[URBAN NOTE] "Ontario’s uncounted homeless dead"

[rfmcdonald]

Mary Ormsby's long-form Toronto Star article takes a look at homelessness in Toronto through the lens of the life and death of a recently dead man, a man whose death was not even counted among the many dead.

Brad Chapman collapsed in the doorway of a Walton St. nail salon in downtown Toronto just before dawn last Aug. 18.

Cocaine, opioids and amphetamines coursed through his body; they were the long-time drug user’s preferred substances. Homeless, the streets were Chapman’s haven for 20 years when he wasn’t in jail. Those dire circumstances for the father of three were a world apart from the middle-class comfort of Etobicoke, where Chapman was raised by a loving family, competed in rep hockey, learned French and played piano by ear.

A security guard making his rounds shortly before 5 a.m. at the Chelsea Hotel, just steps from the nail salon, noticed a man slumped over in an alcove. To the man’s left lay a syringe, spoon and a cigarette lighter; to his right, an empty Crown Royal bottle, a police report would later note. The concerned guard, George Plaier, called 911.

That man, later identified as Chapman, was dying. Chapman would soon become part of Ontario’s growing ghost population: The uncounted homeless dead.

A Star investigation has found that the province and most municipalities across Ontario do not track homeless deaths fully — or at all — and as a result, have no accurate understanding of the scope of the tragedy and how best to solve it. Ontario chief coroner Dr. Dirk Huyer said there is no mechanism under current legislation to track all homeless deaths.