On Tuesday evening we held the 20th Anniversary Annual General Meeting for Inn from the Cold, where I work.

It is important to celebrate all the good work that has happened over the past twenty years. It is good to mark the anniversary, yet, it can be hard sometimes to consciously align the good deeds done with the fact, we need an Inn, no matter how sweet, to save children and families from homelessness.

Last week, as we geared up for the AGM, we passed a marker that is tragic in its enormity, yet hopeful in its presence.

Last week, we registered the 70,000th person into the city’s homeless database (HMIS) which has only been up and running for the past five years. The person who became the 70,000th entry was a 7 year old boy who entered the Inn with his mother and family.

It is tragic that it was a child who took our community across the threshold of 70,000 people having experienced homelessness over the past five years. In that same week, just before the 70,000th entry, a one day old baby received their number from the database too.

Sometimes, it is beyond my comprehension how we can  have children experiencing homelessness on our streets.

Sometimes, it boggles my mind that a child needs a number to represent their homelessness.

The tragedy lies in their being homeless. The hope begins in their finding their way home through accessing our services.

It’s about more than the numbers.

Yes, 70,000 is a big number. And yes, a one day old child having a number in a system that tracks homelessness seems, on the surface, to be incomprehensible.

What difference do those numbers make?

The fact we can actually track who is entering the system of care is remarkable. Ten years ago, before Calgary launched its Plan to End Homelessness on January 28, 2018, we had no idea who was accessing the services of the 100+ agencies providing homeless supports in our city. Now we do.

Ten years ago, people went from agency to agency, asking for supports, help, information. They told their story again and again, sometimes adding trauma to an already traumatic journey in the continuous re-telling of the poverty and tragedy in their lives.

Ten years ago, agencies were so busy just serving the people coming to their doors, they didn’t have time to think about a coordinated response. They only had time to figure out their next response; person by person, family by family.

Today, there’s one entry point, a common entry form and a coordinated system that tracks people and the resources they access so that there’s only one telling of their story to put them on their journey to the place where they belong, home.

Today, the homeless-serving system of care is just that — a system. It’s coordinated. Planned. Collaborative. It’s focused on the bigger picture of ending homelessness as a pressing social issue, while taking care of the day to day needs of those whose lives have been impacted by the harsh realities of poverty and homelessness.

Today, we recognize there is a problem and are working together, not just as a city but as a province and a nation, to find solutions that honour the dignity and humanity of everyone and that make real and lasting difference in the lives of vulnerable children, families and individuals, and our communities.

A 7 year old boy and one day old child got a number from HMIS last week.

The hope is — they never ever have to use that number again as they move beyond the trauma of homelessness into the place where they belong, HOME.

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To mark our 20th anniversary, we created a video that speaks to the courage of those who first set up Community Inns in Church basements 20 years ago, and to the evolution of hope, dignity, respect and possibility to create the Inn as it is today.

Thank you to the amazing Comms and Event teams at the Inn and Paul Long of Paul Long and Associates for your creative brilliance. Thank you Andrea and the team at Six Degrees Music Studio for sharing your gifts and talents. We invite you to share in our story and to share it with your social networks. Thank you.

I felt my heart break yesterday.

It took just a glimpse of baby clothes hanging from a rail. A box of infant diapers in a box and I felt the piercing melancholy of sadness and sorrow sear my heart.

It happened at work.

I was giving a tour of one of the the emergency shelter floors at Inn from the Cold. One of the amazing frontline shelter staff had just finished telling the visitors about the shelter floors, when he shared the story of a mother who had given birth the day before. “She’ll be back tomorrow,” he said.

Staff had prepared a welcome home package for her and her infant.

But a shelter is not a home, my heart whispered. A shelter is not home.

I walked our visitors through the shelter area and when I came to the cubicle where this woman will return to with her baby, I paused. And that’s when I felt my heart break.

