Sticker Lady: Bizarre Toronot Panhandler

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I'm reluctant to post this, but it's so friggin' weird. But the way these stories get covered always leaves me cold in the way that seem to imply that all panhandlers and street people are just con artists and undeserving of compassion or aid.

Sticker Lady “trying to get by” soliciting for donations in downtown Toronto
TORONTO (CP) — A Hamilton woman who commutes to Toronto in a Jetta to panhandle outside the Eaton Centre before driving home to an upscale house owned by her husband says she’s “just trying to get by.”
Catherine (Katie) Hebert is better known as the “Sticker Lady” to those who recognize her as the pleasant, smiling, soft-spoken fixture on the streets around the Eaton Centre, the Toronto Sun reported Sunday.
She compliments strangers on their “handsome” or “pretty” looks then distributes stickers in exchange for donations.
Hebert vehemently denies she misrepresents herself to the public: “I’ve never implied that I work for a charity. All I tell people is that it’s for me and my children,” she said.
But more than a dozen donors who spoke to the Toronto Sun near the intersection of Queen and Yonge streets suggest otherwise. They say Hebert claims to collect for a wide range of charitable causes, including the homeless, a children’s charity, sick kids and, most recently “youth storm victims” and the tsunami relief effort — allegations she rejects.
“They hear what they want to hear, I think. If you listen to me plainly I say the very same thing to everybody,” she said.
Indeed, she tells many people that they are giving money to help feed her two children, although the Sun has learned one of them is 25 and lives on her own in Toronto.
“I’m just trying to get by,” Hebert told the Sun. “I’m different, that’s for sure.”
She drives a 2001 Volkswagen Jetta TDI sedan to and from Hamilton every day to work the area. She says she got a great deal on the lease.
While Hebert made no mention of it, her husband Robert Hebert said the panhandling is part of a 12-year-old business called Katie’s Flowers and Candies. He said his wife has registered the company with Revenue Canada, files income tax every year and underwent a full audit three years ago.
She lives with her husband, her teenaged daughter and another tenant in a three-storey Hamilton home owned by her husband.
Robert Hebert is a self-described struggling musician and former head of the Hare Krishna movement in Toronto from 1971 to 1985.
(Toronto Sun)

― Huk-L, Monday, 17 January 2005 20:20 (twenty-one years ago)

DOES THIS MEAN SHE DOESN'T ACTUALLY THNK I'M HANDSOME??? *heart breaks*

― Thermo Thinwall (Thermo Thinwall), Monday, 17 January 2005 20:32 (twenty-one years ago)

“I’m different, that’s for sure.”

― Huk-L, Monday, 17 January 2005 20:37 (twenty-one years ago)

I put it to you that "Toronot" is a lovely alternately spelling.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 17 January 2005 20:39 (twenty-one years ago)

SHould I withdraw my Mod Request then?

― Huk-L, Monday, 17 January 2005 20:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Monday, 17 January 2005 21:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't know, I worked over the Eaton Center for years and never saw her. But there are a few people like her in that area. Tourists, Office of the Public Guardian and college students make the area a pretty tempting target.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Monday, 17 January 2005 21:05 (twenty-one years ago)

OMG it's Kenan's relatives!

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 17 January 2005 21:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Noodles - you've never seen her! I encountered her one of my first times in the city many a year ago and saw her as recently as 3 weeks ago!

― Thermo Thinwall (Thermo Thinwall), Monday, 17 January 2005 21:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Can I get a video of this woman off of BitToronot?

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Monday, 17 January 2005 21:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I guess she hasn't bothered office workers. Decides, if you work in the area you evenrual tune the beggars out. On that note, the H&M might be the best thing that's happened in that area to stop crime.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Monday, 17 January 2005 21:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Dude I work by John & Richmond = I have the most up to date in anti panhandler hardware!
(forgive me but what's this H&M?)

― Thermo Thinwall (Thermo Thinwall), Monday, 17 January 2005 21:40 (twenty-one years ago)

The store.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Monday, 17 January 2005 21:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I see her all the time. She stopped me once and waved the stickers in my face, and muttered something incomprehensible. I couldn't figure out if it was some pledge drive or a drug deal, so I sort of shook my head in a general way and headed off. She hasn't bothered me since, but maybe that's because I have the "oh noooo" look in my eye when I see her these days.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Monday, 17 January 2005 23:33 (twenty-one years ago)

At the same time, this whole thing strikes me as being non-news, just like the Sun's "Shaky Lady" debacle of a few years back.

Taking sides: "OH NO! This person who took a dollar from me may not be giving it to a charity but may be keeping it for herself!" vs. "OH NO! These corporate criminals who are trying to take ALL of my money may actually want to buy themselves a new Jag with it!"

