Shelters won’t solve homelessness

Re How many deaths before we declare a weather alert? Jan. 7 A man froze to death this week in a bus shelter. Radio hosts are asking why wasn’t he in a shelter? Why aren’t there more shelters? They miss the point.

Shelters are not the answer. We need to think differently. They need compassion. The homeless are the most vulnerable in society. I see them in every corner of this city. Most are downtown, but I ran into an elderly shopping-cart-toting man the other day at Bathurst St. and Steeles Ave. W.

We had a coffee while I waited for the bus. The cold did bother him some, but he was used to it. In the past, he was able to collect enough bottles to pay for a room, but he is old and rickety and couldn’t get enough to keep up with the rent for January.

I asked him where he was going to spend the night, half scared that he might ask me for a place, and he said, “Oh, I have a plan — gotta have a plan. Things get off kilter when you don’t have a plan.” He almost half convinced me. He’s happy to sit for the coffee and chat. “Good you’re here. They never would let me sit here. Sometimes though, they give me a pastry for outside. It’s nice, but this is nicer.” He grins widely. He reminds me of my Dad.

I am glad I did this. Gives me the false impression I am a better person for doing it. As I get up from the table to go for my bus, he says, “Thanks for talking. Nobody really talks anymore these days.”

I don’t know why he is homeless. It would have been beyond rude to ask. He was a man of dignity. His pink skin was a surreal shade of grey green. He smelled of cheap cologne and urine — my guess: he drinks the cologne. But at that moment, we were just two people having a coffee and a chat.

The shelter system was meant to be a temporary solution — in theory to prevent what happened to that poor soul the other night. Obviously, it is not working. Shelters are dangerous, angry places. Devoid of dignity. You literally just take up space. A man like that would be rolled in a second. The Out of the Cold program is a good one — it is much safer, but not a solution.

I don’t have the answer, but maybe together we can find one. Why is the issue of mental health so on the back burner? Are we so ashamed of these folks that we think we can shove them into shelters so that they do not offend us? They are part of our us. I read once that a society can be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable. I wonder how we will be judged. Frieda Nagel, Toronto