Toronto Star: Homeless memorial records 995th name as city committee debates new housing action plan
Darlene Stimson spoke with anger and
grief, standing at the base of the church steps, of the many systems who
failed her loving and trusting son.
“He
never let illness or pain get in the way of being the most generous
human being I have ever known,” said Stimson, about the six-foot-tall
man who loved wrestling and karaoke and who, because of early health
challenges, viewed much of the world through the eyes of 12-year-old
child.
“In the end, while it was a
respiratory infection that resulted in Adam’s death, the proximate cause
was a social safety net that let him down.”
Do Ontario prisoners need more phone access?
When Krista tried calling a 24-hour mental-health crisis line from an
Ontario jail, she says, she couldn’t connect. “I tried three or four
times, and it wouldn’t go through. I was having a mental breakdown … in
here, they don’t care,” says Krista (whose name has been changed to
protect her identity) from inside a provincial detention centre.
Advocates, academics, and prisoners themselves suggest that barriers to accessing services remotely from inside prison are common. Experts say that they are the result of an outdated telephone system that is overseen by the Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General and, since 2013, has been contracted out to Bell Canada.
With her forehead resting in her right hand, Rachel Robinson quietly wept as her friend was included among the names of the dead read out at Toronto’s Church of the Holy Trinity on Tuesday.
Robinson had come to the church to take part in a monthly memorial for people who have died from issues tied to homelessness, including exposure, poverty, violence, illness, addiction and neglect.
https://www.thestar.com/amp/news/gta/2019/02/11/at-memorial-for-dead-homeless-its-a-lot-of-john-does.html
As extreme cold weather grips the city, the names of four people who died on Toronto streets in the month of February were added to the Homeless Memorial yesterday.
“The City of Toronto’s negligence means that at today’s Homeless Memorial we added four names of men who died in February,” Cathy Crowe, Toronto street nurse and homeless advocate, writes on Facebook. “One was a 28-year-old Indigenous man whose death has been widely reported as he was unable to get a mat overnight in the filled to capacity overnight drop-in/warming centre. Another was a man in his 30s.”
From Torontoist, March 15, 2017 — http://torontoist.com/2017/03/four-names-added-torontos-homeless-memorial/
loving justice in the heart of our city