By Kelli Campbell
John has his good nights and his bad ones. He eats. He showers. Sometimes he sleeps. Often he stays awake. It’s the same for all of them, really. “Them” is the homeless people at the Out of the Cold shelter.
Out of the Cold is a Toronto-wide program of overnight shelters, some of which provide food and beds for up to 70 of the city’s homeless. Ryerson students, in conjunction with St. Simon’s Church, operate an Out of the Cold shelter every Wednesday night from 9 p.m. to 6 p.m. Although Out of the Cold is hosted at a church, the shelter is free of religious influence.
As volunteers, our job is to make the guests as comfortable as possible. We make coffee. We try to resolve their arguments. Sometimes we have to ask them to leave. Mostly we play cards with each other, listening, while they sleep in the church hall.
Sometimes, they tell us their stories. Kenny has a university degree but is down on his luck. Doreen’s boyfriend threw her out of their apartment earlier that day, and can we please watch her suitcase tomorrow while she looks for another place to live. And John says he once taught at Ryerson. Oh yes! He taught synchronized swimming and archaeology.
Mike tells me he will spend his welfare check on a birthday present for me.
“Don’t waste your money on me, Mike,” I tell him. “Write me a poem instead.” He seems pleased by this. Mike shows me his poetry every week.
Niel says he burns down churches. Bruce yells at his invisible companion to “stop following me.” For some, it’s easy to see why they ended up homeless and at a shelter. Others, you wonder why they are there.
But no matter what the story, true or untrue, their message is the same: they don’t really belong at a homeless shelter. Perhaps none of them does. It bothers me that they feel they need to make excuses to us.
As coordinator of Ryerson’s participation in Out of the Cold, I’ve spent all but two Wednesday nights at the shelter since it began Nov. 16. It isn’t what I expected. It isn’t sad. I haven’t decided how I feel about being there. I look forward to going each week, but not because I enjoy it. And disliking it is not the reason I don’t enjoy it. It’s a paradox; waste. I simply go because the go. It scares me to think I might end up like them someday.
Ryerson’s Out of the Cold shelter is open Wednesdays from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. until March 29. For more information, please come to the RSU office (A62). You can sign up to volunteer, or just come to St. SImon’s Church, 525 Bloor St. E., on a Wednesday night. Thank you to everyone who has volunteered this year.
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