Thanksgiving Meal Schedules

St. Felix is closed on Friday (tomorrow) and will be open on Monday. Other than that, it's probably best to stick with the Toronto Drop-In Network's schedule. If the download link doesn't work, try a different web browser or computer. The file's not set up properly so it might need to be opened using acrobat.

Great. I've got bedbugs. Just great.

They could have come from the dryers at these laundry programs. Or some clothing bank stuff. Or some nice luggage I scavenged on garbage day.

Good thing there's programs for poor people to get free mattresses, and free help with cleanup, and replacement clothes and stuff... or at least, that's what the public probably thinks. The reality is, I have no way of carrying out the steps to remove these pests. I can replace my mattress and all my bedding, and somehow sleep somewhere else while I clean and seal the room, but bottom line, I am screwed. They will come back. Getting the place sprayed involves me telling my landlord I have bedbugs. My landlord will assume I'm the source and find some way to evict me. My roommates will move out and add my apartment to the online listings of places that have bedbugs, so the only roommates I'll be able to get will be the kind who bring more bedbugs. That's probably how I got it in the first place. When somebody moves into my place to escape an infestation in their last place, and is dumb enough to bring their stuff with them, why would they tell me they were infested in the first place? When I have to move out and find a new spot, am I going to go around telling all my potential landlords about how hard I'm trying to ensure that my bedbugs don't follow me to the new place? Am I going to leave "warning: bedbugs" signs on all the stuff I'm throwing out, and risk notifying the whole area that my building has bugs? Good thing there's free services that offer quick removal in these kinds of situations... at least, that's probably what the public thinks. The reality is, as I said: I'm screwed. And so is my landlord, and so are my roomies, and probably so are my neighbours. In fact, I may have gotten this from my neighbours. Or my roommates, who got it from my neighbours. And this is why the bedbug problem is so bad. Because somehow we can't have a little washer and dryer in our little apartment. Because there's none that are small enough to just be for one person. I can't have a tiny little washer and dryer set that's the size of my laundry hamper, and would replace it. Why do we store dirty laundry? Why not just toss it in a washer that's also a dryer and is just meant for one outfit or jacket or blanket at a time? Oh right because we're all supposed to be in family units, sharing everything. What is with that? Why does policy in Canada always have to ignore everyone who's not living with three or more relatives?

So here we go. I'll have to secure a bedbug-free space to sleep while I carry out the operation. I'll have to replace absolutely every piece of furniture I have, and almost all my clothing. I'll even have to replace some of my electronics. So it's almost winter and I'm worse than homeless: I have a home that I can't stay in and have to do tons of work on, while also having no budget for anything at all. A typical poverty situation.

I should have saved my community startup money for furniture and bedding instead of pots, pans, cleaning supplies, and paying bills. When they still did community start-up. I should try to run myself up against the brick wall that is the housing stabilization fund or whatever bullshit replaced start-up. But I do not have time to do that. I have an infestation to remove, and I have to do it before it gets way way way too cold to be homeless.

It'll take at least two weeks to set up an alternate place to sleep, so I'll have to deal with getting fed on every single night until then.

If I'm lucky, it'll only take two weeks to do the cleanup and removal of stuff. Then I can grab a new mattress and bedding. Which means I'll have no grocery budget at all, so I'll have to get all my food from soup kitchens and food banks, which is a 5 hour a day job, so maybe it'll be more like a month to get everything taken care of, not two weeks. So yeah. I'm screwed. I'm 100% screwed. And so was whoever passed this on to me. And I've probably already passed it on to my roommates.

Allan Gardens Community BBQ on Saturday!

On Saturday, September 8th, in the southwest corner of Allan Gardens, from 10am - 4pm, there's gonna be a community BBQ. Should be fun.

Labor Day Schedule research

The following places have confirmed their holiday schedule situation:

• The Stop: Closed on Monday
• Scott Mission: regular schedule
• St. Felix: closed on Friday "so we can be open on Monday"
• Evangel Hall Mission will be open on Monday
• The Good Shepherd: no schedule changes to the weekend or Monday

As with the holiday earlier this month, the TDIN (Toronto Drop-In Network) has released a bulletin about Labor Day-related meal program changes, and posted it as a PDF that is inaccessible from some computers. So it's been posted here in HTML form:

TDIN's Labour Day Holiday Meals List

The problem is, the Holiday Meals List only covers Monday, and not the other days affected by the Labor Day holiday. And this website stands to do only a marginally better job. The calendar is less accurate than the information on this page, which is not very comprehensive.

