at theMUSEUM January 2021
Mary Neil, community musician, in partnership with Social Development Centre Waterloo Region
present
FOR THE WEARY
with Wayne Sorley, Heather Majaury and move voices from
A Better Tent City, the Unsheltered Campaign, and Rick Weber.
UNSHELTERED TESTIMONIES
We have starting this page to share the realities and thoughts, unsheltered testimonies,as unsheltered as the people who carry them. Some of them are poetic, and some are not meant to be poetic. But they are. They go straight to the heart.
The Right to Housing is The Right to Life, UN Rerport
* * * The Ballad of the Beggar Child
* * *
* * * I Am So Angry...
I am just so angry…
There are so many reasons that this community has fallen into a place of fear and hate. There are so many untold answers because each question gets passed from one person to another. There are so many gaps that the people who fall through them are not even notice.
Wake up and look around you. Oh wait you have a safe place to lay your head at night, food on the table.
Let me ask you how your heart became so cold? Why is there enough money for a new light rail but not for a human that needs a bed.
How can you go into a meeting and say sorry there is NO FUNDING, for that family that has lost everything.
Tell me why staff are burning out and are frustrated? Why is there so much turnover and you wonder where the trust went.
We are tired of telling our story because you say we are going to make a difference but NOTHING is ever done.
So this is how I feel ……
WE ARE NOT A NUMBER
WE ARE NOT YOUR ENEMIES
WE ARE NOT TAKING IT ANYMORE
WE HAVE FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS
WE BLEED AND LOVE
WE SHOULD BE RESPECTED
So step up and help side by side us not in front or behind but beside. Stop breaking promises, and keep it real. Together we can build a city that works together and runs together.
We can learn to trust and care, grow and learn. But it takes one person to start and everything else should follow.
Char lee
Point in Time Count of Homeless, September 2021
* * * Forgive Me
Rick Weber Oct 2020
For the times I've looked through you
at the on ramp by the hi-way
hanging out on the sidewalk
in front of businesses, at the park
when I've seen only your habit and not a human
Forgive me
When I've seen you as
an addiction instead of a victim
a problem instead of a person
as hopeless instead of helpless
as lazy instead of lost
as dirty instead of lovely
as an issue instead of possibility
Forgive me
When I see your encampments
along the trail in the bush
on abandonded property in the city
tucked into corners along the road
And I see only a burden on society rather than citizens who deserve better from your country and community
Forgive Me
* * * It took a pandemic
It’s not like the folks outside had a place to go, where did people expect them to go in this pandemic.
Highlights the complete lack of affordable housing and how this problem should have been taken care of a long time ago. There have been a lot of inadequate responses, like the bus shelter (overcrowded and no oversight), shame that it took a pandemic for this to get on peoples radar. Glad to hear a bit about Lot 42 housing some folks, and shifting from tents to tiny homes/trailers. Heard about folks distributing some health supplies and hygiene items. Hope these initiatives don’t disappear once the pandemic is over. The real drive is for adequate housing
Anonymous
* * * Crisis made it very real
With folks staying in all you see now are the homeless folks wandering the streets... sad that a crisis made this all very visible. Skeptical of this help people are suddenly receiving. Are they just doing it because of the disease now or do they actually care? Is it serving the homeless or just disease control?
This is just going to get put on to the back burner once the crisis is over.
Anonymous
* * * On top of it all
Hope folks on the street understand how serous this illness is. With how much folks already deal with its hard to imagine dealing with this situation on top of it all. Lots of services who would help are closed. Hopefully they can continue to help...
Anonymous
* * *Not enough room for everyone
"If you can't afford to live somewhere and all the shelter systems are full, where are you going to go? I mean, it's, it's just so sad and again, more changes again there. They took out pay phones. I mean, a lot of people would like to sleep in a stairwell rather than outside on the ground, the cold, hard ground. Um, but I mean, there's people that go around now and say, you can't sleep in them. Okay, we're putting locks on the doors. Um, the banks, lots of people used to sleep in the bank. It's warm, you know, the middle of winter, you don't want to be outside and sometimes there's... not enough room for everyone."
Read the testimonies from people who exausted all the options to home or shelter.
Life Stories of Displacement, oral history project 2019
* * * I ran out of food a week ago
"I think I ran out of food a week ago. My leg infections worsened because all I was eating was basically rice, potatoes, and bread. And my blood sugar spiked, And I have a life threatening infection… after paying rent, there is not enough money to cover other expenses including food in a normal month to make ends meet. I rely on two community-based programs, along with any odd job I can pick up. Due to COVID-19, the food programs are shut down and there are no odd jobs."
Anonymous
* * * Moral Supports
"This distancing, social distancing does not apply at all for the homeless. When they have nowhere to go, nowhere to sleep and left behind, the only thing that keeps them alive is closeness, a hug. A hug is the way they offer moral support to each other. It is literally a matter of life and death."
Anonymous
* * * For the Weary
Moved into your ‘hood
You didn’t think I should
Want to keep me hidden
Too close for your good
Pushed me out of there
The only thing you care
Is for your housing value
Not a second glare
To you, it may not seem
That I have hopes and dreams
Sometimes life just happens
Tears one from the seams
What is it you see
When you look at me
Artist, worker, sibling
As you cross the street?
Will I pass on with respect and with grace?
Or will my life be forever erased?
All our journeys end in the same place.
