TORONTO — Ana Macias rises at 5:45 a.m. on Tuesday so she can pack her things before the other residents at a downtown shelter are awake.
All her belongings fit into a large suitcase and a small handbag, which she keeps by her side at all times. She needs it nearby because theft is a problem — her handbag has been stolen three times in the last year at Margaret’s, the shelter where she lives, and getting another Mexican passport and a visitor’s visa is stressful.
Macias sleeps in a room with a roommate who has schizophrenia. A third woman moved in this week, making physical distancing impossible. “I don’t feel safe at night,” she says in Spanish through her translator and friend, Alejandra Adarve. “I’m very worried about the virus, but I