Oasis Dufferin at like 5pm, not 6:30

So apparently 6:30 is now way too late to show up... suddenly they want to do things on-time and say "oh yeah there's no food left... oh what, you need a plate? ohh... I don't know if you'll find anything..." to those who show up without having been there in awhile, at exactly the time they were told to show up previously... this is so common in soup kitchens... it's like... if it's gonna change, you gotta have a grace period where you accommodate late arrivals for awhile. People spend TOKENS to get there and we arrive HUNGRY. Many of us have been robbed of our impulse control, by chemical exposure, by blows to the head, by birth defects, whatever, and hunger will do that too. So if you have this like tiny slim half-hour window where you can show up, and it changes from one month to the next, and a lot of your guests come once every month or so...?

Anyway the atmosphere is uncommonly warm and relaxed, and the food is very decent. They also have a food bank that's open each wednesday. You can only go once a month, of course, and it's only a backpack's worth of food, of course, but the Daily Bread stuff they have on offer seems to be getting better over time, and not worse. Hopefully that's an accurate assessment and not just desperate thinking.

It's at like... 1219 Dufferin, east side of Dufferin, just south of Dupont.

Good Shepherd calendar correction

For some reason, the Good Shepherd was missing from the calendar. Their morning and afternoon drop-in meals have been added back to the calendar.

They do 9am - 11am and 2pm - 4pm, every day of the week. And they usually do holidays, too.

Salvation Army Saturday breakfasts

Check I out: on "Darling Lane" just off Wellesley behind Pizza Pizza, on the 2nd and 3rd Sat of every month from 9 to 11 am, you can get a great little breakfast in this teeny tiny soup kitchen. It's a great, chilled-out meal.

Scott mission ladies & families monthly food bank

On weekdays except Wednesday afternoons, the Scott mission offers a food bank service to women and families. Users are limited to one visit per month, are required to show proof of your shitty income situation an some ID, and are assigned a membership card that needs renewal every six months. They process people pretty quickly, and give out some decent stuff.

Evangel Hall breakfasts

At 9:30am on weekdays, they serve soup and bread at the evangel hall mission (EHM). That was sort of sketchily mentioned in the calendar.

Corner drop in correction

This site has listed the wrong meal times for st. Steven's corner drop in on Augusta just south of dundas. The correct lunch times are 10:30am - 11:30am, everyday except Saturday. The lunch time has been corrected on the calendar, but the breakfast times listed there need confirmation.

Food Giveaways at Cowan and Queen on Thursdays

It's a bit of a shuffle, it's a bit competitive, and the whole thing has some Soylent Green vibes, but you can walk away from it with a bag full of usable groceries, and you don't need to give them anything. They're asking for a donation. It's not clear whether they'd turn a person away if they didn't have any money. There doesn't seem to be any minimum donation or maximum total items or anything like that. Some stuff has a limit, other stuff doesn't.

The format is: a bunch of boxes laid out on the sidewalk, with people supervising a line of recipients who proceed through the line of boxes, taking what they need.

It happens every Thursday at 4pm. It's unclear when it'll stop and then start up again, so it's not going in the calendar yet.

CONC Breakfast Schedule Mistake Fixed

There was a thing in the calendar with breakfasts at CONC at 10am monday through thursday, and that was wrong, and it's been removed. Apparently they may resume in November if they get the funding.

Following an incorrect calendar to a meal program that is not going on is painful and frustrating. With most things, when you point out a mistake, nothing happens except maybe someone's rude to you. That's not the case with this site. Every post has a comments form that works, and all the comments get read.

St. Francis Schedule Change

The flyer on the locked door during today's dinnertime was confusing:

LUNCH ONLY:
12:00 NOON - 1:00 PM
AUGUST 7 - 10, 2012

SUMMER VACATION:
AUGUST 12  - SEPTEMBER 2, 2012

REGULAR SCHEDULE RESUMES:
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 4, 2012
@ 12:00 NOON

The calendar on this site will be updated according to these assumptions:

Between August 7th and September 4th, there is no dinner, and
Between August 12th and September 4th, there is no lunch.

Sketch Youth Tuesdays Closed for 3 Weeks

The art drop-in for youth under 30, featuring a great meal, coffee, keyboard and art workshops, on Tuesdays from 2pm - 5pm in the back of the main floor of the Queen West Health building, on the west side of Bathurst just south of Queen, is taking three weeks off, starting this coming Tuesday.

