Change.org posts a list from a homeless person of the reasons why they avoid shelter and choose to stay on the streets.
“Shelters are often euphemized as “emergency shelter”… but the emergency is that you have nowhere else to just be and operate, so being AT a “shelter” is the emergency.” [Change.org]
The comments can be summarized as dangerous company and restrictive rules. Its a good view from the inside, and thought provoking as to what can/should be provided to not just get people off the street, but on their feet – i.e.: what are the success factors for “defeating” homelessness for different categories of homeless individuals? Here in Winnipeg, Siloam Mission has done a lot innovative work with positive results, in a media-friendly, visible fashion – I wonder what their comments on the above would be.
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A few years ago, I ended up in one of these shelters. I had a successful consulting business as well as a secondary business in Calgary that served the public. While I was away on a long term contract my ex-wife was in charge of the business in Calgary. Along the way she became convinced she could beat the one-armed bandits and drained the funds from the Calgary operation. She also managed to scam the bank to fund her addiction. The upshot was that when I returned from Mexico my local business was gone and, since it was a subsidiary of my consulting business, that consulting business was responsible for the debts she had incurred through the Calgary salon. When the smoke cleared, I had $60 bucks in my jeans and a conviction for fraud.
I headed for the Salvation Army Centre of Hope. Most of my belongings I left with a friend so I didn’t have to cart them around behind a bicycle or in a shopping cart. The rules in this facility were anything but oppressive. You had to be in the building, not necessarily your dorm by 10:00 P.M. Not unreasonable. If you worked past that time, which I did, you only had to notify the office that you would be late. No problem. The centre provided adequate on-line facilities for job searches, plus they had arrangements through their computer training annex that you could have access to their computers from 10:00 A.M. until 2:00 P.M. when they had no classes scheduled. The Federal EI office with computers for job searches was five blocks away. The centre had contacts with numerous job placement agencies which posted job listing each day, they provided an answering service for any replies to your job searches, and they provided courses on how to do a proper job search. They gave you three meals a day and provided bag lunches. They had numerous vending machines where you could get coffee day or night. This was all free for thirty days. If you could prove diligent job searches they would extend your free stay by two weeks. If you secured employment, you were given an additional one month stay at no cost so you could save some money. For that last month you were moved out of a dorm to a two person room, and after that period you had the option of renting a single room at a reasonable fee. These people bent over backwards to to assist you in every way and the few restrictions they applied were not in the least unreasonable.
However, during the two months I was there, there were only two of us that truly were using the place for a hand up. We both left at the end of that time and I, for one, have never looked back. The rest used the facility as a pit stop as they moved from shelter to shelter. Some of them got decent paying jobs which only lasted as long as the first pay cheque when they would blow it on drugs or booze and then relate what a great “party time” they had and how they had had conned the system by claiming they were working late. Others made no pretense of looking for work. One idiot used to drag his raft down from his dorm every morning to go floating on the Bow river.
Now, I can sympathize for the mentally disturbed who are turfed out onto the street because of a lack of facilities to properly treat them, and I can sympathize for the poor soul with a family who works at a full time job, or two, at minimum wage and can’t scrape together the necessary funds to rent a place in Calgary with its high rental rates…but I have no truck with the majority of twenty and thirty year old street bums who think the world is a free lunch provided for themselves only. The Sally-Anne gave me the starting point I required to get back on my feet and I thank them for it. I now own my own home (mortgage free) and my own car (paid in cash) and am enjoying retirement. Without the help I received I wouldn’t have made it and I resent these whiners who think someone else should do the heavy lifting while they ride the train for free.
Powell – thank-you for sharing your story and insights – its interesting to hear accounts from the inside, and inspiring to hear from those for who the system worked – those with the wherewithal to make use of what was available. Have you ever considered going back as a volunteer counselor or mentor? (I have no idea if those roles exist)