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Monday, 17 January 2005 23:36 (twenty-one years ago)

i see her all the time as well. short, blonde woman, doesn't look crazy or corrupt in the slightest, and i'm not just saying that because she thinks i'm handsome too.

― mark p (Mark P), Monday, 17 January 2005 23:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Naming your panhandling business "Katie's Flowers and Candies" = total classic!

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Tuesday, 18 January 2005 00:59 (twenty-one years ago)

She's approached me several times.

I'm not sure whether to believe the claims about her trying to collect for a "wide range of charitable causes". I think she's quite careful about the language she uses.

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Tuesday, 18 January 2005 01:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Naming your panhandling business "Katie's Flowers and Candies" = total classic!

Think she offers receipts?

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Tuesday, 18 January 2005 01:30 (twenty-one years ago)

who remembers raul superdancer?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 18 January 2005 02:15 (twenty-one years ago)

MONTREAL —A woman who raised eyebrows in Toronto because she was collecting handouts even though she apparently wasn't poor, has moved her “entrepreneurship” to Montreal.
Known as the “Sticker Lady,” Catherine Hebert now plies her trade in downtown Montreal among other, less fortunate panhandlers. She offers passersby happy face stickers in exchange for loose change.
But while others hunker down in homeless shelters, Hebert has a handsome three-storey house in Hamilton, Ont., she can go home to.
And while others push carts full of their worldly possessions to nearby vents or metro stations to keep warm, Hebert keeps her 2001 Jetta parked just around the corner.
“It's an open market,” Hebert said Friday, sporting a DKNY puffy jacket that she insists was also donated.
“I'm not on welfare. I'm not selling sex or drugs. I'm just trying to get by. And if people want to give me their pocket change, I'm happy to take it.”
In Ontario, Hebert was known as the gentle, jovial woman who sold stickers and candy canes outside the Eaton Centre in Toronto. But observers began to wonder just how needy she was when it was revealed that she commuted to “work” from Hamilton in her Jetta every day, returning home to her husband and 11-year-old daughter for dinner.
“Personally, I don't agree with what she's doing, but I never met her and there must be a reason why she's going it,” said David Lussier, a spokesman for the Welcome Hall Mission in Montreal.
That said, the general public has to be aware that money given to people like this is not always well spent, Lussier said.
“If I met her on the street, instead of giving her money I would give her the number of the mission and say, `If you need food and clothing for your children, we will help you.'
“That's the bottom line.”
Hebert, who is staying with friends in Montreal, says she doesn't know why she's getting so much attention.
“I don't make a lot of money, and I'm just one person trying to live. People do a lot worse things to earn money.”
Hebert says she budgets to make about $75 a day — which fluctuates according to the weather. Last year she paid $300 in taxes, she says proudly.
And she insists she's always honest with potential benefactors about what the money is for: to feed and clothe herself and her children. However, one of her two children is 25 years old and apparently living on her own in Toronto.

BEGIN OPTIONAL CUT
She says she lives in the basement of her husband's home in Hamilton, but is otherwise completely independent of him, and would have to resort to welfare if she couldn't sell stickers.
(According to a Toronto newspaper, her husband is a struggling musician and the former head of the Hare Krishna movement in Toronto.)
Hebert was doing a paper route and enrolled in religious studies at McMaster University in Hamilton when her life started to unravel, she said, giving few details.
“My life is a little troublesome right now, but this is temporary. I want to finish my degree and get a job, just like you. I don't want to be flipping burgers or selling T-shirts.”
Montreal Gazette

― Huk-L, Monday, 24 January 2005 19:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Newspaper syndicate stalks panhandler across provinial lines

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 24 January 2005 19:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Newspaper headline parody contains glaring typo; Typo noticed "a nanosecond too late" according to parodist

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 24 January 2005 19:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Which brings us back to the title of this thread, I suppose.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 24 January 2005 19:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Hirality esnues!

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Monday, 24 January 2005 22:27 (twenty-one years ago)

It does? God bless Canada.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 24 January 2005 22:36 (twenty-one years ago)

BEGIN OPTIONAL CUT

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 24 January 2005 22:42 (twenty-one years ago)

[Insert joke about post-natal ritual]

― Huk-L, Tuesday, 25 January 2005 15:11 (twenty-one years ago)

who remembers raul superdancer?

Raul came back to Union Square a few months ago. His new schtick is that he is a super chess player. No joke.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Tuesday, 25 January 2005 15:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Where's Union Square?

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Tuesday, 25 January 2005 15:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Union Station?

― Huk-L, Tuesday, 25 January 2005 15:36 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...

I am a Hare Krishna and I think this sticker selling is an embarrasment to our culture

― Carey Smith, Thursday, 26 January 2006 21:16 (twenty years ago)

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