Dawn Taylor| 15/01/2024

Transcript

Dawn Taylor

I am your host, Don Taylor. And today I have the privilege and the honor to talk to the amazing Doina Oncel. And yes, I asked her how to pronounce that to make sure I got it right. So today's topic is to homeless and back. Before we get started, though, let me tell you a little bit about our guest so that you can be as excited about her as I am and how honored I am to even have her here today. Doina is a changemaker, founder, innovator, social entrepreneur, and a licensed financial advisor and broker. She builds communities and helps families with access to financial literacy. She works with women and families to help them build a legacy through financial education, leading to a world of wealth. But some cool things that have also gone on for Doina is she was named the 2021 Wcn Canada's Most Powerful Woman Top 100 award winner. She was nominated for the 2021 top 25 Canadian Immigrant Award and the 2020 Women Tech Global Awards, and the Women in Diversity in Tech Ally of the year. And she was nominated for the Premier's Award by George College Brown. Guys, this girl is not collecting dust and she's not bored or boring. She was also named a role model for Canadians by Barbie's You Can Be Anything campaign and named Trailblazer by Women and IP Institute of Canada. So keep all that in mind as we talk about how she ended up homeless. Welcome to the show, Doina. I am so glad you're here.

Doina Oncel 

Thank you so much, Dawn. I appreciate you having me here and I'm really excited to share my story. 

Dawn Taylor

Oh, I'm so excited. I'm excited to dive into it. And for those listeners, you've already heard me fumble a lot of words. Forgive. I've had a cold for the last week and I was like, there's no way I am canceling any of my podcast recordings this week, so there might just be some fumbling words or a little bit mumbly today. But, Doina, we have this epidemic really right now, and I know it's global, right? But especially in Canada, where we're seeing this at a higher rate than ever before and more being talked about it around being homeless and the judgments, the ideas, everything around it. And you are so open talking about what has all gone down in your life. I want to dive into this and really get a different perspective on it. But also, listeners, we're going to go into like how what do we need to do about this? Like how can we shift and change some of this and support people that we know that are homeless? So let's start at the beginning. You were how old when you came to Canada? 

Doina Oncel

Oh, I was 19 years old when I came to Canada. I came from Romania. And, um, actually, what a lot of people don't know. And I think it's important for me that they do know. When I grew up in Romania, the first 16 years of my life, it was, I grew up in the communism regime. And then I've seen the revolution happen where the the communist regime was kicked down. And then three years later, I came to Canada. So it was very new and refreshing. So there's so many things that were happening for me at the younger age where I feel like, yeah, I kind of build resilience. But then yes, I when I came to Canada, I was it was a lot of new things, new, um, like after the revolution in Romania. So like a new life then coming to Canada, a new country.  So there's a lot of new things happening for me around that time. So yeah, I was 19 when I came to Canada and, I'm not sure if this may be important, but I didn't speak a word of English. I didn't even take English in school. The only thing I knew, I think I learned about two weeks when I got here. I knew "Hello. How are you? My name is Doina. And goodbye.: So people will be talking to me. They'll have a whole bunch of sentences, you know, saying stuff to me, and I'll just be nodding. Yes, yes, yes. Then I'll be like, goodbye at the end. But I have no idea what they're saying. So that was my first two weeks in Canada. 

Dawn Taylor

Okay. So did you come to Canada on your own or do you have family with you? Did you have friends with you? Did you have any? 

Doina Oncel

Yeah, I came well, my father was here before I came to Canada. He was here. So he brought my sister and I. My younger sister and I brought us here in Canada. So he was the only person that I knew. So, mind you, one, when he left the country, when he left from Romania, I was ten years old. I was still a child. And then when I came to Canada, when I arrived here, I was, I would like to say a woman, you know, 19, almost 20. I was a woman. So I was a, you know, basically for the half of my life, he wasn't around and half of my life. Half of my life, I had him around then, and after the later half, I didn't. And then when I came to Canada, I was a completely different person. So there are so many stages that he missed from my life before I got here. 

Dawn Taylor

So you came to Canada. The place of dreams and freedom and jobs and life and living this completely different world here. So you got married, had kids. Tell us a bit of your story of where you were and how, like how life started to progress for you as a young woman new to Canada that then resulted in becoming homeless. 

