When Irish eye's are smiling...

...Irish hearts are full of pain.

Brendan was a towering man, in height and girth certainly, but with a personality that was immense. Not a shy wall flower by any means.

Brendan was an infrequent shelter stayer, and most often would arrive early and drunk, and make impassioned (and loud!) speeches outside the door demanding justice, equality, early admission, coffee and a sandwich. Perhaps one of the most pragmatic protesters I have ever met.

One of my first 911 moments in the shelter world involved Brendan, and was in hindsight eerily precognizant.

My shift started at 7pm, the doors opened at 8pm. On a warm August afternoon I arrived at the shelter and started setting up for the evening. About 30 minutes into the shift Brendan made his presence known. A diatribe ensued when I told him that he was 30 minutes early, but delivered with great style.

10 minutes on I hear a knock at the door. Brendan is now prostrated on the road outside the shelter door, and a crowd has gathered around him. Lights! Camera! Action! I leap into action and he tells me that he is having a heart attack, and he certainly looked like I thought someone having a heart attack should look. I go back inside, call 911, grab some gloves and towels and a blanket and head back outside. What medical knowledge I drew on to decide that towels and a blanket had any utility in treating a heart attack I cannot say.

In 10 minutes the ambulance arrives. By this time Brendan is unconcious and breathing is shallow and rapid. The ambulance crew approach with caution (deserted alley, large collection of assorted rough looking characters, darkening sky, can't say I blame them). As they approach I am concerned that they don't look concerned enough.

The lead paramedic walks over to us, stands at Brendan's head, and taps his shoulder with a double boot tap.

"Didn't we pick you up yesterday at the Princess Gate?" he says.

From my vantage point at Brendan's side I see one eye cautiously open and size up the paramedic. Deciding that a graceful exit was required, Brendan regained consciousness and normal breathing with alacrity. Cheerfully thanking the paramedics for their help, he stood up gathered his belongings and headed in to the shelter that was now open early to try and clear the crowds. To say I was mortified would be an understatement.

What I learned though was that how we assign value to things, and what lengths we will go to attain that value, are very subjective. For Brendan, the effort he put in to get the shelter open by 10 minutes had value.

Brendan provided many more memorable moments right up until his death. He died one cold fall day as he lay in the street waiting for an ambulance. Turns out Brendan had a poor memory for routes, and often would walk to places from which he couldn't find his way back to downtown. One of his strategies at this time was to fake a heart attack and then he was able to find his way back to the shelters from all the downtown hospitals. Engaged in this strategy, and with the ambulance only blocks away, a taxi cab ran him over and he died before he could get help. A modern day boy who cried wolf.

Willy the Greater - Hero to Zero in 30 seconds

I grew up in England in the late '60's and early '70's. As a child one of my favourite shows was a puppet show on the BBC called "The Wombels of Wimbeldon". When I first met Willy the Greater, it was like seeing a wombel come to life.

Why Willy the Greater? Mostly to distinguish him from wee willy, but also because he was definitely a legend in his own mind. Willy was totally old school, one of the last of the post-war homeless men who filled the shelters still when I started but who are now mostly gone.

Willy had a crew, and in the hour before the shelter opened I could stand on the second floor and look out the window to get a bird's eye view of the complex interactions between him and his followers. For a long time I thought that his reign would outlast me. I was wrong.

Working a day shift one, day in the summer of 1994 one of Willy's minions came into the office and said Willy needed help. I went over to the bus stop at Queen and River

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and found Willy slumped on a bench in the TTC shelter outside the bank. His crew were gathered round, uncertain what to do in a suddenly leaderless world. Like the Death of Nelson, the moment seemed frozen in time, a moment of transition that held us all spellbound and frozen momentarily in time.

Willy was large in personality, spirit and body. If you have ever tried to move a completely limp body you will know how anti-easy it is to lift a body from prone to standing without the bodies cooperation. We got him up and carried him back to the steps of Dixon Hall, were the ambulance was just arriving. A flurry of activity and then Willy was gone to the hospital.

