Stories of Survival from Homeless Families
Three residents of Toronto’s The Red Door Family Shelter share what it’s like to be a homeless family
Originally published January, 2009
On April 14, 2004, Statistics Canada took a snapshot of family shelters in Canada. On this one date, 3,274 women and 2,835 children had sought refuge in shelters. These children were there with their mothers, for women far outnumber males in being homeless with their kids. Most women who seek refuge at shelters are escaping abusive relationships with their male partners. But many are there purely for economic reasons and to provide their children with better futures. Three of these women shared their stories.
Anna
My name is Anna, but my friends call me Anna Bee—“Bee” being because my music is so sweet. Some people call me Annabelle. I am a reggae singer. I’ve recorded a demo, been nominated for a few awards and my music has been played on the radio. I love to sing.
In May 2006 I got the call every mother dreads. “Anna, your son has been in an accident.” My son, Joseph, then 10, was playing at a friend’s apartment in the same area as our own. We were new to the neighbourhood, so I didn’t know many people. I had met the mother and the boy with whom my son was having a play date. They seemed very nice. Little did I know that the other boy had a history of violence, sending another child to the hospital weeks earlier with a broken arm. When I arrived, Joseph was lying on the couch. He was covered in burns. All I could recognize of his face were his lips. He was trembling and in shock. Joseph later told me that the other boy had set him on fire. Joseph had been wearing baggy shorts that were too big for him, so they hung down below his knees. My son said that he didn’t feel the fire at first because they were so loose-fitting. The boy and his mother, however, told a different story: Joseph had sat on a lighter and that’s how it all happened.
The police were involved and I hired a lawyer. But the boy was young and the case was difficult to prove. I resorted to pleading with apartment management to move me to a new low-income building. I was, and still am, a stay-at-home mother living on social assistance, so I couldn’t afford to rent a regular apartment. I had to wait for another subsidized unit to come available in another building. I was still waiting when in 2007 my other son, Michael, 11, began being threatened and roughed up by a local gang. When, in May 2007, he was punched in his back and head, I’d had enough of the incidents. I abandoned my apartment and escaped with the four of my five children living with me at the time to the shelter. The thought of losing one of my children terrified me.
It was difficult for the boys to adjust to living in a shelter, but they felt safe. Still, Red Door was in a different school district and the disruption from school was trying at times. The boys didn’t like taking the bus; they were constantly late getting to school and coming home. After a while, they wanted to return to their old neighbourhood to avoid the long commute. I formed close bonds with the other women, and my children eventually came to like the shelter, particularly hanging out with the other women and children. It became like a big family. We stayed about four months.
My boys are now both doing well. After spending a month in the hospital and a year recovering, Joseph is back to normal, with visible scars from the burns of course. Last spring, he rejoined his school basketball team, winning a medal for most valuable player. Michael plays basketball, too.
I love life. I love my children. I am slowly getting back into my music. But my priority has been making sure my children are safe.
Update Anna and her family have returned to a townhouse in the social housing complex where her son was burned. There were no placements for her anywhere else—the waiting list for a subsidized unit to accommodate her family was too long. Anna and her children are settling in. She is now finding that there are some good families in the facility. She’s trying to focus her attention on socializing with them and forgetting the past. She has begun volunteering at a local food bank program once a week as a way to give back to the community. She and her son avoid the boy who allegedly burned him.
behind the red door
Red Door has 170 beds in its two shelter sites (the first shelter is for families seeking housing; the second is for women and their children escaping domestic violence) and 90 percent or more of the beds are occupied. Red Door never turns any family away.
“What makes my work special,” says Tiffany Smith, a childcare worker at The Red Door Family Shelter, “is being able to give the parents time to focus on their lives and the children a place where they don’t have to think about where they’re going to sleep.”
Such worries should not be on the mind of any child in Canada, one of the richest countries in the world. But sadly, they are. And family homelessness is often invisible and hard to track. “The picture of homelessness in Canada is the single person, begging on the street,” says Gail Nyberg, executive director of Toronto’s Daily Bread Food Bank. “We aren’t seeing the families that are really struggling.”
Red Door offers a number of critical services and programs that address the root causes of homelessness, and help families reclaim their independence in the community. “Programs include education and job skills training, finding safe and affordable housing, and specialized programming addressing issues of fear and social isolation resulting from trauma that the families may have endured, so they can function better in society,” says Anne Forsyth, Red Door’s fund development manager. Red Door also offers onsite programs for children —giving parents time to look for employment and housing—as well as after-school recreational programs for older youth to help them escape their fears and rebuild friendships.
While Red Door assists many families in overcoming their struggles, the reality is that social housing programs across the country are scant and housing prices are high. In times of an economic downturn, lower-paying jobs, usually occupied by women, are often the first to go. It can be challenging for families to find safe and affordable housing after Red Door.
Long-time advocate for the homeless Cathy Crowe is working on a series of four documentaries called Home Safe, on family homelessness in Canada. The first film, which launched in Calgary in October, focuses on families with children that have been homeless. “I used to think this issue was about family violence,” says Crowe. “But we’re seeing a number of economic evictions.”
Red Door is one of the few facilities in Toronto to offer a refuge for families experiencing episodes of homelessness. “We work with families who have overcome so much adversity to make a life of substance,” says Cathy Bedford, a Red Door outreach worker.
For more information about Crowe’s documentaries and the national campaign to end homelessness among families, go to skyworksfoundation.org.
As told to Susan McClelland in December 2007
Photos by Donna Griffith