Doina Oncel

Well, actually. So, we're going to go back to when I just came to Canada. So I came to Canada. I was here with my dad. Uh, he brought us here, both my younger sister and I lived with him. He was married. He had two children. And his wife, then my stepmother was not very fond of us being here. So, actually, I lived we lived with him for the first ten months in Canada. And then she said, we can't live with him anymore. So we had to literally pack our stuff. And then, um, living somebody's living room for, for a week until we were able to find a place to stay. Yeah. So that was the first time I was homeless in Canada. So new immigrant, young, young women right out on the streets, not speaking very well English, trying to figure out life in Canada and your culture knew everything. Then we finally were able to find a place to stay. Um, and then after that about another year and a half later. Uh, we were homeless again, but my sister and I were homeless again. We're trying to go back and stay with my dad again because he said his marriage is not working well. So, he came back to us and said, can you come and stay with me so that we can, you know, I can finally be a father, so to speak? And then we just said, okay. Yeah. So I guess you are our father. We didn't have anybody here right in in Canada. We needed to have someone. So we said, okay, fine, we moved in with him, and then, we just decided to leave because things were very, very tough. It was so, like, really, really tough. Like, he was abusive. I would say abusive, as in, like he was trying to, the word would be abusive. It could be whatever people want to give the meaning they want to give. But basically he was trying to, um, keep finances from both my sister and I. So we not have enough money to be able to move on. Um, he was tracking all, like, everything that we spend just to make sure that, you know, if we were working in any money that we make goes towards the exact expenses. So, not be able to have anything, uh, for us to be able to build a life, you know, the dream, the American, the Canadian dream, the North American dream that we wanted, we couldn't do it. Uh, but also, to make matters worse, he was trying to, um, basically like, because when, as I mentioned earlier, whenmy dad left, I was ten years old when I came to Canada, I was 20, almost 20, 19 years old. And so he didn't look at me as as a child. He looked at me as a woman and he was trying to molest me. And so I have to take my sister. And we had to leave. And then I stayed. So, the second time when I was homeless, I went and in the shelter, the homeless shelter with my sister, and we stayed for about a week. We basically run away, I took my sister, we ran away. Uh, we went to inside the Ministry of Family and Children's, inside the building. And I said, we need help. We need, you know, this is what's happening to us. We can't take this anymore. And they just, uh, you know, this amazing woman. And if she needs to listen to this podcast. Barbara, she took us on as if she was our mom. So, she really took care of us, you know? And she was, um, I would say she was very... Her words meant a lot to me because when she said, you know. You were one of these young women that I wish my daughter will be inspired by, because when we were living in the shelter, it took me one week to find a job. It took me one week to find a place to stay because in back of my mind I said I didn't come to Canada to live like this. I came to Canada for better, and there's no way I'm going for worse. Because back home I had a mother that was taking care of us. We had a place to stay. We had everything we needed. So then coming here, you know what I mean? But yes, Barbara took care of us, you know. You know, she would come and visit us in the shelter. And then me, I was like, I need to know how to get out of here. You know how to find a place, how to find a job. And I remember when I was in the shelter, um, way back when. This is 25 years ago or more. Um, yeah, about 25 years ago. Um, we were not allowed to use the phone. All the time. We had to sign up to use the phone in the shelter, and then I would just be like sitting by the phone and just in case somebody missed the time, and then they were late and they couldn't use the phone, I want every opportunity I could get. And I had a newspaper back then when we used to read newspapers, and I was to circle all the jobs, all the places to stay, and I would just go in and I use my charm, whatever, I don't know, I think I had charms but she, I would get jobs, I got a job, I got a place to stay and I got a job. But because I also went into, into welfare, in here in Ontario where I am is called Ontario works all over Canada is called welfare. So I was on welfare and I went to my caseworker and I said, I need you to help me find a job. What programs do you have? What is, you know, what do you have available? And they had a program where they were offering training dollars through any employer that would hire someone from Ontario Works. And I would just go to every employer. And I said, there's this program, I'm in Ontario works. I'm on welfare, and there's this program that is offered. And if you hire me, you get money for training. So ,that's how I look before they hire me. So then I got the job. Um, but I lived in for one week. It was very devastating and very embarrassing because, you know, as a young woman coming to Canada, yes. I didn't have family and stuff, but then the community where I come from, the Romanian community was not very welcoming to me. Right. It was, I felt like I was like pushed back by everybody, you know, especially the Romanian community. Right. They were like, we don't want to have anything to do with you, because look at what you're doing to our culture, our, you know, to our people. And it felt like they were blaming me for standing up for myself. So, you know, being in that situation, to be honest with you is really, really tough. And I could understand why some people could like, you know, go into a really dark phase into their life having to go through that. Oh. After that, I came to Toronto. I lived in Vancouver. Back then, that was when all of this was happening, was in British Columbia. Then I moved to Toronto, and then I moved here because I wanted to stay away from myself. I want to start aresh. Um, that was like 20 years ago. So I said, I want to start fresh. I want to have a new life and start all over. And once I come here, I didn't get married, so I have my children, but I wasn't married. I was just, you know, I wanted to have children. And then because I thought, you know, being by myself in this country, I thought if I were to have children will be, will be giving me some company, but more like the love that I needed to have that I wanted. You know, I believe that everybody that's going through trauma, to be honest with you as women, you know, sometimes and in my case, especially with my first daughter, I had her because I thought, if I will have a child, I'll be loved unconditionally, not knowing how hard it is to actually raise a child. Right? So and then when I have my second daughter is when I experienced domestic violence, and that's when it was really, really harsh. I mean, being a young person new to Canada and being homeless was one thing, you know, feeling like it was the cause of a circumstance that was in not necessarily, you know, and plus it was mostly just me that I could, I will have to push through. Right? Just for myself. But now as a mother, when you have children, is really tough because so that time was the hardest part for me, being homeless is because. My youngest daughter was six months old and my oldest daughter was six years old. And then I experienced domestic violence. I had no money. I was $60,000 in debt. I was a business owner. Because I know a lot of like we mentioned earlier, sometimes you look at people that are homeless and then you judge and you think, oh, they might be there because they want to be there because they, you know, I was a business owner. I had a business that was making about $10,000 a month profit. This is15 years ago, 16 years ago. Right? And I was still broke. I had $60,000 in debt because I was with a partner that was alcoholic. Like, he would drink thousands of dollars that would go into the liquor store. Right. And instead of actually going into the household and the business and I was going, I was actually going through postpartum depression, and it was hard for me to keep track of things that were happening. Uh, you know, I used to, I didn't have his support. All right. I didn't have the support to actually get help for myself. I took it on myself. But then I didn't actually have that, you know, like, it's, I'm sure that a lot of people identify with this when you are alone, when you don't have help and support, and especially as a young mother, you are with a partner that is not supportive. You know, you have a business, but you don't have control of the money. You know what I mean? It's like it feels like it's things were just going down like, you know, the sand goes through the fingers, right? This kind of, I felt like my life was going at that time. And yeah, it was tough. It was tough because I feel like how could I be in this, in this situation. And actually while things were still holding up by very thin thread while I was in that relationship, I had so many people around me, they used to come to the house and like, you know, we have parties and we have, you know, things every weekend and spend thousands of dollars on, like alcohol and food and music and, you know, have a good time with me and a young baby and like, go through postpartum depression. And it was hard to say no to all of that. But people come to the house and enjoy themselves. But when I eventually went to the homeless shelter, like the abused women's shelter. Nobody was around after that. As soon as I got into the shelter, I used to call the same people that would come to the house and be like, hey, I want to hang out. Because for me, in my mind, I'm like, I want this to be temporary. This can't be my life. I come to Canada for this, right? It can't be my life. 

