Give Me Shelter: The Story of the Cannon Street Warming Center

[Music] homelessness has many faces many contributors and many ripple effects domestic violence mental illness drugs job loss and eviction felony trust the name of you and while there's no single cause of homelessness there are two common denominators the first is a loss of community like family and friends that's left the person abandoned and alone with no one to turn to the second is deep personal trauma that's left them wounded and vulnerable at the end of the day people experiencing homelessness in our community are asking us two basic questions are you going to be the next group to break trust and abandon me or are you going to build trust and help me find community and are you going to add to my trauma or what are you going to help me heal they need our help and our fearless compassion they can't do it themselves if they could they wouldn't be in a warming Center or standing under an overpass in a snowstorm and no one no one deserves to die cold and alone on the streets of our community we're better than that and that's what this documentary is all about this was the only pace for me to go to after living in a hotel in a car after my grandmother's in law's um kicked us out of the house and we had no other place to go and we went from here to Catholic Charities where because that first you ended up in the hospital from here and then we went to Catholic Charities where they had us on mats and then she ended up back in the hospital that same night extremely extremely sick and I ended up paying here and they have been so very nice to me and one of us is here help me get into the place so we're moving tomorrow into a place and I just want to thank this whole entire team for looking out for me when nobody else would what makes the Candice Street warming Center unique is that it's a low barrier shelter that accepts anyone regardless of their level of need a low barrier shelter serves this most vulnerable population as a backstop when everything else has failed and when everyone else has given up and when the chronically homeless have lost hope and have nowhere else to go to restart their journey back to stability if you and I question the need for such a low barrier shelter then Mariah Hodges should erase all of our doubts my name is Mariah I'm a recovering alcoholic and addict I've been seeing here for a little over a month about six weeks um been sober since they picked me up off the doorstep and so it's a month off of meth and a year and a half off of alcohol and we would do a fire there's no real recovery from a fire when you lose everything we don't have friends or family out here so we ended up showing up here and I'll never forget that night and some great crew members were working and they had us come in they got a 70 to eat drink and he they've done everything but find clothes that are just extremely comfortable due to the recovery I spent about two months in Seattle and when we came back we had nowhere to go unfortunately there's very limited resources for a situation as far as housing or anything like that it's just we have to get on our feet first and that's limited here the center is it's warm its kind my stuff is protected I can leave it here when we look for jobs grocery shopping everybody is interested in the well-being and the welfare they're helping us find the resources out there for housing we tried snap they've helped me go through snap I'm they took me to DSHS so I could apply for the abd in ten and now the staff is currently working on trying to found housing that will work with the situation I mean while I'm currently applying for disability since I did lose mobility in my hand now everybody fits a typical house homeless you know stereotypical where they're doing drugs or anything like that we're really struggling if you don't have a home phone or an address nobody will hire you you have to do everything online so you may go to the library and apply for a job but if you don't have a current home like a home address or phone they have no way to contact you but they provide the address we can get mail here so therefore when we order our IDs or our food stamp paperwork or anything we'll come here and it's safe they'll find us and get to know us individually they get to know us personally greet us everyday find out how we're doing if it wasn't for them I really I mean it's really cold out here and I really don't think I'd be making it so other places they have diseases and just up with my immune system I have to be super healthy and they provide that I just got my first paycheck and open up a savings account and I'm on my way to saving for a vehicle and please it feels amazing I'm so glad these people gave me a chance it was really good I haven't worked in like a year so my recovery is coming along great and instead of being in a hotel room I'm here staying clean and sober and get ready to enjoy this party thank you [Applause] the swarming Center is important because it changes the lives of people every single day these people come to us with no motivation to continue getting through their own struggles to better their life and when they find out that they're not alone because they have somewhere to go and people who genuinely care about them suddenly they spark a new motivation to get through their trauma and find help and resources and move forward with their life so many people I think a hundred people a night that are being housed here out of the cold they've been given food there be given shelter and compassion most of all it's