Their free lunch situation is 100% where it's at, when it's on. And there's some great volunteering opportunities with them.

Holiday Schedule Blues Wrap-up

The surprising thing was, on Monday, St. Felix was open. And it had been removed from the meal calendar on this site because it's typically closed on Mondays. So that was a mistake. Others were probably made, too.

The Taoist temple also served their 4pm supper, which was great. It was left on the schedule because they typically don't observe western holidays. Thank goodness for cultural diversity!

The update about Monday's schedule may or may not have made it to the front page of this site and stayed there all day. It was found in draft form just now, and then published, so who knows whether it was of any use to anyone. Hopefully, it was.

And hopefully, this site will at some point be the definitive guide to food security during the holidays, as well as the rest of the time, and all the seasonal changes will be accurate as well. It would be nice if it could at least keep its users up to speed on how fresh and accurate it is at any given time.

Holiday Schedule Blues Update

The previous article was about the upcoming holiday festivities, and how accurate any of our ideas of the meal program schedules may or may not be.

On the eve of the holiday in question, which is apparently Alberta Heritage Day, this final report is ready for you, the hungry poor and/or curious. The gist of it is that TDIN's schedule is basically sound, with a couple messed-up details. So they did pretty well and you can pretty much just go by it with a couple corrections.

Since no field research was done, this is still not a strong day for this website. But it's better than recent holidays. This time, emails were sent out to confirm TDIN's holiday meal schedule, and the staff of half of the agencies questioned did respond to those inquiries.

So here's the situation: the calendar on this site for August 6th is probably accurate. Things that say (unconfirmed) on them are probably not happening. Things that say (confirmed) on them are happening according to their staff.

Good Shepherd's a go, normal hours. Where it says "hours" on the TDIN thing, it should say "breakfast," though. And where it says "breakfast," it should say drop-in, according to their staff, because it's not a substantial breakfast, and that is definitely true. It's a great drop-in. It's somewhere between nothing and breakfast. It's enough to get you to an actual breakfast.

Scott Mission is a go. They'll let people into their first meal between 10:30am and 10:45am, and their second meal between 11:30 and 11:45am. Remember, you can only go to one of these two meals.

The Good Neighbours Club is a go, but where it says supper? That's apparently just a snack:
Breakfast: 8:15am - 9:15am ($1)
Lunch: 12:15pm - 1:15pm ($1)
Supper Snack: 3:00pm - 3:15pm ($1)

CONC is in, but they're doing their weekend hours: A snack from 11am - noon, and lunch from 1pm - 2pm. With CONC, you want to get there early.

Maybe 4 out of 8 confirmations isn't bad. It sort of is, though.

Gateway, Maxwell Meighan, Council Fire and PARC haven't confirmed, but if the rest of the TDIN schedule is any indication, then their programs, as well as those who aren't mentioned in this article are probably happening as indicated in their PDF, and maybe one of the meals is actually a snack.

TDIN did actually manage to try to post their PDF, which was also emailed out onto their mailing list, onto the internet, on this page, but the download for the PDF doesn't work.

Since PDFs are a pain, here it is, reposted in HTML form: TDIN's Holiday August 6th Meal Programs Schedule

It's pretty messy: each page is there first in an image form of the PDF that was mailed out, and then the text for that page is underneath it. So it makes for a weird document. But it's better than TDIN's website does with their broken document link. What is with the obsession with PDF files anyway? These places really have totally given up on getting people to just do web design.

If a broke person could make this website on public computers, between meal programs, to save having to write a big schedule list down for friends in need of info, then it's easy to see how someone with web design skills ends up broke. They're not being used. The web design that needs doing isn't being done. Same with the rest of the job market.

So there's your guide to this holiday. It's enough.

Holiday schedule blues

It's not easy to figure out what a holiday schedule is like for these drop-ins.

The Toronto Drop-In Network (TDIN) sent out an email with a PDF attached, to update us all on Monday, August 6th, which turns out to be Alberta Heritage Day. But it also says July 2nd, and if you've worked in an office before, you know how these things can get back-burnered and rushed.

Here's a screenshot of the PDF file:

And, of course, it wouldn't be due diligence to just take TDIN's info as 100% accurate, so before the meals calendar on this website gets any touch-ups, it's time to verify all the times in the PDF with the actual places.

Verification is hard when the IT departments that put together these sad websites still think that it's dangerous to put up your clients' email addresses on the 'net, and it's much better to have a contact form with a little spam-busting thing on it that's too hard to read, and gives you an error anyway when it does work:

It's safe to assume that EHM has not received any email off this page in awhile, and that nobody there, or at their IT service provider, IT Werks, has any interest in seeing this changed.