Dawn Taylor

You're like, I'm here again. How did I get here again? 

Doina Oncel

Yes! So then I used to call them. I say, you know, let's hang out, like, can I, it's just me. Let's go to the park and stuff. And they're like, are you still, you know, are you still in the shelter? I say, yeah, like, oh no, no, no, let's hang out once you move on on your own place because I don't want to catch anything. And I was like, what? Like, seriously? Like, what would you catch? Homelessness? Homelessness is not, you know, transferable. It's not like, what would you catch from me, really? I'm still the same person. You used to come to the house and used to have a good time. Like I'm still the same person, but now I just need more. I know I need help, you know, there were very few people actually in my life around that time that were, you know, they really. They were supportive without taking my dignity away. Right?

Dawn Taylor

No, no, no pause right there, though, for a second. That statement right there, though they were supportive without, there were very few people that were supportive without taking my dignity 

away. 

Doina Oncel

Yes. 

Dawn Taylor

I think that. So, so many thoughts. And I'm I'm looking at even as you're talking and looking through it in my head, as someone who's never been homeless, someone who's ever had to go to a shelter, someone who's never had to make those decisions for my family, to save my family, to protect my kids, to save my life. Right, right. And I remember years ago when I owned a restaurant, um, we brought lunch once a month to a women's shelter. And my some of my staff. I remember having conversations with him about it and going, no, no, no, nobody wants to come here. Nobody wakes up one day and is like, wow, I really think I should go to a homeless shelter or a women's shelter. They have gotten themselves into a position or decisions have been made, but somebody else has caused something to go on in their life that has gotten them to this point, and this is actually a step up for them. 

Doina Oncel

Yes. 

Dawn Taylor

They were. And. I remember one of my staff members going, what do you mean? This is a step up? Like  they're homeless. 1s And I said yes, but they had to leave a very violent or toxic situation to go here. Right. But the fact that people around you took your dignity away. Do you think that's one of the biggest struggles that comes with being homeless or ending up homeless or whatever is like, your worth in regards to what you have, what you've done, who you are, all of that is stripped away, but your dignity is taken away with it. 

Doina Oncel

Yes. When people make you feel less than because now you're not where they what they expect you to be, or even what I expected to be, I didn't expect. That's not my like you said, that wasn't my dream. I didn't wake up and say like, oh, I can't wait. You know, I'm just going to check in the homeless shelter. I'm going to be there with my kids. And then we're going to depend on everybody else around us for survival, for food, for everything, for shelter. Right? That's not that wasn't my dream when when people were coming across. And they're making me feel even worse because. And those are the people I thought were my friends. Um, and I remember even before I checked in the shelter because, so what's really, um, I would say funny, but like, funny, you know, like, not the ha ha way, but funny as, like, how life works, right? It's that I just finished before my abuse, I just finished, I went to George Brown College, the one that you mentioned earlier. And they, they nominated me for the for the Award, you know, about ten years later. But, um, I studied the assaulted women's and children's counselor advocate program. So I study social work with the feminist perspective. My job was to was supposed to be me helping women as the one that I was right going to abuse. Coming new to Canada, experiencing barriers. That's what I was supposed to do. And I feel like I was my first case study. Really. But I didn't, you know, I still could not, even though I studied this stuff. And I remember, uh, and when I finally put my stuff in storage, and I had my kids in the car and I was driving, I said I was calling people, and I said, I need a place to stay for a night or two nights until I find something to get myself together. And people were like. Well, this is not a good time for me or I don't have space. Mind you, I didn't know these people's places. What they had, like what they live or anything. They used to come to my house every weekend to have a good time, but I didn't know.

Dawn Taylor

I was gonna say they were enjoying partying at your house. 

Doina Oncel

Oh, yeah, there were that. Just that. But then for me to actually, I didn't know where they live. I had no idea. I just know they live in a different city or an area. But I've never been to their place, and I was asking for help. They're like, oh, this is not a good time. I don't actually have space. I don't, you know, and I remember if you're like, what am I going to do? You know what I mean? Like, I don't want to be here. Like, how how do I look my kids in the eye and say, look, you know, this is where we are. It's it's really not that, you know, a dream come true. Um, it's it was it was really, really tough and then while I was in the shelter, when I was asking people, I said, can we hang out? They'll say no, because I might catch something from you, which was kind of ridiculous. But there's a couple of people, like one one friend in particular. She has a daughter that was very close to my oldest daughter in age, you know, like two days apart. And we met in the park before all of this happened. And she used to come like, hey, my daughter wants a play date. Can you come over with, you know, with your daughter so they can play together? She never would be like, oh, I want you to come over. I want to see you. I want to spend more time with you because I don't want you to be in that environment the whole time. But she used to make it in a way that, you know, we're still the same. You're still the same person. She never made me feel like I am less than just because I live in a shelter. And she would make me food. And, you know, because she knew that I love her cooking. So she would make me food. And, you know, it was it was a little bit of normalcy. There was another friend of mine that had a restaurant back then, and he used to just say, hey, come over, you know, come by the restaurant because we have, you know, there's a new item in the menu, so I want you to try it out. Little did you know that was after I moved out. Like, you know, while I was in the shelter, I was still going in and visit. But then after I moved out for a couple of years after, he still be like, come over and just have some. We have this new thing on the menu. I want to test it out. I want you to tell me if you like it or whatever, just making it sound like, you know, I was like such a celebrity or whatever, I don't know, but, if I wouldn't go to either his restaurant, I won't have food to eat. I will feed my kids. But that's all I had, right? Like to just buy food for the kids. And then I would just go eat at his restaurant. But he never made me feel that he's doing me a favor or that he's feeling sorry for me. He didn't have that pity, you know? I was just somebody that he appreciated. And he, you know, he knew what I was going through, but he didn't want to make me feel like I was, you know, less than, you know, he added value like this. These people, this especially these two people, they they made me feel valuable. They added value to, to me, you know, during that time. And it's it's really tough. And I'm going to share another story because we're talking about how people feel when you, you know, when you are homeless. One thing I remember while I was living in the shelter, I used to. But my kids in the car and I used to go visit my mom and we used to drive, and, um, there was a there was one intersection closer to where my mom was, and there was a homeless guy asking for money at that intersection. Every time the red light would stop, people in the car would give money. At first I didn't have. I remember right before I moved in the shelter, I took the empty bottles from the alcohol, from my ex and I took it at the liquor store and they give you money, they gave me was worth $5. And so I'm like I'm going to give my, with really good intention. But I feel like this $5 is the reason why I am who I am. Because the alcohol was the reason why I was where I was. Like, I didn't want to use the $5 for me, but I want to give good energy to those $5 and pass it off to this person. So I gave him the $5. I said it was my last $5. I didn't have money, but I said, I want you to have it. And he was very grateful. And every time, like after I moved the shelter, I used to bring it to kind of, kind of pop some, you know, some desserts, some, you know, some food. And I'll just pass it on because I don't have money. But, you know, I would just eat less and I just want him to have some food too. And he was very grateful. And then one time I remember I was, uh, a few cars back, you know, and there was a car right by him. And he was sitting there and it was very polite. He wasn't like, oh, you know, like, you can tell that this man was very gracious, very graceful for 

