Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Steve Teekens: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1778

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

In this 1778th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Steve Teekens, an Ojibway, member of Nipissing First Nation and passionate advocate for Indigenous rights, about truth and reconciliation and how Na-Me-Res supports unhoused Indigenous men in Toronto. There's a very special co-host for this one. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, Blue Sky Agency and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail].

Welcome to Toronto Welcome to episode of Welcome to episode 1,778 of Toronto-Miked Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta.

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And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today, making his Toronto mic to debut, it's Steve Teacons. Welcome to Toronto Mike Steve. Okay, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here today. Well, thank you for taking the time and making the trek to South Atobico. Not a problem. Now, Steve, I asked your permission beforehand and I'm here to announce to the listenership that there's a very special co-host for this episode because it just so happens today, Friday, October 10th is a PD day. And, you know, and And my co-host for this episode, as we get to know you, Steve, and basically ask, we have questions.

And my co-host is my son Jarvis. Jarvis, say hello to everybody. Hello, everyone. So Jarvis, are you nervous making your hosting debut on Toronto Mike? No, I'm not really. Okay. What do you think, Steve? Should he be nervous?

I don't think so. I think that's pretty cool that he's, you know, having a PD day today and he's able to participate and be a co-host. It's really awesome. And it's a second, like the school year just started, and I took note that this is the second PD day. So I don't know. Are they ever going to have a full week of school? What's going on, Jarvis?

Well, the teachers need a lot of time to prepare resources and stuff. A lot of time to prep for you. Okay, Steve, oh gosh, we have so many questions. But maybe off the top, if you could tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us a little bit about Steve Teakins. Okay. Well, geez, where do I start? Okay, so...

Well, give me the origin story. Like, I know you got into social work, right? Like, maybe give us the origin story of when you decided to get into that field and how you kind of made that happen. This is a very interesting story. So, when I was a young person, I grew up in Ottawa, just outside of Collingwood. And, you know, it's a community that back then was diverse as a loaf of bread. A glass of milk. So when I was, what, about 14, I quit, quit school, and I worked in a factory.

Oh, I was 15 then. 15. Worked in a factory and tried that hard work, and I did that for quite some time. Eventually, I thought factory works not for me. I quit. I went back to school. I had a horrible attitude. I got kicked out of high school, went back, graduated.

And when I graduated, I thought, what I want to do with my life? I don't know. I knew I wanted to go to college. I knew I wanted to go to college up in North Bay, which is right near my First Nation community, Nipissing First Nation. And so I pulled out the Canada College course book, opened up the second page with all the listings

of the college programs you could enroll in. Right. And I closed my eyes, ran my finger down the list, stopped my finger somewhere, opened up my eyes, said, social service worker. Well, all right, I'll sign up for that. So I signed up, I was accepted, went to college, didn't really try, hard, did very well, and graduated. Then took a kick at the can at University, at Nipissing

University. And, you know, I dropped out. I was taking psychology. I was given my first year of transfer credits, and that was a mistake for me. I should have started right from scratch. Right. And I dropped out and I moved to Toronto. And my first job was in the city working as a street outreach worker. My job back then was working with homeless individuals who, you know, are outdoor homeless on the streets. So that was a really interesting time in my life. I learned so much. It was so eye-opening, especially being a young person from a community, just a couple

hours north of Toronto where he didn't see that sort of thing every day. Okay, Steve, we're going to step in right here to say that's an absolute remarkable story for how you end up as a social worker. So you close your eyes and there's a list of courses or what you could study and you just landed what you could have landed anywhere yeah it could have been uh who knows i could have gotten a carpentry or something you could have gone into logistics or something um you know you could be you could be managing a warehouse right now uh do you recommend to young jarvis that's how he chooses his studies and university well uh no i don't think that's a great idea um back then though

i didn't really know what i wanted to do what i but you knew you wanted to go to this uh near north Bay. Exactly. Yeah. I have that connection with my First Nation community with some of my family up there and hang out my cousins up there who I really had a good time hanging out with. And that was my priority then. I also knew I didn't want to work in a factory ever again. Right. Not even if you're managing the warehouse. Not even. No. No. Okay. So fascinating. And again, just reminding my esteemed co-host, Jarvis, that if you have any questions along the way, you can, you can ask Steve. We're going to, we've now got it. So, so you've moved to Toronto.

So what exactly brought you to Toronto? Work. When I was in North Bay and I had my college diploma under my belt, I was applying for all kinds of jobs. But being a small city and being a college and university town, it's really difficult sometimes to get work there in the social services field. So I thought, well, you know, maybe I'll leave, go to Toronto for maybe a year or so, and move back.

I'll have experience under my belt. and maybe that will help me land a job up in North Bay. Well, I guess a year or so after, I had my first daughter, and I started growing roots here in the city. So all my plans changed along the way. And, yeah, I decided not to go back. Well, many a great Canadian ended up in Toronto for the jobs. That's right.

I feel like we're going down the road, right? They got jobs. They got lawyering jobs. They got all kinds of jobs. and in Toronto. So we're glad to have you here, of course. Now, may I ask you, and I think Jarvis had a question, too, if he's ready to pipe in. But so you're in an Ojibwe and you're a member of Nipissing First Nation.

Yeah. Jarvis, did you have any questions about Steve's family and background? Because, of course, Jarvis, maybe you chime in here, Jarvis. In your class in school, you're in grade 6. And we just had orange shirt day. You guys were, tell us about what you were studying and what you were curious about. We're learning about the residential schools that the indigenous people went through. And we just recently watched a play called The Mush Hole at Young People's Theater.

It has some deep stuff in it. Well, what did you learn from that? And then we can, I know you have a specific question for Steve, but what did you learn from this play you watched, The Mush Hole? well they were treated horribly the people there the indigenous people in the residential schools yeah and did you have a question for steve about his uh his family how do you feel about the residential schools well uh i visited the one where my two of my grandparents went in spanish ontario and i have to say when i went there just had this ugly awful feeling in the pit of my belly

It was just really awful being there. Right in front of the school was a graveyard. Had a lot of graves of children there. You know, there was a grave stone written in Ojibwe, and I believe what loosely translated what it meant was, you know, we'll always remember our children. My grandparents went to residential school. It was a horrible experience for them.