If every drop-in on this PDF were listed on this site, there'd be like ten more to go. Good thing only about seven of them are.

Next up, Council Fire. The email address on their contact page is linked wrong, so anybody who doesn't know how to link an email address right won't have much luck getting in touch with them. In this case, not a problem.

Let's see how the Good Shepherd does in terms of emailability. They make you decide what kind of inquiry you're making. This one is probably "general." General inquiry lines, with no names attached, are pretty sketchy. But maybe they'll confirm the schedule. TDIN's PDF says:

Hours: 9:00am - 11:00am 

L: 2:00pm - 4:00pm

Considering that The Good Shepherd stays open on all holidays, and runs breakfast from 9 - 11, lunch from 2 - 4, it's safe to assume that TDIN just screwed up and should have put "breakfast" in place of "hours." Definitely a rushed PDF.

Now onto Gateway. Their contact page doesn't list anyone as being in charge of meal programs. So this inquiry will go to their director.

Then there's Maxwell Meighen. Their contact page has this under "how to contact Maxwell Meighen:"

Thanks, guys. Good thing there's an email address listed under "Primary Support Unit." Too bad it's not clear what the PSU is. Well, whoever they are, they're getting a confirmation email.

The Good Neighbors Club has a general administration email as well, and no emails listed for scheduling questions. Hopefully they respond. According to the PDF, their supper's gonna be from 3pm - 3:15pm. Their contact person confirmed that. Let's see if it stands up to a second inquiry.

CONC actually has a drop-in meals contact person! Yay Deborah!

So we'll see how many of these people confirm and what the accuracy rate is like. Yay.

Upper Room does their "every second week" thing

Every year, for a few months, the upper room, on the north side of queen just west of Bathurst, goes from every Saturday evening to every second Saturday evening. So the calendar on this site has been wrong about it for months.

Community BBQ @ Queen West Health

This is pretty late notice, but tomorrow (Friday, July 27th), there's a community barbecue at Queen West Health, on the west side of bathurst, just south of Queen, from noon 'till 4pm!

Good shepherd breakfast falls short even if you show up early

It's not like there's much competition for a good free breakfast in town. Once a week, the Lawyers at Osgoode Hall serve up a great one for early risers, and the Corner Drop-in's Kensington
Market breakfasts are alright, mainly because they have soup with veggies in it. And The Stop's breakfasts can be pretty good. But the only breakfast you can get every day of the week is at the shepherd, and unless you arrive right t the beginning, your chances of getting anything beyond coffee, donuts and peanut butter sandwiches is pretty slim. Every once in awhile, they go the extra mile, but 90% of the time, it's the schizophrenia-inducing carbs, sugar, caffeine mix you see here.

Oh and don't come in without a shirt. It's not ok.

Good shepherd needs more real food

This extreme white flour, ground beef, chicken, pastries, milk, peanut butter and coffee with white sugar thing at the shepherd, and most of these other places, has got to change. It's not just a matter of cheapness: what about chic peas, lentils, beans etc? What about cheap fresh produce? You don't have to give everyone below the poverty line schizophrenia in order to afford to feed them, but with the staples I mentioned above, that's the effect.

Dr. Abram Hoffer told me that if you want to make a sensitive person crazy, just make sure that milk, bread and sugar dominate their diet. A Toronto police officer brutalized a handcuffed suspect in the back of his cop car with a tazer, on video, and got away with it because he's hypoglycemic, and he skipped lunch and had a pastry instea because they were working him too hard. And that's not a bullshit defense: that's nutrition and neurochemistry.

Good shepherd comes through again!

This is why it's worth camping out in the Don Valley instead of Humber, even though the Don river is more toxic: one epic trip through the shepherd at dinner time, if you go through a few time and bag up a ton of food, is the only trip out of the bush that you absolutely need to make. And you can do it every day of the week. And they're the least likely to fuck you over on holidays.

No Evangel Hall dinner this Sunday!

Evangel Hall isn't doing its dinner this Sunday evening... So maybe it's a good time to check out that church at roncesvalles and wright! Unless they're taking the day off too.

Best hotspots

Here's two great places to grab free wireless. If you need a wireless device, the best thing to get is a second-hand iPhone. Their batteries last longer than android phones or blackberries and they're the least frustrating to use. Why get a smartphone instead of a small laptop? Because it's easier to just Stan outside and scam their wireless. You just look like you're texting.