whatever.

Dawn Taylor

He wasn't aggressive.

Doina Oncel 

Absolutely. No. And he these people in a very fancy car. What they waited for a little bit and right before the light turned red. Right. They took a whole bunch of change in back in the day when we had pennies. And it's like a lot of pennies. A lot of change. It took and just threw it at him and then they drove off. And the man just went to pick up the money from the ground and he was still saying, thank you, thank you, thank you. And I'm just like, I was so mad because I'm like, why do people have to treat people less fortunate that they are with that much disrespect? Do you know that it could be that you could be that person there someday? You never know. I mean, and even to this day when people talk about homeless people, oh, homeless people are there because, you know, they just make poor life choices. And like, yes, that may be true, but then do you know that that could be you someday. Yeah. Like to be anybody. And when I say tell people like I was homeless, you're looking at somebody that was homeless. Like, you probably don't see this now, but I was so like, no way were you? Yes, I was, because it doesn't matter who you are, it could be anybody and you could just be in that circumstance. You're only like one life decision away. Or it could be either, not even you that makes that decision. It could be the economy. That whatever's happening right now with people not having jobs getting laid off. And there's nothing that you know that they can do, they could be homeless with the with what's happening in the real estate industry, the mortgages, you know, the rates go up double and people are losing their homes. That could happen to anybody. Right. So. I just wish people would stop with stop, right. 

Dawn Taylor

There's so many, there's so many judgments about itm around it. And it's an interesting conversation to have with people when, yes, there's drug issues and alcohol issues and a lot of mental health issues tied to many, many, many people that have been homeless. But I remember when economy was crashing years ago. I mean, probably like 10, 15 years ago, one of the big crashes that happened and they were interviewing people in a tent community in the States, and they were talking in a lot of them had lost, like it was like their retirement had been taken away and like a Madoff scam or something like that. Right? Like they had lost everything. They couldn't afford to feed themselves anymore. They couldn't afford their mortgage because of the way the rates went. And it wasn't even that they were financially irresponsible people. It was that there at that point, there were no jobs. There weren't there? There was nothing. Right. And they were struggling so hard. But I remember one couple that they interviewed. I'll never forget it to the day I die. The looks on their faces of shame. And they had kids that they could have told and they're like, no, our kids don't even know. Yeah. This couple in their 70s and their own children had no idea that they were living on the streets. 

And they were like, no, we go out and we look for jobs every day and, you know, we're pounding the pavement, but we're trying to find money to, you know, pay for printing resumes and all of those things. And I think that right now, being homeless, there's so many things like that that people aren't looking at is. One is how hungry you are, right? Like think about how your brain doesn't function fully when you're hungry. Right. When you're hungry, you aren't thinking clearly to begin with. Right now. Be hungry for days and days and days and weeks and weeks and weeks on end. 

Doina Oncel

How do you get a job when you don't have a address?

Dawn Taylor 

Don't have an address? 

