Published September 2023
Nestled there in your sleep space at the King Street Shelter, you cling to any remnants of sleep you can gather. In your 6’ x 8’ space, are surrounded by all the belongings you have to your name. Your changes of clothing, shoes, warmer clothing as the weather changes. The items you have gathered on your journey – items you found that can be repaired and resold, items stolen to feed a growing addiction that has consumed your life.
A dog barks, a couple nearby is arguing as they work to navigate a relationship in these uncertain conditions. Someone walks by to check on you, making sure you are still breathing well after a recent drug use. You can’t seem to fight the persistent cough that has plagued you since the weather changed. You will need to check in with the health team that comes by tomorrow.
Tomorrow is the day everyone is being asked to clean out their sleep spaces – there needs to be less stuff, less clutter. You need to give up one of the two bikes that have come your way. Loss on top of loss through your life makes it so much harder to give up anything. You cling to what you have.
There are lots of good people around you, offering to help. But what if you can’t do it? Will you have to leave this place where you have found some stability, some comfort? Will you once again become one of the almost 200 people in Kitchener-Waterloo and Cambridge who now live outside in encampments, without a chance for shelter this winter? You don’t think you can face another winter outside. You know what it is to live in a tent, to crash at a friend’s place in severe weather, to face risking your physical well-being just to be warm.
Your bunk neighbour was asked to leave the other day – he had taken over a corner in the shelter and couldn’t agree to the basic terms to limit stuff enough to share the space. It helps to cut down on all the clutter but you worry it could be you asked to leave next. Here you get a warm meal, help to look for housing on days when you have some hope, space to do your laundry. There are people who work here who are trying to help you hold the balance of what it means to live together with 100 other people feeling despair and frustration, no longer feeling like a place of your own is possible; You talk together about good times and bad times and are reminded that people care about you and your story, even as you are lost in a sea of people described as homeless.
Giving up on the thought of sleep, you wake to hear some people making music – sharing donated instruments that sound pretty decent, here in this space that was once a beer and dance hall. You walk past the big TV, where 10 people gather around the latest movie. Outside, you sit against the front of the building, catch a few moments watching the cars go by, and enjoy a smoke.
Some of you, facing the psychosis of drug use, or the desperation created by the need for drugs, have made some people in the neighbourhood afraid. When others drive by they see some pretty rough looking folk sitting around with little to do, and watch the lights of emergency vehicles that have come to provide care for another overdose, a severe medical issue, or a fight that couldn’t be easily resolved.
Your neighbour in the next bed has found some work, a lucky break. He gets a wake-up call early so he can head out to his work which hopefully helps him to collect enough income to pay for housing – housing that is no longer affordable on a social income. Ontario Works or Ontario Disability Support housing allowances are not enough to pay for the few housing options that become available, and there are lots of people applying before you can get there to apply for housing. The shelter team helps you to hold on to the idea that housing is possible.
The new housing at St. Mark’s Place is starting to fill up. What is needed is more places like that – housing designed for people with less income.
You tuck into a delicious hot meal, grab a coffee, and join the group around the TV. Grateful for the place you have, you tell some stories, and settle in for another night at the shelter.