Then grab an offline map app, and remember: the iPhone's compass and the offline Toronto maps app can tell you exactly where you are, without any onnection or contract. So don't get a contract. Get wet wipes instead.

Payday at the Shepherd

It's Friday, June 29th. The welfare cheques went out a few days ago, and the ODSP ones went out yesterday or today or something.

If you showed up at the shepherd last Friday at 2:06, the line would stretch through the hall, out the door, down th street and around the corner.

Today? No line. So the question is, when do the lines start to ramp up again? For those camped out in the wretchedly toxic Don Valley, where the foxes play in the forest, the turtles chill in the bushes next to the path, and the poisoned river of doom is patrolled by Canada Geese by day and Beavers (are those Beavers?) by night... it's easy to find out.

Some of them live like aboriginals, others like raccoons (and with raccoons), and some live like hobbits.

The ones you'll never see live like wolves. Others live like ravens. Few people know what ravens are all about.

Anyway: if you're on welfare or ODSP, do yourself a favor: skip your monthly payment party period. Leave your wallet at home. Make an arrangement with your banker. Get a trustee. Whatever. Pay your rent, pay your bills, keep living off nothing, and save all your extra cash. Save it 'till the last few day before your next payday, an before your buddies' benefits paydays. Do all your buying when others are desperate to sell. Do all your debt repayments when everyone else is hurting, physically and mentally and chemically an psychically hurting, for their cheque. Nobody needs an extra smoke during the first half of the cycle. But that six two-six and that half quarter and that big cheek rock two days before payday, and help your buddies get through those days. Just dole it out bit by bit. Don't break it out all at once. That danger time is when all the worst stuff happens, and it's because of withdrawal, hunger and anticipation.

Save your cash 'till just before payday: save your people from their circumstances and weaknesses.

Save your cash: save your people.

Chicken Lunch at the Taoist Institute parking lot

Every Monday at 4pm, the Fung Loy Kok Institute of Taoism serves chicken, rice or noodles, and steamed vegetables, in its parking lot in the alley behind the LCBO on Spadina, north of Dundas. You're not allowed to smoke on the property. People line up for seconds after the initial serving, but if you're just showing up, they let you skip the "seconds" line. It's the cleanest food this side of Sketch Open Studio.

It's supposed to open at 4pm. Here I am at 3:58. The line stretches from the locked gate, west to the end of the alley, around the corner and maybe 20 feet south down the other alley. Few of my friends who really need this food are willing to come. Let's see how long I takes to get to serving #1, and how long it takes to get to serving #2. Last time it took about 20 minutes to get from one to the other, and the only thing they had then was rice.

I just heard someone say "no more chicken left: rice only," which is pretty worrying, since the only other meals within reach cost $1. My skin is burning from the lack of shade. I can only see a few other non-Asians in line. The mood is chilled and friendly.

At 4:05, the line starts moving. In about 2 minutes, the line has shifted to the parking lot, and stopped.

By 4:20 on the dot, I'm out of the alley with my chicken leg, boiled bok chou and a bunch of white rice. And a styrofoam cup of green tea.

United on Wright closed today... But there was a picnic!

No lunch, no dinner, picnic at noon, rain or shine!! And of course I forgot to post it when I found out, and screwed myself over too.

Central/Western Toronto's Sunday Free Dinner Circuit

Free meals are like old cars. Sometimes you need a few of them to make one good one.

So here's how you can get one really good dinner, and maybe a midnight snack, by hitting up this sequence of Sunday evening dinners. You will need a bike. Don't try to do this on the TTC.

1. Hit either the church at Roncesvalles and Wright, or Evangelhall, at 5:30. You can't do both. Hey, if you do, put in a comment at the bottom and tell us how it's done.
2. Hit the 6:30 dinner at the building that looks like a community center, in the park on the south side of OCAD and the AGO. If you happen to go between the end of May and the beginning of November (or is it October?), you'll have to sign up as an overnight guest to get the full dinner. Otherwise, they'll send you packing. Packing a bag lunch, that is. But no, you want the dinner. Who knows what it's like to stay there, probably better than Seaton "Satan" House. So anyway, sign up to stay there and grab the dinner.
3. And if you can make it, nab a (probably) nice dinner at the church across from the firehall, at the corner of College and Bellevue. And a ton of coffee and sweets. And show up early for an interesting sermon. It's interesting to see what Christians want to tell the poor just before feeding them. Same thing with the first place mentioned in Step 1.

