‘Another night might have broken me’
Paralegal Spends 48 Hours Outside To Put Spotlight On Homelessness
Greg Lemay had a disturbing, dispiriting and very cold 48 hours on the street in downtown Windsor. Scared off his sleeping spot by drug-tripping men, ordered by other men to smoke a crack pipe to prove he wasn’t a cop, meeting childhood friends who are now homeless, and sleeping fitfully under a pickup truck were just some of his demoralizing experiences. The weekend was meant originally to raise awareness about the plight of the homeless but turned into a big fundraiser.
He had tried it in the summer for 36 hours, but the cold, damp weather of November makes it totally different, for him and the many genuinely homeless people, said Lemay. He works as a paralegal, a school custodian and floor restorer, and ran unsuccessfully in Ward 8 in the Oct. 22 municipal election. After watching the local homelessness and opioid problems escalate, he decided that “desperate times call for desperate measures,” and launched his 48-hour effort. “I kind of knew what to expect but I didn’t give it too much thought about where am I going to sleep, where am I going to the bathroom, am I going to be safe,” Lemay said as he was completing his 48 hours late Sunday afternoon. He said he now understands how the desperation and depression caused by being homeless and living among others living the same way would drive one to drugs and addiction. “Even two days out here was a struggle mentally and physically. Another night might have broken me. I don’t think I could do it.” He said the community support he garnered was incredible, with people donating food and clothing that filled a trailer he had parked beside the Downtown Mission. People also donated thousands in cash. All of it will be going to the Mission’s programs, he said.
The 48 hours began Friday at 5 p.m. He was joined by seven others. He gave them each $5, a backpack containing a blanket, and told them to not use services — like those provided by the Mission — that would take away a bed from someone who really needs it. Four of them ended up sleeping in an alley off Pelissier Street, three went to an alley near Dufferin Place, and Lemay thought he’d stay by the trailer outside the Mission headquarters on Victoria Avenue. But after a few hours, three guys “tripping out on drugs,” rousted him, so he grabbed the cardboard he was sleeping on and his blanket and took off.
He then encountered six or seven men he’d met earlier in the night, who thought he was a cop and wanted him to smoke a crack pipe to prove he wasn’t. Lemay got away from them, and fearing for his safety threw the cardboard under a parked pickup and slid under to get some sleep. “That was the best situation I found, so I used it,” he said. He tried to sleep from 2 to 6 a.m., but became really cold and needed to pee. There was nowhere to go, so he held it in until about 7 a.m. He went into a restroom in a restaurant but was scared away by a guy using drugs, he said. Then he managed to get access to the Mission to finally relieve himself. Shortly after, he met up with the seven others who had slept overnight. They told him they couldn’t make the entire 48 hours. “When they said they were done, I wasn’t surprised at all,” Lemay said. Throughout the day, he met up with about 80 homeless people and supporters and shared videos of his experience.
He watched people shoot up, saw discarded crack pipes and needles. Though he started with $5, he gave that to someone who really needed it, so ended up begging on Ouellette Avenue. He ate two meals, one bought with the money from Ouellette and another brought to him by a supporter.
For Saturday night, he moved his trailer and set up a tent by the Mission’s building on Ouellette Avenue, sleeping on cardboard beside the tent. A friend, Justice Fornier, stayed up while he slept. But midway through the evening, he was awakened by what felt like water on his face. “I wake up and
I wake up and it’s snowing. An inch of snow on my blanket. That was the end of sleeping.
it’s snowing. An inch of snow on my blanket. That was the end of sleeping.”
He ran into several men he knew from childhood and high school, now homeless and addicted to drugs. They took him on a tour of the downtown, showing him abandoned buildings and railway underpasses where they would sleep. “Some of the places they showed me, it was unreal.”
Lemay said he did this just to see for himself what is going on. And he plans to do it again, probably annually.
“These are people who have a name, and it could be any of us at any point,” he said.