For those living on Hamilton’s margins, tents instead of shelter beds

In 2017, Mario Muscato's life took a turn for the worse.

A recent transplant from Buffalo, N.Y., he'd lost custody of his daughter just over the border.

That's when the drugs took hold.

My daughter was everything, so when I lost her, it was just like it can't get no worse," he said.

And it got worse," added Muscato, who lives in a tent on Ferguson Avenue North.

A little more than a year later, he lost the lower part of his right arm and badly mangled his left.

In the throes of addiction, the welder by trade and a cousin were harvesting" copper wire from an apartment building for cash when he was electrocuted.

The shock from the live wire threw him into a wall. More than a day passed before he was found clinging to life.

It melted the skin, the meat, the tendons, the nerves - like everything it touched."

He was sent to hospital Oct. 29, 2018, and woke up two weeks later. After skin-graft surgery, he was discharged in mid-January.

Everyone says, You're lucky to be alive,' but that depends on how you look at that," says the soft-spoken Cayuga man.

Muscato, 47, shares this story on a blazing-hot August morning outside the Wesley Day Centre, a social-services and medical hub that serves homeless people.

He's one of about 35 people sleeping in tents here.

Between this encampment and another outside FirstOntario Centre, there are about 50 tents. As well, there are 12 to 15 smaller sites scattered acoss Hamilton, the city says.

They have been the focus of polarizing debate for weeks amid the pandemic.

A coalition of doctors, outreach workers and lawyers launched a human rights-based legal challenge against the city to bar the removal of people from tents.

The injunction, which expires in early September, has been the topic of private council discussions and heated public exchanges between city politicians and residents.

Officials insist the city must adhere to bylaws that prohibit tents on public sidewalks, streets and parks while trying to find people housing, shelter or hotels.

Residents have also complained to councillors about fights, drug and alcohol use, and debris on downtown streets.

But the coalition argues moving people along without an acceptable alternative only makes things worse.

Although not by any stretch ideal, the advocates say encampments offer security in numbers to people who struggle in shelters, hotels and housing without support.

Doctors can also reach them more easily than when dispersed to sleep rough elsewhere amid the double pandemic of COVID-19 and opioid overdoses.

For Muscato, who has pitched a tent on Ferguson North for about a month, all of this rings true.

I don't want to say you're stable, but it's kind of like you're stable. You're not continuously having to move. It's easier when you know where you're going that night."

So if there's space - at least in the men's system - why don't they stay in shelters?

Daniel Holland and Ashley Macdonald-Greene, who have pitched a tent across the street from Muscato, rhyme off the reasons.

For one, different-sex couples can't stay in the same shelter, notes Holland, a 38-year-old member of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. We want to stay together."

Even if she wanted to, there's a chance she couldn't find a bed with the women's shelters routinely overcapacity, points out Macdonald-Greene, 34.

She and Holland also have addictions, but shelters bar drug use. In some cases, even having needles isn't tolerated.

So that would be something that would kick us out," said Macdonald-Greene, who's from Shoal Lake, a First Nation in Manitoba.

Muscato says he was booted out of a shelter over unused drug supplies in his bag.

I completely get it if they're dirty or if they have drugs in them, but they were all in the package."

Allen Partridge, who also lives in a tent here, has reasons for not staying in shelters.

They're dirty, he says. People steal."

And despite the rules, drugs are still used. That can make using the toilet a challenge. You can't because people are smoking crack or doing needles."

At the Ferguson encampment, residents choose their neighbours.

Holland and Macdonald-Greene's tent forms a circle with a few others. Peas to our pod," she says.

When someone steps away, maybe to use the day-centre washroom, others watch the pod's belongings. We take turns rotating," she says.

Trusted company is crucial. Six weeks earlier, Macdonald-Greene was alone when she was mugged and badly beaten. So example of being homeless and a female: you'd be in danger just like that."

How she and Holland, who rely on disability pensions, became homeless is also drug-related, but not their fault, they say.

In mid-April, police raided their landlord's multiplex on Cannon Street East and Kenilworth Avenue North to bust an alleged $1-million drug operation. We were innocent and now we are here," she says.

There are critics of encampments. But there's also an outpouring of community support," Holland points out.

A few minutes later, a woman and girl walk by to offer home-cooked chicken and rice in containers.

Meanwhile, Holland and Macdonald-Greene are on the paper path" to housing through social-service agencies.

Until then, every day is a grind.

Right now, we would take anything," she says.

Barton East and Ferguson North: the encampment's northern limits.

Here, Allen Partridge watches a man berate another in an expletive-rich tirade.

This is what we go through every day, every night."

And Partridge has been through a lot. A knife attack sliced his fingers decades ago.

I have a bullet hole about five inches from my nuts," he adds.

His life narrative is hard to follow. It jumps one from one time and place to another. Texts and calls to arrange a cab for his street sister" also interrupt his train of thought.

Sorry," he says more than once.

Partridge, who's Ojibwe, grew up in Regent Park, a social-housing complex in downtown Toronto, in the 1960s. He has been a carny, church volunteer, martial arts instructor, a powwow performer.

An important trend to note is the disproportionate rate of homelessness among Indigenous people.

In 2018, a point-in-time" count in Hamilton found 338 individuals and 48 families reported being homeless. Of those, 22 per cent reported Indigenous ancestry.

Partridge has physical scars, but he also carries emotional trauma from childhood, a common background for people who struggle with homelessness.

He says police beat his dad to death; his mother was put away for murder. When is not clear.

I was placed into some place. I wasn't comfortable. I was scared, nervous, all alone. I ran away."

He also endured abuse along the way. Physically, mentally, emotionally," he says, his voice lowered.

Partridge offers a succinct list of factors that lead to homelessness.

Some people have alcohol; some people have drug issues; some people have mental illness. There's different reasons why people and us are on the street."

Upending events like divorce can also set people into a spiral, he adds. You're one paycheque away."

Eventually, the cab pulls up. My sister's here. I'll be right back."

If it's easy to become homeless, pulling oneself out isn't for some. Even a hotel didn't work out for Mario Muscato.

A stay at the Sandman Hotel on Centennial Parkway North, where the city has put up people during the pandemic, didn't last.

The first time, Muscato says, he was kicked out but he's not sure why.

The second time he didn't make the curfew. He'd missed a bus, so he hailed a cab from downtown. I walked into the hotel. It was 10:06 p.m. Six minutes late."

This week, the Sandman ended its contract with the city to provide 35 rooms for homeless men.

This was due to ongoing behavioural issues" on the property and in the area, the city's housing director Edward John said in an email.

That included drug transactions, property damage and aggressive/threatening behavior towards hotel staff and other guests."

The city is firming up a new agreement with a different hotel and security will be enhanced.

In an emailed response, the Sandman Hotel Group wrote corporate clientele" are starting to return and it's no longer able to consistently provide rooms" month to month, as per the city agreement.

Outside his tent, Muscato sizes up his obstacles to housing.

I guess finding a decent enough place with a landlord that would rent to me, because there's nice places out there. But they look at me, and I mean, part of the disability, I think, does affect people's viewpoint. I obviously don't work, so I don't know how they take that, as well."

Before his accident, there were prospects. He welded in Buffalo for years. I was really good at it."

So should he feel lucky to be alive? He leaves that question hanging. But he displays at least a glint of hope: that daughter of his. She's going to be 16 on the 1st."

Teviah Moro is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach him via email: tmoro@thespec.com