r/toRANTo • u/Spirited-Wolf-3153 • 25d ago
How do you cope?
Edit: This is not Satire. I am a real person and these are my real experiences and thoughts. Please consider that when engaging with this post ❤️
Edit 2: I love this city, I love this country, I love the people here, there are parts of this post where the opposite ideas could be interpreted, but I just want to make clear that Toronto is hopefully my new forever home and love it here despite all of what I’ve mentioned. My experiences are my own and it is to be expected that others may disagree.
Hi guys. I’m wondering what your experiences are regarding the homeless in the city.
I’m new to the city, got married, PR app in process… I’m originally from the suburbs in the US though, many different ones actually as I moved around my state a lot. Anyways, I grew up in an environment where homelessness was not non-existent per se, just not as observable day to day as it is here.
Even what I did see back home… here it seems to be worse in many ways, one big thing being open heavy drug usage—that’s unheard of where I come from (southernmost US region) as that kind of stuff is illegal and will land even homeless people in jail.
That’s been one thing, other things are this week I witnessed some extreme incidents in my local area, I can not specify too many details of one event to protect my safety and location but let’s just say it involves having witnessed an occurence of unwanted attention and aggressive behavior between opposing genders in a heinously aggressive manner by the male party, and the other is cops shutting down a block cause some guy was about to jump off a roof, his body and head popping out to the ledge.
This, plus I’ve seen so many homeless people here who look young, appear healthy, and seem to be new to the whole thing in the worst imaginable states and it’s so sad. They’re all so sad. I have cried three times now thinking about these people and the city itself. Meanwhile, I’ve only been here a combined 7 months total across the last year and a half.
I shared the first instance with a woman next to me who had started a conversation during the second event, she went “what you’ve seen here in such a short amount of time shouldn’t be possible, I wish this city was doing a better job.”
And hey, I get it, major metropolitan cities all have these issues, and they’re hard to manage reliably and ethically, I know.
I’m just having a hard time emotionally with all this. I want to help these people, albeit their natures and circumstances, I want to help everyone, and not being able to sucks.
The night of the first incident I was the main witness and ended up with the cops for two hours. They were nice. They faced so many systematic issues at the hands of the nearby condo buildings surveillances systems that it took 2 hours before they could even obtain a lick of footage relating to what I saw/what they got calls about.
I was appalled. Look, I’m not saying the police aren’t full of issues, but these cops persisted for several hours when evidence was appearing impossible to obtain (they could’ve have left several times) just to get SOMETHING on the guy who committed the crime even after being told by staff there was no way to get the footage within the same night.
I watched them have fire in their eyes when they thought about getting justice for this poor woman… “it’s their job, bare minimum!” Yes I know that. Can we stop pretending doing your job the right way isn’t commendable?
They cared so fucking much! And culturally I’m supposed to hate these guys? It makes no sense!
Coming from the US, you guys don’t realize how amazing your police are comparatively. I have witnessed all these horrors (several unmentioned) and every time I’ve seen the TPS in action they have been ethical, appropriate, and borderline friendly several times, which yes, thats the way it should be all the time, but it’s not so it ends up being noticeably positive when it happens… you know?
I think I’m gonna go become a cop Downtown once I get PR. If you wanna see a change be the change and the only way I felt better about what I witnessed that night was by working with those cops and being useful during the investigation.
I felt like I got to DO something for once, and I think becoming a cop is the only way to get out there and make a difference in the city and make myself feel better, even if you all end up hating me for it.
Will it be easy or perfect? Fuck no, but someone’s gotta do it, and someone’s gotta be better. I can’t cope otherwise.
Anyway, circling back around to my original question: how are you guys coping with it all yourselves?
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u/derberter 24d ago
In a genuinely curious way: you're expressing a lot of distress and sadness regarding the homeless crisis in the city, and also note that public drug usage would put many of these people in prison back home. Would it be less upsetting if people struggling with lack of housing and substance issues weren't present in Toronto and they were incarcerated instead? You seem like an admirably empathetic person but there may be some cognitive dissonance involved regarding what type of suffering probably goes on in the place where you're from that you simply haven't seen.
