LEVY: Christmas spirit absent at city's first pre-fab respite shelter
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Although a Christmas tree could be seen inside, the Christmas spirit was conspicuously absent when the Toronto Sun visited the newly opened $2-million pre-fab respite shelter in Liberty Village Saturday.
In fact, the only one who welcomed me was a 13-year-old miniature dachshund named Kiwi.
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Upon asking if I could tour the newly erected 100-bed 24-7 shelter at 1155 King St. W., in the parking lot of Lamport Stadium — which is open to anyone with their drugs and their pets — a testy Brian Harris, who identified as the acting executive director of St. Felix’s Centre, appeared and accused me of misrepresenting the work of St. Felix, a faith-inspired community offering services to marginalized individuals in the Felician-Franciscan tradition.
He also claimed that I’d posted videos showing the lawlessness of residents outside their Augusta Ave. respite shelter, which he portrayed as taken out of context. I indicated that in fact some of the residents impacted had posted the videos — which portray St. Felix client trespassing on their properties, harassing their children and taking drugs outside their home.
Look, I’m the last person to want the homeless to be out in the cold this winter. But warehousing them with three hots and a cot is not my idea of trying to reduce the cycle of dependency.
Nor are the residents of the surrounding neighbourhood chopped liver.
Yet, with the attitude shown to me by Harris, I’m going to predict that the residents of Liberty Village will encounter similar problems to what has been experienced outside the Augusta Ave. respite shelter.
In any event, Harris continued to dig his heels in about not permitting me to take a quick look at the set-up (I promised not to take pictures or talk to the clients) — even though only six clients had turned up. He told me this was their home and I wouldn’t much like it if strangers came through my living room.
When I reminded him that my living room wasn’t publicly funded — the per diem for this respite shelter is $105 per bed per night — he insisted I couldn’t go anywhere I wanted in publicly funded spaces.
The back-and-forth became ridiculous and I finally left.
But Harris would have been far better simply giving me a quick look and leaving it at that.
Instead I was left, yet again, with the impression that those who provide shelter space (the homeless industry) are self-righteous, secretive and certainly far from compassionate with those who aren’t cheerleaders of their work.
Never mind the question of whether a respite shelter like this provides value for money. I know it does not.
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