Patrick Burton: Connecting the forgotten Trying to save Canadian lives through the Net by Theresa Ebden Most online executives wouldn't last five minutes in Toronto's Parkdale district. But then there's Patrick Burton, the systems administrator and board president of iComm -- an Internet-based volunteer organisation in the city's notoriously rough west-end district. Burton isn't exactly what you would call a Canadian corporate prototype. He's heading to the Tennessee bar for our interview, dressed in a ripped jean jacket, faded-way-past-prime black t-shirt and matching worn out black hi-top Cons sneakers. Walking towards Queen Street with his long, wiry grey hair backlit by the summer's evening sun, he's not having any problems with the neighbourhood. That's because he lives here. The 44 year-old Net addict and impoverished survivor of the mental health treatment program could easily beg for change or sell drugs. Instead, Burton fills his rented room on Dowling Street with a Jolt Cola can collection and a fully wired Pentium and is working on doing his community non-profit sector a very, very big favour. He's hooking them up to the Internet for free. iComm, founded in June 1995, features almost 200 sites, a teaching aid for mental health survivors in his neighbourhood, as well as global, national, regional and topical resources. iComm is not a politically correct crusade to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor. Burton simply recognised that the informed people lead better lives, so he is leading a core group of volunteers into providing free access. "Give the homeless, the survivors, access to the Internet, and get the hell out of the way," he said fervently. "Because they are going to use it -- to get help, to get jobs, to learn about how to make their life better." Crack, crime and "crazy people," as Burton calls them, are no strangers to Parkdale, which is the third largest psychiatric ghetto in North America. He wants to connect all of them -- from the spunky red-haired waitress with plans to "get outta here," to the many lost, muttering and distraught population drifting through the streets -- and give them the tools to improve. This includes the inhabitants of the area's two mental hospitals, landmarks of an area currently riddled with hopelessness. Access in the libraries is a great start, he notes, but it's not enough for everyone. iComm has sites ranging from the Canadian food banks, an effort to save the Wellesley Hospital to the Lesbian Gay Bi Youth Line and even Turtle Trax, an extensive site on how to care for your pet turtles. Many sites are geared towards the community, but all are non-profit. Burton got wired as a result of two years as a community worker as a mental health hotline operator. "I hit the limit. I decided that it would be a really good thing to get on the Internet at that time." The Internet more or less saved Burton. He found a place that could both help him survive his past and brighten his future prospects of employment. He dived in immediately in 1994 and hasn't looked back since. He has written for Toronto Computes and the Toronto Star. "I was in a friend's place and he turned to me and said, 'you know, this used to be Timothy Eaton's summer home!' Back then it was fashionable to have a place in Parkdale," he says, smiling. "So I walk in and there is this lady lying on the couch, drooling. I'm thinking, 'you deserve better.' All of these people do." Burton's life online includes being the webmaster of Madness, a site created for a New York mailing list for people who use and want to improve mental health services, which was the inspiration for another project called help!, which he says is "so far out of date, and purely personal." He's also got his own page under his online name, madmagic, where various poems and writings, including the popular American's guide to Canada, can be found. These days, Burton's challenges are different. "What I'm doing right now is probably the most important thing in my life," he says, nodding to emphasise his point. No kidding. With just under 175 organisations to keep up on the site, he's quite literally running on empty, and adds that iComm is "looking for funding -- it's probably our first priority right now." Aside from lacking funds for the business, Burton has also foregone basic living necessities for the project. "In the past four months I've had no income at all, and I've been surviving off of the local community in Parkdale and the online community," he says grimly. "A lot of people are amazed at what we are doing," says Burton. "I have a lot of phone calls and emails from people who are saying, you don't charge for anything that you do? You don't charge anything, not a set up fee or membership fee? And I say no." Burton recalls a time when he had trouble running his "antiquated" 486 PC and a friend updated it to a fully-loaded Pentium. "You gotta be doing something right -- people believe in (iComm) and we know how to make the Internet work," said Burton. "If there's a service we don't offer we can usually get it installed that day. The poverty thing is weird, because I feel very fortunate, very rich, right now." Burton explains the connection between his losses and the Canadian Mental Health Association. "I spent an awful lot of money and taxpayers money on systems that I felt didn't work terribly well for me -- drop in centres, employment projects, vocational counselling, all kinds of therapy hours. Now what I'm doing currently is the most successful therapy for my disability that I can think of." Today, Burton has distanced himself from the entire issue of the mental health system and says only "if a psychiatrist labels you crazy, people find themselves faced with massive doses of electricity and or drugs against their will. In my opinion there is no medical reality to mental health. I've been through the system and I identify with those people, what I look for is ways of helping them live with it." His role as a bridge of identities has changed, he agrees, as he sips his coffee refill from a bored waitress who wanders over and chats animatedly to her regular for a while about a new job. Burton hasn't always been a Parkdale type. He grew up in the Toronto-area suburbs with his parents and ran away to the city to become a "wannabe hippie" -- complete with Epiphone guitar -- in Roschdale, a rough drug-laden residence that went bust after the crime took over. At Brock University in St.Catharines, Ontario, he was a student union buff and helped to make Frisbee a varsity sport. He didn't complete his degree. "I got out of it what I wanted, and moved on from there," he says. He has worked as a labourer in Alberta, looking for oil, as well as a railway worker across Canada. Burton is now a founding board member of the Consumer/Survivor Information Resource Centre of Toronto, just around the corner from the Tennessee. "I have personally done more to make Internet access real and affordable, I know for absolute certain than any other survivor," says Burton, when asked if he's got a particular goal in mind for iComm. "You can be survivor friendly, you can be survivor unfriendly here. I interact with all those high level people, wearing these clothes. And I'm just some guy sitting in a room in Parkdale." "I also see a lot of people die," he says, looking down. "A friend I saw on a Friday had said he was looking for a job. I find out later he was killed. Borrowed money from the wrong people...they put a gun to head. But I want to stay here in Parkdale, it's like a home to me, I don't want to lose touch, I don't want to forget." Burton looks up and his face changes from sombre to a half-smile. "That kind of contrast is better than the day to day greyness of ongoing day-to-day." "It's impossible to have last words on this project," says Burton. He wants to wrap up the interview with something profound and final, but he can't -- perhaps he fears a lack of funding, and won't close the subject from his mind, or maybe he's simply unable to consider a quirky phrase to end a solid, continuous dedication. As he leans back in the chair and his face hits the light outside of the dark umbra from the tacky beer logo umbrella, Burton finally speaks. "I think you're done," he says, because he has only just begun.