You know, then I think there's just no sense. of intergenerational trauma where the trauma of one generation gets passed on to the next. Right. And, you know, my mother was part of the adoption scoop, along with most of my uncles and aunts, and they were raised in non-indigenous homes. And it was just a horrible experience all around. Residential schools were something in my generation, and for many Canadians, they're a little bit older.

We never studied any of this in school. You know, and a lot of Canadians didn't know any of these things. I'm really pleased to hear that you studied this in school. That's really good, even though it's not a, you know, a piece of Canadian history to be proud of. But it's important to learn the truth. Maybe once people learn the truth, they'll have greater understanding of the challenges that a lot of First Nations people face. You know, residential schools were a systemic thing that were legally sanctioned through the Indian Act. And the government was behind making this happen where the children went to those schools.

And just a horrible experience in a chapter in Canadian history. So it's good to know that you're learning those things. I know the mush hole. It's called the mush hole because the mush hole is the Mohawk Institute in Brantford. It was the first residential school ever opened in Canada, I think was 1886, if I remember correctly. And it didn't close until not too long. ago and you know generations upon generations of native people went to those schools the reason it's called the mush hole is because the primary staple for feeding those children with porridge

leftover porridge um sometimes porridge that was rotten and that's what they fed the kids so thus they gave it the name mashhole jervis any uh any more question so just i understand this correctly So you're the grandchild of residential school survivors. So did you ever speak to your grandparents about their experience in the residential school? Unfortunately not. I know some of that older generation that went to residential schools, it was common for them to never discuss it, often live their whole life and not really talk about it, keep it bottled up inside.

When my mother finally discovered her siblings, because they're all separated, we came from a large family. There was about 12 of them. When she finally discovered some of them, her parents were already deceased. It passed away. So there was never an opportunity for my mom to connect with her birth parents. And I never had that opportunity either.

Now, Jarvis asked me a good question. We were talking about you earlier. And he asked me, I feel like he could ask it for himself here. But just to remind him, he wanted me to ask you, what is, or sorry, what was the 60s scoop? because you mentioned that you're a child of someone who survived the 60 scoop.

But tell us what exactly was the 60 scoop. Okay. So the 60 scoop was something, again, that the government sanctioned. From what I understand, in the late 50s in Ontario, a lot of the children's aid societies in this province were nearing bankruptcy. And then they seen this untapped market of children that they felt they could protect on First Nations communities. back then and currently a lot of First Nations communities

are under federal jurisdiction and not provincial. Somehow they were granted permission to apprehend children from First Nations. Let me change that, not apprehend, kidnap. And basically they took away their children's and First Nations communities. It started actually in the late 50s and placed them in non-Indigenous homes. It was part of the concerted effort by federal government to assimilate First Nations children.

First Nations people, it seems like, according to the government, weren't assimilating fast enough. And so they thought, you know, take children from their homes and place them in non-Native homes, sometimes in foster homes or group homes. And for many, it was a negative experience.

Of course, you know, if you were taken from your birth parents and, you know, had all your needs met, and have a foreign group come into your community and assume their foreign values and how they think you should be child-rearing. And if you don't child-rear your children according to their, the way they think you should, they take them away. If parents resisted just like residential schools, the police would come in and make sure

the children are taken away. And there was very little the parents could do. So that's what adoption scoop was. unfortunately to this day you know a lot of First Nations children are apprehended and taken in care of children's aid societies across this country I know a lot of scholars say that there's more children in care today than there ever was in residential school days

okay so that's horrific like even just and I first learned about 60 scoop believe it or not from reading about Buffy St. Marie back in the day. Okay? I got a timestamp that one. I need to ask you, though, what are your thoughts on? Because we were led to believe, she led us to believe, that she was a victim of the 60th scoop that you're,

is it your mother or your father? Mother. Your mother. Okay, I'm going to get back to that, actually. But Buffy St. Marie, of course, we learned is not actually a victim of the 60 scoop as your mother was. She's an Italian-American. What are your thoughts on Buffy St. Marie in 2025?

Well, a lot of disappointment, you know. When I was a kid, I remember seeing Buffy St. Marie on Sesame Street. Me too, bud. And I thought, wow, that's so cool. That's the first Native person I ever saw on TV. Like, you know, broadcasted widely. A lot of children saw that. And that was so cool.

That was very inspiring. Before that, I don't think I ever saw Native people on TV, at least not in a good light. And I thought, wow, this is amazing. A little later, you know, I enjoyed some of her music. I know she was a big star in her circles of her genre of music. And I thought, wow, that's really inspiring. She's a role model.

And then later on, I heard, oh, they're going to reveal that she's been identified as a fake. You know, the term that people often use is Pretendian. And initially, I didn't want to believe it. You know, I thought, no, maybe not. You know, there's got to be something. But after I saw the documentary on the case and what was going on, I thought, wow, this is horrible. You know, someone assuming the identity of a native person and benefiting off of it, you know, stealing some stories of common narratives of Native folks who went through really tough times and capitalizing on it. It's horrible.

It's fraud. You know, it's too bad there's no legal implications there to charge someone with that because, She stole the spotlight. How many awards did she win across Canada and U.S.? That were designated for Native folks? And she pushed others aside so she could win those things. How many cash prizes did she win that were met for Native folks where she, you know, assumed that identity?

But then again, even those folks that awarded those prizes, they should have checked a little closer. So it's a huge disappointment. I understand that this phenomenon of pretendianism is very rampant across Canada and the U.S. And it's a huge problem. You know, I would say probably just before Buffy St. Marie made it big, there was very few people saying they were native. Even native people were saying they're not native.

Why? They don't want their children scooped. They don't want to have their children go off enough. foster care and be raised by some other families. So back then, it wasn't very common for Native folks to say that they, sorry, for non-Native folks to say they were native. So it's an awful phenomenon. I know a lot of Canadians, they have a lot of folklore in their family that,

oh, their great-great-grandmother was a Cherokee princess or whatever. You know, it's damaging if it's not true. And there's so many folks that really assume that identity. I know in my line of work, we have folks sometimes come to us and say they're native and they want to get into our affordable housing, which is... Oh, we're going to get into. Okay, absolutely. And they're taking a spot away from folks that aren't legitimately indigenous.