Willy's crew was lost, a crew without a captain is one of life's great tragedies. For the next few weeks I watched the crew from my second floor vantage point, a formally complex set of interactions and negotiations replaced with a despondence and apathy that seemed ominous.

Turns out Willy had a heart attack. Released from hospital he showed up one day about 20 pounds lighter and 20 years older. At first, seeing an unfamiliar shape moving slowly down the street I didn't even recognize him. When he got to his former court (a stump of log under a tree) it was like he had a weight lifted off his shoulders. He was alive, he was back, he was ready to resume his leadership. He was wrong.

From the day he returned from the hospital Willy was alone until his death. As though his crew knew he was too weak to lead them, and having had the weeks to adjust to the new reality, they had moved on.

Day after day I watched him struggle to regain his former glory, and every day it was like you could see a part of him slipping away. In time he faded into the background, no longer the larger than life figure he had been he became one more aging dying shambling shadow amongst a rag tag band of shadows.

I have never seen a ghost, but I have seen a person pass into death in a moment, though it took a long time afterwards to die.

Day ? - Death and taxes

Been a lot of death lately amongst the folks I new and know.

As an aging knuckle-dragger in the homeless wars, I am amazed watching the next generation deal with the realities and absurdities of their chosen profession, and the amazing grace with which they approach the dying and memory of the dead. I am awed by so many people each day, and shamed to see the flame that burns so bright in them that I have let consume me altogether.

Had to stop writing for awhile. Although many of the experiences I have had are funny stories told now, they brought back a lot of the pain and uncertainties that plagued me at the start of this weird journey I have been on. Wasn't sure if I wanted to go back and relive those moments, so much not to be proud of. But for better or worse, I am heading back into the great void and mean to finish the journey as it began, with hope and humour.

Next stop, the death of Willy the Greater!

Day: -23 Ground Control to Major Tom

I have always thought that any speech about homelessness and shelters cannot get across it impact if you can't share the smell of shelters. It is a weird combination of human and chemical smells, as the toxic cleaning products do battle with the toxic human odours.

Maybe it's just a function of being immersed too long, but I wouldn't describe the smell as bad, but it is definitely unique.

I am thinking this morning about one soul who was very attuned to smells and odours of all types.

Too my shame I can't remember his name, I always new him as the preacher and that is the name that will have to do. The Preacher was a snappy dresser, sort of. He was always wearign at least one suit, and as they deteriorated over time he would add a new layer over the old. At times he could have three complete three piece suits on.

The Preacher was aquaphobic. There was no amount of persuasion, threatening or cajoling that would encourage him to get laundry done or to have a shower. In the months that I new him I don't think I ever saw him freshly scrubbed.

The Preacher and his ilk pose a very special challenge to a shelter worker. On the one hand, your mission is too provide shelter and you are acutely aware of the dangers for clients who sleep outside. On the other hand, in a crowded dormitory the consequences of poor personal hygiene can be dire as there is a peer response that kicks in when staff fail to address an issue. It is easy for the Preacher's to end up with persistent service restrictions due to a behavior over which they have limited control, and when they are far enough off the radar that mental health care will be a long time in coming,if ever.

I decided that the way to address the issue was, too paraphrase, "If you want to be understood, first seek to understand". Every day I would meet the Preacher at the door and we would have very eclectic discussions about his world view. Over the course of a week in a hot summer, as the aroma he carried became more pervasive, we reached a point where things were becoming a bit critical.

In my social work training there was a concept in called the 'demand for work'. After you set the tone for a session, covered the basics of interpersonal conduct and worked through the initial stages of the intervention came the time when you had to put the onus on the client to start the hard work. So with more enthusiasm than sense, more book learning than practical experience, I decided that the time had come.

Meeting the Preacher at the door, I took him aside and had a clear and direct conversation about his hygiene. He was angry at first, but when I steered the conversation to the "why" the problem existed he gave me an insight into what was happening.

