Juno News - August 05, 2022


Toronto's shelter program keeps people homeless and dependent

Topics
drug problem in shelters
Mentioned
Scott Tulpin John Tory
Reality Check： Canada does NOT have the best healthcare system Dr. Hinshaw gets a $227,911 Covid bonus

Episode Stats


Length

8 minutes

Words per minute

152.01

Word count

1,309

Sentence count

96

Harmful content

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we talk to Scott Tulpin, a homeless man who lives in a downtown Toronto hotel. He tells us about the dangers of living in the city s homeless shelters, the rampant drug dealing, and the lack of accountability in the system.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.240 Behind me is the Strathcona Hotel, one of three downtown hotels the city has leased
00:00:05.960 over the last two and a half years to house homeless clients.
00:00:10.240 These hotels have completely changed the complexion of the downtown neighbourhoods where they
00:00:15.280 are located.
00:00:17.280 We met Scott Tulpin, who is a homeless client at the Strathcona Hotel.
00:00:22.640 The 31-year-old man works for a living, which appears to be a rarity in the homeless population
00:00:29.700 of Toronto.
00:00:30.700 Now, you work, but you're still living in the hotel-shelter system.
00:00:35.380 Yeah.
00:00:36.380 Why is that?
00:00:37.380 Well, it's really hard to escape poverty when every time you turn around and try and get
00:00:42.780 out, the economic bar has been raised, rent is more expensive, and the quality of housing
00:00:49.460 that you get isn't the same.
00:00:51.100 If I was making a certain amount of money, I should be able to afford my own house and
00:00:54.420 escape poverty.
00:00:55.420 But when I go back, I live in welfare bum homes, drug dens and all that, because that's the
00:01:01.420 only affordable housing at my level, because rents have gone up and it's just like, what
00:01:07.900 else can I afford at this point?
00:01:09.420 So it's beyond your reach.
00:01:10.420 Yeah.
00:01:11.420 Even though you're working.
00:01:12.420 Yeah.
00:01:13.420 Unlike the narrative that is coming from Toronto City Hall and Mayor John Tory that the homeless
00:01:17.640 clients in these hotels are getting job counseling and housing assistance, Scott says he hasn't
00:01:25.800 spoken to anyone in the months since he's been in the shelter to help him with anything.
00:01:32.320 I haven't talked to anyone besides when I did my initial intake.
00:01:36.860 And it's really bizarre because back in the day, you would have a whole plan of care where
00:01:41.840 your social worker would talk to you about your employment goals, your education goals,
00:01:47.380 the health care you needed, mental health resources, and all these other things.
00:01:52.600 But there's no responsibility.
00:01:55.440 There's no accountability.
00:01:57.200 It's just free reign in these places.
00:01:59.720 So nobody's putting together a plan of care for you in the Strathcona right now.
00:02:04.780 You have no goals to work towards.
00:02:06.440 No.
00:02:07.440 No one has talked to me about my life at all.
00:02:10.120 Like I just wake up in the morning, go to work, come back.
00:02:13.480 My meals are set in my room and that's it.
00:02:17.360 Scott spoke of the rampant drug dealing in the two shelters where he has been located,
00:02:24.160 the Delta Hotel and this one behind me, and the fact that there are absolutely no consequences
00:02:32.220 for bad behavior.
00:02:33.820 The Delta is by far, far worse than the Strathcona where I'm staying right now.
00:02:39.940 You had people of all ages, some 15 years old, and in the care of Children's Aid, and they'd
00:02:48.500 be living and housed co-ed with people who are 50 years old, criminal record, alcoholics, drug addicts.
00:02:59.580 It was all there.
00:03:00.380 I witnessed sexual assaults, I witnessed physical assaults.
00:03:05.520 It was just unbelievable.
00:03:07.180 I'd walk down the hallways and people would be like, do you want to buy drugs?
00:03:10.740 And this is just me trying to access my room.
00:03:13.060 I don't know these people.
00:03:14.940 And here they are soliciting drugs.
00:03:16.860 Hey, I actually changed my mind, uh, is there anything I can get for five bucks?
00:03:23.820 The staff kept me up all night last night, and I need something to just pick me up.
00:03:27.920 Come in.
00:03:29.680 Smoke it or shoot it? 0.99
00:03:31.460 Oh, I'm just gonna smash it and sniff it. 1.00
00:03:34.700 You're gonna smash it?
00:03:36.340 Well, I don't know the technical terms.
00:03:38.280 I don't usually do this stuff.
00:03:39.460 If I only did it back in my younger years.
00:03:44.500 Okay.
00:03:45.000 Thanks.
