Riley Brandt

Drop-In Centre chief Dermot Baldwin isn't afraid to speak his mind. 'Every time I speak it upsets politicians in different places. And every time I speak there are threats that come.'

In the ‘70s, Dermot Baldwin regularly drove around Montreal in the bitter winter cold with his son Steve. Snowstorms often slammed the city, and fortunately for the Baldwins, they had a Jeep CJ that could stick to the streets. But simply getting his family from one place to another wasn’t enough for Dermot, recalls Steve. “We used to go riding around in the Jeep looking for people to help who were in the ditches, and he used to hook his tow ropes up to the back of his Jeep and pull people out. I remember just thinking, ‘Well, I guess that’s what we’re here for. We have a vehicle that’ll do this, and we need to pull people out who need help.’”

Some 35 years later, Dermot Baldwin is still scanning ditches, looking for people who need a hand. As executive director of the Calgary Drop-In & Rehab Centre — the city’s largest homeless shelter, called “the DI” by those who work and stay there — the 67-year-old Quebec native oversees a six-storey facility that saw almost 13,000 individuals pass through its doors last year. Baldwin knows many of them by name — “Hi, Don,” “Hi Gus” — and he glides easily amongst his clients, shaking hands and smiling. “It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor or anything, he’s still comfortable,” says Tony Maclean, a driver for the DI who lives in one of the agency’s affordable housing units.

Baldwin speaks in a soft voice, often with fingers balled in front of his mouth. Looking at him here at the DI, you wouldn’t guess that the guy has seriously annoyed people who try to work with him — particularly city politicians and leaders of other agencies that work with the homeless. Baldwin participates in collaborative efforts with other agencies only sporadically — “carefully,” he says. He’s openly critical of a plan to end homelessness in Calgary. And he routinely slams city hall for its ambitious East Village redevelopment near his shelter and bylaws that target the homeless.

“There’s a strong, concerted effort to criminalize the homeless and keep them out of sight,” he laments. “If you look at a caste system, it’s definitely in place here in Calgary.”

Many regard Baldwin as a saint for his fierce advocacy, but others see him as a stubborn irritant, a headstrong troublemaker who should pipe down. “He’s a nuisance,” says Steve. “He has felt the challenges of being pushed and forgotten, and because he has the capacity and the willingness, he’s in a position now to push back for others who can’t push for themselves.”

ROOTING FOR THE UNDERDOG

The DI’s location on the northeast edge of downtown doubles as a metaphor for its work with people living on society’s margins. Baldwin is comfortable amongst the marginalized; he, too, has been an outsider for most of his life.

He grew up in a poor area of Montreal in a family situation he doesn’t care to describe in any detail. “It was extraordinarily cruel, a good example of how lives are destroyed by alcoholism and cruelty and in some cases lack of education,” says Baldwin. “Pretty much from a very early age, I lived outside the home.” He stayed with friends’ families whenever possible, cultivating an affection for outsiders and an intense dislike for bullies. “He was always rooting for the underdog,” says Carol Baldwin, Dermot’s wife of 44 years.

Dermot and Carol met in high school, but both entered monastic life soon afterwards. The authenticity of cloistered life appealed to Dermot. In his late teens, he donned the grey garment of the Servants of the Holy Paraclete, a Catholic order that works with struggling priests. “It was the best learning experience of my life,” he recalls. “It was very demanding, very disciplined…. You ate what got put in front of you and if there wasn’t seconds, well, that’s because we gave it to someone who needed it more.”

Eventually, though, Dermot decided monastic life wasn’t for him, and Carol ultimately decided the same thing for herself. “A week or two after I came out of the convent, we were back together again,” says Carol. They married soon afterwards and in 1980, their family moved to Calgary.

Ironically, the provincial government was responsible for bringing the Baldwins to Alberta — the same government Dermot often criticizes for its inaction on homelessness. He worked as a contract manager in the province’s rehab services department for 15 years, but was unsatisfied and increasingly frustrated by red tape.