The Preacher was not new to mental illness, and was not inexperienced at surviving homelessness. From the late onset of his 'troubles' however he had been almost paralyzed with fright about both experiences. Wearing this suits allowed him to carry the healthy environment he had known with him through these darker days. He described the suits as a space suit of sorts, allowing him to carry an environment with him that allowed him to survive in a hostile space. Big A-HA moment.

Showing to much interest in these explanations about the inexplicable can be hazardous to your health. Seeing that I was interested in his explanation he leaned closer to me, said that it was important to be protected by a safe atmosphere, and pulling back the collar of his shirt, said "See what I mean?"

When I regained consciousness...

So after this experience I had tempered my theory with a little bit of practice. However unusual or bizarre or unfathomable a behaviour is, from the perspective of the person who is exhibiting the behaviour it makes sense. You have to understand why it makes sense before you have a hope in hell of changing it.

The Disney end to this story would be a tale of change and transformation, redemption and hope. The Preacher died not long afterwards, killed by homelessness. The second sad truth I learned was that many times the damage that has been done to a person as they descend into homelessness cannot be undone in time with the resources available at the proverbial sharp end of the stick.

Day: -17 Liar, liar...

In the back of the site the shelter was on was an old warehouse. The whole complex was part of an ancient city works yard, that in its day had still been using draft horses to pull carts. Built around a central square, the North side was the old tables, the West side the warehouse, East was the shelter and South the Gardiner Expressway.

For awhile the warehouse had been used to store relief supplies that were destined for Eastern Europe, once the organizers raised enough cash to cover the shipping costs. Inside were a collection of clothes, beds, mattresses and boxes and boxes of diapers.

One night on my way to work I caught a group of men, one of them a shelter client, heading through a hole in the fence, just North of the shelter entrance. Jimmy was startled to see me, and quickly started explaining the rules of witnessing thefts on progress. I was to pretend I saw nothing, go on my way, it wasn't safe to intervene. Sadly, the big score for the night seemed to be boxes of diapers, an item that I wouldn't have thought had huge black market appeal.

As an aside, I have many Don Quixote-like qualities. Forever tilting at windmills and imaginary enemies is totally in keeping with my approach to life. So rather than let the situation be I told the group that I was calling the police and they had better drop their swag and leave. Thinking nothing more of it I continued on to work.

A few days later this was the news.

The warehouse was totally destroyed along with all its contents. I wouldn't see Jimmy again for nearly three years, and while we never spoke of it I am sure that he had a role in, or knowledge of, the fire.

Day: -13 Not Nice...Lice!

So there comes a time in every shelter worker's life when they have their first run-in with our parasitic little buddy, the common louse.

For me, my first time tragically intersected with the emerging relationship I was in with my future wife.

For weeks we had been battling a major lice outbreak at the shelter. In the process we very nearly caused a mass conflagration that would have definitely made our 15 minutes of fame, in a very bad way. More about that another day.

With terrible fascination, one of out resident sociopath's had pinned a louse to the piano, and was making hourly observations of its vitality. After three days it started to crawl up the pin towards freedom. That's when I knew we were in trouble.

My shift ended at 11PM and on my way home I would stop at my girlfriend's house. We would watch Perry Mason sitting on the couch in her living room after her parents had gone to bed. Once Perry had put the bad guy away I would pack up and go home.

One afternoon, getting ready for a shower before work I was stunned, appalled, dismayed and several other adjectives that end in -ed to discover a lonely louse crawling across my chest. Fortunately, I was a newly minted soldier in the war on lice and knowing exactly what to do I lept into action.

Halfway through the mass sterilization of casa Druce, I realized with horror that the night before was a Perry Mason night. Sure, Deborrah was an understanding and compassionate woman, but this was really going to test the limits of our relationship.

Off I went to the drug store to buy $150 worth of Kwellada, the preferred WMD in the war on lice. The warning label on Kwellada said to be careful not to use it too often as it was known to cause neurological damage. Another days tale will recount a fellow who was living proof of this. With great trepidation I arrive at Deborrah's house and rang the front door bell. What I didn't count on was the door being opened by her Mother, whom I had never met.

An awkward moment.