So we have a process now to vet people, which is very unfortunate. I know not long ago, I used to believe people when they told me they were native. I never questioned it. Never really had any thoughts about it. I'm like, oh, cool, all right. no problem. But nowadays, you really have to question it if their stories don't necessarily add up. That's sad to hear. That really is. Sad to hear. Now, did you speak with your mother about, you know, being kidnapped from her family and put in a white family home?

I did. I did. I asked her permission to be able to share some of the story. My mom remembers the day she was taken. She was in Garden Village. That's where she was born. born and raised for a little bit. She thinks she was about five. She was taken with her sister. And she remembers a car coming into the reserve and seeing the car come in. The other siblings were saying run and hide. I guess my mom and my aunt weren't quick enough. And they grabbed them. I know some of my uncles were trying to get them to stop. And the car took off. They were put in the back seat, the car left, and they were looking at the back window, and their siblings were chasing after the car to no avail. She said they drove what seemed like for a really

long time, and eventually they were brought to this farm. And when they were brought to the farm, they remember laughing at the people the way they talked. And they were laughing at the people the way they talked because it was a French community, it was a French family. So she was raised on that French farm up until the age of 18. She was never adopted. She's always a foster child along with my aunt. The minute she turned 18, she had to leave. They were basically laborers on the farm.

There were other foster kids that were raised on that farm as well. Some were French-Canadian. Some were native. And, yeah, that's how she spent most of her childhood. I know growing up in that French Catholic community, It was not necessarily easy, particularly if you're native growing up there. But in a nutshell, that was the story of what happened. It wasn't until a little bit later when she left and met my dad.

She was curious about her siblings. So they came to Toronto. They looked at the Toronto phone book back then, which was another large book, like an encyclopedia. Right. They went through it and they found my uncle. And then after finding my uncle, you know, I was just born then. That's how they connected with the rest of the family. Wow.

Okay. My goodness, Jarvis, do you know what a phone book is? Yes, I do. Oh, you do? Okay, I'm surprised. Have you ever seen one? Serious question. Have you ever seen a phone book?

No. Okay, just like pictures online or like YouTube videos or something. Yeah, pretty much. Because I'm thinking Jarvis is 11 and I'm trying to think of when I last had a phone book in the house and I'm thinking it might be 20 years ago. Okay. And he,

it's funny to how we move on from these things that were just like staples of a home. Like everybody had the white pages and the yellow pages and there's no home without one in this entire country and today they're completely obsolete which is, which is fascinating.

Okay, Steve, I'm so sorry all that happened to you and your family. Jarvis, did you have any questions about what you, about National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, which was September 30th. Oh, yes. What do you feel about, how do you feel about Orange Shirt Day? Okay.

Well, at Nami Res, you know, we, we have a National Day of Reconciliation event that takes place not far from where our services are located. Initially, when the unmarked graves were discovered in the former residential school in Camloops, British Columbia, I think they found. like 192 unmarked graves of children. Right. No schools in Canada, or at least no non-Indigenous residential schools,

have graveyards outside of them. It's really an odd phenomenon. But in a lot of residential schools where native children went, it's very common for graveyards to be right across from those schools, which is just horrible, horrifying. Just imagine if you were a kid going to school

and, you know, see your, little buddy that was buried there on a daily basis. Good point. Must really give me an awful feeling, right? So when that was discovered, it really shook a lot of Canadians, both indigenous and non-indigenous. I think for non-indigenous, I'm making an assumption here, but I thought that was finally evidence for a lot of non-native Canadians to realize, wow, awful things

really did happen in those residential schools. So at NAMIres, what we did was. we fastened orange t-shirts to the outside of our buildings on Vaughn Road. We have three buildings there. At the time, we fastened it to two of them, and it made a really wonderful public statement. You know, it was unusual to see a whole bunch of orange t-shirts fastened to buildings. So that's all we did.

We didn't plan any event. We didn't seek any immediate attention or anything. We just wanted to make a silent message. And I think that message got across very well. Our neighbors in our neighborhood were asking about the orange shirts. They were asking if we were going to do any events or anything. To the goodness of our neighbors in that neighborhood, they did plan events to honor native people and to remember some of the horrible things which happened in our Canadian history.

And since then, the following year, we started a national day of reconciliation event. at Hillcrest Park. This year marked our third one. And I have to say this year, when I drove in to work, I was really surprised how many young people I saw wearing orange t-shirts. It gave me hope for the future. A lot of our young people are now learning these things, as you shared earlier, which is really a good thing,

even though it's horrible things to learn, but it is part of our history. So I'm very hopeful for the future. The other thing at our event this year, you know, we invited some of the local elementary schools in our neighborhood, along with our neighbors. We had a wonderful turnout this year.

And we were giving out orange T-shirts to people that showed up this year. We were able to do that. And I saw a bunch of young boys. They were high school age, and I walked up to them, and I said, hey, guys, you know, what school are you here with? And I'm like, oh, we're with the high school now up the road here.

I'm like, oh, okay. So where's your group? Where's your teacher? So I don't know, we came on our own, we're on our lunch break. I thought, wow, that's really cool. You know, so I said, well, we got orange t-shirts over there, guys. Just go over there, tell them your size, and we'll give you some. And that really inspired me.

Just seeing these young guys coming to the event, genuinely curious about the event and wanting to support. So that made me very hopeful for the future. And so that really kept my thoughts for this year's Truth and Reconciliation event. And I was really happy that we had some young people interested that came on their own accord. Now, obviously, Steve, I'm going to want you in a moment. I'm going to want you to tell me all about Nama Rez, which you've referenced a couple of times. And people are like, what's he talking about?

we're going to really get into Nome Rez. But I'm 51 years old and we didn't learn anything. Like Jarvis is learning now in primary school about an uglier side of Canada's history that we honestly never learned. I'll tell you, I didn't really fully understand what was happening with the residential schools, et cetera, until Gore Downey. And that's not that, as you know, that's not that last, what, 10 years. ago or so. But the secret path, I'm going to, what were your thoughts on Gord Downey's, one of his final projects

before he passed, the secret path? Well, I saw his final concert at Roy Thompson Hall. When I went, you know, me goadowny, you really raised the awareness of a lot of Canadians. You really did. You had a huge impact. That's reconciliation right there. I know his, he passed a torch to his family. And the Chenny Wen Jack Foundation is now an entity that is making a lot of differences for native folks and teaching a lot of people about what happened.

