By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
So many of us are just a few bad breaks away from being homeless.
Now living rough in Cobourg, 52-year-old Lara Robertson got more than her share and, with 46-year-old Dave Scott, has landed on the streets after returning to her home town from six years away.
Robertson landed in Niagara Falls after a traumatic experience, and her health and her fortunes have taken a nosedive ever since.
Relying on ODSP, the couple thought they’d caught a break when they were accepted for housing subsidies, but either the places they found weren’t suitable for the subsidy criteria or the landlords would not accept them.
“He has Aspberger’s, I am seriously disabled – in a wheelchair,” she said.
“With his Aspberger’s, he has his own room – well, he needs his own room.”
They ended up on the street, unable to afford to pay $60 a day for motel space.
“$2,500 a month! You can’t afford that – not when your total income is $2,500 a month. We ended up going out on the street panhandling just to be able to try and make rent.”
Inevitably, at times, they would not collect enough or the weather was too bad for them to get out. And once on Clifton Hill they each got a $95 ticket for panhandling.
They were reduced to sleeping in storefronts just to get out of the weather, which was their situation when COVID-19 hit. They spent three weeks in front of a closed gift shop and, just to show their appreciation, they tried to scrub litter off the walls. It came to the owner’s attention and, even though his shop was not an essential business that was allowed to open, he lodged a complaint that they were interfering with store traffic.
Their return to Cobourg came about because Robertson needed to see her doctor for chronic health problems.
“I have had neurosurgery, I have had back surgery, I have Cushing’s (Syndrome), I have diabetes, I have a list longer than your arm,” she said.
“Being outdoors, my health got worse. I wanted to come see my family doctor.
“And we had nowhere to go. Nobody would take us.”
Her family doctor welcome her back, had kept her files open, offered to connect her with whatever treatment or medication she needed. Unfortunately, the pain specialist she wanted to see at Northumberland Hills Hospital was no longer there. Meanwhile, her bursitis worsened and a hip was displaced, so she had to use a wheelchair.
Transition House would not take the couple because of their dogs.
“When I went to speak with them, they said, ‘All we can do to help you is send you back to Niagara,’” she recalled.
“To what?”
They approached a number of agencies, including Northumberland County’s social-services department.
The county offered to put her belongings into storage and find her a place at a campground until the season closes. But this would cost $55 a day in Cobourg and, because it is not permanent housing, her ODSP will be cut by $567 a month – the shelter portion of her monthly payment, meant to cover permanent housing but not applicable to a campground situation.
“So I would be in the red,” she said.
“I would have about $150 to live on a month.”
Robertson is darkly amused by people’s remarks on homelessness – like blaming the refugees Canada takes in. If that were true, she said, “every building that currently is being derelict or abandoned, not in use, would be full.”
Then there is the situation of being overhoused, having more bedrooms than there are people to use them.
“In Niagara, they got to the point where, if you rent a two-bedroom and had been there 10 years on the subsidy, you have to find a one-bedroom or you could be kicked out.
Robertson was aware of the visit Premier Doug Ford paid to Cobourg two days prior, and was able to read his remarks through Scott’s cell phone.
The premier had visited to give the town $25-million for its water and wastewater systems to support home-building projects. This was the occasion for his controversial remarks that any healthy person should “get off their A-S-S” and work, adding that if someone is not healthy, he would take care of them.
“No one’s taking care of us, really. We are left hanging,” was her response.
Robertson’s dream come true would be “a landlord that would be a bit more open and accepting, not painting everyone with the same paintbrush as an addict, assuming that because you’re disabled or that you have been homeless and on the street.”
Her missing front tooth is the evidence of another snap-judgment episode from Niagara Falls, when she managed to scrape enough together to drop into the Fudge Factory and treat herself to a chocolate-covered caramel apple one day during an ice storm.
“I got one of those, not thinking of the weather or the fact that my dad paid for my root canal 40 years ago. I took one bite of the apple and – no tooth. Everyone takes a look at me on the street – ‘Oh, she’s a junkie.’”
She recently borrowed money and went shopping for some of their basic needs, but found herself followed around Walmart, Home Depot and Canadian Tire as she checked items off a list that included a generator, heater, barbecue and such basic tools as a hammer, drill and nails.
Until they figure out how to get the generator up and running, the cell phone goes uncharged so they can’t call someone to help them get water – not that they could anyway, Robertson said, because the person who used to help them now wants to get paid for doing so.
Though they are literally on the streets, they would “not in a million years” settle at Brookside or in any encampment situation.
“We don’t want the drug traffic. We aren’t into it. We have no desire to be around it,” she said.
“We understand everyone has gotten where they are in life because of things that have happened. You can’t judge anyone unless you walk in their own shoes,” she continued.
“We all have different experiences that make us who we are. Our hope is…”
She paused and thought.
“Home.”
She still has her father, now 87 years old, and treasures this last little bit of family she has.
“We help each other, we will always be there for each other. But we need a home to do so.”
Asked what the future holds, she continues to hope for a home.
“Just a quiet life where we can be ourselves and not really hurt anything.
“We haven’t ever tried to. The whole time we have been homeless, we have never stolen. Not once.
“Our thinking was, we will sacrifice our pride, not our freedom.”