Doina Oncel

Do you have address to get a job to put on the resume? You need an address,  right? You can't get an apartment or anything else, or you can't find anything. Address? Uh, whose address can you use? Like, really? And especially if you are too embarrassed or you don't know how. There's no judgment onto the decisions that people make, right? Uh, how to whether they want to tell people or not. Like, that's not something that you. You know, you everybody feels comfortable talking about right to share with people. Um, so we don't want to judge. We don't want to judge, of any people start drinking alcohol and taking drugs or whatever. That would be a coping mechanism for whatever the circumstance they on. This is not some this is not us too judging to say, oh well, I didn't do it. I could just say, yeah, me, I would say the first time when I lived in a shelter, it took me a week to find a job. And it doesn't mean that everybody else had the same outcome like me. It's not that they didn't want that, but they had different, there were women that I had babies. How could you find a job in a week when you have a baby and you just know daycare, there's no you know, there's so many reasons why people are, or some people move faster than others. For me, I feel like I was lucky because I found some people that were a little bit ahead of where I was, because I decided to to find the people for me, my my people versus like looking up to everybody, uh, as to who's going to help me, people that I already had in my life before. I'm like, obviously they're not here for me and they're not going to help me. So I decided to find my my circle. Right? And then that helped me because those people are believed in me. They saw something in me that I didn't see myself. I consider myself lucky, so I found them. Not everybody has that right, because sometimes you could be in a community where, you know, it could be in a community where you are around people from the same country as you, and then you can't make a move forward because people are going to look at you different. You you're really concerned about what they might think or what they might say. So you put a facade for them. Uh, you know, or you might be around people that they just do drugs and then they just know the, the next thing that you, you know, likely are to be doing because that's what you have around. There's there's no way for us to judge again, as a coping mechanism. My coping mechanism when I was in the shelter until I found my own place, until I found myself like, I'm ready to go now was I used to go out all the time. I used to just go and buy cheap clothes and go out dancing, like, you know, I get my mom, watch my kids, I'm out. Yeah. You know, and until one day and I'm like. My aha moment. Well, I had two aha moments. One is when I was in the shelter. I remember sitting at the dining room table. We just had dinner, and I was holding my younger daughter and my on my lap. And then my oldest daughter, you know, she was sitting by me. She was having fun with her friends before she had dinner. And then she stood by me. And, you know, she was happy she ate something that she liked. I think it was. And then she said, you know, mom, I love you so much. She says, when I grow up, I want to be just like you. And I was like, whoa. I realized that, you know where I'm at in decisions that I'm making. And you know what? I'm going through life. I can't tell my kids. Do better if I'm not doing better, right? So that was my motivator. Not everybody not everybody has that. So for me, that was it. And then, the second time was when I was I told you my mechanism was going out dancing 3 or 4 times a week, I would just be going out and dance until whenever and then come home and go to work, find something to do and, you know, to make money to pay the bills. But I remember that one last time when I decided I can't do this anymore was when I bought a ticket already to go out. And then right before I left, I looked in the fridge and I saw there's no milk. So I'm supposed to because my kids are still young. They all drink milk every day. There's no milk. And all I had in my bank account was $10. And I was like, okay, so I need to change my life because I. How do I get to go out and buy a drink for myself? Like, you know, I feel like I had to make a choice. Like, do I buy a drink for me or do I buy milk for my kids tomorrow? You know, so I'm like, I sat down and luckily this was on a boat. And I feel like, you know, I look at things as though, like this was to happen so that it can force me to sit there and think. I was on a boat, so I don't swim. I couldn't even jump in the water to swim to the shore to go home. I was on and so I just felt that, you know, I need to change my life. I need to do something for my kids. I can't have them. I can make these choices. Yes, I like going out. I love dancing. Well, who doesn't? Right? I love dancing, but I when I go out, I want to be able to not feel guilty that my kids don't have food, you know what I mean? So I had to make that decision. I was stuck there for like an hour and a half, I think it was or two hours on the boat. And then it forced me to sit down and think. And my friends were like, come and dance. I'm like, no, I just need to sit here and think. And then when I got home, I decided I'm going to do something. I need to change my life. And that was, you know, but again, there that was my story. Some people could have their, you know, something else that could keep them out. Or it could be, I believe, that we have in our life. We have people that are either pushing us to go to the next level to where we supposed to be, or people that are holding us back. 

Dawn Taylor

Yes. 

Doina Oncel

Right. So I was lucky that I had my kids. That kind of I feel like I need something for them because it was. Sometimes it's easier when you do something like when you change your life for other people versus for yourself, right? So for me, it was my kids. I needed to change my life for them. And then there are there were also people that when I started changing my life, they were like, well, um, who do you think you are now? You know, or you forgot where you come from. You know, or you think you're a big boss now, so you don't want to hang out with us anymore. You don't want to do this. I'm like, it's not that I don't want to hang out with you. It's just that I have I decided to have different priorities, which are, you know, and I decided to be around, um, not around people, but around circumstances to make different decisions that will get me to where I want to be. You know, that was my. That was my You know, next step thing.

Dawn Taylor

Which is amazing. So the second time you ended up in or third time, the one the time you ended up homeless in the shelter with your daughters, how long were you homeless for that time? 

Doina Oncel

I was there for three months. I was in the shelter for three months. And as we were mentioning earlier, it was a step up for me. At first it was a little bit like, I can't believe I'm in this situation. And nobody, you know, nobody took me in the house and like, this is the worst thing happened to me and all that stuff. But then I decided to allow what was happening, to just let it happen. I said, I'm here because I'm supposed to be here, and I'm supposed to learn as much as possible. And here are and especially that I studied this in school, right? I thought, here are the people that are supposed to help me. Because if I am ever to go out there in the world and help women like me in my situation, I need to see what that's like, right? I need to feel it. I need to know because, you know, we have a lot of people, a lot of, um, therapists. And they come and says, yeah, I know what you mean, but they don't actually know because they know. 

Dawn Taylor

They don't actually know. 

Doina Oncel

Right. So for me, I feel like I'm here because I'm supposed to learn. So when somebody who tells me. I'm, you know, I'm going. You know I'm poor. I'm a single mom. I don't have, you know, a place to stay. I don't have food, I have this. And if I say I know, it's because I know I've been there, right? So. But those three months that I was there, you know, were really pivotal for me because I decided to let other people help me. The people that were working there the best that they could, you know, help me. Like, I, uh, these services were designed for people like me to help me. They will not, um. There's nothing to be embarrassed of, you know, uh, although some people were making me feel bad. Oh, this is where my tax money are going. Yes, because I pay taxes too, 

like, I go to work. You know, I went to work. I pay lots of taxes. I'm planning on going back to work. I'm going to pay taxes. So, uh, I'm not going to feel guilty for using a service that was designed for me. You know, it was there for me to use, right? So. And plus, being in that environment was it also allowed me to see that I'm not alone. Allowed me to see that there's other women. And I have seen women that were there, from newcomers to women that were born in Canada, women that had no education, women that had education, women that had that will stay at home moms previously and women that had their own businesses. So it doesn't matter. Right? It it helped me see. It doesn't matter where we come from, we could all end up in the same place. And that place. Allowed me to see that I'm not alone. There's other moms like me that are going through, or some women who were single. They didn't have kids, but they were, you know, and it doesn't matter who who you are, you can end up here, right? Um, and the culture didn't matter. The economic status didn't matter. Everybody was there to get the help and support that they needed. And I just, you know, allowed for all that to be. This is what it is. And, you know, and then it also being there. I, for lack of a better expression, I took advantage of that time that I was there to find myself. You know. How do I find myself? What is it that I want from life? And then what my daughter said to me that when I grow up, I want to be just like you. That was a wake up moment for me. I'm like, who am I? What am I here, you know? What do I want my daughter to see? Both daughters. What do I want them to see in me, you know? And I took that as being the the moment to change my life, basically. Yeah. 

