Meeting on homelessness planned after woman dies in East Toronto parking lot

By ALAN SHACKLETON

A community meeting on homelessness will be held early next month in reaction to the death of a woman living in an encampment near Coxwell and Danforth avenues recently.

Known as both Mary and Rita to community members, the woman died while sleeping in a make-shift shelter she had constructed in the parking lot of a Shoppers Drug Mart just east of Coxwell and north of Danforth avenues on the night of Dec. 20 or morning of Dec. 21.

The weather that night was extremely cold. Though no official cause of death has been released, reports indicate she may have frozen to death.

While many local residents of the Danforth area who helped her knew the woman as Mary, she was also well known to the Nourish East End Food Bank as Rita.

Anne, a resident of the Coxwell and Danforth avenues area, said she had known Mary (Rita) for years.

She was putting an ornament on a tree close to where Mary (Rita) was found when Beach Metro Community News spoke with Anne on Dec. 30. Anne said she’d known Mary (Rita) from her being at her spot in the parking lot for more than 10 years, but it was only in the last few months that it appeared Mary (Rita) had set up an encampment she was sleeping in.

“She would walk up here from Victoria Park. She would sit here and I would talk to her,” said Anne. “She told me she lived at Dentonia Park and she walked here…She would pick up old bouquets of flowers from stores along the way and then sell them here.”

Anne said community members were shocked and angry when they learned of Mary (Rita’s) death. “She was a sweet and lovely woman, and never asked for anything.”

With very cold weather during the week that Mary (Rita) died, Anne said she was among a number of people who offered to help her out.

“I was sitting with her (on Dec. 19) and her entire encampment was here. I asked if she wanted to go to a shelter, and that I would bring her to one but she said ‘No.’ I told her it was cold and she said she was OK. She was all bundled up and she had paper towel stuffed inside her parka as well…She didn’t want to leave.”

Mary (Rita) may have feared her possessions would be stolen if she left them at her encampment and she may have had previous bad experiences at homeless shelters, but it is not known for certain why she declined help. It is also not known if she had family.

Rev. Bri-anne Swan, with Eastend Ministries at Glen Rhodes United and Eastminster United churches, said Mary (Rita) was well known to the volunteers and organizers of the Nourish East End Food Bank.

Mary (Rita) would often come to the Glen Rhodes church on Gerrard Street East near Coxwell Avenue to help volunteers unload the truck with deliveries for the food bank.

“She was very quiet and pleasant. She came here and helped out, but I don’t really know any more about her,” one of the volunteers told Beach Metro Community News.

Much of Mary (Rita’s) private life seems to remain unknown to most of the people she interacted with as she did not share many personal details though she was always friendly.

It seemed that things had really started to go downhill a bit in the couple of weeks before Mary (Rita) died, but the volunteers said she did not say anything to them about what had happened.

The volunteer said she thought Mary (Rita) had had some hospital visits shortly before she died, but the volunteer did not know any more details. “About two weeks before she had set up bags and shopping carts around herself to shelter her from the weather,” said the volunteer.

Swan said a community meeting on homelessness will take place for East Toronto residents on the night of Monday, Feb. 3, at Glen Rhodes United Church, 1470 Gerrard St. E. The meeting will start at 6:30 p.m.

“Politicians will be invited but we’ll mostly be hearing from community members,” said Swan of the meeting.

She said Eastend Ministries knows there are many people who in are in extreme life-threatening danger due to homelessness and help is needed desperately from all levels of government in Canada to address the issue.

“We’re all caught in this crappy system and people are dying,” said Swan. “We have to support the efforts of the people who are doing the work on this.”

Swan said that though Mary (Rita) declined offers of a shelter bed, her situation should never have gotten to the point where she would die in a Toronto parking lot on a freezing cold night.

“The cracks she fell through were so far before she got to that point,” said Swan. “We saw it when we were housing asylum seekers at the church (Eastminster). The city was pointing fingers at the feds and the feds were pointing fingers at the city. And the shelters were overwhelmed due to provincial policies. That’s fine but I don’t care. We just want to help these 30 people we have in the church.”

She said there is simply too much of different levels of government trying to blame each other for the growing number of people who are living on the streets or in homeless shelters.

“There are so many cracks people are falling through including mental health supports and rising housing costs.”

She said co-ordination between the federal, provincial and city government are needed, and that all three have to stop playing politics when it comes to the issues of affordability and homelessness.

“All three levels of government need to sit at a table and stop pointing fingers as to who is at fault and have a good faith sit down and create a plan for this,” said Swan. “We have to stop accepting the idea there are always going to be people who are homeless and there’s nothing we can do for them.”

She said it “will take political will and the leadership to say enough is enough. She (Rita) is not the first person to die on the streets in this city from exposure.”