Halifax housing crunch: How charities are supporting homeless as winter nears

Harvesting cannabis in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley as a migrant labourer in 2023, Maria recalls being surprised when her boss invited her and two friends for dinner at his home in the nearby mountains. It was an evening of dancing, drinking and lounging in a hot tub — rare luxuries for the then-28-year-old Mexican who says she lived in a cramped trailer on the farm where she worked. Feeling intoxicated, she says she went to bed alone in a nearby bedroom. Her next memory, she says, was of her boss on top of her, kissing her against her will and doing “many things to my body...