Baldwin had dealt with the DI in his government work, and someone from the agency joked that he should quit and join the agency. He took the suggestion seriously, even though switching jobs would mean losing his government pension and taking a salary cut. But the new DI gig suited him, and he doesn’t regret the move at all.

“I really like these people,” he says. “A lot.” He has a particular affection for “characters” — people like him who refuse to conform to societal norms and expectations. “I think society is very controlling and critical of people who are characters, who don’t wait for the right political moment to speak their opinion or dance on the tabletop.”

GOING HIS OWN WAY

When Baldwin joined the DI in 1994, homelessness was a relatively small problem in Calgary. The city counted only 460 homeless people that year. By 2008, that number had exploded to over 4,000. Provincial cuts to social services turned homelessness into a full-fledged crisis; it’s now a winter routine for city agencies to scramble to find space so they can literally save people from freezing to death.

Under Baldwin’s guidance, the DI has expanded during that time. He presided over the construction of the new 107,000 square-foot shelter in 2001 — dubbed the “Homeless Hilton” by some because of its stately brick design and prominence at the northeast gateway to downtown. He’s also developed two affordable housing projects in Bridgeland and downtown, and oversees a staff of about 230.

These days, more than 1,200 people stay at the DI each night. Other city shelters, like the Salvation Army’s Centre of Hope, are also consistently packed, and all of them struggle to keep up with the ever-increasing demand for their services.

“It’s sort of like people coming over a waterfall, and we’re catching them in lifeboats instead of going up and putting a dam upstream to stop them from coming over the waterfall in the first place,” says John Rook, the Salvation Army’s Calgary CEO of community services. The way Rook sees it, the shelter system that he and Baldwin are part of is antiquated and disrespectful. “It’s not a social justice model. It’s a keep-people-alive-for-the-moment model.”

But here’s where Baldwin diverges from others like the Salvation Army. Most agencies see a solution in the 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness, a blueprint that uses what’s called a “housing first” model to get people off the street. “It flips the old model on its head and puts people into an apartment or a home first, and then does wrap-around support,” explains Rook. “Get people permanency as early as you can, and all kinds of other things start to take care of themselves so they don’t need those Band-Aids.”

All three levels of government are backing the plan, citing the successes of similar plans in U.S. cities like San Francisco and Portland. The DI, however, is openly critical of the plan and its ambitious goals. “Dermot has a different philosophy,” explains Wayne Stewart, former CEO of the Calgary Homeless Foundation.

A discussion paper published by the DI argues homelessness isn’t just the lack of a home — it’s a reflection of societal exclusion and a lack of belonging. Having a home, argues the paper, doesn’t remedy that exclusion. “Implicit in the argument is that shelters, for many people, are part of the best solution,” says Stewart. “And the 10-year plan does not agree with that. That’s the difference.”

Leaders like Rook want to see the shelter system shrink, but Baldwin sees the DI growing to help the increasing number of homeless people. “The shelter system in general deserves a lot more respect than it gets,” he says.

Baldwin doesn’t dismiss the 10-year plan entirely — he agrees with the affordable housing and supportive living parts of it, and says the DI has already been doing some of this work for years — but he’s hardly enthusiastic about it.

To Baldwin, the plan is too simplistic. “It’s much more complex than they’re making it out to be.” Putting four walls around somebody with mental illness or addictions and leaving “the rest to chance” isn’t a good idea, he says. “These people need to be supported, assisted, counselled and supervised, the vast majority of them.” But that argument doesn’t fly with his critics, who say Baldwin’s stubbornness has isolated him, making it difficult for agencies that provide those wrap-around supports to work with the DI.

At times, Baldwin has taken direct aim at the work of other agencies. When the Mustard Seed Street Ministry restricted daytime access to a temporary shelter in the Foothills Industrial Park a couple years ago, he warned that his shelter would be crammed as a result. He complained that the Mustard Seed wasn’t being fair or reasonable.

