Homelessness in Waterloo Region
The Waterloo Region Community Homelessness Network has been restructured and renamed the Waterloo Region Housing and Homelessness Umbrella Group. A website was launched in November 22, 2006. For current information about the activities of the HHUG go to www.hhug.ca
This homelessness webpage will maintain archival material from the Homelessness Network
Letter to the Editor, May 17, 2004
Dear Editor,
On behalf of the Waterloo Region Community Homelessness Network, I wish to express our sympathies for those left homeless by Sunday’s fire in downtown Kitchener. Mercifully, there was no injury or loss of life.
Becoming homeless, even temporarily, is a terribly unsettling and scary occurrence. Several Network members, me included, have first hand experience with losing their homes. Members speak of “the bottom falling out” of their lives. As in this fire, homelessness often happens suddenly, unexpectedly, through no fault of one’s own. It is always tragic.
I hope that all 20 individuals affected by yesterday’s fire will be re-housed swiftly. However, I fear, fully recovering from this event will take considerably longer. Replacing furniture and other possession, the ones that can be replaced, takes time and money some might not have. But, some things, photos, knick-knacks, and other keepsakes, those things that make a house a home, may be gone forever. Gone too, hopefully not forever, is the sense of security we all need in this life.
If you and your family are blessed enough to be able to help the victims of this fire, through a donation to the Red Cross, please do so. They may not have the opportunity to thank you, but your generosity will definitely be appreciated.
Charles Nichols
Advocacy Chair
Waterloo Region Community Homelessness Network