UNWELCOME RECORD
Twelve people were added to the Homeless Memorial, the largest amount seen over three-month period,
Twelve names have been added to the Toronto Homeless Memorial, tacked to the end of a list now 966 names long and posted outside of the Church of the Holy Trinity.
“This is unprecedented and it keeps getting worse,” said memorial volunteer Rayna Slobodian of the city’s homelessness crisis. She spoke with the Star Tuesday after calling out the names, which included eight men and four women who died over the last three months. She said it was the longest list she can remember at a single memorial since she started volunteering in 2015.
The physical memorial was created in 2001 and includes names going back to the mid 1980s. Last year, Slobodian created an online version of the memorial where photos and stories can also be shared.
Ontario’s new Progressive Conservative government, she said, has chosen to prioritize spending on gambling projects and loosening rules around public drinking “over peoples lives and it is abhorrent.”
The memorial was expanded on the same day city council struggled to make sense of what provincial cuts to Toronto Public Health could mean for the city, including student nutrition and vaccination programs and the control of infectious diseases. The province has defended the cuts as part of a broader search for efficiencies and efforts to streamline and improve health services.
Seven of the 12 people added on Tuesday were documented as John Does and Jane Does, a term used by the city when reporting the deaths in the emergency shelter system and also when the name of the person is not known to volunteers.
Nine people died in April, two in May and one person in March, based on dates on the memorial. In some cases, family members will request that names are not posted on the memorial and volunteers honour those requests.
Names are added the first Tuesday each month, as volunteers become aware of them. It is a chance for community members to grieve, share announcements and make public calls for action before heading inside to share a meal.
The causes of death range but are all linked to issues related to homelessness, which are widely accepted as addiction, mental and physical health issues, disabilities, poverty, violence and neglect.
In Toronto in 2018, the city reported 91 deaths, with 101 deaths reported the previous year. The 2019 numbers have not been posted.
Prior to 2017, the city tracked deaths across emergency shelters, but the co-ordinated count includes information provided by front-line workers.
The move followed a 2016 investigation by the Star’s Mary Ormsby and Kenyon Wallace that revealed there was no central tracking system for the number of people who lived and died on Toronto’s streets.
Now the city is working with more than 200 health and community agencies in an attempt to keep track of homeless deaths. Slobodian said it is a common belief that winter is the greatest threat for people without housing.
“It doesn’t matter the time of year,” she said. “We are just continually adding names and it needs to end.”
Street nurse and longtime advocate Cathy Crowe walked to the memorial Tuesday from city hall, after listening to council discuss the looming cuts to public health. When asked what it could mean for Toronto’s most marginalized, Crowe cited immunization programs and tuberculous screenings.
People experiencing homelessness have always “had the short stick” and existing services already fall short of what is needed, Crowe said.