In May of this year, recently retired Toronto resident Rick Craddock was an innocent victim of Toronto’s disturbing and increasing violence.
He was nearly beaten to death in the park behind his condo.
The assault landed the 66-year-old in hospital with a broken back, a brain bleed and a broken arm.
The perpetrator was known to police, he says, but he is unsure whether the man lived at the nearby Bond Hotel shelter on Dundas St. East, which is steps away from his condo building.
The city bought the hotel shelter – which opened during the pandemic and houses about 200 clients – in September to turn into 280 safe affordable homes.
The purchase price was $94 million, according to a city spokesman, who says that price was “below the fair market value of the building.”
It will take approximately $60 million to renovate which will include upgrading building systems and the common areas and converting the hotel suites into private rental apartments.
The city’s website says that won’t be completed until the end of 2023 at the earliest. Judging from the slow pace of all city projects, that target date is likely to be exceeded, together with the budget.
During a recent visit to the hotel shelter — which offers harm reduction on site — with Craddock and his wife Jane Dempsey, they pointed out drug deals carrying on behind us and drugged out addicts in a frozen stance on the sidewalk. It was a kind of Dante’s Inferno similar to what is occurring on Vancouver’s East Side.
Dempsey says this is a regular occurrence in the area, causing police to be stationed every day when classes end at the Catholic school next door.
No doubt the shelter and the nearby safe injection site on Victoria St. have changed the flavour of the neighbourhood for the worse.
With Mayor John Tory re-elected for a third term, that in-your-face drug dealing will not only continue but accelerate.
Unlike Vancouver’s new mayor who ran on a law-and-order platform, Tory’s campaign decidedly avoided the city’s increasing violence (much of it no doubt due to drugs and gangs).
He made a passing reference to public safety in his acceptance speech but has already indicated he has no intention of bringing back some form of carding.
So more victims like Craddock are likely to pay the price, sadly, because Toronto’s politicians are too weak to say enough is enough and too disconnected from the realities of what’s taking place on Toronto’s streets.
