Ton survived the war deaths of his parents in South Vietnam when he was a child, and fled to Thailand to escape persecution after North Vietnam won the war in 1975. He came to Canada a decade later for a new life. Ton worked for years as a cook, first in Ottawa and then Victoria; his many friends on the street say they considered themselves very lucky anytime Ton cooked a meal for them back when he had a place to live. But now he’s 72 and has been homeless for the past 3 years, after some of those visitors got up to stuff that led to Ton being evicted. He’s currently got a pod bed at My Place and a community of people on Pandora who are very fond of him, but he speaks very little English (though understands what’s being said to him). That language barrier is a huge hurdle in a system that requires self-advocacy. A street friend and I are hoping to find a Vietnamese speaker to sit down with Ton and us for a conversation, and see if we can’t get some support for him.