Hanging from the railing of one of the bunkbeds in her cubicle was a baby sleeper. It looked so sweet and innocent. So precious and full of possibility.

And she is returning with this precious being to a family emergency shelter.

I wondered if she was afraid. Scared. Worried that she was bringing this child into such an uncertain future.

Yes, she knows we are doing our utmost to ensure she and her children are connected to the right resources to be able to move beyond the shelter quickly. And yes, she knows, just as we know, this housing crisis she is experiencing is only a temporary space in her journey. But she must feel fear and anxiety. She still must feel lost and frightened, worried for her child and the future.

I lay in bed this morning thinking about this mother and her infant. Beside me, my loving husband slept peacefully. Between us, Marley the Great Cat lay stretched out snoring. And on the floor at the end of the bed, Beaumont the Sheepadoodle slept soundly. Outside the open window, darkness was turning gently to light, distant traffic hummed as the city awoke.

I lay safely enveloped in my bed, breathing deeply into my ‘love bubble’ as I like to think of my early morning laying awake before I get up time.

And a tear trickled silently down my face.

What of this woman and her child?

What of the other three women who gave birth last week?

What are they feeling?

I felt anger rising within me.

We at the community level do everything we can to ease the burden of homelessness on each family’s life. We work hard to ensure we have the right resources, right supports, right people in place to help each family as they enter our doors. We do not want anyone to become trapped in homelessness and do whatever it takes to support them on the journey home.

The average length of stay at the shelter is thirty-five days. It’s not a long time, but in the eyes of a child, it can feel like forever. In the arms of a mother holding her newborn child, it can feel like a life sentence.

National plans are made and provincial plans follow and still the money does not flow. Land is set aside, architectural designs are created and still communities lobby against the housing that will end the crisis in so many lives. Agencies on the ground wait for the green light to get building, to get moving people out of homelessness back home and still, there is not enough of the right housing with the right supports to move them into.

Pundits talk about big picture planning and taking the long view of how best to alleviate the crisis in affordable housing in Canada while children and families keep knocking at the door of the shelter hoping it will open. Hoping a way home will appear.

We do not, cannot, turn a family away.

There are lives at stake. Fragile minds in development.

To turn children away is to risk the very future of our country.

So we do what we can. And it is not enough.

We must stop talking about the crisis in affordable housing and get building. We must stop talking about the need for guaranteed income as if it’s a drag on the economic report card of our country and see it through the lens of giving vulnerable families the stability they need to build brighter futures for their children.

We must stop looking at the agencies doing the heavy lifting at the front lines as the ‘last resort’ and see them as the only resort families have when facing a housing crisis — not because that’s what they planned for — but rather, because we as a country, as a society, have not planned well for this future we are living today where social and economic inequities keep people trapped in poverty.

The children and families who come to our door didn’t plan on being at the shelter.

But we, the society and community in which they lived, sure did plan on having the shelter there to catch them.

Let’s stop looking at how to catch people when they fall and start building the system of care that takes care of people so they don’t fall.

Namaste.

Some time ago, as we entered the city on a drive back from the mountains, we stopped at an intersection waiting for a red light to turn green. On the cement divider between east and west traffic a young woman stood, hat in hand, looking for handouts. She smiled. She waved. She greeted people with shouts of, “Hey! It’s all for a good cause.” And, people complied. They rolled down their windows and tossed their coins into the bright orange cap she extended towards them. The light turned green and everyone continued on their way feeling good about themselves. They’d supported a good cause.

And they had. It was a worthy cause. Parked on the grassy corner of the intersection, the big blue and orange organization’s van was plastered with banners encouraging people to Give to the Cause. Volunteers leaped up and down, cheering, waving at the passing cars, encouraging those at red lights to open their wallets and support the panhandlers walking beside them. Drivers honked their horns. Waved. Called out cheers. It was a lively intersection filled with purpose — and a cause.