Thinking things can't get any worse, I decide to put on my game face and tough it out. "Hi" I said, "I'm the guy whose dating your daughter and I have lice, now you do too". Handing over the bag I made a break for it.

Day: -11 Hamburg Henry

Henry was a german ex-patriot who spent many years working on the dock in Hamburg.

Every day he would arrive at the shelter with 3 or 4 plastic buckets, a massive sandwhich of non-descript origin and was always puffing like a steam engine. Henry was convinced that we had worked on the docks together in the 50's (clarification: I was born in 1966 and have never been to Germany).

Henry's day to day routine was a mystery to everyone. His nighttime routine was predictable however. After checking in and getting some food he would make his bed and head straight for the bathroom. For hours he would sit on a chair and sort through the contents of his buckets. Henry did a lot of things in the bathroom, but going to the bathroom wasn't on the list.Henry's prefered method for relief was to pee in a plastic jug. He would fill the jug and then dump it in the sink, rinse everything off, and start the cycle again.

One night, he faithfully followed this routine until a mishap occured. From upstairs we heard yelling and cursing and the sound of thrown furniture.Usually this was the signal that tempers had frayed in the TV room, and so we raced off to intervene. As we tried to get up the stairs to the second floor, there was a mass of people shoving to get to the main floor. Halfway up the stairs we could start to get a sense that this wasn't a usual emergency.

Confession: I like the smell of bleach. A little bleach in a lot of water has a soothing sense of cleanliness for me. The thing about bleach, the really really REALLY important thing, is not too mix it with ammonia. Ammonia and bleach can cause one of several reactions, the following is shamelessly borrowed from here.

Reaction type 1: Ammonia directly reacts with bleach to form hydrazine (N2H4, which, in addition to being extremely poisonous, can burn even in the absence of air! It explodes on contact with rust!

2NH3 + NaOCl -----> N2H4 + NaCl + H2O

Reaction type 2: Bleach hydrolyzes into sodium hydroxide and hypochlorous acid, which in turn decompose into chlorine gas and nascent oxygen (both poisonous). The chlorine gas in turn reacts with the ammonia to form chloramines, also very poisonous.

NaOCl -----> NaOH + HOCl
HOCl ---> HCl + O (monatomic oxygen)
NaOCl + 2HCl -----> Cl2 + NaCl + H2O
2NH3 + Cl2 -------> 2NH2Cl (chloramine)
4NH3 + 2Cl2 ------> 2NHCl2 (dichloramine)
6NH3 + 3Cl2 ------> NCl3 (trichloramine or nitrogen trichloride)

Henry had inadvertently collected an industrial strength bleach bottle as his nightly urinal. Half way through his business, a violent green cloud erupted from the bottle, causing a rapid decompensation in Henry's aim resulting in a liberal sharing of the pee stream with all and sundry. The mix of a deadly chlorine gas cloud and an errant pee stream had caused the panic and stampede for the main floor.

Fortunately there where no casualties. I would like to say that the experience cured Henry of his sanitary mis-demeanor's but sadly that was not the case. What amazed me however was the care and concern that the guys showed for Henry. Sure people were a bit p.o'd at the interruption to the evening show's but mostly they worried for Henry and showed an amazing tenderness and compassion for him. Early on in my shelter career, I was blessed to be witness to that. It was another day of defeated stereotypes held by a naive newbie shelter worker.

Day: -10 Wee Willy's Wipeout

Back in the days before I learned what conferences were really for, I used to think that being chosen to go to one was an indication that your career was really going places. I know better now.

On the morning of my first ever work sponsored conference attendance, I stopped in at the shelter to pick up some promotional material to take with me. As I came in the building, Willy came out of the first floor sleeping area at full steam.

Up to that day, we didn't really get along very well. I never did learn the nickname he gave me, but I am sure it was not complimentary. SO, as he burst through the door to the dorm, I thought he had finally decided to take his animosity to the next level.

With a mighty "Hey-yah!" he lunged forward two steps and then dropped face forward onto the floor. From my new perspective on his situation I could see right away what the problem was. The back of his trench coat was a dark, stick red and there was a trail of blood leading back to the door.

