By Leslie Morgenson
Published in December 2013
There was a new face in our midst this past year which isn’t so unusual but what was singular about this new fellow, Randall, was the narrative that arrived with him. Just having met Randall, two of my colleagues were assisting him in a move to Kitchener. They realized quickly that the situation was complex and asked if there was anyone else helping him, family, friends or workers. Randall made a quick call and a young guy mid-twenties arrived shortly thereafter. By evidence of their conversation they knew each other well. Maybe he was a son they initially wondered prior to introductions, but as it turned out he was the television Cable man who had installed Randall’s cable the previous year. On that installation date the cable guy chatted and took a look around at the environs. He asked Randall if he had family or friends who supported him. Randall had nobody and the burden of carrying yourself when you are unwell, was evident. So Mr. Cable man started calling on Randall, checking in on him, taking him to appointments, helping him clear out stuff that had accumulated in his house or just coming over to wash Randall’s dishes. He became someone who cared about Randall. During the move when Randall would get upset the Cable man had strategies for calming him, getting him to sit down, planning things on paper and joking with him. Randall, a typically cautious fellow trusted the Cable man and felt safe in his company. There was nothing to be gained by the Cable man in this situation. This was pure, genuine compassion.
Similarly, there was a coffee shop in Waterloo, gone now, that would pay a guy from the street to clean, at times because the guy himself had been the cause of the destruction. The owner of the shop understood implicitly, to quote Tena Alonzo regarding her work with Alzheimer patients, that “All behaviour is communication.” He was willing to look at the pain behind the behaviour and took a step toward breaking through the outer layer of protection built up over years of loneliness, health issues and life spent mostly on the street.
I went in search to speak with others who have answered the call to compassion.
In both downtowns Kitchener and Waterloo there are many merchants whose storefronts meet with the street population. These store merchants have the fortunate opportunity of being in the right place to begin a relationship with someone on the street. They get to see firsthand how people are managing, or not. And so it happens that people know each other by first name, they greet each other daily, and cigarettes, coffee and food are shared. Merchants listen and often alert street outreach workers when there’s an altercation or they’re worried about someone. When you see someone daily you know their normal patterns and mannerisms, and you know when something is wrong. You do what any of us do on the street we call home, you become a good neighbour.
One shopkeeper gives street outreach workers a discount on shoes for people with limited funds. On a recent visit the shopkeeper was patient, attentive yet maintained a comfortable distance truly listening to the customer’s needs. Decision making was a difficult task for this person especially faced with such an atypical situation as purchasing new shoes. Seemingly every pair of shoes was checked out with both the person and the shopkeeper commenting on the merits or limitations of each pair. Eventually the person left without being able to choose. The shopkeeper bid them a friendly farewell.
“We look out for people, talk to them. You don’t know what someone’s story is and you shouldn’t have to know,” one merchant told me. “You don’t have to look far to witness the inequality that exists.” Something in us recognizes the unnamed story and impels us to respond to the human before us. The single cigarette is the bridge to the relationship that builds over time.
Some of the people we serve live together in a certain boarding house, a place that has known its share of heated debates, missing doors and spirited living. Despite this, when street outreach workers visit or accompany one of the residents back home they, residents and outreach workers, are warmly greeted by neighbours smiling and waving from their porches. Likewise we lost a fellow this past year, but leading up to his death, outreach would visit his apartment often, where his characteristic loud voice echoed through the building. Yet his neighbours were forever concerned about his well being, “without a whiff of anger,” my colleague tells me.
There is an optometrist who for years now has done pro bono work for the street population whenever we have someone who is not on Ontario Works nor Ontario Disability Support Program and therefore has no access to an eye appointment or eyeglasses. Unlike the downtown businesses who get to know people because they share space, she was guided by her mother who listened a lot and loved a lot. “Treat everyone with love and respect because you never know when you are entertaining angels unawares,” was her mother’s advice.
About once a month we see the face of a friendly community police officer who works hard at bridging a relationship with the street population. Recently, he has begun to collect everything left behind at his gym and bring it to St. John’s Kitchen, coming down to deliver the goods himself.
Libraries are the great levelers in a city. The public library is where everyone is welcome regardless of income, age or health issues. Libraries are perfect examples of third places, that being places that are free, accessible and welcoming. The Kitchener and Waterloo Public Libraries remove a further barrier for people by offering an In-Library User Card for people who don’t have a permanent address. People can check out items or reserve a computer with the card and then return the items to be held on a shelf at the library for when they return.
What all of these people understand is that there are different definitions of what is considered normal and that one single society does not hold a universal definition despite the fact that the dominant culture assumes the right to name and change the norms. Many of these acts of goodness cannot even be written about here; acts that get pushed into territory that cannot be named because the naming itself would change not only the beauty and preciousness of the act but also because their response involves implicit, unfettered risk. This is the unclaimed reality of our city that much goodness goes on under the radar and outside of the economy. In the movie Fried Green Tomatoes we witness Idgie and Ruth climb onto a train at midnight and as they pass a kind of tent city they throw food from the train. Then later the two women allow a homeless man to sleep in their back shed, cover him at night with a blanket and slip him a small bottle to allow him the dignity of a maintenance level of alcohol. Storytelling stretches our imagination to other possibilities and allows us to envision that which can’t always be told.
Richard Holloway in his book, Leaving Alexandria, writes about ‘intuitive goodness’ – that which comes naturally and continually without thought and ‘intentional goodness’ – that which is more thought out with each new situation. People give in different ways by knowing themselves and therefore knowing what they can give.
Meeting someone face to face, recognizing a need, stepping outside of yourself and seeing your responsibility as a fellow human being- these actions are tonic for a jaded world.
People unaccustomed to such kindness are often disarmed by it and thusly something tightly held is loosened.