Here's the bike route. It starts out in the center of Bellevue Square Park (the big park in Kensington Market), for no good reason other than to recommend Dundas instead of College or Queen for Sunday evening cycling. Unless you're one of these people who likes to bike slow next to the parked car doors that could open at any time and kill you. In that case, use the death trap bike lanes on College. Hey, if you're one of those people, don't try to make it out to Ronces. Just go to Evangelhall.

Lawyers Serve Up Great Sunday Brunch

Check the photo: you're looking at a 2-inch thick omelette with cheddar and mozza on top, backed up by some palatable fries on the side, and what you didn't see in the photo was the vanilla ice cream. The line clocked in at about 15 minutes, maybe 20.

Good Shepherd Breakfast... Pretty much worth it!

It's hit and miss at the Shep in the morning. But those who showed up on time got some crazy stuff! Burgers, Vietnamese rice paper wraps... So yeah. Show up early.

Luckily, Evangelhall came up with something somewhat more substantial than bagels and peanut butter. Not much more substantial, but somewhat: Eggs and crackers.

St. Felix pulls out all the stops!!

What a great lunch at St Felix today!!! Amazing sandwich, amazing soup, great eggs with potato bits... And as if to say "we forgive you for freaking out at us last time and feel bad about how we acted," they hooked me up with a double-sized double double!!

I even managed to ignore the guy who was offended by my sweatiness! So nice to be able to ignore people, because I know how incomfortable it makes me feel when someone ignores me, especially when I'm trying to antagonize them! Thanks to wednesday afternoon Kung Fu at Masaryk Cowan community centre!!! It's the only thing that's relieved me off constant fear of attack that's oppressed the living daylights out of me. Hey, when we make jobs that offer people unsupervised access to children, an then make sure that they can't call investigations on each-other, we should expect it to be magnet for criminals. And we should expect to see a generation of people like me, who can't get through a meeting with the boss without picturing him or her throwing a punch, right out of the blue.

"Have you eaten yet?"

That's what the priest asked us as he was tending the Good Shepherd lineup, 20 minutes before closing time, when there's usually no line-up at all.

The line goes all the way to the street corner. All I've eaten today is a bowl of soup. The rest of the Scott Mission lunch is inaccessible without a spoon, but it IS in my bag. So far, two instances of sexual harassment have died in their tracks because I managed to act like I didn't notice.

This is the last meal program that is open today. So after this, them dumpsters had better be full. Maybe they've been plundered for the same reason this place is being oversaturated. Maybe they're empty because the stores were closed today. Maybe it's all gone bad in the heat. This could be the first evening in weeks where I actually regret making it to the rehearsal that conflicted with the three other meals I needed to go to today. I know you're not supposed to try to do anything planned when you're poor, but I'll break the law to make the appointments that will take me out.

In the end, the line was only 15 minutes long. No seconds today though, and it's the fact that they usually let you go through as many times as you want that got me all the way across town for this anyway.

Inside, the mood is surprisingly subdued.

Hopefully you found what you needed to stay fed and out of trouble. Happy Victoria Day. God save the queen.

Victoria Day Food Run

So. The calendar can't be trusted, and it's 10:40, and the Scott Mission is serving their first of two meals of the day. The other one is at 11:30 (entry is cut off at 11:45), and other than that, none of Toronto's meal programs are accurately represented on this site. Some of them will run their normal schedule, some will have special meals, and some will have nothing today. Most of them will have announced their Victoria Day weekend schedules verbally during their drop in programming, over the past week or two. Of the programs surveyed (CONC, Evangel Hall, and Good Shepherd Ministries), none have made any special schedule announcements on the Internet or through any client notification system. If a program's phone number or email address is unmonitored, it could be either because the program is not running, or because it is. And Toronto's 211 telephone service or emergency service information, can no longer be dialed from payphones, quarter or no quarter.

So it would be nice to see some crime stats for holidays like this... Stuff like property theft, mugging, garbage theft etc.

Garbage theft is my food security plan for the day. What's yours?

What is it??? Say what it is using the anonymous comment feature on this page! Drop some kind of hint! Disclose the information! But not dumpster locations. I'm talking about special free meals specific to this holiday.

Luckily, the Toronto Drop-In Network released an update, which has been photographed and attached to this post.

Just a few examples: Evangel Hall, the Good Shepherd, Scott Mission and Christie Ossington Neighbourhood are all open. CONC is serving their lunch from 1pm - 2pm (their weekend hours).

