When former Toronto city councilor and MPP Lorenzo Berardinetti found himself in a homeless shelter last year, it was a circumstance he never imagined he would face.
“What am I doing here?” He remembered thinking about his first night there. “I never thought this would have happened to me, but it did.”
Berardinetti, whose political career spanned 30 years in Toronto’s east end, has been living in the Ajax, Ont., shelter since August 2023 following a bout of unemployment and a series of medical problems.
He says he wasn’t the only person there who had professional experience, and the experience highlighted to him how precarious life is in the Toronto area for so many people.
“A lot of people come up to me and say, ‘Are you homeless?'” Berardinetti told CBC Toronto on Friday.
“They’re worried that one day they’ll be homeless, too. And a lot of people are afraid of that.”
After the Toronto Star first reported last month that Berardinetti had fallen on hard times, Ontario politicians rallied to help.
Justin Van Dette, a former Toronto City Council and Queen’s Park political staffer, was the first to spring into action.
First, he contacted the shelter in Ajax to leave a message for Berardinetti, who called again and gave Van Dette permission to start an online fundraising campaign to help him re-home. He then reached out to former colleagues in the city and province.
“All those who responded [said]’How can we help? We’ve lost track of him,'” Van Dette told the CBC Radio show. metropolitan morning on Friday.
“To see someone who was very passionate about our city, who stood up for his constituents and residents, and see where he’s gone since then, it was shocking and very concerning,” Van Dette said.
Berardinetti served 15 years as the Liberal MP for Scarborough Southwest, before being defeated in the 2018 provincial election. Before that, he served as a Toronto city councilor and, before the merger, a Scarborough city councillor.
But since his time at Queen’s Park, he says times have been tough.
Divorce followed by unemployment and medical problems
Berardinetti, a former practicing lawyer, says he took some time off after his 2018 loss to think about what he wanted to do after politics.
Ontario MPPs do not receive a pension and Berardinetti said he used the pension he received from City Hall to pay the mortgage on his home. That meant he began to rely on his savings.
When he started looking for work, around age 60, he said it was harder to find opportunities.
A divorce in 2019 set him back, he said, and he began to eat more into his retirement savings. In 2021 he suffered a stroke that forced him to stop looking for work.
“I ended up in the hospital and was in a coma for about a month. And I finally came home at the end of August 2021 and the doctors told me to rest, you know, the brain needs time to heal.” ” said.
But a year later, he attempted to return to politics and ran in the 2022 Toronto municipal election.
“I discovered that I had no energy. It was difficult to get around and that’s why I didn’t win. And I applied for different jobs, but it’s difficult at my age,” he said.
Unemployed at a time when homelessness is on the rise in Toronto and the cost of living is forcing more people to turn to food banks, regardless of their employment. Berardinetti said he had to sell his car to make ends meet.
She eventually ran out of money, she said, and had to move out of the house she was renting after her divorce. After a brief period living with his brother in Ajax, Berardinetti said he moved to a shelter in the city in November 2023.
Politicians from different backgrounds collaborate
Things have changed for Berardinetti in recent weeks, physically and financially.
Berardinetti said his doctor cleared him to return to work and he goes to the library every day, working to renew his law license, establish his own law practice and write a book.
And after more than a year on Ontario’s housing list, it’s off and will be able to look for new homes with the help of $25,000 raised through Van Dette’s GoFundMe.
The campaign has raised more than $35,000, with donations coming from politicians across the ideological spectrum. But Van Dette says the extra money will be given to the Association of Former Parliamentarians to create a trust to help other politicians struggling after retirement.
Politicians of all backgrounds contributed to the campaign, including former mayor John Tory, former premiers Kathleen Wynne and Dalton McGuinty, Conservative MP Lisa McLeod, and Toronto councilors such as Brad Bradford and Parthi Kandavel.
“It’s humbling,” Berardinetti said. “The guy I defeated was a conservative [Dan Newman]. He donated. And the woman who defeated me, who was NDP [Doly Begum]She also donated. Therefore, compassion is not the property of one party.”
Berardinetti said he plans to meet with a real estate agent this month.
