‘My pride stopped me from asking for help’
How the gift of a can opener was the start to Ray Perrier turning his life around
When Ray Perrier found himself homeless last April, he didn’t want anyone knowing.
“I was embarrassed, my pride stopped me from asking for help,” he said. “I didn’t want people to know the situation I was in.”
So with only a backpack and bag of belongings, he moved into Confederation Park, sleeping in pavilions and on picnic tables.
Perrier had been struggling after a long relationship and a suicide attempt. He is an addict, but has been clean for some time. He’s also completing an anger-management course.
He has two sides. One guy is “rough,” he said, who doesn’t stand for stealing or crossing him. The other would volunteer to drop off donations or give away half his sandwich, despite not having eaten for days.
“I learned that if I’m in a situation it’s already too late,” he said. “So I make the right choices now.”
That meant shelters were out. If someone stole or confronted him, he knows he would potentially hurt someone. So he found himself alone.
The rain was the worst, because once he got wet he could not dry. Parks staff gave him a hard time. “They would gave me 10 (minutes) to get my stuff together and get lost,” he said.
The way they would look at and talk to him, it was like he wasn’t a person, he recalls. Like he was “garbage.”
“The way I was being treated, I’ve never experienced that in my life,” Perrier said, calling the treatment harassment.
“People would look through me, past me.”
As the months got colder, he got a tent, but soon found someone had cut the tarp.
At night, people stared into his camp area. He found dog poop flung on his tent. As homelessness worsened in the city and bylaw officers began clearing out encampments, Perrier saw people pushed out from the downtown.
There is a code among the homeless not to enter someone’s camp site. But addicts often don’t abide, and one night Perrier came upon two guys trying to steal from him. The “old” Perrier would have punished them, hurt them. But he held back and they ran, dropping his possessions.
In October, police received a complaint from the park, which is run by the Hamilton Conservation Authority, about a man sleeping under a pavilion for several months. The social navigator program responded.
Perrier felt, for the first time, that someone was listening.
“(Const. Dan Fleming ) never looked through me, never looked down on me,” he said.
Instead, they explained to park officials that Perrier had nowhere to go while waiting for housing. Shelters weren’t an option. The harassment stopped. They got him winter boots, a coat and ski pants. When his tent broke, they helped set up his new one.
“You can tell they care,” Perrier said, naming Dan Fleming, Naomi Henderson and Sandra Kurdziel of the social navigator team. And unlike others who have offered to help and then disappeared, they keep their promises.
“If they say we’ll see you on Tuesday, they show up on Tuesday.”
Meanwhile, Perrier was following a Facebook group called “recycling kindness.” He had offered to drop off donations for the Hamilton group before, but was embarrassed to reach out and ask for help himself.
Finally, he posted a message: this is the face of homelessness, a guy who used to have a job and home and decent life. A guy who grew up in east Hamilton, who had friends and family, but had pushed them away.
He got 300 responses. It blew him away. So many willing to help. People started dropping off food.
In one of his earlier posts, he made a request for a can opener. Kristy Hamilton was in the area and thought it was an easy task.
Hamilton works in community health, and often uses the recycling kindness group to help find patients with spinal cord issues equipment such as bath benches. When she first messaged Perrier, she didn’t fully realize his situation, but soon learned he was camping at the park. She dropped off the can opener and groceries.
But there was something about Perrier.
“I just couldn’t walk away,” she said.
They’re both from Newfoundland. She is a Christian. Perrier follows his Indigenous traditions.
Soon she was doing his laundry, texting him to check in. She helped with housing forms. He was invited to her family’s home for Christmas.
“The way I view it, is that God put you in my path for a reason,” she told him.
Hamilton used to manage a supportive housing building for DMS Property Management. She called and asked for personal favour, vouched for Perrier, asked the landlord to “perform an act of compassion.”
It worked and Perrier secured a one-bedroom apartment at a Jarvis Street building for Dec. 15.
When The Spectator met Perrier, he was staying at an Airbnb, friends had temporarily put him up there for the week before he got his new place. On Dec. 8, his 55th birthday, Perrier woke up in a bed for the first time in eight months.
But there was one other surprise. Before Perrier moved in, Hamilton and others cleaned the unit and furnished it with donated items. They set up a Christmas tree covered in gift cards.
He cried with joy. Perrier sent The Spectator pictures, including smiling selfies of himself around his beautiful apartment.
With funds from ODSP and subsidized housing while he’s on a wait list for city housing, the rent is manageable.
Perrier said it took him a long time to accept he deserved this help. It’s a message of what can come when you open yourself up.
But Perrier also wants people to apply the same kindness to others, because there are so many that need compassion.