‘I had nowhere else to go’
case manager there, trying to help residents get back on their feet, especially those struggling with their own addictions. “When I walked in these doors, it was like a fresh start,” said Sheppard, now 54.
After he arrived at the Good Shepherd shelter, he met with a clinical social worker and she asked him to tell her why his head was going round and round and why his heart was pounding so fast. It was an epiphany.
“I cried for six hours,” he said. “For the first time in my life, when I was 48, I told the truth.
“Now, I wasn’t healed but, man, did I feel better. I gave my problems to someone else who knew how to deal with them, and it was an amazing feeling.”
Built in the 1972, the Good Shepherd’s men’s shelter has 54 beds, with room for 64 in emergency situations, such as cold weather alerts. Most of its clients are between the ages of 24 and 55, but the past couple of years has seen a rise in seniors.
More than 60 per cent of the clients suffer from some combination of addiction and mental health issues, according to Carmen Salciccioli, the shelter’s director. Family breakups, family estrangement and health problems that have pushed men onto social assistance account for the rest.
The average length of stay is about seven to eight days but many of the men cycle through the three shelters in the city, which include Mission Services and the Salvation Army. Some of the men prefer to live outside as long as possible until the weather gets too cold.
Lately, the Good Shepherd has succeeded in finding housing for about 30 shelter clients a month. But that’s done nothing to stem the tide of people in need, Salciccioli said, as social assistance payments lag far behind rising rental costs in Hamilton.
“Individuals on social assistance don’t have Swiss bank accounts,” Salciccioli said. “It isn’t a life of luxury. It isn’t even subsistence today.”
When a new client books in to the Good Shepherd shelter, he’s asked to read and acknowledge a two-page list of rights and responsibilities, assigned a bed and given a tour of the shelter.
The rules are pretty simple: no drugs, no drinking, no smoking inside, no weapons, be respectful of fellow residents, staff and volunteers, and be actively working toward a housing solution.
Under the old system that ended nearly a decade ago, clients would sign in by 10 p.m. and then have to leave the next morning at 8 a.m., then do it all over again at night.
Now, the shelter operates 24 hours a day and clients can stay multiple nights. During the day, they can remain on-site and they can keep their belongings in bins in the dorm rooms, which are locked during the day.
“They can stay as long as they need to as long as they’re working towards getting themselves rehoused in the community,” Salciccioli said.
Clients are provided with breakfast, lunch, dinner, a snack, clothing if necessary, and hygiene products.
During the day, they have access to social assistance case workers and staff who help with housing searches.
There’s an on-site nurse practitioner three days a week and a doctor from the Shelter Health Network visits every Thursday morning.
There are a couple of common rooms with televisions and in one of them Justin Eden of Sudbury is watching a movie with two other residents.
Eden, 51, arrived at the Good Shepherd’s shelter in early October. His mother was diagnosed with dementia and was quickly admitted to a long-term care facility, leaving him without a place to live.
His sister lives in Hamilton and she suggested he move here. Since then, he’s been trying to find housing and get himself sorted out.
“When you think of living in a shelter and you’ve never been in the system, I guess your imagination can go wild,” Eden said. “You just think the worst.
“But I’ve met a lot of great guys here,” he said. “It’s not just the down-and-outs or people who are too lazy.
“I think everyone here wants to find housing and rebuild their lives. There’s just a lot of people here who need more serious mental health help.”
What he’s also found is that there isn’t much of a safety net left anymore.
“We’re all kind of living on the edge too much,” Eden said. “You get behind a couple of payments and all of a sudden you’re kicked out of your apartment.
“I feel very grateful there’s this system here because I’ve never lived on the street, whereas a lot of guys here have done that in the past.”
With the help of the Good Shepherd, Eden has found a room to rent but he likely won’t be able to move until January, which means he’ll be spending Christmas at the shelter.
Monday to Saturday, the big event of the day at the shelter is the community meal, which runs from 3:30 p.m. to about 4:45 p.m.
