A tough time to be living rough
Outreach workers visit homeless in their tents as bitter cold persists
Freedom.
That’s the reason 50-year-old George gives to explain why he chooses to live in a tent on a snowy hillside in Edmonton’s river valley.
Speaking through a wall of snow-covered canvas, the man who describes himself as a “veteran” of living rough, admits the past several days the city has spent under an extreme cold warning have been hard.
But he won’t go to the shelters or to the Central LRT station, which opened Tuesday — several days into the ongoing cold snap — as an emergency 24-7 warming area.
George, who declined to give his last name, says that’s where the “trouble” starts, and he doesn’t want to be around it.
Still, one of his good friends recently found housing, and he thinks it might be time for him to try, too.
“I think it’s time to get out,” he said.
George is one of an estimated few hundred Edmontonians camping across the city this winter.
The Boyle Street Community Services outreach team that works with people living rough has a hard time getting an accurate count because people move around, or go stay with friends.
There are fewer campers in the winter, but those who stick it out often have serious mental health challenges and can’t cope with being in a shelter, said outreach team leader Doug Cooke.
Others simply don’t want to be separated from their partner, or their pet, or they fear leaving their worldly belongings in an alley to go inside to sleep.
It’s these people Cooke and his seven team members discuss when they meet in a downtown parking lot at 7 a.m. each day.
On Thursday, it’s -25 C, and Environment Canada is forecasting a wind chill of -40.
After sharing plans, the team splits into pairs and heads out to do welfare checks on regular clients, and to search for new camps.
“Good morning. Anybody home?” outreach worker Damien Lachat calls as he and Cooke descend on a cluster of tents down the embankment where Jasper Avenue drops off toward Dawson Park.
To reach the makeshift neighbourhood, the outreach workers use a system of ropes and cords that the inhabitants have installed so that they have something to hold on to as they scramble up and down the steep, slippery hillside.
Cook and Lachat call out names and announce themselves as they peer into tents that have been abandoned, but finally they get an answer from a woman who is alone in her tent.
She accepts some socks and hand-warmers from Cooke, and tells him she’s doing all right in the cold.
“I like it. Nobody bugs me,” she said. She suggests Cooke and Lachat go check on George.
As he drives around the city in a Volkswagen Jetta packed with everything from sleeping bags and granola bars to needles and Naloxone kits, Cooke says a lot of campers are quite hardy and resourceful. But he worries about the safety of those who run propane or burn fires inside their tents.
Looking out for one another is also common, and banding together is what one pair of buddies, Doc and Brian, have done for years, Cooke said. The friends are notorious for their sprawling camp setups. Deep in an industrial area of southeast Edmonton, a shovelled pathway winds away from the road into an empty field. Evidence of Doc and Brian begins well before their actual tents are in view. Shopping carts, bikes and scrap metal dot the path, and a scarecrow with a goblin mask for a head greets approaching visitors.
The campsite itself is a series of tents and tarps in a thicket of trees, connected by a tidy network of pathways cleared in the snow. There’s even a cook tent.
The visit on Thursday was prompted because Brian agreed to go see a doctor — the first step in the process of getting assistance and being put on the road to housing.
But when Cooke and Lachat arrive, Brian and Doc are gone. Fresh bike tracks in the snow suggest a recent departure.
Cooke is frustrated, but not surprised. “It is what it is,” he said as he trudges back to where his car is parked on the road.
This isn’t the first time Brian has bailed on an appointment. They’ll come back another day and try again.
An attempt to find another man, Robert, at his campsite also falls flat. Days earlier, they spotted him at a McDonald’s, his left hand bandaged and swollen. Frostbite has hit many of their clients hard. People often don’t think to check for frostbite until the pain is excruciating, and sometime it gets so bad that amputation is necessary.
His team has yet to find anyone dead in a camp, but he thinks it’s only a matter of time. They often find people in medical distress. Recurring bouts of pneumonia often plague their older clients.
They wanted to check on Robert’s hand, but he’s not in his tent. They hope he’s gone somewhere to warm up.
After a man was found dead of suspected exposure near Commonwealth Stadium last Sunday, city council passed a motion directing administration to come with up a new policy to help vulnerable people during cold weather, with a specific temperature that would trigger LRT stations being opened up as emergency shelters.
More than anything, Edmonton needs more permanent supportive housing so that people with mental health challenges who struggle to live independently can stay housed, Cooke said.
But in the meantime, he and Lachat say they think widespread smaller shelters would better serve their team’s reclusive clients. They also think space where people are allowed to sleep during the daytime would help because the shelters empty out at 6 a.m., and many people use nighttime hours to make their way around the city and do bottle collecting.
As the city works on its policy, Lachat said citizens should ask themselves what they would want as shelter if they were sleeping rough. “Where would you feel comfortable and safe, and able to rest?” Lachat said.