And, you know, good on Gord. I know when I saw his last show, you know, I am a tragically hip fan. I wasn't really familiar with his music for the secret path. Right. And when I heard that music, I thought, when he was. he's going to play some tragically hip songs you know right this music from sacred path it was kind of um not necessarily upbeat it was sort of a downer although it was telling a story of factual things that happened i was looking for something that was a little more rocking and that sort of thing

but later it dawned on me wow i was really fortunate to be able to see his last show um and i think again he raised the awareness of canadians i remember even watching the last tragically hip that was televised on um when they were did their last show in kingston and uh you know our former prime minister trudeau was there he brought him up on stage and challenged him to make a difference so um again good on gourd you know he really uh influenced a lot of positive change by raising awareness and uh changing the consciousness of the average canadian you know i'm glad to hear it again sometimes i was worried about how you'd received Gordani.

I asked the same question. I just want to shout out a previous episode of Toronto Mike with Mark Malinen. Do you know Mark in his work? He's working with a group

and actually they're working to out the pretendians that you referenced earlier like Buffy St. Marie because yes, there are people who present themselves as indigenous people

when this is simply not true. It's fraud. So they're working and Mark echoed sentiments that you just shared with me, which is that reconciliation, the awareness raised by this, by the Secret Path project, by Gordani.

I mean, you know, there's a lot of Canadians who are tragically hip fans, and I just pulled out my vinyl copy of road apples here, because I'm a big hip fan, and I found it hauntingly beautiful, and I learned, like, I learned so much. And then once you have the awareness, then you seek out other information, et cetera, and talk to good people like yourself, Steve. So I feel like this, what he did there, and in that massive audience he had on August 20th, 2016, I want to say, in Kingston, he used his, you know, his forum. He used his very large microphone to raise awareness. And I think that was invaluable.

And now that we do have, every September 30th, we have Truth and Reconciliation Day, the kids growing up now are learning about it. And I know when I did this curriculum night at Jarvis's school, which was only last week, there's a, what was it, the seven laws of nature. And there was, they were reading work from Ojibwe authors and learning about these cultures. And I was thinking, oh, man, like, I would have loved that in primary school. And we just, we just hadn't, we weren't there yet, but we're there now. And it's better late than never. Right.

Yeah. All right. You've now mentioned several times about Nomey Res. And Nomei Res, I know. NAMIres stands for Native men's residents. Please tell us about NAMIres. Okay, so I'm going to go on a long rant here, I think. Okay, and Jarvis, after this rant, if you have any questions about NAMIres,

because I've been reading about it, and I don't think a lot of people know it exists, but you mentioned Vaughn Road, so this is 22 Vaughn Road here in Toronto. Yeah, so we have a number of addresses along Long Road. We have 16 Vaughn Road. We have 22 Vaughn Road, which is our health center, and we have 26 Vaughn Road, which is our transitional shelter. So Namiraz has been around since 1983. It's that 42, 43 years now.

Right. And initially we started as a group of ladies from the Ontario Native Women's Association. They noticed a trend in Toronto back in the early 80s where there was a lot of Native men coming to Toronto. Much like what I was doing when I was younger, looking for better opportunities, looking for work. They weren't finding meaningful work right away. They dealt with a lot of racism back then. They had difficulties finding apartments or a place to rent.

They had difficulty finding jobs. For many of them, they ended up being homeless and staying outdoors and staying on the streets. So the ladies from Ontario New Women's Association commissioned a study. Back then it was Ryerson University scholars that did this study and they determined that there was definitely a need for a native men shelter within Toronto because there was so many native men coming here looking for better opportunities and not finding them right away. So the shelter started in 1985.

They purchased the first building on Vaughn Road at 16 Vaughn Road and back then it was a 26-bed shelter, worked with a lot of native men there, and helped them to have an opportunity to find their potential within the city, many of which received jobs and job opportunities, eventually found housing, which seemed to be an uphill battle back then because I've heard stories about how the racism within Toronto

back in those days was far worse than it is today. so we started that shelter and as time went by we started offering other services so eventually we started our street outreach program which was vans that would go around on the streets and help any homeless people whether they were indigenous or not and initially when they started it would give them sleeping bags blankets sandwiches warm soup it was a really cool program we had a lot of volunteers write along and help them to learn about homelessness. I know a lot of politicians, you know, different authors, different scholars, and it really opened up their eyes about learning about homelessness.

Then with their outreach program in 2008, we changed our philosophy of delivering services, and we moved to a Housing First type of model. housing first is a model where instead of offering blankets or sleeping bags or warm meals to keep them outside and on the streets and able to survive and prolong their issues with homelessness you offer them housing

and housing is seen as a human right and we thought the best way to end homelessness instead of giving sleeping bags and soup and sandwiches is to get them housed so back in 2008 when we started that housing first type of street outreach. It was a bit controversial for some folks because no longer were we providing the survival items that people needed to be out on the streets. Of course, we did supply some food, but not in the same degree as we used to. We no longer

had volunteers helping us. And back then, it worked really fabulous. We were able to get people housed very quickly. A housing market was much different back then in 2008. It worked wonderfully. and we got a lot of people housed and so we still carry on that model although you know we have street outreach workers that make those relationships with people that are homeless and outdoors

staying in parks wherever they may be and we have housing workers that once those folks are ready to get housed and feel they want to lead the streets behind will help them find housing and I wouldn't want to be a housing worker in Toronto these days because the housing markets kind of

crazy. The rents are super high. It's unaffordable for even people that are not homeless, and a lot of their household income goes towards their rent, which doesn't leave much else for a lot of renters in Toronto. They have to buy food or cover other bills, so they have to make tough decisions. And then once somebody is housed, we have a follow-up worker, and the follow-up worker will basically do home visits, make sure they're doing okay, make sure that they're making their rent, that any issues that would hinder their ability to be a good tenant are dealt with. It's not necessarily an easy job either. They'll also, once someone is housed, they'll show them different resources in their neighborhood. So whether they're

