May 19, 2008 04:30 AM
Donovan Vincent
City Hall Bureau
Kathy Rasmussens is a desperate mother. Her 24-year-old son, Patrick O'Hara, is a drug addict who panhandles downtown, typically at Queen St. and Spadina Ave.
She has tried, desperately, to get him help to kick the gnawing cravings he has for crack cocaine and other drugs. To no avail.
"It's awful to say, but I pray for him to just get thrown in jail long enough that he can get off the drugs,'' she said.
This past winter, a physician at Patrick's methadone clinic laid out the stark truth: "It was basically no use trying to get help for Patrick. He said Patrick has to be ready to get help, but right now the drugs have a hold on him and he has no control," Rasmussens said.
Panhandling has been a sore point for businesspeople, politicians and many residents for years. The emphasis most recently has been on using the heavy arm of the law to try to curb it. But now, city council is on the verge of voting for an alternative plan many hope will be more successful: spending an extra $5 million a year to hire more social workers who would help get panhandlers, the majority of them homeless, into housing.
This "housing first" strategy holds that barriers such as addictions or mental health problems are best addressed once a person has stable housing.
"From that base they can work on issues causing them challenges in life," said Katherine Chislett, director of Toronto's Housing and Homelessness Supports and Initiatives, adding the method has been used successfully in other places.
Though it's a well-intentioned approach, Rasmussens is skeptical it will work for her son. A home is important, but she prays for the day he gets long-term treatment.
Rasmussens, a realtor who moved from Thornhill to Collingwood where she lives with her husband and two young children, believes Patrick's problems started at age 10, when he was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. Older brother Michael had no such issues.
A doctor's warnings that Patrick's disability might bring him into trouble with the law proved true. He was only 16 when he first saw the inside of a jail cell – after he and some friends broke into and damaged a portable classroom.
By the time he was 19, Patrick's penchant for hellraising had escalated. By this time his father had died and his mother had remarried.
He was heavily into drugs and stealing to support his habit. Patrick even stole and pawned tools and other items belonging to his mother and stepfather and intercepted a $2,000 money transfer meant for his brother.
Convicted of theft, he was jailed for a few months but later made his way to Toronto and fell back into his old ways.
Months later, there was a glimmer of hope: "Patrick called and said he was ready and wanted to get help. I dropped everything and drove straight there. I brought him back to Collingwood. I called the detox in Owen Sound and they had a bed. I took him straight there."
He spent four days there before calling his mom.
"He begged me to come get him from detox. ... He kept phoning and phoning. Finally, I said, `You can stay here (in Collingwood) until you get into a long-term residential treatment centre.'''
Patrick, then 20, agreed to that and other conditions, including that he stay in the house and have no visitors. But the plan soon failed.
"I brought him home. I left the room to make a phone call, and when I got back he had vanished and stole my $1,500 Tag watch," Rasmussens said.
She drove around Collingwood looking for him, but he'd vanished. He hasn't been back since.
For a while, it sounded as though Patrick was doing okay in Toronto. At 22, he was hanging out at Queen and Spadina with other panhandlers, but he told his mom he had an apartment and was picking up the odd short-term job here and there. When he got in trouble money-wise, there were shelters where he could get a meal and a bed.
But he never kicked the drugs. And panhandling was always a backup, his mother said. Sometimes months would pass when she had no clue where he was. But then she'd go to his favourite corner and find him, and they'd catch up.
This past Christmas, the whole family went searching for Patrick again after not seeing him for a year.
She was shocked at how badly he had deteriorated.
"His face was drawn in. He was in the middle of the intersection leaning backwards and yelling at cars.
"He was so high he was ... scary. He looked like a 50-year-old man. He was so skinny and his eyes were sunken. We were horrified.
"Michael was crying because he didn't know what to do," Rasmussens said. The two took Patrick for a coffee and a chat.
She and Michael returned in January, determined to get help for Patrick. She talked to youth shelters and armed herself with information about available services.
They found him, brought him to a hotel, convinced him to try detox. Patrick was insistent he'd check himself in. He did, but didn't stay.
Rasmussen drove back to Toronto again to look for him. That's when she went to the methadone clinic and got the blunt assessment.
She hadn't heard from Patrick since January, and then earlier this month she saw a television news report about Toronto's plan to spend the $5 million to curb panhandling.
There was Patrick on TV, walking between cars, begging.
"I could go back down to Toronto to get him, but it's like beating my head against a wall,'' Rasmussens said. "I can't take him to a treatment centre and make him stay."
http://www.thestar.com/article/427311
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