Dawn Taylor

Which is amazing. So what are some key things that. Okay. A couple thoughts. Couple thoughts here. Number one is the story about your daughter saying that to you. I said that to my grandma one time when I was quite young. I was like, grandma, I want to be just like you when I'm older. And she went, oh, shoot, I better shape up. And I'll never forget it. Like she. It was the cutest little statement ever from my tiny, petite little grandma. 1s Um,  sometimes it's too hard to look at ourselves to figure out, like, I need to heal me. For me. I need to do better for me. I need to push harder for me. Sometimes that's way too hard to do. And I know even in my work as a trauma specialist, often what I'll tell people is like, find someone else to do it for.  If you can't, if you can't do the work right now for you. Yes, find someone else. And they're like, Don, that's backwards of what everybody else says. And I'm like, oh, I know. But often when we have been so beaten down and don't believe that we are worthy of more. We don't know how to fight for ourselves so we can fight, you know, for our dog, or we can fight for our neighbor kid, or we can fight for our children or our, you know, someone else in our life that you're like, I need to be better for them. I have to be mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, relationally, financially healthier for them. Yes, often that's a big help to like get people over that initial hurdle, right? To be like, who am I fighting for? Because they they don't have that. They don't have that in them anymore. Right? But the other thing is I wanted to ask is what? So having lived in the shelters and having done that, it's easy to go, well, no, I'm not going to give money to a homeless person because they're going to just spend it on drugs, which is the line that you and I have talked about. Like, we hear this all the time. Or like, no, look at them. They have a cell phone, right? They must have money because of that. Well, guys, if you can see doing his face. These are the beliefs and the judgments that come with. Not understanding. Right. And the whole purpose of this podcast is like, no, no, no. Yes, yes, there are people out there that are just rough and there are people that are choosing what they're doing, and there are people that are just very far gone and drugs and alcohol and don't desire anything better for themselves. But that is not everybody and that is not the majority. 

Doina Oncel

Mhm.

Dawn Taylor

So, for what are some easy, tangible things that people could do to support people to love on the homeless, to give them, give them that leg up that they might need in order to get where they're trying to go in life. 

Doina Oncel

Well, first let me just say the reason why I was like, oh my God, I had a reaction to what you said because, you know, people don't understand that just because somebody has a phone, it doesn't necessarily mean that they bought it or that even works properly. 

Dawn Taylor

Oh my gosh. Right. So but again we talked about like you have to have a phone number to get a job. You have to have a phone number. Like I've often thought like that would be one of the best things you could do for the homeless is to hand out cell phones with pre-paid calling cards on them. Like, yes, give them an old flip phone with some minutes on it so that you can actually do this something, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it works, you know, properly. 

Doina Oncel

So it might be an old phone it must have been donated to from another organization that they were part of, like an A program that they went to. You never know. Or could it be that the one thing that they have left from their previous life. So  why judge you know, again it comes with judgment, right? People use the, the judge, saboteur not just on themselves but on to others about what they are. Yeah. The thing is, though, is something that I learned from my grandmother is that when you give to people, you give freely because you feel that it's the right thing to do whatever they do with whatever you gave them, it's on them. If they're using it for good or bad, that's on them. It's not on you. You're not here to judge. And I'm not saying that they can, you know, I support drug use or anything like that. Absolutely not. But if you can take on a person and say. You know, because you're asking me, how can we help? What can we do? We can ask them. Sit down and talk to them. Have a conversation and, you know, figure out, like, what do you want? I had when I moved from the shelter, I decided I wanted to do something good. I wanted to find a man that people throw money at him. And I couldn't find him anymore. He wasn't there anymore. But then I want I started, I got a job, so I was working, and, I would go into this, this mall where this homeless guy would come. He opened the door, hoping people will actually give him money. Here we are. We go to this really expensive place, and we have people that were hired to open the door. We give them a tip, but then we have a homeless person that opens the door for us, and we just judge them because I'm not going to give you money because like, no, let's not do that. Because, you know, they're working for the money when you think about it. But then I saw him there for a couple of months and I whenever I had change, I would give him money. I would, you know, I'll give him $1, $2, whatever I had. And then it was around the holidays and I noticed that he was he was still in a t shirt. Like the holidays mean like winter time. Yes. So he was in a t shirt and very, you know, he didn't have much clothes. And I said, I started talking to him. I said I didn't want to assume, hey, I want to give you some clothes, you know, and then I, I talked to him and I said, hey. You know, I started with the conversation. I was, you know, back in the day, you know, when I was I was having a hard time and I started to talk to him about me being homeless. And I lived in a shelter and stuff, and I'm like, I don't know your situation. I don't know where you are, but, you know, I just kind of want to. Let's talk, like two people. I got him coffee and we were having coffee and we're talking and then, you know, and I said, if there's anybody were to do anything for you to help and support you, what would you want? Well, what would that be? He goes, oh, I need, I need jacket and and clothes for winter. He, you know, he just needed clothes for he was worried that winter is coming. He has no, no clothes. And I say, okay, well what size are you. And he told me size. I went to Goodwill because I didn't have money. So I went to Goodwill. I bought secondhand stuff. I gave myself a budget like I do with everything else. And I said, okay, I only have like $20. What can I buy for $20? And I bought like a pair of pants, a sweater, a jacket, and I believe it was, I went to the dollar store and I passed out like a scarf and stuff, you know, because I want to get something new. So I gave him that. And, you know, I went the next day, he was like, oh my God, he was in tears again. The way to support is to ask, to ask people. Like, what do you need? Because some person we think we might do and again, we might come with good intentions to give someone something or to help them in a way like, oh, here, I'm going to buy you, But that's not what they actually need. They might need they in their mind, you know, they might need clothes or they might need, um, a contact or where they could go and stay because a lot of homeless shelters, and especially for men, they're not always available. They have the the limits. Right. You can only stay here for like 1 or 2 nights or, you know, you can come back here after, you know, after 30 days or whatever. You can go to this different shelter if you want to take showers and some. Then again, it comes with limitations, which is something that everyday people don't know. They think, just go to a shelter like go and stay there. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's available. So we want to talk to them and ask them like what you know, if if you know, if you need if you were to need any help right now, what would that be? Right. Um, and again, some people might say, no, I don't want anything and just walk away. Simple as that. Don't don't say like, well, I'm trying to help you and you don't want it, and you're a loser. Just walk away. Just be be kind. I think the most important thing we need to remember is to be kind. Right. Everybody. 

