Shelter from the Storm

It is a startling fact. At any given time, approximately 1% of children in Alberta will be involved with foster care.

44% of adults experiencing homelessness report having had experience with foster care.

According to a 2009 report by the BC Representative for children and youth, youth in care are 17 times more likely to be hospitalized for mental health issues than the general public. By 21 years of age, 41 percent of children and youth in care will have contact with the criminal justice system, compared to only 6.6 percent of the general population in the same age group.

Put another way, involvement in the foster care system nurtures homelessness, mental health issues, criminal justice interactions and other risky behaviours in children just as we nurture resiliency, self-sufficiency, self-confidence in our children.

To be fair to the people providing foster care, it is not ‘them’ creating the issue. Many wonderful, well-meaning and competent caring people foster children in their homes.

It is more systemic. More foundational. We believe foster care works.

In that belief we overlook the impact lack of permanency has on the child. As reported in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, “Children who have a government as their parent, no matter how well-intentioned or necessary that arrangement is, are often damaged by it… They are damaged because multiple moves to living arrangements with multiple caregivers – no matter how loving the foster parents – do not promote stability, security and attachment, the building blocks every child and youth needs to succeed.” (Trupin EW, Tarico VS, Low BP, et al. Children on child protective service case-loads: prevalence and nature of serious emotional disturbance. Child Abuse Negl 1993;17-345-55.)

To end homelessness in adults, we must stop fostering it in children.

This thought came top of mind this morning when a girlfriend sent me a link to one of the stories from the Calgary Drop-In & Rehab Centre’s project Shelter from the Storm. I am in awe of this project which was spearheaded by Michael Frisby two years ago. It is powerful, moving and soulful. I wanted to find the times for a concert, Verses vs Homelessness, that is happening this weekend and went to the DI’s website and on the homepage, the video they did of a child’s journey into adulthood, and homelessness, played automatically.

This is a powerful, and haunting, story.

One of the actors is a client of the DI. Has been for way too long. His journey into homelessness began in adulthood with the breakdown of his marriage, an unaddressed addiction and a prolonged journey through self-defeating behaviours that lead him into homelessness. The seeds of that journey were planted in childhood. They may never have sprouted if he had not experienced the breakdown of his marriage and the subsequent loss of his relationship with his child. He may not have known the challenges of homelessness if he hadn’t succumbed to an addiction that has haunted him for years. He once told me, “I hate myself so I drink and once sober, I remember why I hate myself and so, I drink again to forget”.

An emergency shelter should never become a longterm home for anyone. But too often it does. Not because the individual chooses it, but mostly because the other options seem too daunting, too scary, too impossible to even be considered. The man in the video has thought about housing. He’s thought about leaving. He’s thought about moving on. But always, the lure of the familiar calls him back. The community of understanding draws him in. And his fear of what will happen to him beyond the world he has come to know so well, traps him from stepping out.

We don’t know what it’s like to be homeless. We don’t know what happens to someone’s psyche when they lose everything and find themselves in the one place they never imagined they would end up.

We just don’t know.

In Shelter from the Storm, Michael and all the performers share the experience through song and verse and music and story. They are giving us an insider’s view of the loss and pain and sorrow that is called homelessness.

These are important stories to hear. What’s even more important, is that we stop creating opportunities for these stories to become someone’s life. and that begins with taking care of the children.

To stop homelessness in the future, we need to stop doing the things that foster the growth of it in children today.

Shelter from the Storm
Calgary Drop-In & Rehab Centre

“You picture in your sympathy their life of only pain
And unlike you and what you do they have never tasted fame
Be careful with your presumptions brought on by another’s dress
There might just be a forgotten jewel behind the eyes of the homeless”
Behind the Eyes of the Homeless
Lyrics & Music by Lenny Howel

Homelessness is a place of loss.

Loss of home. Loss of belongings. Loss of job, money, family.

Homelessness leaves you yearning for a place where you can be accepted, however you are, however you’re at in the way that you are when you walk in the door, if only you had a door to walk through.

Often, we think homelessness is about a lack of belonging or connection. It’s not.

There is a community in homelessness. A community where people connect over their shared human condition and find themselves feeling hopeful once again that maybe this place called homeless will not last forever. Because in this place you know, people see you, watch out for you and are looking out for one another.

On Saturday night, I found myself in that place where community runs rich and deep. That place where community celebrates our shared humanity exactly where we are, exactly the way we are when we walk through the doors – The Calgary Drop-In & Rehab Centre (The DI).

The occasion was a ‘house concert’ like no other. In front of over 100 guests seated in the multi-purpose room turned music hall for the evening on the sixth floor of the DI, the clients, staff and volunteers who have participated in the six month long song-writing initiative, presented their finished pieces. “Shelter from the Storm” was the inspiration of DI staff members, Michael Frisby and Steve Baldwin over a year ago. For the past six months, under the guidance of Calgary singer, songwriter, actor and former Poet Laureate and Artist in Residence at the DI, Kris Demeanor, the participants explored the meaning of song and its ability to draw us closer, to cross barriers, to build community and build bridges between the hearts and minds of humankind.

I was in awe. Moved. Brought to tears. Laughter and joy.

I was reminded once again about what community truly is. It’s not about the homes we live in secure behind guarded gates, or the cars we drive in that separate us from the noise of the streets. It’s not about designer labels that set us apart or the money we acquire to fill our desires.

Community is about people. People coming together to share and explore and support one another, where ever and however they are at, on this shared journey called ‘life’.

On Saturday night, I was embraced in the warmth and care of the community that is the Calgary Drop-In & Rehab Centre and I was reminded that miracles are all around us. That we are all mysteries to one another and we all have this human capacity to shine bright, even in the darkest spaces.

The evening adventure began as I drove onto the DI property. An orange t-shirted volunteer guided me to my parking spot. Another smiled and guided me to the entrance for the event through the underground parkade. A volunteer manned the elevator. I didn’t know if he was a client or a general volunteer from the host of thousands who support the DI every year. All I knew is he was happy to see everyone who walked onto his elevator for the ride up from the basement entryway to the sixth floor. He wore a leather top hat, a tailcoat and sported a smile that could melt the ice around the most stubborn of hearts. In the brief seconds it took to ride up, he had everyone laughing and feeling like there was no where else to be but on that ride to experience, “Shelter from the Storm”.

I had the gift of witnessing humanity shining brightly on Saturday night. It was at a homeless shelter. A place where in most people’s eyes, despair, deprivation, lack are the only things people share.

At ‘Shelter from the Storm’ the things that were shared are beyond price, beyond label, beyond quantification.

At ‘Shelter from the Storm’ I witnessed human spirits rising high. I felt surrounded by the love that comes when people set aside their differences to find, there is no such thing as ‘us and them’. There is only ‘us’. One humanity giving and sharing and finding the songs that break us wide open to see, we are the same kind of different, unique, beautiful and magnificent in all our human conditions.

Huge kudos to Michael Frisby, Kris Demeanor and all the clients, staff and volunteers as well as the donors and sponsors who made ‘Shelter from the Storm’ move from just an idea into possibility. You are amazing.

Kudos also to Sled Island for having the vision to include this incredible event in their programming.

Thank you.