By Hijal De Sarkar
Young People's Press

"Hey, bum, why don't you get a job?" shouts an irate motorist, head tilted out of the car window.

Listening to degrading comments like this is all part of a day's work for Ryan* and his street friend, Scott*.

Ryan and Scott are squeegee kids. And they're part of a growing contingent of similarly employed young people on Toronto's streets.

Artwork by James Sandham

Now, with the introduction of new legislation that makes it an offense to ply their trade, they've become the targets of a police crackdown on street people.

Scott, Ryan, and Ryan's common-law wife, Jennet*, have been on the streets for the past two to three years. For them, squeegeeing is a way to help make ends meet. They earn whatever money they can by cleaning car windshields at major intersections. The money buys food and other basic necessities.

Ryan and Jennet are also trying to put a little money aside each week. They hope to save enough to get a marriage license and make it official.

The three friends are run-away youths who came to Toronto from rural areas in Northern Ontario. They came here to escape what they felt were horrible and sometimes dangerous situations at home. They thought that there was no place in their hometowns where they could go for help.

"There's a lot of support and resources in Toronto," offers Tommy Lee, another friend of Ryan's. Lee ended up on the streets when his gambling addiction spun out of control and he was unable to find support.

Although he now has a job, Lee says he is having a hard time finding an affordable apartment to rent. He blames the problem on the lack of rent control in the city. "Without any rent control, landlords have no reason to give a place to a guy trying to get help for his problems," says Lee.

And it's not just from other parts of Ontario that young people are coming. They are arriving from all over Canada.

"Toronto has an image of bright lights, big city. In some parts of the country, this means opportunity," explains Rose Cino of Covenant House, a major shelter for homeless youths.

With the housing crisis worsening, more and more people are flocking to the city's already over-crowded shelter system.

Some people are worried that the shelter system is a Band-Aid response to a long-term problem. "We've been very concerned for some time now that youths, in particular, are trapped in the shelters," says Cino.

It's a concern shared by Jennet. She thinks that many of the homeless who enter the hostel system end up staying there, with no incentive to escape.

Like many people on Toronto's streets, Jennet doesn't have much faith in the shelter system.

"I don't think any of the shelters are all that safe. You could get your stuff stolen," says Jennet. She knows only too well, having had items stolen while spending the night at a shelter.

And yet the demand for hostels is increasing. Stacey Bayne, who works at a shelter on the corner of Church and Richmond Streets, has noticed that more and more people have been relying on hostels over the past five years. She attributes this to a lack of affordable housing.

But merely opening more hostels is not going to solve the problem, say both housing rights advocates and those most directly affected. Like many of the street youths interviewed, Jennet thinks that a solution will come about only if the government starts building affordable housing.

When the provincial government eliminated rent controls, many landlords increased rents by large amounts. If your rent goes up, but your meager earnings don't - well, it's not hard to do the math - the outcome is often homelessness.

Meanwhile, life on the streets remains a twenty-four-seven struggle for the squeegee kids.

The stereotypes remain. As Lee observes, "People think squeegee kids are either drug addicts or alcoholics, and that they're very hostile."

"I don't know what I'm going to do. All I know is that I'm trying to make an honest living, and suddenly that isn't good enough for those #*@!#*!" exclaims Lee, who continues to work as many hours as possible to make ends meet.

And motorists continue to glare and shout profanities.

* The names of some of the young people in the story have been changed.

Hijal De Sarkar is 15 years old.

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