looking for a hot meal maybe where they ran out of food, they'll show them where the drop-ins are. They're looking for a food bank. They'll let them know where their local food banks are. So they'll hook them up with community resources in their neighborhoods so that they'll be more likely to be successful as a tenant and not be homeless again. It works really well for a lot of people. And even sometimes if there's issues with the landlord or the landlord has issues with them, they might intervene as well and try to have the landlord not kick them out. So it's a great program. And that's part of our continuum of care. And then I talked about briefly about the Namiris shelter. So the Namiris shelter, that's how we started all our services. It's

been around for quite some time. It's now a 71 bed shelter. We put additions on built up our services. And I understand it's one of the few shelters in Toronto where we have medical staff. So about 16, 17 years ago, we started having a relationship with, we hired a nurse. And our staff nurse will work with our guys with health issues. We started a partnership now where we have a medical doctor that comes in a half day a week, as well as a psychiatrist who will come in and a psychiatrist will work with folks that have mental health issues. It's a fabulous program.

It's helped lots of people. And at that time, we couldn't get any funding for our nurse. So a philanthropist came forward and helped fund our nurse. Now we have funding finally through the medical. Ministry of Health. It was like a 17-year quest that I had to try to get that funding. We're finally there. And, you know, really happy we have the nurse, and I understand some shelters in Toronto, they're starting to also have medical services in their spaces, which is a positive. We also have another shelter just down the road. It's called Saugate. It's a shelter that's

specifically for indigenous men, whereas the Namira shelter is for anybody looking for emergency shelter services, so we serve a lot of non-Indigenous people as well. But Saugate was designed to help indigenous men no longer have issues with homelessness. So we work with men that have been homeless before. They apply to get in. A requirement of them staying there is they have to participate in a three-to-six-month life skills program called a pinnamoanin. A pinnamoanin in Ojibwe means having confidence in myself.

a lot of people that have been homeless sometimes lack confidence. So we have a lot of cultural type programs. We teach Ojibwe language for the guys as part of the curriculum as well as Cree language in the summer. We have a sweat lodge on site. We have elders that come in. We have a medicinal garden where we teach the guys about indigenous medicinal plants that are local to this area. and they grow them from seedlings, they nurture them right up until they're mature.

Some of those medicinal plants that they grow, they just harvested recently or about to harvest because it's a fall now. In the winter months, we'll bring in somebody with that indigenous plant knowledge, and they'll share, I guess, the qualities of those plants and how to make teas with them, how to make different sovs and different things like that.

So they'll learn their qualities about those plants. That's healing in a way, being able to learn that cultural knowledge around the plant medicines, as well as the cultural aspects related to it. So at Saugatee, we also work with men leaving federal corrections. We have six halfway house beds. I know corrections calls them community residential facility beds. And unfortunately, we're the only indigenous halfway house bed provider in all of Ontario. Wow. Only one.

You often hear about how within the jails in Canada that there's overrepresentation of indigenous peoples in those jails. Well, I know in Ontario, all the penitentiaries that are federally run, one third of the population is indigenous. Oh, my goodness. And I think that's the largest indigenous population in any federal institutions in Canada. And it just seems really unjust that there's only one indigenous service. helping people reintegrate. So right now we're doing some studies on that. We're doing evaluation of our program.

We know we're highly successful. We do want to expand in that area. There's room for expansion. There's room for others even to get in that area for indigenous folks helping them reintegrate. And, you know, it's a lonely space for being the only indigenous halfway house bed provider in all of Ontario.

So we're working on trying to change that. but it's a very successful program. It helps a lot of guys. We do get them housed afterwards. And then going back to that continuum of care of services we offer, we also have an intensive case management program called Mindo Kanaguan. In Ojibwe, that means looking for the good in myself or looking for the good mind. It's an intensive mental health and addictions case management program.

We have three case managers, and they'll work with a smaller case load, so they can work more intensive with some of the guys that are part of that. They do an assessment to determine, you know, who may have the highest needs. And they'll, you know, intake those that have the most needs rather than the folks that have very few. And they'll work with them to help them get housed if they're not housed already. And then once they're housed, again, they'll follow up with them and make sure they're doing well. Often they'll do home visits.

But the other cool thing they do is they'll do different social gatherings with the guys in that program. So just imagine if you're a gentleman with severe mental health issues. You know, you might have difficulty relating to other people who maybe don't have the same afflictions. It can be a lonely space. So when they do different groups to bring the guys together, whether it's doing a cooking program for them to teach them some life skills around cooking and cooking on a shoestring budget, they'll work with other folks that helps them.

issues to them and they form a friendship they form camaraderie and with some of the guys even meet outside of when those groups come together to support each other so they're less isolated and less alone so it's a fabulous program works really well for the guys and when they're housed we help keep them housed and keep them stable and it's been a fabulous program it's been about 16 years we in operating that. And then, you know, along that continuum of care, about 16 years ago when the Toronto housing market was really red hot, you know, everybody talks about how hot it is.

I think it still is. But anyway, housing prices were going up drastically back then. And I thought, well, geez, you know, you don't need to read the writing on the wall to see that rental market's probably going to follow suit and not too much time. And it sure has. So I thought, well, let's get into the housing market. market. Let's acquire houses. And let's fix them up really nice for our guys. We'll rent them out

at deeply affordable rents. And, you know, that'll be our way of ending homelessness. And we've been doing that for about 17 years now. We have two houses under construction currently. We're growing our housing stock. We have about, what, 37 units right now that we rent out to guys at deeply affordable rents. And let me clarify what affordable and deeply affordable is. So in Ontario, provincial government considers affordable housing to be housing that's within the 80th percentile of what the average market rent is in any given neighborhood.

So understand right now roughly the average price in Toronto for one bedroom is about $2,100 a month. If you're a guy on social assistance or ODSP, that's not enough to afford a house. So we offer rents what we call deeply affordable because affordable isn't really affordable. So we offer rents that are within their budget range. And it really helps guys to get out of the shelter system, get off the streets. And our houses are nice. We build them nice.

I believe that homeless people just because you're homeless doesn't mean you should live in a crappy place where you can't have your dignity and be proud of where you live. So we offer very nice units when we can reconstruct homes or retrofit them or even we have one we built from scratch that we look at the products that we use.