Dawn Taylor

People in my inner circle know I'm a bit of a giver. I like to give, give, give, give, give. It's kind of a toxic trait of mine in a lot of ways and but also beautiful. And I know one thing that I started doing years ago was if I pulled up to like a gas station, there were homeless people there. I often don't have cash on me. Right. So it's not easy just to be like, here's a $5 bill or a $10 bill, or go buy or sell something. I'd say, hey, can I pick you up anything while I'm inside? Do you need anything? Right. And I remember um one gentleman I was in the Okanagan and Canadians know that is in British Columbia. And um I was there in this man looked at me and he goes anything. And I went, yeah, anything. What would you love? He just wanted a cup of hot chocolate like he had drank at his grandma's when he was a little kid. And when I handed it to him, he just started crying and he asked for a toothbrush and toothpaste. It's like, I don't know if they have it in there, but I just want to feel clean teeth again. And I was like, yes, yes, 

I can get this for you. And so I ended up buying a few sets of that and gave it all to him. And I was like, go share this with your friends. And he was like, thank you. And I think it's something so simple that, you know, you don't need to hand them cash. You don't need to do that. I owned a restaurant years ago, and there was a homeless man that lived in the back alley, and I asked him one time, I was like, can we like, can we feed you like, is there anything that we can do? And he refused to take. He had such pride. He refused to take. And I said, what if I hired you? And he kind of gave me this funny look, but he would wash all my restaurant windows, right? He'dome and do the most incredible job. And I would pay him with food and cash, and he would wash them once a week for the longest time, and then he would disappear. And then he'd come back a few months later, and then he would do it again, and he disappear for months on end, and then he come back. And this is just like our pattern. And I remember talking to a friend of mine who volunteered at a homeless shelter years later, and she said, that was his pattern, is he had way too much pride, but he knew he needed to work for his drug money and his alcohol money. And then he'd go on a bender and then all of a sudden he'd be like, okay, no, I'm back again. I can do this. I can stay sober. I can do what I need to do. And he'd earn all his money again, and then he'd end up back on a bender. 

Doina Oncel

You might have been like, to be honest, you, when you look at that, right? If you wouldn't have had that support, he could have been just ending up disappearing forever. 

Dawn Taylor

Well, you just don't know exactly. 

Doina Oncel

For those times when you're offering him the help and support like he would. You know, you might have been something that will even get him out of being high says, you know what? I need to get up because somebody's waiting for me to wash their windows instead of looking at the other way around. Right. We can look at it, say, because there's many people that could get into that situation and because they have something to hold on to or somebody that they know that you're willing to have you. And for him probably was like, okay, you know what? I've had enough of this. Like, this person is waiting for me and she was good to me. You probably show some some sort of kindness where it helped him get out of zone when he was high or, you know, drugs or whatever the case was for him. Or maybe he was somewhere else. We don't know that. We just know that, you know, he would come back and you could have been the lifeline for him at that time. 

Dawn Taylor

And you just don't know. And I think for a lot of people, it's whether you're donating to the food bank or you're donating to a shelter, or you're volunteering at a shelter, or I know lots of people that do the large Ziploc bags in their car, and they'll always have a few that have, like, you know, a $20 bill and some snacks and different things in them. I think there's just a piece of compassion. And when you've had your dignity stripped so hard so far, and you have right, people judge out of fear. People judge from a place of fear. And I find the biggest one is like, it's a fear that like, what if I could also end up there, right? So it's easy to judge someone else for being there. It's easy to judge someone else, you know, for being broke or for having too much debt, or for going through a divorce, or for having to leave an abusive relationship or all of those things. But at the core of it is like, what is it about it that scares me so bad? 

Doina Oncel

Um, yeah. 

Dawn Taylor

Right. And so based on that really stepping out and going, no, no, no. Maybe I'm not comfortable walking down the street and handing out food to the homeless, but I'm comfortable donating money to a food bank where I know they can go and get food.

Doina Oncel

Yes.

