A 91-year-old man evicted into homelessness earlier this week has found a temporary home thanks to a huge outpouring of support from his community, city councillor and strangers who were outraged by the story.
Isidoro Ventullo has lived in a one-bedroom apartment on Clinton Street for 20 years but he was forced to leave on Monday.
An eviction order from last year was upheld on appeal in May so that the landlord could move into the unit.
City councillor Dianne Saxe helped find him a shelter that night and has worked to find a solution. “Right now he’s staying with friends, and we’ve worked really hard to ensure that when he is ready to move on, we’ve got a path for him,” said Saxe.
The eviction was legal but Laura Tamblyn Watts, President and CEO of advocacy group CanAge, says often seniors are paying the price and it’s leading to homelessness.
“This needs to be a wake-up call for communities and governments to put together a plan to make sure that people can age safely in place and not just leave it to the emergency rooms or in fact, visit the cemeteries of people that we could have helped.”
Councillor Saxe echoes that sentiment and says she wants the city to be notified well in advance of evictions for vulnerable tenants.
“One of the things we need, and I’m going to be approaching the Landlord and Tenant Board, to say why don’t you tell us when you’re issuing an eviction order so that if these people need support, we’ve got a chance to provide it, we shouldn’t find out when the sheriff’s at the door,” said Saxe.
CityNews viewers, like Heather Campbell Pope, who doesn’t know Ventullo, was also moved by his plight, so she created a GoFundMe.
“A GoFundMe seemed like a way to channel the community’s compassion into action. As a seniors advocate, I also feel a personal sense of failure that we let him fall through the cracks. We need to change our laws so very elderly folks cannot be evicted into homelessness, but we also need to strengthen our frontline advocacy so there is someone to call and turn to in cases like this,” she told CityNews.
The GoFundMe has raised more than $5,000 to assist Ventullo with moving and any other expenses he may have during this transition. The fundraiser closes Sunday.
