‘People should never live like this!’ Life inside a Wards Island homeless shelter

Anthony Simmons has lived in a homeless shelter on Wards Island for five years, and he says as time has passed, the conditions have progressively worsened — especially after the COVID-19 pandemic hit in the spring of 2020.

Simmons, who is wheelchair-bound, said that dozens of homeless individuals with disabilities at the shelter are forced to share two bathrooms and one shower that are grossly infested with cockroaches, waterbugs and flies.