Dawn Taylor

Or to, you know, anytime we donate anything to like to give away for like second hand stores here Edmonton, there's a place called Hope Mission and it's a place for it's a second hand store, but all the workers are volunteers and all the money goes to feeding the homeless and clothing them and housing them and giving them that leg up. You know,  it's making a decision to go out of your way to find an organization that really hits your heart, and your heart feels safe donating. Right? When I had the restaurant, it was easy to have this man cleaned my windows. He wasn't violent. We didn't feel like we were in danger. We had a lot of cops come in and eat there, and I asked them, like, do you know anything about him? And they're like, no, he's totally safe. Like you don't have to fear him in your business. Because some people were more scary. So I could do that. I could deliver meals to a shelter, I could do those things right. That was my comfort level. But I think to just walk past somebody and judge and throw money through pennies, not even money, pennies at them, I know. Right. Or to do that, it's beautiful, I love that. I love that we're giving people some ideas on things that they can do and they can support, because it could be, it could be. You that ends up there. It could be your next door neighbor that ends up there. It could be your friend. It could be your friend. Your grandchildren. Right? Anybody from your family could be. Yes, absolutely. 

Doina Oncel

And if we donate money to a food bank, they actually able to buy more for if we were to go to a store. Right. And we can, you know, store they have like donate for the food. I'd much rather donate money to the food bank than to the store, only because the food bank is able to buy more. Like they can stretch a dollar more. 

Dawn Taylor

Yeah, they can. 

Doina Oncel

Right. So then plus I'm all advocating about employee people employing people. And when you're saying there's a secondhand store, there's a lot of second hand stores here that hire people that are that come with a record or come with, um, from welfare. You know, they give them the second chance and I'm all for that. I support that so much because it's like, if we don't have these programs, you know, it's hard for people to come out, you know, out of circumstances that they enter. Right, I have seen somebody post actually on, on Facebook post and said, I want to, I want to, I have some clothes and I want to donate. I do not want to give it to a secondhand store to sell them for money. I want to donate it directly to the, um, a homeless woman. There's a pros and cons to both, right? Yeah. The pro for that is that you give it directly to that woman. But then you have to find that homeless woman that has the size, you know, your size and all that stuff. So you have to do the research yourself. Or you can donate it to, um, a homeless shelter. Some homeless shelters don't want to take a lot of clothes because of the bedbugs. So they want to make sure that, you know, they much rather, you know, get the money and they can buy the clothes, or you can just donate to the second hand store, and somebody could buy for low cost. Right? And actually employs the woman that is homeless that you want to support her directly. She might get a job there. Right? So when you think about it that way versus thinking, I don't want to do this because, you know, you know that I have a charity, right? Like I started a charity to support girls in and to get into STEM. I'm very big on employment and the next generation because I really feel like I don't want women to feel like they have barriers. And if I can do anything in this lifetime to break down barriers, as many as I can as one person that I am. And I've had a conversation with somebody in the past say, well, before I donate to charity, I want to make sure that, you know, it goes directly to the people that it supports. And my thought process and being that I started a charity, being that I worked in the system, people have been in the system. I can tell you this, the most important thing that you can do is support the charity to hire people, the best people, because those best people are the ones that support people directly. Yeah, right. Um, and the nonprofit sector, we don't pay people enough. Right? And they end up leaving. So then what we do is the cycle. Yeah, they burn out. They can't pay their bills. They end up. They end up low income like the ones that they're supposed to help. And so what they do, they leave. And then the people that are here supporting, needing the help because the way that, you know, being what I study and being in where I am with the work group, is that the way to support people is you have to build trust with people when someone is vulnerable. You can come up and say, hey, I want to do this for you. They don't know who you are, you know, why would they let you help them? Right? So you have to build trust first. They have to know that whatever you said are you going to do for them. It's actually helping. And sometimes someone that is is homeless. They might test you out and you can come up and they can see that you judge them, they can feel that you judge them. And that's why they don't want your help. Right? But if we pay people enough to be in the sector, in the nonprofit sector, to support them, to support the most vulnerable population, you know, it's without saying, well, and I don't want to donate money because I don't want, you know, these people to get paid. Why wouldn't you? You go support businesses that make profits in millions of dollars, but you don't want to support the nonprofits. It kind of makes no sense to me, right? I'm all advocating for support. The nonprofits, support the charities. Are they just because they hire trained professionals. They have people like me or other people that have gone to school to this is their passion. They want to make the world better. And then what are we doing as a society? We say, no, we shouldn't get paid. Like, you know, people in the corporate world, we should pay you less money because you're not worth it. That's not the message we want to give people, right? We want to turn around and say, I want to support you because you get to support the vulnerable, the ones that I care about. Right? So just find a charity that you think supports them, who you want to support. Right?

Dawn Taylor

And there's so many. This morning just on Facebook this morning, I saw a thing called Help Portrait Edmonton where they're going in and they're doing like hair, makeup, wardrobe for photos. And it's for vulnerable people, homeless people in recovery, elderly refugees. 

Doina Oncel

Yes. 

Dawn Taylor

Right. For photos, for things. There's, um, I'm blanking on the name of it, but it's like a dress for success. And it's downtown Edmonton, and I've seen it where you can go and you can get outfits for like job interviews if you're homeless.

Doina Oncel

I got stuff from them. 

Dawn Taylor

You can do things like that. So you can help in so many ways, find a way that you're passionate about and support. Doina, I want to thank you so much for your time today. Anyone who's interested in her charity, please check out our show notes located at the TheTaylorWay.csyou under the podcast link. You will see everything there, who she is, what she's doing, all of the magic of everything that's going on. Thank you so much for being here today. 

Doina Oncel

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it, and thank you for doing the work that you do with your podcast. It's so important to have more people hearing about what's happening out there in the world, and then hearing from the people that have been through it or are working in this field. I think it's so important that what you do. So thank you for 

that. 

Dawn Taylor

Oh, thank you. I'm honored to do it. And I love the conversations I get to have with people every day. So join us in two weeks for another topic. Maybe one day I'll go weekly, but probably not. But please tell your friends. The more people will feel understood, seen, heard, healed. The more people that can lose a little bit of their edge of judgment, the better. Check out the show notes, as I said, located at the Taylor Waka. For more information and for all the contact information for Doina, subscribe now on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you love the show, please, please, please leave a rating and review. See you guys later!