On another corner, a homeless man walked between the waiting cars at the red light, a handmade cardboard sign held up against his chest. “Please help. Homeless. Hungry. God Bless.” The drivers stared steadfastly forward, watching the light, wishing it would turn faster so that they could get away from this sign of decay in our society. No one rolled down their window. No one smiled at the scruffy-looking, dark haired, bearded man as he shuffled along the roadway, asking for help.

On one corner, a worthy cause. On the other? A hopeless case? Undeserving drug-addict breaking the law?

One deserves our support. What about the other?

Yes, the funds raised to support research into finding cures for horrible diseases are important. But what about their tactics? By mimicking the methods used by vulnerable individuals, are they not legitimizing the very tactic we deplore? The one police hand out tickets for to deter the unacceptable practice of panhandling?

Someone empties their car ashtray on the street and drives on, leaving behind their garbage. We don’t give a lot of thought to their passing by other than to possibly mutter under our breath, “some people’s children” — or words to that effect. We sweep away the garbage and continue on with our day.

A  person experiencing homelessness leaves their garbage on the sidewalk and disappears from our sight. We gather up all signs of their passing by and sweep away their unsightly mess. We’ve got a lot to say about what they’ve done. A lot of names to call them. But hey! What can we do? They’re just the homeless, good-for-nothing, lazy drug addict. They’ve made choices. It’s all their fault. Why can’t they get a job or at least clean up their own garbage?

Watching two different scenarios on the street unfold I found evidence of the thin line that divides us. We’re all human beings. We’re all under stress. We’re all capable of magnificence. We’re all worthy of a chance to make a difference — and we are all guilty of labelling difference-making both positive and negative.

Sometimes, what we do is not that different. It’s just the label we attach to our efforts that legitimizes what side of the street we’re on. Good cause. Hopeless case. It’s all in our perceptions.

A family arrives at Inn from the Cold, the family emergency shelter where I work. A mother. Father. Three, four, maybe five children ranging in age from 4 to 12.

Life so many, they have come from ‘the reserve’. One of over 3,100 tracts of land set aside by treaty with the Government of Canada. A place that was designed to give Indigenous people ‘security of place’ in this land they once roamed freely. long before ‘First Contact’ with the white man.

The reserve is not an easy place to live. Vestiges of colonialism, inter-generational trauma, lack of housing, lack of safe drinking water, high rates of school drop-outs, drug use and suicides all paint an uncertain future for children.

This family came to the city months ago to find work, a home, and that better future they so desperately want. After wearing out their welcome on the couches and in the basements of family and friends they have come here, to the only place they can think of where they might just find a way out of despair, poverty, homelessness.

The Inn is not a home, but it is shelter. Safety. Refuge. It is a place where they can catch their breath, get help, find support to plug into the resources they need to move beyond housing crisis to a home. To step beyond instability to stability so their children can go to school, grow up and live the future they deserve.

Like so many who come to our city seeking a better future, they were not prepared for the realities and challenges of life and the cost of living here. They were not prepared for the discrimination, the racism, the hostility they found festering at the edges of our society or the lack of understanding of what it means to be Indigenous in our country.

We hold so many untruths about Indigenous people and culture. Like believing every Indigenous person gets thousands of dollars a year for doing nothing. Or that they’re all lazy and just looking for a free hand out. Or all drunks and unwilling to get sober.

It is hard to walk down the street with your head held proud when racial slurs are slung at you like nuclear fallout; just because of your heritage.

It is hard to get a job when you are judged first by the colour of your skin, not your credentials.

It is hard to find housing when the welcome mat is swept away because your skin is not white.

And it’s hard to see a better future for your children when the road you travel is strewn with man-made obstacles blocking your progress. It takes superhuman strength to throw the obstacles to the side of the road, a superhuman strength few of us possess, let alone a family searching for a better future.

Of the 1,000+ families the Inn will serve in a year, 60% are Indigenous, 25% new Canadians.