Baldwin says he’s careful about criticizing other agencies — he speaks out when “another agency has made a change of hours or delivery or reduction that affects us greatly” — but not everyone appreciates his dogged outspokenness. “He has his moments,” says Tim Richter, CEO of the Calgary Homeless Foundation. “Sometimes I think Dermot lets his passion get the better of him. The thing that is his strength can also be one of his weaknesses…. Sometimes I find that there gets to be interagency personality conflicts that can get in the way of serving the people we’re here to help, and I think sometimes his outspoken nature and his Irish temperament can get in the way.”

While he finds Baldwin challenging at times, Richter says he enjoys working with him — “I’m always interested to hear what he has to say” — and doesn’t see the DI’s refusal to buy into the plan as a barrier to its success.

Others, however, disagree. “That’s a big agency,” says Stewart, formerly with the homeless foundation. “And having a big agency that’s not on side has a negative impact.” The inability of city agencies to work together harms funding, says Stewart, and gives funders a disincentive to fork over cash for the plan.

Dermot, though, remains unrepentant for his skepticism. He refuses to make decisions based on how it will affect the DI’s funding, a point of pride for him. “Right now there’s a fear of speaking out, because you pay a price,” says Baldwin, adding that the DI has lost funding in the past because of criticisms he’s made. (The shelter gets most of its funding from the provincial government.) “Every time I speak it upsets politicians in different places. And every time I speak there are threats that come that say, ‘You should keep your mouth shut. You shouldn’t be concerned. You should get on board with getting these people out.’”

Asked about his passion for the homeless being both a strength and a weakness, Baldwin admits his shortcomings. “I’m very far from perfection, and there’s no question that what you see is what you get — and sometimes I’m wrong,” he says. But once he realizes he’s been unfair or wrong, he adds, he’ll do what he can to make good. “I will go back and review and reverse my decisions and will also go back and apologize, which is not a weakness. I think it’s necessary to make the world more fair.”

'HE GENUINELY CARES'

Baldwin’s days at the DI are incredibly full. He typically works 10-to-12-hour days, then has an hour-plus commute home to Bragg Creek. When he arrives at the log home he built himself, his mind is often back at work. “He definitely does take it home with him,” says Carol. “He’s very concerned about people. Sometimes I have to remind him that he’s got to take care of himself.”

I saw some of that firsthand while researching this story. Partway through an interview with Dermot, I asked him how much time he’d booked for our meeting. “How much do you need?” he responded. I took advantage of his generosity, interviewing him for another half hour, and then he spent still another half hour doing a photo shoot for this story. (He refused to cross his arms for a photo; “I’m not a very aggressive guy,” he protested.) Afterwards, we all shook hands and say goodbye.

I later learned that as soon as we left, Baldwin had a co-worker to rush him to the hospital where he stayed for four days, bedridden with intestinal ailments. He went back to work the following Monday, against the advice of his family, who told him he needed to rest, not work. When I see him next, he recounts the story of his troubled guts, explaining that it’s a chronic condition that afflicts him every couple of years.

Then he grins. “A lot of people say I’m full of it anyway.”

This is the Dermot people love: The guy who won’t stay home from work because he’s so committed, the guy who’s always ribbing his staff and sharing laughs with homeless people, the guy who test drives a Vespa for a co-worker (and accidentally crashes it into a wall — but that’s another story). “He genuinely cares about people,” says DI client Max Ciesielski.

Even people who find him challenging appreciate the work he does. “I shudder to think where the city would be if it weren’t for people like Dermot,“ says Richter. “We don’t always agree, but there’s enough areas where we do agree that we work together — and I’m happy to do so.”

Being a nuisance, it seems, has paid off for Baldwin. “He’s not unlike a whole bunch of us,” says Stewart. “I mean, anybody who’s going to work in that business has got to be passionate, opinionated and a bit stubborn, and he has all of those characteristics…. Those are the characteristics that make him effective.”