If you've ever been in that type of situation, you know what happens next. If you have never been there I can't begin to do justice to the organized chaos that followed. Suffice to say 9-1-1 was called and first aid was administered.

As I peeled away the blood soaked clothes, I could see that the bleeding was centered on his left buttock. Fortunately he was out cold at this point and so I was able to get his pants to half-mast and expose the wound. He had a 4" cut across his buttock that extended right to the bone. I could see the bone clearly and the muscle was flapping loosely whenever he was moved.

For the next ten minutes I held the two edges of the wound together in a narrow hallway with 50+ other residents passing up and down the stairs to get breakfast. Finally the ambulance arrived, took him under their care and off to the hospital he went.

My best guess is he had a bottle in his back pocket, fell over the night before and the broken glass cut him, but the pressure on the wound when he was sleeping stopped him from bleeding out overnight. The second most likely scenario was a stab from one of his many adversaries.

I scrubbed off the blood and went on to the conference.

Two days later I arrive for my next shift. Third man through the door is Willy. I think I am prepared for our regular nightly routine of expletives and threats as I check him over for any stashed booze. What I wasn't prepared for was a highly emotional Willy throwing his arm over my shoulder and announcing to all and sundry that we were best mates, hey-yah!. Something about that ten minutes with my hands on his ass made a change that lasted the rest of our years together.

Many years later I would learn the secret after a memorable struggle with another old-timer, Joe O.

Day: -8 Willy the Wee Free Man

Terry Pratchett is one of my favourite authors. A satirist, humourist, humanatarian and Knight. Sadly he is also a person living with early onset alzheimers.

One set of characters with a recurring role in his books are the Nac Mac Feegle (aka The Wee Free Men). As a a direct descendant of crazed, blue painted celts I can totally identify with them. Terry describes them as "Glaswegian Smurfs. They drink too much, have watched Braveheart too many times, curse and carry on but are incredibly loyal"

Personally I am a believer in the Nac Mac Feegle having met their leader in exile, one of the first men I got to know well at the Dixon shelter.

Willy was a small-in-stature-but-big-in-impact man. He had a thick Glaswegian accent and when he drank (which was everyday) he would become almost inarticulate and communicate through variations on the theme "hey-yah!"

A small network of close friends, and a willingness to defend them against any slight (real or imagined), and in the same breath put the boots to those friends was a Wee Willy hallmark.

One of Willy's great gifts was the ability to accurately identify you after very brief interactions with a nickname that would sum you up completely. Had I been in a position to do so, I would have hired him as our HR department, he was that good at seeing the real you. Pity the poor bastard whose nickname was "goldilocks" or "yon great goon".

Willy and I didn't hit it off at first. It took a near death experience on his part to bring us together.

Day: -7 The Dixon Years

The 30 St. Lawrence Street shelter was located at, well, 30 St. Lawrence Street. A little tidbit of information that would have made all the difference in my mad search for the place.

In its day, the shelter was like no other place I have known - before or since. It was, to paraphrase Dickens, "The best of places, and the worst of places". In retrospect though, it was an advanced degree in social work that I could not have received at any University.

After a most eventful first day, I would go on to spend 6 years with Dixon Hall, 4 years of that at the shelter.

The cast of 1000's who came through the double front doors would inspire me and terrify me, laugh with me and cry with me. It truly was a place where...

"We the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible.

We have done so much, for so long,with so little,

we are now fully qualified to do anything with nothing at all"

19 years have passed, and I doubt very much my ability to do a linear narrative of my time at 30 St. Lawrence. So, I am going to do a story a day of the place, jumping forward and back through time, until I have finished all the stories of that time and place.

Day: -6 The Pee-ing Bridge

So now I am late for my first day of work, and non-plussed by having been mistaken for a homeless person. Walking East on King Street I pass under a bridge that carries a strong smell of urine.

In the gathering dark I fail to notice the older man standing at the side of the street in mid-stream. Not sure who was more startled, but needless to say surprising a man in the midst of a pee is, well, messy.

