Rob Ford grew up on a cul-de-sac with no sidewalks. His parents’ house, a brick two-storey with a three-door garage fronted by stone lions and a bronze eagle, hugs a near-wilderness area where the chirping of birds and the burbling of a creek drown out the traffic from Royal York Road.

One can learn little new about the mayor by staking out, as reporters have done for two weeks, the hallway outside his office at city hall. The mayor spends as little time as possible downtown. He much prefers north Etobicoke.

So the Post ventured to the Fords’ stomping grounds this week, to find out how allegations that the mayor smoked crack cocaine are playing out in the heart of Ford Nation, with its leafy suburbs and the nearby highrises that house many Canadians of Somali origin.

Everything that matters to Rob Ford is close at hand. In 2010 the City of Toronto renamed a park on Royal York Road, connected by a grassy path to the Ford family home, as Douglas B. Ford Park. Mr. Ford lives about two kilometres to the southeast, on a winding street of big trees, ranch-style split-levels and new McMansions, on the banks of the Humber River. The mayor still frequents businesses at the Royal York Plaza, across from his mother’s house, including the Drugtown pharmacy. A few blocks to the northeast is Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School, where, for 10 years, he coached the Eagles football team until the school board banned him last week from coaching in its schools. And it is here, in north Etobicoke, that the family-owned business, Deco Labels and Tags, founded in 1962, thrives.

Even Mr. Ford’s recent bad publicity have a link to this area. Not far from his mother’s house rise six apartment towers on Dixon Road that are the heart of Toronto’s Little Somalia. A source told the Post that the mayor’s office told police it had heard the alleged video was stored at 320 Dixon Road.

But such allegations have not shaken the support of people like Luigi Castaldo, who stops to talk at the Royal York Plaza.

“I believe in Ford,” says the 74-year-old, who is retired from the window manufacturing business and whose grand-daughter goes to school with the mayor’s daughter.

“I love Etobicoke,” adds Mr. Castaldo, who moved here from Italy in 1963. “I bought a house in Woodbridge, I bought a house in Barrie, but I always come back here. People [such as the Fords] take care of the area.”

But he said he will withdraw support from Rob Ford “if he gets caught. You prove to me he smoked crack, I don’t want to be within 25 kilometres of him. But I don’t think so.”

A man emerging from The Bank of Montreal at the plaza wears his support in the form of an XL black T-shirt that reads, “Team Ford Mayor.”

“He’s a neighbour,” says Rodney Galbraith. “Ford likes beer. He likes good hamburgers, good hot dogs and good beer.”

Asked about the T-shirt, he says, “Black doesn’t show sweat.”

The mayor has fans further north, too. A Coffee Time across the street from 320 Dixon Road is a hangout for men of Somali origin. They know Rob Ford as the politician who fought for the little guy.

“When he was a councillor he used to help the Somali community,” recalls Omar Mohamad, 46, a paralegal, eating a carrot and bran muffin and sipping camomile tea. “That’s why when he was running for mayor we supported him.”

They were not alone. He represented Ward 2 for 10 years before passing the council seat on to his brother Doug, who also won handily. In 2010 Rob Ford won 14,325 votes for mayor in Ward 2, 80% of the vote, his best showing — 2,000 more votes in this ward than his brother received in the councillor vote.

But will voters like Mr. Mohamad support Mayor Ford again?

“I am undecided,” he says. “It depends who is running against him.”

About 80,000 of Toronto’s 100,000 residents of Somali background live in north Etobicoke. Some are livid that, in its initial story on the alleged  video, the Toronto Star10 times referred to those who have the video as “Somali,” even though most of Toronto’s Somali community are born in Canada. “I like to call myself a Canadian, but the newspapers like to call me a Somali,” says Mr. Mohamad. Councillor Ford has spoken out in defence of “my Somali community”; he did not return calls for this story.

Ahmed Hussen, 37, a lawyer, leads the Canadian Somali Congress and says the allegations against Rob Ford has harmed the mayor’s relationship with his community. He does not believe Mr. Ford will win re-election.

“Rob Ford has some fault in this,” says Mr. Hussen. “Every day that Mr. Ford is silent and doesn’t address [allegations of drug use] as a public official, is another day that we have to carry the burden of this story. They chase the other angles, and we still get marred. It just keeps festering, and because he’s mum, our community is being chased.”

Al Bowen, pastor of the Abundant Life Assembly, a Pentecostal church on Dixon Road, presided over the funeral of Anthony Smith, 21. Mr. Smith, who lived nearby, was shot dead downtown in March. Police have charged Nisar Hashimi and Hanad Mohamed with first-degree murder and attempted murder in the slaying. Mr. Smith’s photo, arm in arm with Mayor Rob Ford, appeared with initial stories about the alleged Ford video.

Rev. Bowen says there are drug problems in the area. “There has been a concentration in some buildings on Dixon Road where you have a lot of youths and there has developed some trade in drugs, some trade in guns.”

Mayor Ford, however, has embraced all elements of the community, Rev. Bowen says.

“Rob’s the kind of guy, he sees a bunch of people, he throws himself among them; ‘Hi, I’m Rob Ford, here’s my business card, call me if you ever need anything.’ This guy is a hero to this community.”

Back at the Royal York Plaza, busy mainly with seniors (along with a few teens who come for lunch wearing the uniforms of Scarlett Heights, Rob Ford’s old high school) opinions are divided.

“In the medieval times we used to have a village idiot. The only thing he doesn’t have is the jester hat,” says Mario Piscitelli, a real estate agent in the area for 25 years. “We are distracted by this buffoon.”

But John Folino, owner of hair salon Noi Folino, disagrees. Once a week for 40 years, Diane Ford, the mayor’s mother, has come in to get her hair done.

“He is a really good man,” the coiffeur says of the mayor. “He’s good, he works for the people, and the people voted for the man. Why now do the media want to [single] him out.”

Source: National Post