CBLT - Thursday, May 23, 2024 - 06:00 a.m. (ET) - Segment #4

>> It's like the glass slipper. >> Jennifer: and the digital thing. You have to be precise about your carry-on. >> David: self service for a checked bag, they have the lasers. >> Jill: you don't want them spitting it back at you. >> David: a lot more complicated when you have an oversized bag and your ride to the airport has left basically. >> I love airports. I love being in an airport. >> David: why? >> It's only little self contained world. >> David: it is. >> So my way of enjoying being in the airport prior to flaying anywhere is to not be laden down with anything so I bring as little as possible in a tiny bag. >> Jill: you can't put your coat up there. I've been on flights where I didn't have a carry-on and rolled by car and put a parka -- the attendant throws it back down at me. That's for luggage only. It's a challenge. Day>> David: the part of the reason for this if you're flying to an airport where you know the check bag is going to taken an hour to come down the carousel, people don't want to spend the hour. >> Jill: that generates an enormous amount of revenue. The extra costs generate a lot of revenue. >> David: the only thing more controversial about air travel than checked baggage and overhead bin space is the way in which you board. >> Jill: yes. >> David: everybody has a different solution. Different airlines do different things. >> Jill: some from the back to the front, front to the back. Depends. I had a trip to copenhagen. For some reason -- I got everything -- my ticket for the train. I walk into the train and I realize, really feeling quite light. I left may bag. >> David: that is one way too travel. >> Jill: I actually ran back and there it was sitting there. I was amazed it was still there. So you know, there's this, too. Remember what you have. You might want to travel light on the inside but you have to figure out where you're going dump the bag. >> David: certainly don't want that. I remember this back in my reporter days during fukushima after the tsunami hit the nuclear plant in japan we were travelling by the bullet trains. They are on such a precise schedule. Like, not by minute but by second. We had -- it was television. We had eight million cases of gear. I remember going to the conductor saying how long do you stop at whatever the station was. He looked up his schedule and said something like 19 seconds. >> Jill: my gosh. >> David: he meant it. We had to -- we sent -- a team of three and we sent one of the three out immediately through a door andp she was essentially our goalie as we threw these large pelican cases, these black hard cases, we threw them off the train at high speed. She was making sure they didn't go flying off the edge of the track on the other side where they would get hit by a train. Thanks, ang. >> Jill: stood up on that one. >> David: she had to be a goalie-- >> Tv is glamorous. >> David: that's right! It is 14. A bit of humidity out there right now. We're going to get up to a high of -- what is it today? 26° with a whole bunch of snow wall-to-wall. The homeless population in pickering is relatively small compared the other parts of the G.T.A. but it does exist and in durham we have seen a growing homeless population. A local non-profit in pickering determined to keep the homeless population small. The dedicated advocacy research support group will be open the door to a renovated farmhouse complete with farm animals and a different kind of transitional housing for people who had been experiencing homelessness. Margaret, thank you very much for coming all the way downtown. >> Thank you for having me. >> Very much appreciated. >> This is not-- I don't know whether to call it a shelter in that sense. Certainly not typical. What's the vision behind it? >> Not a shelter, a home. Our goal at dars to provide an environment that feels like a home. So the vision is that we will have more than one of these. So instead of a shelter to house

