Concern grows for homeless man

Homeless man living rough at Kingston Rd. and Warden Ave.

By Ian Harvey

It’s 27 degrees below zero and there’s a heap of blankets and a guitar case parked on the bench on Warden Ave. at Kingston Road.

Look closer and there’s a man huddled under those layers, shivering and sucking back on a bottle of whiskey, refusing to come in out of the cold.

Guitar Guy, aka Mr. McDonald, became a fixture in Birch Cliff a year ago when he set up his guitar and amp on the lawn in front of the red brick low rises at 1457 Kingston and strummed away to his heart’s content.

Disheveled, rough and anti-social, his music was loud and, to be honest, annoying, but for most of us in the community, we shrugged it off. It wasn’t much louder than the trucks and buses going by and he clearly had other issues.

By late summer Guitar Guy was homeless, evicted from his apartment in the Red Bricks. Why? Who knows? Noise complaints? Behaviour? Rent arrears? Clearly he is a troubled soul.

At first he seemed to set up his living room in the same spot outside of the Red Bricks. It didn’t take long for him to be ordered to move on. It is after all, private property.

He swapped the electric guitar for an acoustic guitar and set up on the corner in front of the old TD Bank on the northwest corner of Warden and Kingston Road.

Later he migrated to the embankment just north of the CN Bridge on the east side of Warden south of Danforth Avenue but soon the police seem to move him on, probably noting he was on private property.

For a while he seemed to drift up and down Warden Ave with a bicycle pulling a trailer, so overloaded he couldn’t pedal it and was reduced to pushing the contraption along.

And now he’s on the bench, by the Taylor Memorial Library and Birchcliff Bluffs United Church, all his worldly possession heaped up beside him.

Birch Cliff community trying to help

And the shocked and saddened community looked on, paralyzed and unable to help directly, not for the want of trying but for the lack of information

Who is he? What’s his backstory? Why can’t anyone take him to a shelter?

The questions were scattered across two Birch Cliff Facebook groups this past week as the temperatures plunged. There’s genuine concern for a man who may well freeze to death before our eyes as winter’s grip closes tighter.

No one has been idle on this file. From the police to city agencies, Ward 36 Councillor Gary Crawford’s office and the business operators along the Kingston Road strip, everyone has tried to reach out to Guitar Guy.

They haven’t struck a chord. He’s pushed away offers, refused help and, as the law is, he has the right to live rough.

Under the Mental Health Act he can’t be taken into care unless he is a “danger to himself and others.”

So, the agencies are trying. The City’s 311 line has had many calls, Councillor Gary Crawford’s office has been in direct contact with the police and crisis agencies.

The main agency is SPIDER (Specialized Program on Interdivisional Enhanced Responsiveness to Vulnerability) one of several agencies which form the Community Crisis Response Program.

“They (SPIDER) have been out regularly and are working with police in the area to regularly check on him,” Crawford says. “The Mobile Crisis Intervention Team has also been out with a registered nurse and police. Everyone is concerned. But you cannot force someone to accept help.”

At this stage, Crawford says, the homeless man is aware of his circumstance and that help is available. He just doesn’t want it.

Sources in the community confirm he has been treated for mental illness and went off his medication some time ago. Further, he appears to have schizophrenia and delusions and is prone to verbal outbursts.

He appears to be reluctant to leave Birch Cliff Village because he has some sense of ownership, claiming his mother “owned” all the land where the strip sits and where the Taylor Library is located.

His delusion insists he was cheated of his inheritance of the property and is given to demanding the interlopers leave.
According to sources police were called this past year because he chased a young Filipina woman down the street yelling, “go back to your own country” and threatening harm. There’s no record of charges to be found.

He also yelled similar racist abuse at another person of colour and there are other unconfirmed reports he exposed himself.

Christine Lam who runs the Price Saver Market at Warden Ave and Kingston Road watches Guitar Guy all day from her register window.

“I take him stew and a hot drink in the morning,” she says. “Sometimes he takes it sometimes he knocks it away. He’s been here since I opened. I think he’s said two words to me in all that time.”

It’s apparent that Guitar Guy is a heavy drinker, preferring whiskey. He has a friend from the Red Brick apartments who facilitates his alcoholism, picking him up and driving him to the LCBO store regularly. Others in the area also check on him frequently, including apparently his brother.

Postings that he has a large knife are unconfirmed and certainly police would have grounds to arrest him for possession of a deadly weapon which would at least move him into the system and closer to care if they found anything during their checks.

In some ways, perhaps, Guitar Guy is lucky. He’s in a community where unlike downtown, our only other experience with a hardcore homeless person was Stephen Brauswetter who lived in the Quarry for nearly three years before being charged with exposing himself to a female dogwalker two years ago. He left the area shortly afterwards and hasn’t been seen since.

And unlike the plethora of street people downtown, his singular appearance in a community like Birch Cliff means there are thousands of eyes watching over him and hands waiting to reach out, if only he would accept the help offered.

It’s too cold for Mr. McDonald to play his guitar but he’s now playing on our heartstrings.