I spent 5 years homeless. I slept on the street of Toronto while people walked past, afraid to even look at me.

I was treated not like a pariah but as invisible. People don't want to accept the fact that you exist. Sometimes it's for fear, sometimes it's due to feeling awkward but most of the time it seems to be people who just don't want to acknowledge that it could happen to them. If they pretend we don't exist then it's never a risk for them.

I had a security job and was doing well. I was getting a good amount of money per month and could have easily afforded my own place. But depression and severe CPTSD kept pressing down and down and down. I started to have breakdowns at work where I was crying for no reason, random passerbys having to stop and ask if I'm okay when I'm the security guy who is there to help other people. My boss was kind enough to lay me off but I just put myself in a worse position, in an abusive relationship, that pushed things further. Before I knew it I had nothing and didn't even care. Started drinking all the time to stop feeling like shit. Eventually tried to kill myself. Then I became homeless. By trying to start over.

I wasn't made homeless by all I went through. I was made homeless by trying to get out of it. By trying to start over. By leaving an abusive relationship. And there was like no support. There are no programs in the city who give a shit and people certainly don't. It took me 5 years of waitlists and bothering social workers to finally find someone who simply gave a shit. That was it. She cared. And within 2 fucking months I had a place. 2 MONTHS. I spent 5 YEARS HOMELESS attempting to get myself out of the position in every way possible and it was NOT FEASIBLE until the intervention of a social worker with empathy and a funded program.

Why anyone thinks that anyone homeless will ever be able to escape their position is beyond me. We don't care. Everyone needs to be pressing and pushing for funding for appropriate funding on programs that can help people in mental health crisis or addiction crisis or just those who are in a shitty position and need a helping hand to get out of it.

Hilariously, I've also slept in an airport before I was homeless. For like 14 hours. I just got there way too early for the flight and had nowhere else to go. No one cared. No one batted an eye. The first time I slept on the streets in Toronto it was a park, under a tree in the far back corner and I was woken up to by police officers with their hands on their weapons and one who had his drawn.

Sorry. Just wanted to add from my perspective as someone who was homeless