Some are remembered while others displaced
I’m fighting for my right
To rest my head tonight
The ends barely meet
I’m nearly on the street
I’m fighting for my right
To rest my head tonight
The labels put on me
are what you want to see
Mary Neil,
Community Musician
* * * Who pays $80 a night to get to a warm bed? The poor.
“It is not fair, not even the rich pay $80 or $100 bucks to have a place to sleep at night. And here we are, homeless and poor, saving our last resources to be able to pay for a motel room. There are no spaces at shelters, and we would not even get in as a couple. How is this fair? $80 it costs us to get into a warm bed.”
Anonymous
* * * Voice from St Mark's overflow shelter location
NOW STOP……..
Think about all you are going through…..
Now think about where you’re getting your next meal….
WAIT A SECOND…..
The place where would have gotten that meal is locked….
Where do you go now…..
Do you know how to get there…..
Ok so you find somewhere to eat and you go to leave and now it’s raining…
You have to walk 22 minutes to get to where it’s warm to sleep….
You are soaked and by the time you arrive they say sorry we are full….
So now you have to go to the overflow….
It takes you 17 more minutes to get there….
You get there and you’re finally warm but you still have wet clothes….
There might be or might not be clothes there you can change into…
So now it’s time to lay down at this point, you're cold and still wet, you do your best to sleep….
It’s loud and there are a lot of things running through your head…
The big question is where this all happening tomorrow …
Anonymous
* * * When the city shut down on the homeless...
“I will take my chances with the virus, this is no way to live. This is criminal. I have nowhere to go in this freezing wind. Nowhere to sit and eat as Tim Hortons is closed. Where do I go to the washroom or wash my hands? Nowhere to lay down. No store is open to buy a blanket. Until 9pm when the overflow opens…”.
Anonymous
***Won't be noticed
"Wherever there’s like woods or like a bush or some sort, I mean they’re all over. I mean there’s not any specific places but they’re out there. People have to sleep somewhere so whether they have a tent or not, that’s where they camp out, you know? Yeah, there’s a lot of them that stay out in the winter time too and they have whatever they have. I don’t know how they’re doing it. I did it for a short stint. It was nasty waking up from going to sleep at night and having snow in the morning. You’re out in the elements, buddy."
Read the testimonies from people who exausted all the options to home or shelter.
Life Stories of Displacement, oral history project 2019
On the road of life
death is our final journey
no matter if you are a president of a large company
or person living on the street.
All our journeys ended up being the same place.
In our society life is highly valued.
When someone passes away,
they are treated with reverence, respect, and dignity
and we gather to celebrate that person's life,
to share the sorrow and to say goodbye.
For someone who is homeless and living on the street,
there's little or no dignity in their death.
Where is the dignity to die alone in a cardboard box
or at a park bench. or in an abandoned factory.
There was no one there to celebrate their lives,
to grieve for them, no one to say goodbye.
Despite the standing in life
these are people who have walked the same earth as you and I.
They were not something but someone,
they too were loved, and were loved.
Although all our journeys end up on the same place.
The roads traveled are quite different
from one may have the comfort of having loved ones
past to say to say their goodbyes
and to be remembered long after their passing,
while the others may die alone
with no one to remember them
and simply disappear like the gust of wind.
By Wayne Sorely
* * * Unsheltered from Out of the Cold
The Jacket.
Out Of The Cold, a man came in
His jacket all torn, ripped and thin
How it kept the cold away I do not know
My offer to hang it up, was met with a NO!
“My coat is more valuable than gold”
“It does more than keep out the cold”
“It carries all I own in its fold”
“Except what I can wear”, I was told.
Now could this be a fable? I thought
Could a coat be that valuable? But
Were not other things more important to him?
Than a coat all torn, threadbare and thin?
He continued his tale, I sat most devout,
“When I was sixteen my mom threw me out”
“Now you may think it was sad”
“But really it was not that bad”
“I found a place on the streets for free”
“Joining the bikers, a new family”
“My jacket spoke for me that day”
“It let them know I was O.K.”
“My jacket opens doors, speaks aloud for me”
“It is a powerful passport, much like I.D.”
“With a single look people can see”
“My whole life’s history”
Then I left him to his dinner you see
As it was my turn to eat for free
And then I overheard a woman complain,
“I only wish I had warm mittens again”
I just turned around
She was easily found
Bare hands and a coat so torn and thin
I gave her my mitts to keep her hands in
But she said “What about your hands, sir”
“Won’t they get cold and need the fur?”
I said “I’ve many other pairs, so you see
I can gladly give you these mittens from me”
I went downtown today
To shop and walk the way
My eyes have been opened, now I can see
The people to help are all around me
Again I saw a torn old cloak
I thought to me about these folk
How could it be in a land of plenty?
That they were cold and so hungry
They seem to be
So much like me
Have we forgotten humanity?
In our most modern society
How could a coat to keep out the cold
Become worth more than precious gold
I asked my God, why not free
All these people from their misery
He spoke aloud to me that day
“I made you to help in the way”
“When you help them, you help me”
“To remove suffering eternally”
“No one will be cold or hungry”
“No one in pain or even angry”
“All can be free on that day”
“To live and fear not, OK!”
“All this can happen my son,”
“You must believe it can be done”
“I cannot do it all alone you see”
“That is why I make people like thee.”
Mike Savage
* * *
© Social Development Centre Waterloo Region