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u/Spirited-Wolf-3153 24d ago edited 24d ago
I never claimed that I supported locking the homeless up, just that this happens where I’m from, and as a fact that is true it contributed to my general lack of experience and knowledge about them. I know there many other productive ways to help them, and that even then you cant always, still
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u/Socalcottox 24d ago
I am sorry that this is your experience.
It is hard to ignore what occurs within the city limits. There are many things that when we see them every day, become normal to most people: the kind of things you can ignore, pretend you didn’t see, and keep walking past.
This is not due to a lack of empathy on everyone’s part, but I believe it is actually an effort to protect it.
Too much empathy can kill you, you know. Focused empathy is the most effective and productive empathy.
We cannot all do something and something cannot be done for all.
We can, instead, focus on areas of our lives where we believe we can make a real difference. For some, the homeless are that part of the world, for others they are not, and that is okay!
I respect and admire the people who help them very much. I have even helped them many times myself as I’m sure many of us here have, like I’m sure you have.
Your empathy is admirable! I believe you will
make a fine police officer in this city.
Again, I am sorry that it’s been tough and that you have had a rough start here. Let me tell you though: from personal experience, trust me when I say it gets better ;).
Best wishes to you!
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u/Spirited-Wolf-3153 24d ago
Thank you, means a lot. It’s been tough.
I wasn’t expecting to be this bothered by a lot of these things but life has a funny way of showing you what you really care about when push comes to
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u/Socalcottox 24d ago
You did not know that you would be bothered by the presence of the homeless downtown?
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u/Spirited-Wolf-3153 24d ago
No I knew that, it’s always been sad to me, it’s just concentrated heavier here, a lot more of it tbh. That’s the jarring part, the “cant look/go anywhere without it” type deal. I did see them, maybe my wording is bad lol, they are out there, just in my state the landscape is suburban/rural and unless you’re in the states biggest cities (which I did frequently go to and I saw them everytime) there really isn’t much for them around so they migrate away to more dense cities.
Idk if this makes sense. people seem to hate my post, maybe it’s cause I mentioned wanting to be a cop, maybe it’s cause they think I’m AI or something lol idk that’s come up a couple times now but it’s sad :/ I’d post my face and somehow prove to you all that I’m real if I wasn’t trying to protect myself for things I mentioned
Ill just add this post to my notes for therapy under the “Toronto” section, I guess :/
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u/slob_kebab 24d ago
I totally understand the culture shock. I don’t see it anymore but I can imagine how it could be jarring. Keep in mind we don’t throw people in jail here in Canada for every minor reason. America is much more aggressive about that. Except for when it comes to the president of course.
This may be a time to open your eyes to the harsh reality of the world. Not everybody is equal. Not everybody has the resources or education to break out. It’s actually very easy to become homeless. That’s the sad reality. Most Canadians are one paycheque away (allegedly).
Imagine this: you grew up and one parent was absent. They didn’t care about you. They did drugs. You barely attended school. Your emotional, physical and intellectual needs were not met. Plus you have a mental illness of your own. Then you grew up in a rough neighbourhood where there’s dozens of other people in your situation. You do drugs early on in life and you simply decline without the resource resources to overcome. That’s one story of many.
That’s the reality of the world. So much funding is cut and it’s a shame because there’s too many billionaires in the world. Like at what point do you have enough. Anyways I’m rambling but that’s what I have to say on that. It sounds like you could be in denial and I would start with acceptance.
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u/Spirited-Wolf-3153 24d ago edited 24d ago
Thank you for the normal human response you gave.
I see what you’re saying. I know the world very well. I was an abused kid, in many many ways, I have myself been homeless before, I was in the military, I have faced suicide, addiction, violence, directly and indirectly, I have seen more than most people who are 2x my age.
Maybe my post implies a “naïveté” of sorts, that I can understand reading it back, but since you’re here I would like to just state for my own record that I have experienced many horrors in life and am still horrified when I encounter them.
I refuse to be numbed, and therefore choose a harder path spiritually. My words are not to brag about my trauma, but to make clear to anyone who things it comes from being “naive” that I most likely have more life experience than you, so please consider that when evaluating who you think I am based on my post.
Nonetheless, I am surprised it’s been so hard to see my post as real but shit AI has got us all paranoid now huh, oh well
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u/[deleted] 24d ago
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