People in Toronto’s Danforth neighbourhood are mourning the loss of an unhoused woman who had become a staple in the community, after she died last weekend following a night outside in freezing temperatures.

The woman, named Mary, whom many called Rita, was a fixture near the corner of Danforth and Coxwell avenues, locals told CBC Toronto. In recent months, she had set up a small encampment by a Shoppers Drug Mart near the intersection.

Paramedics say they found her there in critical condition Saturday morning, around 7 o’clock. She later died in hospital. She was in her 50s.

The cause of her death is still unconfirmed, paramedics say, but she had been sleeping outside and temperatures had dropped well below freezing the night before she was found.

The Office of the Chief Coroner is investigating her death.

Locals remember her as ‘a real gentle soul’

The news came as a shock to the community.

“My heart was broken,” Grazyna Gryciuk, who lives nearby, said Friday. She said she had asked Mary if she was going to a shelter the night before.

“It was freezing,” she said. “And I see she’s shaking.”

Gryciuk says Mary told her she had a friend coming to pick her up, so she left her.

“It was the worst mistake,” Gryciuk said. Gryciuk said she’d always remember Mary for “her smile, her angelic face, her beautiful, positive attitude.”

Gryciuk was one of many locals who said they would stop by to say hello to Mary and drop off hot food and drinks for her. She said her son would buy her hot meals from A&W.

“She was never hungry,” Carol Kysela, another resident, said Friday. “The community supported her.”

Kysela said she called 3-1-1 to ask that they pick Mary up and take her to a shelter that night, and she wept when she heard of her death.

“She’s just a real gentle soul, you know, just a lovely soul,” Kysela said.

Myles Groulx, an addictions counsellor in the area, says Mary declined offers of support multiple times.

“Lots of different organizations approached her and talked to her about getting into a shelter. She wasn’t interested,” he said. “Strangely enough, she was content where she was. She fed the birds, she talked to people, lots of people in the community know her.”