35, 40 people like there are others in the municipalities that are in durham, we want to do houses, put them in a nice home in this case has an agricultural agricultural lens so raising chickens who will raise eggs and provides opportunity force social enterprise. Growing crops, having farm animals and they -- the proceeds would go to the corner market stand. Our individuals who live in the house can actually learn how to run a business. So that sort of what we're doing. Each person that will come in whether be on a care plan. That doesn't mean we the strike rules for anybody but gets them in a mode where they can develop a plan for the future. Some of that is getting out of bed in the morning and brushing their teeth or getting out of bed and becoming a tradesperson, that depends on a person. It's very individualized. The individual who's going run it from a superintendent standpoint has lived experience. The only staff that will be there with 24 hours a day actually lived on the streets and one of the first individuals dars helped four, five years ago just before the pandemic. There were three individual whose lived at our city hall in a gazebo. They were waiting for a shelter. There wasn't one in -- close to us. So dars got together and started providing them with meals and essentials and that sort of thing. They moved on to the shelter. We continued the lunches and we went from having a lunch on wednesday with three people to now a lunch with 40 people. >> David: wow. >> Yeah. We do a lunch, a dinner, a sunday brunch which is halal because we have a big muslim population and we also believe that you don't have to be unhoused to be housing insecure. So many of the people that we see, we see them before they're housed, once they're housed and after they're housed because they still need the support. Income supplements are so low that if we didn't do that, they wouldn't be able to afford their rents and that sort of thing. >> David: this one particular initiative. A renovated farmhouse. How did you get it? >> Oh, good question. So it's actually -- it was -- it is on -- in the green belt so taken out by our premier. Was bought by tact developments. They then took the government, put it back into the green belt and tack had these houses. >> David: we can't develop this. >> Yes. Maurice brenner, one of the regional councillor, he put me in touch with tack and they have leased us the house for the taxes which is very low and very manageable so all the individuals who normally can't afford a place because rooms in pickering -- just a room is $1,000 a month, they can use the supplement from wherever the income come, whether it's ontario works or odsp or cpp disability, they can use what they're given to pay their rent. The house is self sustaining. No government money that runs the house. >> David: what do you hope people get out of their time? You described a good bit of it and people and individuals. What is your hope about what happens at the back end and on what time line? >> I think if we look at from an individual standpoint, there is no time line. To say to somebody you need the be fix under four year is completely unreasonable. Maybe they'll always have issues they need to work on. It's flexible. A young man is going back to school to be a tradesman. I think he'll probably move on after he gets his qualifications. We have an older woman that probably won't move on because this will probably be the last place she lives. Not up to us to say. Up to them to say. Very resident-focussed as they decide. They're working together to do jobs within the house, do the jobs on the farm and the job for themselves. That's a big part of it. To come off the street and into a home. There's a decompression time, right? We can't put a time stamp on that. I volunteered -- met a gentleman living in his car and then I met

darlene who was the original founder of dars. We started working together and I decided this was a really worthy cause and our entire group of volunteers -- we don't have any paid staff. We are fund raising for the farmhouse. Canadahelps.org. Looking for 200,000. The region and the city of pickering are providing quite a large sum for us. It's going to cost us between 175 to 200,000 to get it up and running, however, that's it. So it's not an ongoing funding thing. >> David: okay. I understand. How's the community responded to this? >> We're so fortunate. Darlene started something she didn't know she was starting. She would use the community for whatever she needed to get for individual whose were unhoused. Our community buy-in is fantastic. The people of pickering, the companies that support us have been amazing. We have not had any negativity, no nimbyism. We opened up a warming centre this winter. We did not have one complaint from the community. So they are really -- they supported us immensely. So we've really -- been very lucky with pickering because we started grassroots. We started-- we engaged them from the very beginning. Wasn't a surprise and just been a very positive experience. >> Did you grow up in pickering? >> I grew up in scarborough. I'm a scarborough kid. >> David: do you remember homelessness in scarborough growing up? >> Not really. Only when you came downtown to toronto. >> David: what does it say to you -- we had the mayor of whitby on a month or two ago and talking about the initiatives there about a homelessness challenge that had not existed even ten years ago. >> I think the pandemic was pretty hard on a lot of people. I think the rent prices are what's causing part of it. To -- like I said, to rent a room is $1,000 in somebody's home. That's not always good for somebody who has a dog or who has mental health issues. So I think that's -- that's caused the increase. I think also we have a pretty big population in oshawa and then we have toronto and pickering sits in the middle. Getting getting sandwiched into pickering. I would say it's doubled than two years ago. Yeah. Yeah. We see people sleeping at -- on benches and sleeping -- mcdonald's I have to say at liverpool road has been fantastic. They let individuals stay there overnight. Obviously not sleeping but they're pretty accommodating. Loblaw has been great. Even the businesses, they understand it. It's not -- I don't know. I just love pickering. I didn't grow up -- been there 35 years. I'm going to show my age. My husband and I moved there when we got married. >> David: when you were two years old. . >> I think it's a great city and tons of support. >> David: yeah. Margaret, thank you so much. You're clearly passionate about your city and your home and making it a better place. >> Thank you for having us. >> David: the director of the non-profit dedicated advocacy research support group. >> Jennifer: the westbound 401 is not doing too well this morning with a collision approaching allen road in the express. In a construction zone blocking the right lane. Emergency crews are on site and west of that past allen road in the transfer to collectors, rather the transfer to express, there is a -- a second collision which is also shutting down the ramp from northbound allen to the westbound 401, volume from thickson to approaching salem. Past mccowan to west of kennedy, press and collectors and bogging down approach the 404 to allen road and the express. Beyond that, busy through allen road in the express because of the second collision. Eastbound 401 slows from the 410 through keele in both the express and collectors. >> David: thank you very much. "the miseducation of lauryn hill" is the number one on apple music's best album of all time. People have thoughts about the list. Have a look for yourself. Here is lauryn hill with "tell him." [ ]

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