Happy Victoria Day, good luck not starving!

Well, once again, no real research was done about what Monday would look like in terms of the meal program schedules, except that the scot mission is doing its regular hours. And the daoist chicken lunch is probably on, but who knows. It sure would be great if some users would add their own updates and tips, since the comments feature doesn't require any kind of sign up or login to use, and it can be anonymous... Come on, disclose the information!!!

Can't eat soy or dairy?

You may not be able to get any nourishment out of our meal programs, then. You might have to choose between sickness and starvation. And if you ask about it, or volunteer to help offer another alternative, you'd better be in an extra stable, diplomatic mood. Otherwise, you never know what could happen. You could get flipped out at by staff or volunteers, harassed by other patrons, and you could get banned for going into a fit about it because you're starving, you have blood sugar "issues" because all you've been given is sugar, coffee, donuts and peanut butter (the cheap kind with the icing sugar in it), all of which, by the way, make you a pretty normal specimen, within our species' median psychophysiology spectrum.

You already know you can't expect to get by without committing theft, unless you eat meat and cheap bread. You won't find a whole article about a no-brainier like that on this "site." So you have to pick the most socially responsible and least socially acceptable and most visibly criminal means of getting affordable (read: free) food into your life: dumpster diving.

(cue hip documentary rock)

Dumpster diving 101:
If I post a great dumpster diving map, they'll all get shut down. It's like finding drug dealers. You either have to find an "in" and not seem like a public servant, or you have to go behind every grocery store you know of and find out whether or not they lock up, grind up, or serve up the edible unsaleables out there.

But you already know that bit.

Ok so you want to have a bike. Don't lock it up right at the dumpster. Don't talk to anyone who talks to you. Just pack up quick and leave. You'll have to look long and hard to find out what your legal rights are if police interrupt you. There are a few things not to trust for accuracy on any legal matters: websites, including government ones, police officers, attorneys. But it goes without saying: it's not your opportunity to campaign or convince. Just be nice and make the whole thing a good thing for them, so after you leave they can see that the place is better off. And if anyone tells you they're afraid of legal liability, that's the only thing you're allowed to respond to, ok? And you have to tell them: there is no applicable precedent for that. You don't have to tell them about how that was a lie seeded to increase waste.

Our economy is founded on three principals: enforced waste, fake need, and centralized control. Maybe someday we'll be able to establish a capitalist economy in a democratic state! But if our country sinks into revolution and civil war, then we may never see capitalism or democracy in Canada or the world.

And the fact that this seems off-topic, that's also part of the same massive fraud and embezzlement regime that dominates our lives. Our starvation, our schizophrenia, our angry outbursts, our unplanned, unborn children... It's all an essential part of the gambit. We've been played hard. But we've known it all our lives, too. That we were being played, and that the perps were, too.

So, yeah. If you can't eat soy or dairy, and you have to choose between sickness or starvation, blame the Roman Empire. You don't need a time machine to do it.

No clean clothes, no chance

WelHappy Dixonl... I've been out of clean clothes for about a week now. Last time did it at the laundromat, I spent work$30. And my laundromat is cheap.

So this morning, I have to put on 100% dirty, stinking moldy clothes.

I'm also gonna be totally starving in like an hour or something. And then I have a full work day, for which I may never get paid.

So! I can go to the Caribbean catholic church, spend two hours and get a ton of food, or I could go to the meeting place and st Felix and get my laundry done and a breakfast, and then I'd have to grab lunch and dinner somewhere... right at crunch time at work... so, not an easy decision. And not a great way to start a work day.

I wish there were more laundry services. CONC makes you schedule your laundry use. Hey, that'd work well if I weren't mentally ill!

Sketch Studios used to have laundry, but the one of the machines broke and that was the end of that.

Oh yeah. Thanks, by the way, for the shitty, hungry Easter. Thanks for making it so you can't call #311/#211 from a pay phone anymore. Quarter or no quarter. Nice. No point in making those particular numbers payphone accessible, on no.

Oh yeah and to all the meal program co-ordinators who would never use a mailing list to inform people of holiday stuff, and make sure not to include a list of Easter meals next to the sign they put up: please believe me when I say, you can't provide free internet to your visitors and claim that we don't use the internet to stay in touch. And you can't claim that a mailing list is difficult to set up. Just have a sign-up sheet somewhere, or have a sign with a link to your website and a sign-up thing on there. It is so easy, and I'll keep volunteering to do it 'till someone has the common sense to say "ok, you know what, let's try this." We love you, staff and volunteers. You can do this. You stubborn, obstinate, presumptuous hosers.

