A Night on the Streets of Ottawa

Ottawa Innercity Ministries (OIM) is a non profit Christian organization devoted to "faithfully embodying Gods love by empowering people who are disadvantaged and homeless to meet their needs and to address and prevent the causes of poverty and homelessness with justice and compassion." Director Ken MacLaren works with dedicated staff people each and every day to engage the disadvantaged on the streets of Ottawa. One way that they do that is to raise the awareness of the social, physical, and emotional issues of the homeless by getting others to see through the eyes of their clients. In addition to asking for street volunteers, OIM holds an event called "One Homeless Night" (OHN). The idea began with 8 year-old David Peter Mainse, son of Reynold and Kathy Mainse who saw a homeless person and was compelled to do something. Within one week of his encounter, he raised over $4000 for three organizations working with Homelessness in his hometown of Hamilton. What came after that was OHN, which is now hosted by many innercity ministry organizations in cities all around North America. The overall vision of OHN is 2-fold: 1. Raise awareness about homelessness in Canada through participation in One Homeless Night and television exposure. 2. Raise funding, through pledges gained by participants and donations by individuals and companies. I had heard about OHN from a youth leader in Kanata. Our church has some who volunteer with OIM and I liked the idea of having young people learning about the issues of the homeless from a very personal level. The result was that 15 of our youth and adults journeyed to downtown Ottawa this past Friday, October 17th to participate in OIM's OHN. We began our time in the Salvation Army church, with Ken and Jason sharing with us some issues of those on the streets of Ottawa. From that time I could tell that those at OIM care deeply about those they minister to. The issues of poverty and those on the streets are complex and difficult to watch at times, but OIM is dedicated to addressing, engaging, and seeking to ease the causes of homelessness. They desire to bring dignity, honor, and blessing to those who are often forgotten in our society. Forgotten even by the church. After our talk, and instructions on street safety, we were sent out onto the streets to walk from 8:15 pm - 12:15 am. Each group (we had three different groups) was given a route to walk, and a scenario to work from (i.e. I was Jason who as 23 years old and on the streets because my parents didn't want me around any longer). We were only able to take with us those things that fit into either a back pack, or a garbage bag, and $1.50 cash. Everyone but Ken brought a back pack so he ended up using a garbage bag. That proved to be a significant thing for him as he felt first hand the feeling of being invisible on the streets of Ottawa. After our time he commented on the fact that people would not move out of the way for him to walk by, but expected him to move out of the way for them. He was genuinely seen as a homeless person. You should ask him about his experiences some time. Now, I can only share from our group's experience. I went out with Hannah, Rachel, and Janine. We walked the wrong way at first (eh Janine). Janine, our person in "charge" didn't read the directions right... BUT, it was all good. She figured it out eventually. She wouldn't let me see the directions AT ALL that night. I was ok with that. : ) As we travelled there were many things we observed. 1. Bank street has many, many restaurants and bars that cater to a certain class of society. 2. The Homeless on the streets are not noticed by many people. 3. Lots of people are walking alone, but glued to their cell phones. 4. There is fear as you walk on the streets of Ottawa. Fear of each other. Fear of making contact with people you don't know. 5. Everyone is going somewhere on a Friday night in Ottawa. The vast majority are looking for a good time. As our group walked, retracing our steps back to our original starting point, Rachel purchased a back of chips with her $1.50. She was hungry. After consuming them, she got very thirsty because of the high salt content. It was then that she realized that maybe the purchase of those chips wasn't the best thing to have done. Now she had no water with which to quench her thirst. We walked to Elgin Street and as we walked we noticed a homeless person sitting on the street. Now, we were told specifically not to engage the homeless, but if they engaged us in conversation we were allowed to dialogue together. That's just what Warren did with us. A jovial older native Canadian. We spent about 20 minutes with him. The conversation covered such things as politics, health care, firefighting up North (what he said his job was), his injured leg that he hoped to have operated on soon, his gift for singing, etc. He struck us all as a very intelligent person. He knew alot about many different things. He had no possessions with him, so we wondered if he owned anything, or was living anywhere. The smell of alcohol was certainly present, as was his brown LCBO bag situated to his right. We ended up giving him some of our change and it was hard to break away from him. What struck me the most were his closing comments to us, and this is not new to me, but hit me once again. He simply thanked us for stopping and taking the time to talk to him. For giving him dignity in a situation in which not many people were doing that. We could have spent our entire 4 hours with him, I think. We moved on, and just 100 