It’s open to anyone, not just shelter residents, and there’s often a line out the front door spilling onto the sidewalk.
About 450 to 500 meals are served each day at the shelter with the help of up to a dozen volunteers.
Sometimes former shelter residents drop by for a meal, such as Ken McKenzie, a retired truck driver and HSR bus driver who now lives in a city housing unit.
He spent about seven months at the Good Shepherd shelter from February to September after he was evicted from his apartment when the landlord changed the building from a fourplex to a duplex.
“It was a kick in the ass, it really was,” McKenzie said. “I had nowhere else to go. I had no relatives so I had no choice.
“When I left, I walked away with just whatever I could carry,” he said. “I grabbed a bunch of clothes and away I went.”
Aaron Jones, another former resident, pops by for a meal about three times a week.
He’s wrestling with a heroin addiction. He’s currently clean and living in his own place.
He spent a month at the shelter in the spring. After he left, he had an overdose and was found unconscious on a sidewalk.
It was the Good Shepherd’s nurse who identified him for authorities. He had been brought in as a John Doe.
Jones spent two months in a coma. He had an infection that was so bad on one side of his face that doctors couldn’t find his eye.
“The first person I saw when I came out of my coma was Brian,” Jones said.
Brian Sheppard recently got a massive tattoo that extends from his left wrist to the top of his shoulder.
He starts at the bottom and traces it with his finger. The tattoo tells his story.
“It doesn’t matter in life what path you take, it doesn’t matter if your religion is broken, you can always get to the front steps to be with the people who have meant something to you,” he said. At the top, there’s a woman’s face on his shoulder.
“I was engaged once and I lost her over my addiction,” Sheppard said. “And when I was in here, she passed away on Dec. 26, 2014.
“I didn’t get a chance to say sorry. This is my way of saying sorry.”
Without the Good Shepherd, he figures he’d still be on the streets. “The Good Shepherd has opened so many doors for me,” he said. “I’m so grateful and I’m proud of myself.”
Ralph Walker is a case worker at the shelter on the 3 to 11 p.m. shift.
The city has issued its first cold weather alert of the season and Walker has the Weather Network’s website up on his computer screen.
By 7 p.m., it’s -12 C with a -20 wind chill and the shelter is already over capacity.
They’ll be throwing down mats in a spare room to handle an overflow crowd and the three shelters in the city will be in constant contact with each other to co-ordinate available spaces.
At 7:20 p.m., a man comes to the front window, saying he needs a place for the night.
“Where have you been staying?” Walker asks. “Nowhere,” the man responds.
“The common thing,” Walker said after he buzzed the man in, “is they all don’t have a place but after that, the stories change drastically.”
The evenings have a steady rhythm to them. At 6 p.m., the dorm rooms are unlocked. At 8 p.m., the dining room is opened up for a snack of sandwiches, doughnuts, muffins and coffee, and then bed checks are at 10 p.m.
During a cold weather alert, Walker will leave the dining room open until 11 p.m., so the residents have a place to hang out. On those cold nights, Walker said, they’ll get some clients who normally won’t stay in a shelter and they get restless being inside.
From 9 p.m. until the end of his shift, Walker and one other staff member will be responsible for watching over as many as 64 residents.
They try to make sure residents aren’t so inebriated or high that they hurt themselves. They rely on the other residents to give them a head’s up.
“You take on the weight of 54 people with some serious issues in the life,” Walker said.
No one grows up with the dream of spending Christmas as the resident of a shelter.
As a recovering addict, Sheppard knows how tough holidays can be.
“When you’re an addict, you’re never invited for family Christmases, Thanksgivings, birthdays, Easter,” he said. “When you get better, you understand why.
“When you lose that, you really appreciate it when you get it back,” he said.
On Christmas Day, Sheppard will be at the men’s shelter.
He’s not scheduled to work, but he’ll be there nonetheless, handing out Christmas presents to the clients.
“Total giveback, man,” he said.