This is not a family issue, or an Indigenous issues, or an immigrant issue. It is a societal issue caused by our human practices.

Regardless of the colour of their skin, or the land of their birth, family homelessness isn’t about a mother and father and their children losing a home. It’s about society losing its way.

To build better futures we must start today to clear the road of the obstacles that prevent some members of our society from experiencing the same benefits, the same opportunities, the same freedoms we do.

And it begins with letting go of our beliefs of who ‘those people’ are and seeing them instead as fellow citizens who have not had the same opportunities as we do, even though they deserve them.

It means looking through eyes of caring and compassion, seeing the burden of the past not as a judgement of somebody’s worth today, but as a reflection of what happens when we believe ‘those people’ are not equal and because of their differences, must be put in their place.

The families who come to the Inn do not come because life is easy and they just want a free ride. They come because life has been hard and they have run out of options.

When the only road to a better future leads through that place called, ‘homeless’, a mother and father will do anything to help their children get there. And sometimes that means carrying a label that doesn’t sit well on your psyche or your skin, but is all you can carry to the Inn, ‘Homeless’.

Photo by Kai Oberhäuser on Unsplash

I am standing by the Navel Orange bin, focused on picking just the right ones when I feel someone watching me. I look up and see a man walking towards me, his eyes focused intently on my face. I recognize him as he approaches. Smile and give him a wave.

“I know you,” he says. The rubber stopper on the bottom of his multi-coloured metallic cane makes a soft thump as he plants himself in front of me. “Why do I know you?”

I know him from the homeless shelter where I used to work.

In a public place like a grocery store, it’s not always caring of the other to tell them that.

“I was the spokesperson for the DI (the street name for the shelter where I used to work),” I tell him. “I was on television a lot. Maybe you recognize my face from there?”

He gives his head a quick shake from side to side. Then nods it up and down. “Yeah. That’s why I remember you. You were one of the nice ones.” He pauses, lifts his cane and thumps it on the ground. Not loudly. Just a gentle statement of fact to punctuate his words. “I didn’t like it there. Who could? Full of drunks and drug addicts. And the staff…”

He looks away.

“Glad I’m out of there now.” He finishes his statement and looks me in the eyes. “I’m gone you know.”

“So am I,” I tell him. “How are you doing?”

And he rushes into a story about an accident that broke his hip. A two month hospital stay. A landlord who ripped him off and a host of other sad events that have brought him down.

And  I listen. It is all I can do. Listen. Deeply.

It is what he wants. Someone to listen to him. To give him space to give voice to his pain, his fears, his sorrow. And, his possibilities.

“I worked construction you know,” he tells me. “That’s over with now. But I can cook. Got a friend who’s got a friend who owns a restaurant that’s just opening up. Gonna go submit my resume. You could come visit if you want.” And he gives me the approximate location of the restaurant. “I can’t remember the name. But I’m sure you can’t miss it. It’s the pub right beside the gas station.”

I tell him that I’ll check it out.

“What I really need is better housing,” he says. “Someplace where I’m not sharing space with others. I talked to Calgary Housing but their wait list is too long.”

“Have you visited SORCe?” I ask.

“What’s that?”

And I explain about their ‘one stop shop’ concept of many agencies working out of one location to connect people to housing programs and services in order to end homelessness. I find a piece of paper, write down their number and pass it to him.

He’s excited. Another path to explore. Another possibility opening up.

We part and I am grateful for our encounter. He has reminded me of the importance of looking into someone, not just at them. It is a form of intimacy or, In-to-me-see. A way of honouring the human being through creating space for story-telling to happen, of listening to the stories that are shared with an open mind and loving heart and a belief in the sacredness of honouring the truths that are revealed when we take time to see and listen to the story-tellers.

I met a man at the grocery store.

He shared  his story.

I listened.

We parted, richer for the encounter.

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This post is an edited repost of a blog that I wrote in 2012.