Half a dozen people, slumped over chairs and tables, slept in the front foyer of the Rock Bay Landing shelter — its 84 beds full with the city’s homeless before dawn Tuesday. Around the corner, about 25 people — mostly men — rubbed their hands together in the cold air under a covered loading dock on David Street.
They waited for Rev. Al Tysick to pull up in his Dandelion Society minivan, loaded with two big coffee carafes, boxes of doughnuts and muffins, gloves, scarves, tuques and one cigarette for each person.
“They’re how I keep count of people,” Tysick said, adding a smoke can save the day for someone who has spent a terrible night on the streets and help them open up. “Really, I’m not here to feed people. I do this to see people, to see what they most need.”
Tysick’s ground-zero outreach is a good place to start as the sixth Homelessness Action Week campaign kicks off. The Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness will host events and projects, while service providers are opening their doors for public tours. The campaign helps citizens get to know their most vulnerable neighbours and the organizations that serve them.
One man told Tysick he had been kicked out of the shelters and needed a tent. Another said his wife was in hospital and wanted a visit, a young carver was in need of a piece of soapstone, a man’s dog was impounded again and many could have used a sleeping bag, fresh pair of socks and winter clothes.
“I’ve been on the streets a long time. I just can’t quit this addiction,” said Ryan Williams, 36. He excelled as a child at Sir James Douglas School but got into trouble in his teens. He said heroin was his undoing. “I could’ve been the world’s greatest genius.”
On the steps of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church at Harris Green, Daniel Foerter, 41, said he was determined kick his heroin addiction for his fiancée. He’s on a methadone program and just found housing after years on the streets. He said the city should try to lower the program’s waiting times.
“There should be more access. All anyone’s going to do waiting five weeks is more shoplifting and [break and enters] to feed their addiction,” he said, as another 20 or so people gathered for a coffee and snack.
On Fort Street, a young man with his belongings in a shopping cart gave his face a wash with water from a milk jug. He took a coffee and muffin and said, “Bless you all,” offering just one of the appreciative smiles among the 80 or so served that morning.
