Pastor struggles with outreach
Volunteer working overtime to deliver food, supplies to homeless
NOTE TO READERS: As the community grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, there are those who keep other people safe and keep essential services running, including doctors and nurses, grocery store clerks and garbage collectors. These are their stories from the front line of Niagara's battle with the novel coronavirus. Pastor Bill DeGuire has visited many of the makeshift homeless camps that have popped up throughout Niagara in recent weeks. Often he has found as many as a dozen people huddled under plastic tarps that offer limited shelter from the weather. “Right now, we have an abundance of people rough sleeping,” said DeGuire, who runs an independent outreach program called Working the Streets Niagara. “A lot of them are rough sleeping right now because it’s safer than being around the (COVID-19) virus, which makes sense.” DeGuire estimated he has worked 340 hours over the past four weeks, delivering food and supplies to dozens of people who are trying to survive, often in remote wooded areas. “Our street family is just as scared and have so much uncertainty, too,” he said. “Their daily routines are broken up, just like all of us. A lot of them are facing anxiety.” DeGuire said the workload increased before the Out of the Cold program wrapped up for the season a week ago. Niagara Region set up an isolation shelter a few weeks ago to give homeless people a place to go to protect them from the spread of COVID-19. Niagara’s homelessness services director, Cathy Cousins, said so far everyone who has been tested for the virus at that shelter have been negative. And Niagara Region’s public health department “has not indicated any concerns at this time,” after monitoring homeless shelters for any positive cases. DeGuire said the homeless people he helps have chosen to take their chances with the cold rather than risk infection. “A lot of them do believe they are safer in the bush.” The fear among the people he helps has taken an emotional toll on DeGuire, despite being hardened by decades as an outreach worker. “There are days when I cry, of course,” he said.
He said he relies on breathing exercises, meditation and his faith to give him the strength to carry on. DeGuire is taking precautions, limiting his interaction with people and leaving sanitized supplies and sealed food containers at the outskirts of the encampments.
He is also protecting himself by wearing equipment such as gloves and masks.
“I’m having a shortage of disposable gloves,” he said.
He’s also down to his last few medical-grade masks, after giving many of them away to people who need them.
“I’m trying my best, but I can’t totally live in fear ... We are making sure we’re staying as safe as we can be, and everybody is staying safe, but if all of us walk away there will be nobody there to help.”
But DeGuire needs the community’s support to continue.
“I can’t keep up with sleeping
bags, tents and the supplies,” he said.
He asked that anyone who can help with supplies as well as monetary donations to contact him at 289-990-3369.
Deguire said Working the Streets Niagara was in its infancy last fall and not ready to apply for funding when the Region was looking for contractors to run homeless services programs. As a result, he has been relying on the community’s generosity.
“People are reaching out,
there’s no doubt about that, but there’s a lot of front-line outreach workers who aren’t getting the support they really need,” DeGuire said.
“Us little guys that are not funded by the Region, we’re kind of getting left behind a little bit here,” he said.
“I’m having a hard time keeping open,” he said. “We’re barely hanging on. As a front-line outreach worker, we don’t make much money.”