We make sure they're durable. We know some of our tenants are sometimes hard on things in the homes and we don't want to buy cheap things that we're constantly replacing. So we also look at energy efficiencies. And again, our homes are very nice. So we've been able to place a lot of guys in our housing and really make a difference for them.

Most of our tenants at our first affordable housing that we offered, 41% of our guys have been there since day one. It's about 17 years. It allows guys opportunities to grow roots in the city. We've had some guys go to college or university and, you know, graduate and work in different fields. We've had some guys take on trades because we know there's a big shortage of trades people in Canada, Ontario right now. And we've also had some guys, you know, they're either retired or they have different disabilities and they'll probably never be able to work. So we have that as well.

We have a mixed bag of different tenants, but we really give guys opportunities. to realize their potential, and it's really empowering. Also, all the guys that get housed in our housing, they have a follow-up worker. Anybody that gets housed through Nami Res, whether it's our housing or private market, we assign them a follow-up worker who will follow up with them, make sure they're doing okay. Sometimes accompany them to medical appointments, that sort of thing, and just be that moral support for them, but they'll also hook them up with resources in their neighborhoods so that they're not left alone.

We don't make the guys dependent on us. We show them where the resources are so eventually they can take care of things for themselves. And it works really well. And I'm really pleased to say that we have two other houses in development right now, both in the east end of Toronto. One's in Riverdale area. And it should be ready probably February.

We have another one in the beaches area. and that one should also be ready in February. Really pleased that we're able to acquire these houses and fix them up. And one of the new ones that's currently under construction, that's one where we were able to demolish an old building that was there and built from scratch, from brand new. Building housing in Toronto is not easy. The one that we acquired in the Beaches area,

when we acquired that, it was during the heat of COVID when everyone was staying home. and, you know, we got a mortgage for our bank to acquire that property because we knew it was a good thing to do. And it took us about three years to get our building permit. I know there's been a lot of talk in Toronto about how they're speeding things up. I'm not seeing it. I'm hearing a lot of talk, but I'm glad we're not engaging in all that talk and we're just doing it because housing is the only way to end homelessness.

It really is. Well, there's a lot. So, firstly, that sounds amazing what you're doing at NAMA-R-R-S. Like, there's a lot to take in Jarvis. You were taking all that in? That's, like, it's so thorough and I'm going to let the listenership know that the website is name-R-R-E-S-org, which is N-A-M-E-R-E-S-D-R-R-E-S-D-O- and I was checking that out. And Instagram, it's N-A, which is N-A- underscore M-E-E-S-E-E-S dot org, and I was checking that out. M-A-M-E and underscore

Res, R-E-S, and on Facebook it's N-M-A-R-R-E-R-E-S-T-O, so you can follow and learn more. A couple of lines I got from going to Na-M-A-R-R-G, and you touched on this at the end there that it says, understanding that the cure for homelessness is affordable housing.

How do you finance? I'm curious where the money comes from. And you mentioned the city of Toronto. So how exactly do you collaborate with the city of Toronto? Okay, well, the money for a lot of the affordable housing that we acquire, they're big purchases, they're not small ticket items by any means. So fortunately, there's a number of funding sources we usually apply to. And with those funding sources, we're able to stack their funding on top of each other

to be able to afford these spaces, which is really good. so of course the longest probably housing funder in all of Canada is CMHC we've applied to them before we received grants for seed funding to start off things to do environmental assessments on the property is to do site plan surveys that sort of stuff just to get to the point where we'll be able to acquire a building permit and then there's other funders as well in the city The biggest one is the City of Toronto's Housing Secretariat. And all municipalities in Ontario, they're required to do a 10-year housing plan.

And I know with the Housing Secretariat's 10-year housing plan, it started in 2020, and it goes to 2030. And they earmarked a percentage or an actual number of units that should be affordable for indigenous community, and the number is like 5,200. And I know since that plan's been released, we're nowhere near that number. I don't even think we broke a thousand units yet. And, you know, at least it's a start. It's a target. It's not a moving target.

It's pretty stagnant for those 10 years. It's something we're aspiring to get towards. There's a number of indigenous housing providers in Toronto that are, you know, trying to acquire units so they can offer it at affordable rents. Another funder that we have, which I'm very proud of, is there's an indigenous funder here in Toronto called Mizzaway Beak Development Corporation. And they receive funding from the province, and they allocate urban indigenous funding in Toronto and the GTA. And basically, they have a call for proposals every so often. and if we have any housing that's being developed, we'll apply.

And we've been successful a few times in this competition. And all these funding things that I'm describing are all competitions. You have to write a sound proposal. Often you need letters of support, and you're competing against anybody else that's applying. So we've been fortunate in applying to those. The other funders would be the province of Ontario in municipal affairs and housing

sometimes has different funding envelopes available. So there is a growing number of housing funders and it's not nearly enough and it's definitely not enough to meet the needs in Toronto. And with some of the national housing funders, even the provincial, Sometimes there's so many complications in getting housing going in Toronto. I understand that Toronto's housing market is a net value of buying a home.

It's so expensive that only it's second in terms of the most expensive compared to housing in Vancouver. So it's really difficult to acquire the amount of funding you need to purchase a property and build on it. So we've been really good at writing proposals and demonstrating once we house somebody that it really helps them not to be homeless anymore. And we've been successful in these competitions to acquire the funding to offer affordable housing. And to point out that you're the executive director at Nome Rez.

I don't think I mentioned that. I should have put that in me. Yes, I am. Since 2011. That's right. Okay, this is your calling. They're lucky to have you. And did you clarify exactly the collaboration with the city of Toronto?

