It was supposed to be a safe, affordable home for Ontarians with nowhere else to go. But inside, it was horrifying.
Every day, thousands of Torontonians are moved to a new home, often just steps away from a high school or a church, without ever seeing family or community.
“The families that we work with are always traumatized by the move to the new home,” says Stephanie Beattie, a senior vice president at Community Housing at the National Housing Federation. “They don’t have any sense of community, but they’re excited to have a new life and a place where their family will be safe.”
Beattie says her work has helped to develop a community-wide understanding of the issue: that home-shifting, whether by choice or by circumstance, is an inevitable, if tragic, part of the housing crisis.
This is part two of a four-part series exploring the issue of housing shortages in Toronto.