feet up the street there was a female aboriginal person sitting on the street. Legs folded in, shoulders slumped over as she sat, face expressionless and eyes focused on the concrete she had made home for the night. There was a small paper cup directly in front of her. We noticed her, but did not engage her as she clearly didn't want to have anyone talking with her. What we noticed though was the fact that, aside from our walking slowly past her and paying her some small homage to her presence on that street, everyone else moved on in life as if she wasn't even there. I didn't see anyone look down, slow down, or stoop down to acknowledge this woman. A stark contrast from Warren and sobering for us to watch. Who knows the story of this woman? The tragedy of her life? Her thoughts, feelings, hopes and dreams. Who knows? We know God knows, but we are his agents here on earth. Let's not forget that. A point not lost on our group. We continued on and Rachel was getting thirstier, so we stopped at a McDonald's and Hannah and Rachel went in and ordered two cups of water. They received them. I thought that if they were really dressed like homeless people, would they actually be served? Not sure. We moved on and eventually sat down at a place where several picnic tables were located. No one around, but a place where any homeless person might stop to rest after walking and walking. We had the time, so we just sat and talked. It helped us to see that many homeless people have time, and they pass it often just sitting around. We moved on and prayed at a couple of places in the downtown area. We stopped at a candy store and Rachel and Hannah went in to look, and to get warm. We walked to the Rideau Mall and found an indoor food court that was closed, but there were people just sitting around, so we stopped too, to rest and warm up. Hannah continued to offer us the back pack full of food she brought along. She would be fine for one night, but if she had to continue this for another day, she would have been out of food and then had to experience life as it really was for those with no home and no income. We noticed many people of different ethnic backgrounds just sitting at tables and socializing there. Interesting to watch. We walked out and continued on around the Byward market. We soon met up with Crazy Dave, as he is known, on a street corner. He's a man who writes poems and was offering them for sale. Hannah wanted to buy one, so we asked how much they were. His response made me chuckle, "Whatever you think they are worth + a $2 gratuity fee!" A man with dignity and respect for himself, and still an entrepreneur. We noticed a book with his picture on it. When asked about it, we discovered it was a book about himself. We weren't sure who published the book, or if he received any of the profits. Curious to say the least. As we made our way back to the church, we continued to walk along Bank street. The night life was still moving fast. We soon passed some blood on the street, and police and an ambulance coming to take care of someone who we think got beaten up in a bar. Once back at the church we reflected for a bit on our experiences. Interesting to hear people's thoughts. My kids were getting VERY tired. At 1 AM we began what is called "In out of the cold". That's when churches open their doors on very cold nights to allow homeless people to sleep so they don't freeze. Boys in the basement, girls upstairs. The rules are simple. Lights go out about 10 minutes after you get downstairs. If anyone talks or disturbs anyone else, you are out on the street again. We all made our ways to our various living quarters and set up our beds on the floors. Let me tell you that I discovered that I have pencil sharp hips on a hard, cold, tile floor. Can't say I slept much that night. We were awoken at 7:00 am and we had 10 minutes to pack up our stuff, and then, we were simply placed back on the street. So ended out One Homeless Night experience. Sure was an eye opener for all of us. Many of us would now go back to our homes, take a hot shower, maybe gets some breakfast and sit down to read the paper or watch some TV and/or do homework. The Homeless............they just keep walking.......... Here are some pics of the night.

The group coming in to begin their evening.

Leaders prepare by getting the route we will travel, while others wait.

Here Sam, Shawn, Makusi, and Megan await instructions. Notice the backpacks. They contain all we will be using for our time on the streets.

Our group takes a short break by some picnic tables. Hannah is getting her grocery back pack full of stuff out for us to share.

That water after the chips. Thanks MacDonald's.

Another stop to rest and warm up. Notice the popcorn and juice....all courtesy of Hannah.

Reading the poem from Crazy Dave.

VERY TIRED after walking for four hours.

Ken's group using their $1.50 at the end of the evening. The Esso clerk thought Ken (Left, back) was actually a homeless person.

Micheal bedding down for the night on the cold, tile floor. No floor mat.

Christopher at the beginning of his sleep time.

Christopher in the morning. He slept ok, but not long enough.

Ken managed to borrow an air mattress. One of the lucky ones. : ) So ends our time with OIM. An experience everyone should be part of at some point. If you want to know more, go to www.crossroads.ca/homeless/contact.php or contact Ottawa Inner City Ministries at http://www.ottawainnercityministries.ca/ or 613-237-6031 or email them at ottawainnercity@rogers.com You'll be stretched and challenged for sure !!