Not Much Left To Lose But Life

"It's one crisis too many for everybody. Homelessness is at its absolute worst. Then we have this vile opioid crisis. Then we have to get a pandemic?"

"You have to wonder what's next. You can't imagine it can get any worse. Then it does."

"When you talk about supplying opioids to people with an addiction, people can get all bent out of shape and say, ‘You should have an abstinent life.’ But the reality is in this kind of pandemic all of us are just trying to survive. I do feel that there’s an understanding that people have to do what they have to do to get through the day."
"All of us are struggling these days."

Wendy Muckle, executive director, Ottawa Inner City Health

Mark Barnes serves those with addiction. Jean Levac / Postmedia News

"They have more time on their hands. Time is dangerous to a person with opioid use disorder. Time leads to boredom and boredom leads to drug use. It gives them time to stew about their financial problems, their mental problems and why they use opioids in the first place. Addiction is not a character flaw. It's a true mental health disorder."

"There's an increased drug use risk and overdose potential because of the isolation, depression, anxiety due to COVID-19 and the lack of illicit-drug supply. Now they're going to try experimenting with anything they can get their hands on to turn off that brain. It's terrifying."

"Not only has the panhandling market dried up, many restaurants that have fed the homeless have now closed. Bathrooms are locked and parks are a no-go zone. On top of this, the street drug supply is drying up."

"It's harder to get drugs right now. Some advocates for abstinence think this is a positive thing. This is not a positive thing. This will lead to violence It will lead to crime. It will lead to other problems. Now there's even more of a need for a compassionate way to treat addiction disorder."

Pharmacist Mark Barnes, Respect RX, Vanier

At a time when the broader Canadian society has been stricken with a new reality of unemployment, lost wages, fragile finances, a government trying to convince then coerce people to remain indoors to practise social distancing, to leave home only when absolutely necessary, advocates for the homeless, the drug-addicted and those whose frail mental and physical condition makes them ideal candidates for the freakily communicable COVID-19 appeal for help to an audience focused on their own travail.

The homeless have been forced by the promulgation of orders to clear away from city parks as authorities frantically enact bylaws to compel people to create a physical distance between themselves and others. The homeless spend their days in such parks normally. But this new reality is as far from normal as is conceivable. Normal is where the homeless ask for 'spare change' from passing strangers and occasionally are rewarded for their persistence. They are able to accrue the cash to buy their illicit drugs.

These are not normal times; drugs that would ordinarily be available to feed the need of the addicted are now in short supply. Even while social distancing has also meant that the homeless addicted now also attempt to keep a distance from one another and the end result is loneliness to add to their despair. Being alone means that if someone inadvertently overdoses there is no one beside them to help. Among the multitude of homeless addicts a handful have been selected to take part in a pilot project.

Wendy Muckle of Ottawa Inner City Health. Jean Levac/Postmedia News

"Those most likely to die" are given access to prescription opioids through the provincial drug program. Just a few months into its inception, the safer-drug program focuses on those whom existing services haven't touched. "We're pushing hard on the safer-supply agenda. The illicit-drug supply, which has always been toxic and unstable is even more unstable in the midst of the pandemic", explained Wendy Muckle.

Homeless shelters have faced an immense burden in their efforts to accommodate the homeless, and now food scarcity is also looming as a problem for the unhoused and addicted. What in all likelihood strikes fear into the consciousness of the homeless addicted, however, is not the restrictions on their movement, the growing scarcity of places where they can gather, the growing lack of places offering them food and the disappearance of the source of their begging-cup, but the supply drying up of the street drugs their lifestyle depends upon.

Currently in Ottawa there are approximately 860 individuals living in the community shelter system along with about 90 people living on the streets, according to the city's community and social services department. (Jean Delisle/CBC)

Beating the Record Heat

"Toronto Public Health is warning people to stay cool, so we need cool places for the homeless to go, not just shopping malls, libraries and community centres, which are not open 24-7."
"Heat is hard on peoples' health, especially if they have heart disease, diabetes, or other chronic health conditions, or if they're on psychiatric medication."
Cathy Crowe, street nurse, visiting professor, Ryerson University

"In extreme heat, cooling centres offer respite to many experiencing homelessness or inadequate housing -- and can be a lifesaver."
"More than one 24-hour cooling centre in the city would assist more people suffering in these conditions."
"The city and the province must commit to build housing that is truly affordable so low-income people are not forced to live in unsafe and precarious conditions."
Bahar Shadpour, spokesperson, Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario

"[Toronto Mayor John Tory] has led council in expanding Toronto';s shelter and respite system so that anyone who needs shelter in our city can find it."
"Despite this unprecedented demand for homeless services [with the recent influx of undocumented illegal arrivals], the city has been providing shelter to those who need it, including refugee claimants and asylum seekers who occupy more than 40 percent of the shelter system."
"Mayor Tory has been very clear about the need for the federal and provincial governments to help with the shelter demands of refugee claimants."
Don Peat, spokesperson for Toronto Mayor John Tory

Toronto’s Metro Hall provides an air-conditioned refuge for those looking to escape the heat. ((Timothy Neesam/CBC))

GreaterToronto, Canada's most densely populated and largest city accommodates the presence of 5.5 million people. Over the past forty years the city has grown by leaps and bounds. Not necessarily resulting from a high birth rate, but from the intake of a large immigrant population entering the country of which Toronto absorbs an estimated 150,000 annually. And added to that number is the additional tens of thousands who arrive as refugees, topped by illegal migrant seekers filtering across the border into Canada from the United States.

Canada is comprised of a vast land mass. As such it is the second largest country on the planet, after Russia. It occupies the northern half of North America, above the United States and Mexico to its south, bordered by the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans. With a general population having reached 36 million (fewer people than occupy the U.S. State of California) there is room for an increased population base in a country that has been built on immigration, where people have come to live from all corners of the world.

Its social resources, however, are not infinite. The capacity to shelter, feed, provide medical care and schooling for so many entrants remains a challenge. The economy must grow to accommodate such needs. And the burden of providing all these social resources falls on those already established in the country. And it is a burden that becomes overtaxed when unplanned-for entrants in their tens of thousands flood the country's borders to declare themselves refugees when their true status is often that of economic migrants who choose to enter illegally.

Both Toronto and Montreal are struggling to accommodate the needs of unexpected arrivals as Canada celebrates its 151st birthday as a nation. As it happens a heat wave of record-breaking proportions has been baking Ontario and Quebec for several days with temperatures in the low- to mid-30s and humidity making the heat resemble what would be felt with ten additional degrees of heat. Outreach workers in the city tasked to work with the most vulnerable populations, the homeless, speak of people struggling to adapt to the heat.

Toronto is expected to experience five straight days of heat and humidity, Environment Canada predicts. (Mark Blinch/Reuters)

Daytime highs of 35C, plus high humidity is making life miserable during "the most significant heat event in the past few years", as Environment Canada describes the situation. The city maintains cooling centres to assist people suffering in over-heated conditions; seven such centres, and one open 24 hours a day, along with 180 air-conditioned locations inclusive of libraries and community centres, added to respite centres offering meals, overnight cots and other social programs.

Outreach workers are on the job checking on clients and offering transportation, providing cooling, potable water seven days a week, twenty-four hours daily for the length of the heat wave. According to the mayor's spokesman, 6,534 people are taking advantage of homeless shelters, with an additional 541 being accommodated for greater needs, in respite sites.

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