McCaw: Homeless in Ottawa: Don’t judge them, get to know them

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There’s an ugly issue at the center of the homelessness and addiction debate in Ottawa. It is present in every news segment showing a faceless figure sleeping in a city park and in every social media post that dehumanizes drug users. This issue is a great lack of curiosity about the people who are at the center of the debate: our neighbors are struggling to find shelter and safety in a city where it is increasingly difficult to find each other.

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According to the City of Ottawa, more than 2,500 people in this city experience homelessness on any given night.

However, one does not have to closely follow the public conversation about homelessness and drug addiction to know that elected officials, media columnists, and often local community groups tend to talk about people experiencing homelessness and addiction not as Ottawa residents with deep roots in this city and with families who care about them, but rather as a persistent problem to be solved.

I’ll be honest: this is a view I held until very recently. He distrusted the people who hung around outside the shelters, handling and using drugs. I understood the fear and the desire to wish them away. But at the same time, I was curious. It felt strange and wrong to presume to know what was best for my struggling neighbors when I didn’t even know them as people to begin with.

This curiosity led me, earlier this year, to begin volunteering weekly with Shepherds of Good Hope, a supportive housing residence in Ottawa’s Carlington neighborhood that houses more than 50 people who were formerly homeless or at risk of homelessness. My role was in the kitchen cooking the meals and sometimes in the common area helping with art projects.

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This is not the part of the story where I tell you that supportive housing is a utopia and that every preconceived idea I had about residents was wrong.

On the contrary, I saw that the residents sometimes behaved erratically and became agitated. I saw them attack with cruel words. I saw them tall. But I also saw them encouraging each other to apply for jobs and mulling over which colleges to attend when they got back on their feet. I watched them clean each other’s dishes in the kitchen and hang the art they made on their bedroom walls and in the common area where everyone could admire it. I watched an older resident painstakingly collect government documents to prepare his will so that his children and grandchildren would be cared for after his death.

I saw in real time, in the real world, how services such as on-site counselling, harm reduction and safe and stable housing can challenge vulnerable people to better themselves.

I don’t want to sugarcoat these issues, but simply say that because I knew the residents of Shepherds on their best days, I couldn’t reduce them to their worst. They are not a demographic to me. They are people. they are friends

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It is my wish that everyone in Ottawa will see their vulnerable neighbors in this way. Volunteering has given me a fuller life and I suspect it would serve others in this way as well.

Unfortunately, however, there seems to be more emphasis these days on declaring a position (planting a flag in the ground on an issue) than learning about the problem first hand.

I urge anyone waiting for supportive housing in their neighborhood, or distrustful of its residents as I once was, to get to know the people at the heart of this problem by volunteering, or even stopping to say hello.

Try to get to know a person before you express strong beliefs about where they should live and what kind of support they should or should not receive. Challenge yourself to accept that fighting homelessness will require commitment and compassion on the part of those who have homes.

Challenge yourself to be curious about those who are different from you.

I cannot pretend to know the answer to solving the housing crisis in Ottawa or elsewhere. But I suspect we would all be better off if we sought to know our neighbors before judging them. What if we tried to lift them up before putting them aside.

Adam McCaw is a 23-year-old recent graduate of Carleton University who enjoys reading, writing short stories and film reviews, and getting close to nature. Although he is a proponent of a well-ordered life, he is a firm believer in stepping out of his comfort zone.

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