(CWs Anti-Black Racism, Self-Harm, Mental Health Issues, Suicide.)

Starting in November of 2019 I moved into a transitional home for trans folks called Bloom, run by Loft Community Services. It is a severely unsafe place. Many things in the home were broken or mismanaged. (examples, no toilet seat in many rooms, no screen on the windows, broken locks on doors, broken glass, a number of fire hazards, extreme temperature and sound issues) as well as many stories about roommate interaction that ended in violence. I was assured these would be taken care of before I moved in. They were not. My roommate and I had to clean up the glass, and were forced to take care or deal with all of these issues stated and more until June/July of 2020 when there was a fire on the balcony next to my room. That's when they finally gave us toilet seats and fixed the window. But many issues remain unmanaged and new issues arise that continue to not be taken care of to this day. (December 19, 2020)

To add insult to injury, my roommate began harassing all of my other roommates because they felt “unsafe” because of the things that she would intrusively listen in on in her room. She never made an effort to speak to any of them directly to make compromises. She would just insist on unreasonable demands (example, telling my other roommate that his online classes were too loud in his own room, which took place at 4pm) that were not possible to do, or just simply unfair to ask as it got in the way of other people's enjoyment of their home. However, I spoke with her back in May about how the fears she is having are not based on our actions but her perception of them because we all expressed how we were not doing things in spite of her. That wasn’t good enough. 

She began being very passive-aggressive to everyone (examples, yelling purposely, slamming other people's doors shut, and tried to get people evicted for making reasonable sound.) As this progressively escalated, I started to smoke weed in my room to avoid the possible fire hazard the balcony proved it to be (which Loft did nothing to make safer after the fire.) but, mostly because my neighbors outside the house would be very racist to me and my other black roommate. (Which is a concern I expressed before moving into the landlord) I didn’t know what else to do. I told this to my roommate. She didn't seem to think that mattered because I wasn’t respecting her unreasonable demands, and that the house smelling like weed was worse than me being called the N-word by my neighbors.

Fast forward to 3 weeks ago, (December 8, 2020) My roommate then began to yell at me and talk about me through the walls to directly harass me. Saying she hated me. She would be listening to everything I would say from the moment I would get up to the moment I would sleep. I felt constantly unsafe because they were directly harassing me. I stopped eating outside of my room or doing laundry because whenever I left the room she would yell at me. I refrained from calling the police because I wanted to give Loft/Bloom an opportunity to remedy the situation. They did not do anything to remedy the harassment like I expected. Instead they seem to go out of their way to protect my roommate. Not even discussing with me what my needs were or what happened to me before making the decision.  They’re decision was to have a security guard there on the weekends for 4 hours and to give my roommate an option to stay elsewhere, which was offered to me secondhand. (At the very same place she would be so I'm unsure what that would do but, I digress)

I expressed how I still felt unsafe and that this was in a lot of ways dismissive of the previous harassment, didn't protect me from future ones and actually enabled my roommate to continue to harass me. They just seem to think I was just trying to get my roommate in trouble more than it is about how unsafe it is. 

I am now staying at my friend's house because I don’t feel I can go back there and that my concerns are going to be taken care of. Loft has made it very clear on numerous occasions that they are neglectful but fail to actually change any of their behavior. The result of their neglect has had a monumental impact on my mental health. 

I’ve been to the hospital emergency three times this year, wrote a will and suicide note, and have began to self-harm after years of not. And, as a result of my roommate's harassment I constantly live in fear of doing basic things like talking, going up stairs, and even just going to the washroom because of my C-PTSD. Loft/Bloom is aware of all of this. One of the employees was the one who took me to the hospital. 

Loft/Bloom has been aware of all of these things since the beginning. But, has chosen instead to do nothing and take advantage of people who they know would struggle to do anything about their mistreatment. That's why folks are there. The folks who live there and have lived there are taken advantage of by Loft/Bloom.

By signing this petition would bring to light that people are aware of Loft's/BLOOM's misconduct, and care about our mistreatment.