Who We Are!!!
By Angel Femia

Who We Are!!!

By Angel Femia

Of LoveCry



As you know by now The Toronto Street News and LoveCry, {a non-profit- registered charity} belong to the Street People. Both these companies were put together after some of us got ourselves off the streets and realized that our brothers and sisters needed ways to help themselves work towards healing, as well as help from others. We saw, clearly that our people needed something of our own to be proud of and to work towards in order to save our own lives from those well meaning people who don’t wish to listen to us properly or deal with the actual problems we are suffering form.



For ten years now, we have had to literally fight to stay alive. Some of our elected city officials, as well a few of the non-profit companies working with Street Kids’, within the city centre, along with the Toronto Sun Newspaper and some of the students from Ryerson University Publishing, have been trying everything they can think of to shut us down. We have been attacked physically, verbally and emotionally through the media, City meetings, private discussions between the other non-profits and some Ryerson Publishing Students.



After one of their media attacks in 1996, I was pepper sprayed, beaten, stabbed, and left for dead in a park downtown Toronto. As this was happening, I was hearing voices yelling words written about myself found in The Toronto Sun Newspaper. Jamie Taller was beaten on the street with a baseball bat and left for dead, defending himself, Ce’ and LoveCry. Catharine Toth, {aka Ce’}, was raped and beaten in the west end of the city by some guys reciting the quotes from a news clipping. These are just a few examples.



We were under the impression that every citizen was entitled to human rights. How very quickly we learned that this was not very true in Toronto. We also believed that the media was given freedom of speech, and one of the responsibilities of these reporters, editors and publishers was to make sure their information was true. Do you know of any child that can drive a car over twenty miles, alone, at the age of six, being only three feet tall? Apparently I have done this, according to Heather Bird of The Toronto Sun.



I, personally spent many years in Therapy for abuse, learned a great deal and one of the most important things I learned was to break co-dependency and help myself as much as I was able. Not to say that help was or is turned down or not sought if needed, {I attend therapy sessions many times throughout the year and will for the remainder of my life}. This help enables me to move forward helping myself and shows the others that there is much I and all Abused Street People can do for themselves as well as get the help required.



Some of our well-known establishments are working very hard to keep Street People co-dependant. This is in order to keep their high paying jobs and money flowing into the non-profits in our city. Why should we, the abused and street people, remain ill, in order to help others keep their jobs. Our quality of life sucks as long as we remain ill; your paycheck is just not a good enough reason to allow this to go on. My life is worth more to me, than making sure you get more then the rest. {Remembering there is only one Creator} and no healer, politician or media can take that position.



Co-Dependency is the worst of all the emotional illnesses we are left with from abuse. I had lived most of my life within these illness so I have first hand experience as to how bad they truly are and what really needs to be done in order to maintain a semblance of healing. It is by far no easy task.



I had the best Therapists, Teachers and Spiritual Healers, who taught me how to deal with my problems, stand up on my feet and fight back in the name of Love and Peace. They taught me to help my family of Abuse Victims, Survivors, and Street People, by helping them go to the proper places for help needed, know when it can be done without other’s help, and stand on their own two feet as opposed to mine or anyone else.



Sexual or harsh Physical abuses leave us so co-dependant that we become addicts and drunks unless this disease is treated properly. Psychic, Emotional and Ritual abuses leave us almost mindless, spaced out, and totally undisciplined until treated and thus vulnerable to anyone who wishes to control our very lives, again co-dependant.



We, {LoveCry or The Toronto Street News} are not closing. We run on a tight shoe string budget and work very hard for the love and satisfaction we get from helping ourselves. If you ask any Street Person, selling our paper they will say the same. I, and many could understand why people did not like kids wielding squeegee handles and interfering with road traffic but what is so wrong with selling papers. My father sold papers (1941) on the streets, outside of the O’ Keefe Centre {aka The Hummingbird Centre} as a kid and later became a Judge at College Park Courts. I’d say it is a good job and got him into very high places.



I suggest that the people from The Toronto Sun, Ryerson Publishing Students, City Officials and Street Kid, City based Non-Profits all take a good look across the internet and check out the facts. Many of the cities and towns across North America and Europe have Street Based News Papers these days. Most sold by the Street People in their towns and cities. LoveCry and The Toronto Street News are
linked up to many of the others as well as the Toronto Street Kids who have been running a web ring, connected and members of many of the other abuse and homeless web rings, where we get info on all street issues across the world.