00:03:45.500 That's a good one.
00:03:48.500 What's the problem you're here?
00:03:52.480 There's a drug problem in every shelter in the city, whether it be a hostel, dorm style
00:04:01.300 situation or the hotels.
00:04:03.620 And I would say sometimes in the hotels, it's even worse because you can go hide in your
00:04:09.220 room in the shelter, but you can't do that in a dorm style.
00:04:13.380 So I'd say the hotels could actually be a little bit more dangerous because they're not visible
00:04:20.740 or interacting because they can just hide in their room all day.
00:04:24.180 As I've tried to make it very clear during my years covering the homeless cause,
00:04:28.340 I am not against providing the homeless with assistance when they're down and out.
00:04:35.460 What I've found though, in my travels, is that a huge amount of money is being poured into
00:04:42.900 what has become an industry that provides the homeless with a handout, but not a hand up.
00:04:50.340 Well, they give you supports.
00:04:51.780 There's just no accountability.
00:04:53.140 Like you can give someone food, you can give them clothing, you can give them hygiene,
00:04:59.300 you can give them all the resources they need.
00:05:01.940 The city will even give people cell phones so that they aren't as isolated and can
00:05:08.260 talk to their probation officer or maybe get a job interview.
00:05:12.820 So they give free cell phones to homeless residents as well?
00:05:18.500 Yeah. Basically all that stuff that they're providing, it's just free stuff.
00:05:22.500 They don't actually counsel anyone properly.
00:05:25.620 That's what I meant.
00:05:26.740 Do they counsel?
00:05:27.780 Do they give them any mental health counseling?
00:05:30.100 Any employment counseling?
00:05:32.180 Nothing.
00:05:32.660 No, nothing.
00:05:33.380 You're working.
00:05:34.260 Are there others who are working?
00:05:35.860 I have not met a single person that works there.
00:05:38.980 And in fact, in my homeless stint, I've only met one other person.
00:05:43.140 Well, two actually that have had employment, but it's like a needle in a haystack.
00:05:48.340 Like there's no motivation for anyone to work because why would you work when you can
00:05:54.020 maintain your addiction and be provided housing and food and all these other things?
00:06:00.420 I'm not saying that we shouldn't provide people with these things, but there's also
00:06:05.380 the accountability aspect that is gravely neglected in all of these situations.
00:06:10.900 You had this theory about work first versus homes first. Explain that to me.
00:06:15.460 Well, homes first is the idea that they should focus on housing and get someone housed before
00:06:22.420 they even address any of the other problems that that person may be experiencing.
00:06:28.100 And it's a great idea because it sounds great.
00:06:32.420 Like get these people housing, that's going to help them.
00:06:34.980 But first of all, you don't want to just throw someone who is experiencing addiction
00:06:39.380 and mental health issues into a house on their own where they're going to have even less
00:06:44.100 interaction with the outside world and community.
00:06:48.180 And on top of that, you should be focusing on work first, because once you start working,
00:06:54.340 you can afford housing, at least in an ideal economy.
00:06:58.340 But not even just that, you can make sure that your work is located close to your house,
00:07:04.420 so that that saves you time and energy so that you don't have to go through
00:07:09.220 all that hassle of taking transit for an hour and a half to get to work in the morning.
00:07:16.100 And especially if you're in a mental health and addiction state, you're not going to have
00:07:20.980 necessarily the same energy or motivation to get to work.
00:07:24.180 So any barriers that you reduce on your way there, it's just common sense really, right?
00:07:30.340 What Scott suggested very strongly is that there's absolutely no incentive in these shelters
00:07:36.980 to become a viable member of society. In other words, to end homelessness.
00:07:42.660 I don't think anyone in this city has actually experienced real levels of poverty,
00:07:48.100 just because we live such a privileged lifestyle.
00:07:52.020 Are you talking about homeless people or people beyond being homeless?
00:07:54.820 People in general. Our modern life is so convenient and there's not as many challenges
00:08:03.220 as back in the day where you would have to break your back just to have three square meals a day
00:08:08.500 and a roof over your head. The game has completely changed.
00:08:12.420 For True North, I'm Sue Ann Levy.
00:08:18.100 Thanks.
00:08:21.700 Thank you.
00:08:35.700 etc.