Szlachta brukowa

LETTER FROM THE STREET

From home to street, man hit by hard times again

PETER KUITENBROUWER

Tadeusz Jozef May is homeless again: Toronto Community Housing Corp. (TCHC) evicted him and his cat from their apartment on Friday. Mr. May has been homeless before: his photograph, sleeping in the gazebo of St. James Park, appeared in this newspaper in December, 1998. At the time, Mr. May said he'd been homeless for five months.
It continued another nine years, he tells me now. Then, last August, with help from Streets to Homes - a city department run with federal money - Mr. May and Marie Speck, his wife, moved into a TCHC apartment at 2 Antler Street. This is a row of tidy townhouses across from Campbell Avenue Park, near Dupont Street and Landsdowne Avenue. But on Monday, when I met Mr. May, 51, smoking a cigarette in front of the Hummingbird Centre on Front Street, he was very much homeless: his overalls hung by one strap and his breath reeked of the Listerine he slugs, he says, to keep numb.
We went to Tim Hortons on Scott Street for coffee, and Mr. May gave me his eviction notice, which says he owes $859.19. He began to cry. According to Mr. May, when he got an apartment, a Streets to Homes staffer wrote a letter resulting in the landlord charging him market rent.
The staffer "wrote a letter saying he couldn't verify that I was on the street, so I had to pay full rent, $711 a month, plus utilities," Mr. May says. The eviction order notes that Mr. May recently paid $732 in rent. "I paid it," says Mr. May. "What the hell do they want from me? I'm on disability. I should be paying reasonable rent. I'm paying what you are paying."
It's hard to tell what is true in all this. Hugh Lawson, director of corporate planning at TCHC, says that as a rule Streets to Homes places homeless people in rent-geared-to-income units. In those cases, TCHC charges rent equal to 30% of a person's income. "I believe given the amount he's paying, that's the market rent," says Mr. Lawson, although he can't say why. He says TCHC evicts just 1% of tenants in its 58,500 units.
Iain De Jong, acting mamager of Streets to Homes, declines further comment, citing Mr. May's privacy. I am not suggesting that Mr. May is easy to house. Before we leave Tim Hortons, I use the restroom. Mr. May waits until we're outside, and pees on a building. "Why not use the toilet?" I ask. "When somebody disrespects you, you want to piss in their face, right? Well this city disrespects me, big time, so I piss on the street."
Mr. May, who said his wife is in jail, is himself charged in a criminal matter, he says for stealing a bicycle. I call his lawyer, Paul Tomlinson, who declines to discuss the case, except to say he doesn't think Mr. May has been on the street continuously since 1998.
Mr. May, meanwhile, worries about his cat, Khonic. "I had him for seven months. He's on his own. What am I supposed to do? I left the window open and he went out. He's only eight months old. He's a nice young tom. Somebody will like him."
As we stand by the Hummingbird Centre on Monday night, a man walked by carrying bunches of balloons wrapped in plastic. A procession of women follow him, rolling trolleys loaded with party snacks. "Got any food?" asks Mr. May. "Tons of food!" says the man. "Any for me?" "Nope!" Jaust then one woman drops a try, spilling cheese and crackers on the Front Street sidewalk. "Just leave it!" orders balloon man. She walks off.
Mr. May bends down and begins to eat cheese off the sidewalk. The well-bundled workers, scuttling from their offices to their cars in the big Church Street garage, look away (NATIONAL POST, Thursday, January 25, 2007).

Tadeusz Gajl w "Herby Szlacheckie Rzeczypospolitej Obojga Narodow", zacne szlacheckie rodziny MAY przypisuje do klanu STARYKON.

Zbigniew Leszczyc w "Herby Szlachty Polskiej" tak o rodzie STARYKON powiada: "W czerwonem polu srebrny kon, idacy klusa, na helmie topor z ostrzem na prawo ku koronie zwroconem. Pieczetuja sie nim: May, wojew. sandomierskie 1540, jedna galez nazywala sie Majewski".

06:42 Hrs. Na dworze minus 14-stopniowo. Z wiatrem odczuwalna temperatura - 22. Samochod pokryty drobnym lekkim sniezkiem. Obowiazkowa kominiarka na glowie i rekawice jednopalcowe. Kelly. Mam na imie Kelly. Moze to cos zmieni - unosi sie w Polskim Radiu Toronto na fali 1320 AM. ESSO, Canadian Tire, Petro-Canada biora za litr paliwa $0.80.3. Beaver $0.80.1.

15:10 Hrs. Minus 13-stopniowo. Slonecznie + wietrznie. Temperatura odczuwalna - 24. Okulary sloneczne. Przy takiej pogodzie wargi sie robia suche i skora na dloniach tez. Na wargi wcieram Vaseline Lip Therapy. Na dlonie Neutrogena Hand Cream norwegian formula (www.neutrogena.com).
Wpadam do Food Basics (www.foodbasics.com). W tym tygodniu maja dobrego deala na migdalki. Dwie 300 g. siateczki tylko za $5. Kupuje 4 Reddi Snack Almonds.

"W przedmiotowej sprawie ustalono, iz wpisy zawierajace tresci zniewazajace zostaly dokonane w dniu 20.10.2006 w godz. 1:00 - 3:00 z numeru IP 03.5.15.2. Numer ten w tym czasie byl przydzielony abonentowi uslugi Neostrada Elzbiecie Gorzynskiej - Tomanek" (Marek Switala - asesor Prokuratury Rejonowej Poznan - Grunwald, SOWA MAGAZINE - http://sowa.mojblog.com/permalink.aspx?id=89648).