Like, you are, they are collaborating with Nama Rez, am I right? In many ways and in many departments. So, for instance, our housing in the beaches area, our city councilor has been a huge supporter of us. Our city councilor has helped. Who's your counselor there? That would be Paula Fletcher in that neighborhood. And same within Riverdale, where our two housing units are. And she's helped streamline some of the processes that seem to be moving rather slowly within the city,

whether it be acquiring permits, helped streamline some of the snags we hit along the way, helped us with Toronto Water hookups that sometimes seem to take an incredibly, long time, longer than we expected, and just, you know, maybe encourage them to speed things up a little. So I've been very helpful that way. Another department that's been very helpful to us at times has been the housing secretary at office. They seem to know all things housing. They're experts in working with the city and all the processes you need to get a building and some the funding they do. Another one that we, another funder I forgot to mention, which is a wing of the housing secretary, it is the Murah funding, the multi-unit rental

acquisition funding. More recently, it's a large pot of funding and it's meant to keep some of the older housing stock and rental units as rental units. So we've applied to that funding before and it's basically funding to buy older multi-unit buildings and rent them out and continue to rent them out at affordable rents. So that's been a really helpful program. And more recently, they earmarked 20% of their funding allocation for indigenous projects, which is very helpful. I'm going to check in of my esteemed co-host, Jarvis.

Jervis, did you have any questions at all about Name Rez? I'll bet you didn't know this organization existed. I didn't know this existed. What do you think about what they're doing? There's a line, before you answer that, there's a line, again, naamerez.org, but there's a line I thought summarized it quite nicely, which is this.

The Naume Rez team meets the physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional needs of their clients wherever they are on their journey. Kind of a nice synopsis. Do you have any questions for Steve at all about Naame Res? No, not really. Anything you want to say to Steve about that? Because before we say goodbye, I'm going to ask him about something else here.

But Name Rez, go ahead, Jervis. I think it's really wonderful that you're providing houses for people in need. Yeah, I echo those sentiments. Well said. He's going to take over the show sooner rather than later, I think, Steve. But I didn't know Name Res existed. I've learned so much over the last few days and now hearing you talk about it.

It's beautiful. It's sad that you're required. Like, obviously, it is sad that this need exists. But it is beautiful that you're doing what you can. And I just hope you have sufficient funding to keep doing this important work. Well, thank you. Yeah, it's sometimes rewarding.

Sometimes it's tragic. Sometimes it's sad. Not all the guys have good outcomes all the time. We deal with a lot of death, do a lot of ailments. And, you know, I've learned along the way to celebrate the small victories because that's what really keeps you going, working in this field. Otherwise, if you focus on the negative things, you know, you'll burn out very quickly. So, you know, I have a great team of staff that really helped make a different.

in a lot of the lives of the people we work with. And I'm very fortunate to be surrounded by such a great team of staff that really make the difference. I know there is one service I didn't get to mention yet that has been one of our newer services we've been operating now for the last five and a half years. We operate a health center. And we're the second indigenous health center within Toronto.

It's called a Doge Mino Nesewanong, the place of healthy breathing. and it's a health center where we have doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses, traditional healers where they do traditional indigenous medicine to help treat ailments and help with healing. And it's been operating five and a half years. It started during COVID when there wasn't really much guidance around how to deal with COVID. It started as a place where people could get tested for COVID, eventually follow up care to help them, you know, deal with their COVID ailments.

And eventually we started getting to vaccinations for COVID. And then after a while, as COVID subsided, we recognized a lot of school-age children, like yourself, you know, weren't able to get access to the vaccines that they require for school-age kids. So we started offering those through outreach clinics and with partners. Now we have a really functioning health program that we do get some funding funding for the Ministry of Health and really pleased to offer

the service for Native folks in Toronto. I know the last question I want to ask you, something I'm always curious about your thoughts as a proud Ojibway man. But before there, I just want to touch on the fact that I was reading that you're a drummer, singer, and grass dancer. Yes.

Maybe elaborate what exactly that is and where has that taken you? in this world. Okay. Well, when I was young, I didn't really grow up with the culture at all. I didn't know much about my cultural background. Yeah, I knew his Ojibwe. I knew my family is from Nipissing First Nation,

but outside of that, I didn't know much. So I was curious. When I was in high school, I used to volunteer at the Powo and Barry and help wherever they needed help. When I would volunteer, I met a lot of wonderful people along the way. lots of elders who shared lots of their knowledge and teachings. It was fabulous. It opened up my eyes to part of this, our world that I didn't even realize was there.

It was really healing for me and felt connected. Along the way, you know, I was always fascinated with the drumming. And I remember as a young boy, my parents, the first time they took me to a powwow. Before I got to the pow, I could hear the drumming off in the distance. and I became instantly curious about it as we got closer and when I saw the drumming I thought wow this is really cool I listened very intently I know for the average folks

our drumming might sound like all the songs are the same but when I listened closely I could hear the differences I could listen to the chanting that the singers did it drew me in like a magnet and I was just curious the only thing was back then I was a really shy kid like incredibly shy. So I would volunteer at Powell's and help out, always wanting to drum but never pushing myself to go there.

A little later when I was in college, that's when I made friends with some of the drummers. I helped plan the Powo at Canada College back then when I was a student. And I thought the first Powell that I helped plan, you know, I'm going to ask these drummer guys that I'm friends with if I can drum with them. So the first day that Powell came along, and I was too shy, I never asked.

Second day came along, Powell was almost over. but I better ask these guys that are going to miss out. So I pushed myself, went up and asked them. And to my surprise, they welcomed me. They gave me a chair, gave me a drumstick. And I started drumming. Later when I moved to Toronto, you know, I learned all the organizations where they taught drumming for the men.

And I would go there, sometimes three days a week at different organizations just to learn. I would say I'm a slow learner when it came to the drumming. It took me about maybe two years to become good to find my voice, to be able to sing in tune with the other singers to be able to drum on beat. And a little later I started teaching drumming. I started teaching songs to some of the men in the Native community. And I got to teach all over the place, really. I learned how to make drums.

I would learn the teachings on the drum or cultural teachings, which is a story that takes maybe an hour or so to tell about the origin of the drum and how it's helped people and how it came to help the men. And it really helped me, helped me understand how, as a native man, where I fit in this world and how I should aspire and some of the teachings around what's expected of men through our cultural lens. And I share that with other men now. And it really helps them as well to come more towards a native community, learn how they fit in and find their voice. So it's been very profound for me.

And, of course, that powwows, you know, you can't have a powwow without drums. The drum provides a beat for the dancers to dance, too. When I was younger, too, I was curious about dancing, but even shy about that. I didn't start dancing until I was an adult after I was more comfortable being around the drum. And I've been dancing for quite some time. Again, I'm a grass dancer, which is a style of dance that comes from the western prairie provinces. and a lot of the powers I go to, I'm probably one of the older grass dancers.

