of Toronto homeless
Families of victims hope results of first such probe in a decade will ‘not fall on deaf ears’
Chris Faulkner remembers his younger brother Grant as a doting father and a likeable, “happy-go-lucky” person, despite the addiction that complicated his life.
“He was a really good father to his three girls,” Chris said from his home in Sault Ste. Marie. “He never drank around the kids.”
However, losing his job was devastating to the Toronto man, recalled brother Chris. “His marriage fell apart, (and) that’s when his life spiralled out of control.”
Grant “Gunner” Faulkner was homeless in the final years of his life, often sleeping rough. The 49year-old died in a Scarborough field on Jan. 13, 2015, when his makeshift hut caught fire.
A five-day inquest into Faulkner’s death begins on Monday, with Dr. David Eden presiding as inquest coroner. Chris Faulkner will be among about 15 witnesses possibly called to testify about the circumstances around his brother’s death.
“This inquest was called in order to focus public attention on concerns surrounding the deaths of homeless persons in Toronto,” said Cheryl Mahyr, a spokesperson for the coroner’s office.
The Faulkner inquest will be one of two to focus on the issue. Brad Chapman was a 43-year-old father of three when he died in a hospital Aug. 26, 2015, after being found without vital signs near a downtown hotel. Ten witnesses are expected to testify at that five-day inquest, which was originally scheduled to begin in July but has now been postponed.
The coroner has not confirmed a new date.
For decades, the scope of homeless deaths was never comprehensively measured by city authorities.
Instead, volunteers kept an unofficial list of the dead at the Toronto Homeless Memorial, which now has more than 800 names.
Toronto Public Health began recording homeless deaths on Jan. 1, 2017, after a Toronto Star investigation found that most municipalities in Ontario do not track such deaths and associated data comprehensively. In previous years, Toronto officials recorded just those occurring in city-administered shelters; for 2016, that number was 33. With the city’s broader mandate, Toronto Public Health reported that100 homeless people died in 2017, an average of almost two per week. The Faulkner and Chapman inquests are the first in more than a decade to focus on deceased homeless individuals who lived in Toronto.
Chapman was found by a security guard slumped in an alcove near the Chelsea Hotel in the early morning of Aug. 18, 2015. Next to him lay a syringe, spoon, cigarette lighter and an empty bottle of Crown Royal. He was taken to the hospital, put on life support and — although his belongings included a shelter card with his name on it — listed as a John Doe.
Chapman’s family learned of his grave condition only six days later thanks to a sleuthing hospital spiritual counsellor.
Unlike mandatory inquests, such as when a child dies as a result of a criminal act or a person dies while in custody, inquests probing homeless deaths fall under the “discretionary” judgment of the coroner.
Discretionary inquests can be held if the coroner decides “it is desirable for the public to have an open and full hearing of the circumstance of a death” and if it is believed “a jury could make useful recommendations to prevent further deaths,” according to the coroner’s website. Recommendations are not binding.
“Like all discretionary inquests, this inquest was called in order to focus public attention on concerns surrounding the deaths of homeless persons in Toronto,” said Cheryl Mahyr, a spokesperson for the coroner’s office.
As to why a study of the deaths was separated into two inquests, Mahyr said, “It became apparent during the investigation that it would be in the public interest to do them separately.”
Faulkner grew up in a full house in Scarborough with his three older siblings.
Vacations were spent visiting his parents’ extended families in Toronto, Sudbury and Manitoulin Island. Later he married, had children and got a job with A.G. Simpson Automotive, an auto parts manufacturer in Cambridge, Ont., his brother said.
In the late 1990s, after Faulkner was laid off and his marriage ended, he drifted back to Toronto, where he briefly worked at Walmart.
“He wasn’t able to see his kids, so that was a real difficulty for him,” Chris Faulkner recalled.
It was a frigid winter night when Faulkner’s scrapwood shelter near McCowan Rd. and Sheppard Ave. became engulfed in flames. Firefighters’ frantic efforts couldn’t save him.
“My hope is that the results of this inquest do not fall on deaf ears and it inspires us to work on real solutions to the problems people like my brother, who I miss greatly, are facing so that tragedies like this do not continue to happen,” Chris Faulkner told the Star.
Inquests are public hearings presided over by a coroner before a jury of five community members. According to the coroner’s official website, five main questions are considered at each inquest: Who was the deceased? Where did the death occur? When did the death occur? How did the death occur? By what means did the death occur?