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After uttering several curses and struggling his way back to full dress we faced off on the sidewalk. Me in my naive state is unsure what to say, if anything. He in his irate and inebriated state is unsure where to go, if anywhere.

Thinking I have nothing left to lose I ask him of he knows the way to the shelter. Well, say no more brother. Right away he see's I am another person down on his luck in need of some tips and pointers about surviving the mean streets. He takes me under his wing, his slightly damp wing, and says if I help him get home, he'll tell me where the shelter is.

Now I'm thinking "Great, on top of everything else I have found a dirty old man looking for...". With lots of effort, we make it back to his building, the old Dominion Hotel at Queen and Sumach

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Grateful for the help, and without the slightest hint of latent dirty old man-ness, he points the way to the shelter.

Three hours late, and having traveled exactly 575 feet from my starting point, I arrive at the shelter just in time for the end of my shift. But I have learned lots, and as the old proverb says, "The journey of 1000 miles begins with the first step".

Day -5: LOST (No, not that one)

Six months after seeing the presentation by the Jarvis Houses crew, and my solemn vow, I was working in one of the least resourced shelters in the City.

Thinking that I needed to get my feet wet in the social work field in advance of my graduation, I accepted a position with Dixon Hall Neighbourhood Centre as a part-time shelter worker.

First day of a new job, lots of nervousness and apprehension as I approach the address of the building where I thought the shelter was. As many who know me can attest, my enthusiasm is often greater than either my sense of direction or my attention to the small but important details of a task. With instructions to be at the shelter for 6:30pm to start my orientation, I arrived at 58 Sumach Street to find the building deserted and no amount of ringing the doorbell would elicit a response. Strangely enough there was a noticeable absence of people waiting to get in at the 7pm opening time.

By 7:30 I was desperate. First day on the first real social work job and already I am in trouble. I started walking up and down King Street, looking for someone to ask about the shelter. If you know the stretch of King Street from Sumach to Wilkins then you know it is a deserted and barren stretch of street scape, especially as it was in 1991.

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Eventually I ended up on Wilkins Street, a narrow little cul-de-sac West of Sumach on the North side of King. I was knocking on doors hoping that someone on the street would know where the shelter was. Only one person answered the door and it took me longer than was comfortable to explain what I was looking for. Eventually I thought I had made my need clear, and after a moment of puzzled looks my hoped for benefactor seemed to get it.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I don't know what your looking for, but I have some clothes you can have".

Silence.

When I was 4 and living in England I answered the door to our house one day to the postman. "Little girl, is your mother home?"

Silence.

"I am not a girl, I'm a BOY!" Slamming of doors ensued.

Despite my initial intention to repeat the perfomance, I declined his kind offer and went on with my search. Not the last time I would be mistaken for a person who was homeless, but the last time I took offence at it.

Day -4: First Contact

Note to self: Fate can be capricious

In my third year of University the social work faculty hosted a group of men who had just moved into a new building on Jarvis Street. Renovated into a sort of late 20th Century version of the rooming house, the project was all the rage in its day. I remember watching these five guys talking about their lives on the street and thinking to myself that never, under any circumstances, would I work with such a rough and tumble group of clients.

My first year social work practice instructor was Prof. George Bielmeyer, an amazing man who was an inspiration to an entire generation of social work students. Early in our education George gave us two pieces of advice that have stood the test of time:

1) "Social Workers thrive on coffee and cigarettes. Let's face it, you'll never be paid well enough to eat on a regular basis"

2) "Never say you won't do something, you never know where this career will take you"

George told us a story of making a vow in school that he would never work with violent men. Shortly afterwards he got his first job at Seaton House Men's Hostel. Like many of the important lessons I have learned, it took getting burned to learn this one as well.

Day -1

A chronicle of one social worker's journey from despair to hope.

Today marks my 25th year as a social worker. It is also likely the beginning of the last one. After 25 years of identifying myself with the brand and label, I am setting out on a course for greener pastures.

I will be chronicling my journey here. Hopefully in a year I will have marked one of the most important transitions in my life.

The numbering of days I will make clearer later.