Last night for our evening activity we were able to take a tour of the city. The tour of the city was pretending to be a 14 year old abused run away and we had only two dollars (which, here in Canada, they call a toonie) and a street car token. We had to find out five questions like, Where would you find shelter, Where would you find food, Where would you get money from, where would you bathe, and where would you find entertainment. We hopped on the street car took it to the subway station. We got a transfer, hopped on the subway and got off downtown Toronto. We started walking down the street trying to answer the five basic questions. We really couldn’t answer any long term. In Toronto, the magic age is 16. If you’re younger than that, they are legally obligated to call the police and have them contact your parents if you turn up at a shelter. So we couldn’t go to a shelter. We found a few parks we could potentially sleep in but security guards were in all of them. For food, most of us in my group spent their money on Burger King (we had a double cheeseburger :-D). A few others spent their money on a hot dog at a hot dog stand. Jake’s group pretended they were part of a gang. They pretended they were going to rob the hot dog stand. For money, none of us found any. Our guide told us that they clean the streets of Toronto every night so we can’t find money on the streets. 83% of male and 87% of female youth turn to prostituting for money. As we went down the streets of Toronto, but looking at the stores, we saw that two things sell in Toronto. Drugs and sex. In the period of one block, our group counted five adult stores. Then we stopped in a place called boy’s town, where male prostituting occurs. We were there late at night, so we didn’t see any. Our guide told us their time to be out is 4-5 because that’s when work gets out. Our guide pointed out a really good point. They’re not selling themselves. They’re being sold by their circumstances. They have no other possible income of money. They were abused as kids, so they don’t really know what’s appropriate for adults to do to them. The Salvation Army center is about the only place for them. They offer food to kids, but once again, you were too young to get food. You had to be 16. For bathing, we could potentially wash our face in the bathroom but in Burger King, you had to get it unlocked to get let in and in the subway station, the guy’s bathroom was periodically checked by security guards, so you couldn’t use that one for very long either. There was a park with a stream in it, but there were security guards and taking a full bath wouldn’t be a good idea there. For entertainment, we were going to have to be creative. There was one plaza that had a few big TVs. You could hang out there for awhile, but that wasn’t a long term solution. You don’t have any money to use so you have to find something. There was a few stores with music playing outside them but you’d probably get kicked out after a few songs.
.jake and gary

On my experience last night my group did the same basic thing. We had to try to find shelter, food, money, hygiene, and find entertainment. Our two group leaders were named Andy and Oz, they both had a really good idea of what street life was like. Especially Oz because he has been on and off the street for a long time. They were both able to give us a good idea of what to do. When we got off the subway, the first thing that we looked for was a bathroom and we found it right at the station. The girls one was closed so we had to find another one somewhere in the station and we did. Next we started heading for a street called Yonge Street because it seemed like there could be a lot of youth on that road. We didn’t find any young people for a very long and when we did they weren’t the nicest people on Earth. Then we took a walk through a park. We found a fountain under a bridge that one could probably bathe in. You could also sleep there if you didn’t mind the noise. Next we stopped at a McDonald’s to see if you could find something to eat. I didn’t get any thing because I was saving my money for later but a few people in our group did. After that we went walking down this road that had a lot of adault rated places. We didn’t find much of use there, except for there were some places that had TVs so you could watch TV for a while. When we were about to go back to the vans, Andy gave us one last chance to get something to eat so me, Kyle, and Scott bought donuts and muffins at Tim Horton’s (they were the next best thing to Krispy Cream). Next we walked through a gay neighbor hood which scared us. Then we were back at the vans. It was an amazing experience.
-Jon Reinbold

On my experience last night is pretty much the same as Gary’s. And that’s because Gary was in my group last night. We had to think like a 14 year old run away. And we only had a bus token and 2 dollars. So we didn’t have much. We walked around the city trying to find things that might be a good place to wash up, eat, watch entertainment, where we could find money, and a place to find shelter. It was kinda hard. First we went to a park where there was some water and we all thought it might be a good place to wash up.

-- Kristen Kelly