| I went to Roy’s place unannounced the other day. A rude act, to be sure, but he was gracious enough to welcome me. It was the first time I had ever met him and he wouldn’t shake my (extended) hand, saying, "There are a lot of viruses around." I laughed, agreed and we went on with our visit.
Roy is one of the so-called homeless – a term I despise because it takes individual human beings and places them into a category that tells us nothing about their lives and how they came to be without the type of shelter most of us would call home.
Roy’s home is a shopping cart packed full of clothes, blankets, two tents (that he says he’s not allowed to erect within the city limits) and whatever else he needs to survive 365 days a year on the streets. Often Roy is parked at a gas station on Macleod Trail, not far from the downtown core.
Roy told me he’s lived on Calgary’s streets for more than six years. He stays away from shelters because of those bugs he worries about and describes the shelters as "abusive" without offering any further explanation.
Roy is just one of 2,597 people who were enumerated by the City of Calgary in its 2004 Biennial Census of the Homeless, the most recent information available.
In May 2006, the City of Calgary once again conducted a count of the homeless with the results to be released sometime this month. I asked the people who run the biennial census when exactly it was going to occur so I could tag along and write about it. They wouldn’t tell me, citing the confidentiality of the people being counted.
That seemed to be a reasonable enough explanation until a couple of weeks later when I heard that members of the Calgary Police Service, staff from the parks department and volunteers from the Parks Ranger program were out rousting people from temporary shelters that had been erected in a few city parks.
With television crews in tow, they tore down the makeshift shelters that had temporarily protected those people from the elements and, in an act laced with bitter irony, evicted them. Why wasn’t their confidentiality being protected then? The ensuing spots on local TV were not about why the community faces the sad circumstance of kicking people out of the only places they have to live, but instead focused on how the city’s green spaces would be safer.
In Calgary, many of "the homeless" are not only without shelter but suffer from insults being hurled at their character without any reasonable opportunity to defend it. Instead, those who live on the streets and in the parks are studied, harassed, intimidated, shamed and perhaps worst of all - ignored. In a city that is awash in oil dollars, the fact some members of our community must live without the basic necessities of life is a collective failure we must all take responsibility for.
So, the question that hangs in the air is: who are the homeless?" According to that same 2004 census, most are men (77 per cent) and most are white (76 per cent). Later in the report it states, "There is a considerable range of housing forms available to meet the needs of various subpopulations who do not have a permanent residence to which they can return whenever they so choose."
"Subpopulations" is a term social scientists use when they study different groups in society. In the case of the Biennial Census of the Homeless, the so-called subpopulations include aboriginals, those with addictions, those who have experienced family violence and seniors, singles, youth and children.
Despite the research, at the end of the day – or perhaps, more accurately, at the end of another two-year period – the issue of people in Calgary who don’t have homes has deepened, not improved. Despite the valiant efforts of some dedicated organizations, such as the Inn from the Cold Society and the Calgary Homeless Foundation, we still have thousands of human beings sleeping on cots in shelters or in parking lots of gas stations.
So, what is to be done? In a city that is now being described as the "richest in Canada," is there not one bold visionary who is willing to step up and marshal the required resources to address this plague? Is there not one influential member of our community who is willing to demand that our most vulnerable citizens have a place to rest their weary heads? Is there among us a Gwyn Morgan or Ron Southern for the homeless?
All this takes me back to Roy, parked outside of the Esso with all his worldly possessions piled into a shopping cart. When I asked him what the homeless need, he replied, "We need housing." As simple an answer as it is elegant. And what kind of housing?
Roy says he just wants a room where he can keep his stuff. He’s willing to pay for it from the money he makes collecting bottles. He’s not looking for welfare, Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped or any other assistance. He just wants a room where he will be left alone.
Later this summer in New York City, just such a place will open in The Andrews House, a 97-year-old renovated hotel that has been converted into a flophouse that will house 146 men.
In a recent New York Times article about The Andrews House, the question was asked: "Could a flophouse – a good flophouse, well designed and humanely managed – become, for people who have steered clear of other forms of housing in favour of the street, a critical first step toward a permanent home?"
According to Rosanne Haggerty, the executive director of Common Ground, a non-profit organization that develops alternative housing, who is quoted in the piece, the answer is a resounding yes. "We're calling the Andrews first-step housing," said Haggerty in the April 30, 2006 article written by Janny Scott. "We want to get people now alienated from the idea of living in housing to enter in on their own terms, and then work with them from there."
Can it work in Calgary? I don’t know, but surely in a society that we claim is humane, something more must be done.
When the City of Calgary announces the results of the 2006 Biennial Census of the Homeless, think about Roy and what he said, "We need housing." |
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