It's more of a young man's style of dance because it's a lot of physical movements. I'm going to have stamina to be able to dance really well. And I do fairly good at dancing. And really, it just gives me a lot of enjoyment to dance. And it's, you know, I can have an incredibly stressful day. My job isn't always all rosy, and sometimes it is incredibly stressful.

And that dancing really helps to relieve that. So I love going to Paaos and gatherings. And, you know, Namiraz hosts Apawa as well. Usually around June 21st, which is National Indigenous People's Day. We posted it now for about 10 years at Fort York. And it's grown to be one of the largest indigenous gatherings in the GTA. I think last year we had 17,000 people show up on National Indigenous People's Day. It was a wonderful celebration.

I know coming up next year, it's going to be moved to June 13th at Fort York. And if you're curious about learning more about Powell, please come out and see it for yourself. I'm there. Yeah, Jervis, do you want to go? Jarvis is nodding his head. Not good for a podcast.

Oh, yes, I would love to go. You get a vocalized. You're doing a great job, by the way, Jarvis. Okay. By the way, in this, you know, you're grass dancing and the drumming and the singing, this got, this brought you to South Korea, right? You actually went all the way to South Korea for a dance festival. Yeah, I used to work with Native Youth.

And in our drum group, we would be asked to perform at different events all over the place outside of Powos. We used to get asked to drum at different events at City Hall sometimes. Some of the consulates in the city would invite us to perform when there was guests from overseas that came to visit because they wanted to see Native culture. And there wasn't many places really in Toronto to see Native. of culture. It's still kind of like that.

So, yeah, we were invited all over the place. And then one year we were invited to go to South Korea to go drum and dance there at a cultural festival in 2001. So we went there was a group of 10 of us, and we had a drum and dance group. And we were treated very well there. They were wonderful hosts. We got to see much of South Korea. We performed almost on a daily basis at this cultural festival they had.

It was really cool. I got to meet different cultures from all around the world. And, you know, the one thing that really struck me that we had common among all these different cultural groups from all over the world, all of our cultures have a drum. All of them. I don't think there's many cultures on this earth that don't have the drum. I think the drum is one of the things as human beings that we all share and ties us together as that common bond. And that's when I learned, you know, maybe the drum is, it makes a creator's favorite music. Because why else would all people on this earth pretty much have a drum? Absolutely. Just to shout out a few of these ceremonies that you helped open, Pan Am Games, which we hosted in 2015,

the Toronto World AIDS Conference, and World Youth Day, you performed in front of the Pope. I performed in front of the Pope two popes ago. Two Pope, yes. Okay, so this is the German Pope. Am I getting the right Pope? No, Pope John Paul. Okay, well, that's three.

You said three popes ago. I'm keeping up. I'm keeping track over here. Okay, well, yeah, on goodness, I went to Catholic school and a picture of John Paul II in the school. So he was a pope for a long time. Okay.

Now, on our way out here, I just want to say thank you to my co-host here because Jarvis, you kicked butt, man. Like, honestly, the listenership is going to want you to host this show, not me. It's going to be Toronto Jarvis. So how was it for you, Jarvis? It was really fun.

I got to learn a lot today. And did you enjoy? I noticed you chew. gum. I'm not going to criticize you because what can I do, but you know, you're not supposed to chew gum when you host a podcast. But otherwise you were perfect. And what did you think of Steve?

He was a really nice guy and you learned a lot? Yep, I learned a lot. Because I learned a heck of a lot. Steve, so I want to say thank you for all that you do and thank you for giving me over an hour of your time so we could ask some questions and learn so much. Thank you for doing this.

Okay, well, thank you so much for having me here. Jarvis. It was really nice working with you. hope this might be an area you might want to pursue. He might want to learn the drumming, I think. He was always showing an interest. He had the drummer for the mods, give him a lesson once, David Quentin Steinberg. But I think he'd want to learn the drumming. I know where we're going to be on June 13, 26.

We're going to be at Fort York. All right, cool. Okay, Jar? Final question on our way out, though, Steve. We do, if you go to a Blue Jay game at the Dome, there's going to be a land acknowledgement. If I go to some function at the school, there's going to be a land acknowledgement. I'm always thinking about this Baroness von Schetch-show skit that FOTM Carolyn Taylor was kind of the lead on, which was like there's a land acknowledgement, and she says, oh, so we should give back the land.

And they said, no, we read this statement. And she's like, but it's theirs, yes, so we should give it back. I'm just curious, what are your thoughts on land acknowledgments? Well, initially when they first came to be a thing, well, let me back up a little bit. I understand out in British Columbia, it is a thing and it has been a cultural thing for a very long time for the native folks out there. Because in British Columbia, there's so many different First Nations people, many of which have very different languages, some similarities in their culture. In their territories, you wouldn't have to travel very far to go into another group of people's territory. So they would do land acknowledgments and acknowledge the original caretakers of the land, the original stewards of those lands.

And it was a thing they would do among each other if they were visiting different communities. And Ontario became a recent phenomenon, maybe in less than the last 20 years. And it's something that a lot of folks do. I often think of it as a reflection moment for non-Indigenous Canadians to recognize the territories in which they're in and maybe you know draw on thoughts about the native folks that are here today I know recently it's been sort of a hollow thing it is an act of reconciliation but it's a hollow one because nothing tangible happens it doesn't improve the conditions of the folks that might be struggling that are native it doesn't make things better for future generations of

native folks here. So yeah, it's a nice gesture. But, uh, you know, action speaks louder than words. Absolutely they do. And that, by the way, you're getting a, uh, Jarvis is going to get you a large frozen lasagna from palma pasta to take home with you. You're going to love it. Delicious Italian food. Great. And that brings us to the end of our 1,778th show. Go to Torontomic.com for all your Toronto mic needs. Much love to all who made this. possible, that's Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Nikainis, Recycle My Electronics.C.A.,

Blue Sky Agency, contact Doug, he's Doug at Blue Sky Agency.C.A., and Ridley Funeral Home. See you all next week when my... Ah, we're going to do a boot sauce episode. Don't miss Boot Sauce on Tuesday.

Thank you.