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Toronto Centre of Excellence. I was a successful businessman. My girlfriend introduced me to crack cocaine and that was the beginning of my downfall.
Within 2 years, I was bankrupt and living on welfare. I tried living in a shelter, but the conditions were unacceptable.
After breakfast, we were thrown out, regardless of the weather, until lunch. After lunch, we were sent back to the streets, until supper. If we did not return by a specific time, we lost our bed and our possessions were thrown out within three days. We slept in a room with 50 other men in beds two feet apart. Can you imagine trying to sleep with the sounds of 50 men talking, laughing, crying, coughing and farting as a constant background, or my concerns about catching their diseases or bugs?
It only took a few days to choose the relative freedom of the streets. I found an empty garage before Christmas during the worst winter Toronto had seen for 50 years. Thus began 10 years of locating a place to shelter me and store my possessions, only to be found out within a short time and forced to move along. Once, a friend and I watched a sergeant from 14 Division douse my squat and all my possessions with gasoline and set it on fire.