So, of course I should have known I'd have to deal with that, and solve the problem, and do the research, or just not use these services unless it's going to be really frequent so I notice their signs or get told by their greeting people... they make someone put up signs but they won't send out emails.

And to all the folks who put together services as window dressing, not to be used but just to exist to be pointed at like "see all the stuff we're doing?":  someday  that gravy train of endless exploitation is going to get derailed by one of us, the poor, and some of you are gonna be crushed under the wreck.

And to all the folks who avoid getting into politics, avoid getting into government, avoid getting into public service, because you think politics is dirty and bad, because you think government is shitty work, because you think public service is deadsville: Go into that governance course you were gonna give up for a business degree. Pursue your dream of becoming a lawyer, even though you know every time you say what you do, eyes are gonna roll, you're gonna have to deal with lawyer jokes all your life, etc. Follow your dreams. It's politicians who were warned, vast numbers of Canadians would starve because of their decisions. They got their spots because all the people who'd do good job are avoiding the career. For real, check out some of the municipal and ward debates. Not many of the candidates can string together a coherent sentence unscripted. There's just no interest. The mayoral race is full of people who remind me of the crowd at the soup kitchens. Some of them are actually from the soup kitchens!

Anyone considering being a personal support worker though? Just get out now. Go travel or something. PSU work  will flatten you. It's another excuse to pay you to help them compensate for how light their benefits packages. So you can earn a hundred bucks by figuring out how to hook up your client with twenty bucks worth of transit tokens or some shit.

Just some hungry easter thoughts.

If you don't want to be starving on a holiday...

...make sure you go to all your favorite meal programs in the days leading up to the holiday!

They will not inform you by e-mail or text message of any changes in their program or any special holiday programming.

They might offer any sort of helpful list of alternate meal programs on the door, but the information may not be correct.

They think that their clients don't have internet access, even though they provide it and recognize it as a need.

They think that their clients don't have cellphones, even though they have several of their clients' cellphone numbers.

They will not put even their regular program schedule on their website, and where they do, it's probably inaccurate, and they don't necessarily update it, and they make sure not to note when updates were last made.

They think that setting up an email mailing list is something that they don't have the time, technology or budget for. They actually think it takes time, technology and a budget to set up an email mailing list. They actually, factually think that. They have said that to me.

So. I am an absolutely starving, housed, very internet-connected person. I am starving on a holiday because this is the first day in a few weeks where I have desperately needed free food. Somebody decided to skip work early at the beginning of this long weekend, so I couldn't get paid then, and they arranged to pay me today, but then took the day off, and didn't tell me.

So, of course I am totally responsible for spending all my money on food already. I guess I should have rationed it. I guess I should have bought cheaper food. I guess I should have combined soup kitchens with groceries. But I didn't want to combine them, because I didn't think I'd have to go back to that at all, and I didn't want to, because, ok, I've changed my attitude about these places. The food is often really, really terrible. Even when it's not, it's a sad, '50s Christian approach to food: half of it is red meat. Vegetables are tomatoes, potatoes, and lettuce. This is a good way to make sick people sicker and mentally ill people turn crazy.

So... if someone were to say, let's make a recipe, a blueprint, for a perfect social disintegration, this would definitely be a good piece of the puzzle.

Happy fucking Easter Monday, Government of Canada, you filthy slime. I'm fucking starving. My stomach hurts like crazy and I am coming closer and closer to committing burglary of food. Fuck you. Fuck your assumptions about what makes someone unable to afford food, what their lives are like, their opportunities, how close they are to success and danger, their needs, their fucking innocence!!!


I am not going to condemn the volunteers who work at these places. They are ignorant, not irresponsible. I point the finger straight at the government, because it is specifically their responsibility to not let their ignorance get in the way of good governance. It's up to them to identify and ameliorate any ignorance or assumptions they make. They screw up all the time, of course, but it's their responsibility to deal with that too.

I have spent, I don't know, 100 hours on this site. Maybe. I should have cataloged it. I was working on it quickly here and there, on resource center computers which will probably be gone by this time next year. Hopefully my hunger doesn't get me into an angry state, which I fall for and alienate my employers, and I won't have to go and see all those resource centers closed down with no notification or anything. That would break my heart.

I'm gonna restate this one thing: if someone were to invest a lot of time and money developing a strategy for the disintegration of society, this problem would fit well into that plan. It's a small piece, but they all count. They all disintegrate us.