just important to know that really you're maybe one crappy situation away from being here yourself and so anything that I can do to help I'm here to do when I was small I was probably ten or twelve my mom was a sign language interpreter and she would make us sign only during like dinners or just at home in general I had no idea that he was deaf I woke him up about six or seven times and then he woke up a little angry and then everybody told me he was deaf and I have respected that ever since but I also make a point to go and tell him wake him when lunch and dinner is being served our breakfast because he can't hear that he can't hear the announcements that we make he doesn't know he's supposed to wake up and go outside [Music] historically the difference between a homeless shelter and a low barrier warming Center has been the difference between full service for those who qualify for a traditional shelter and minimal services for those who don't shelters offer beds and meals along with requirements for people wanting to stay and programs to help residents move forward warming centers on the other hand represent an exercise in minimalism a twelve-hour shelter that puts people on floor mats of night and requires them to leave by 7:00 a.m. the next morning spending the rest of their day wandering the streets of the city in the winter of 2018-2019 the city of Spokane was confronted with a choice between having homeless camps on the sidewalk in front of City Hall or opening a low barrier warming Center for people living on the street who couldn't meet the requirements for staying at a local shelter many of the chronic street homeless have been banned from local shelters for reasons such as substance abuse mental conditions bad behavior or acute physical or medical issues which the shelters are unequipped to handle a recent article in The Spokesman Review newspaper framed the question Spokane City leaders asked when shelter isn't an option where to the homeless turn I first met the answer to that question on a January evening in 2019 in a warming center where my film crew and I were filming the annual point in time count it was my first encounter with this force of nature named Julie Garcia my daughter's a heroin addict so she's out here sometimes she's sober sometimes she's not currently she's sober for about 30 days now but this is where she lives this is what she does I spend my days binding her and these guys help me you know if they see her they call me I come get her she's 23 I raised my three-year-old granddaughter so I know what this life is I know what these guys struggle with I know addiction and mental health what problems they have in the community you know what resources aren't available fast forward 10 months Julie Garcia had gone from being a volunteer feeding and warming center and a mom searching for her homeless and drug-addicted daughter to the director of a nonprofit chosen by the city of Spokane to operate a low barrier warming Center in the very building where I had met her 10 months earlier I've been followed Julie's journey during the 10 months since we first married I wanted to be present for opening day hitting the warming center open had been a battle and the stress of the preceding weeks was evident in the face I'd come to know it's been a long road to here but so worth it to be able to bring these guys in tonight and have them come into this place not any other place just this place tonight and be able to show them a sense of community and give them care and let them be able to sleep on a bed and get a good night's sleep for once in a really long long time I don't want you infecting folks Haley she has pneumonia don't wake her up having known Julie Garcia for about a year I already knew she was a force of executive but I had no idea what of course she really was until I followed her around yeah reduce fare and that would be amazing for even us nonprofits you have to buy this border miss Julie how are you brother you want that cinnamon oh I heard these are our only ad a accessible beds at six down here on the bottom because we don't have a ramp my leg purse I'm making it a thing remember diamond is coming in tonight if he passes you have to go and test them tomorrow and then let's get him on some ships what else you want two of those a tan B really you had to get both blues yeah these are all hair dye but they're used she's sleeping pretty good said well we could do the whole laundry area for $12,000 and it would save the city and unbelievable amount of money I'm happier here thank you brother three months after the November opening Julie's passion and drive had transformed a villain center into her vision of a safe trusting and healing community bringing Shalom to people who have experienced very little peace in their lives I wanted to know how she managed to go from being a mom and a volunteer handing out sandwiches believing a nonprofit and running a homeless woman well it's just been it's so different you when you're out on the outreach on the street it's you see people for short periods of time you know you can come back and you can know their story but when you do this we're actually living together that's a big learning curve for all of us we are that things that we aren't aware of that we never knew and trying to change with that as we go we've never run a shelter I've never been an employer before but Julie didn't let her lack of experience stop her and her growing list of successes clearly demonstrates impressive intuitive abilities and leadership gifts not to mention a deep personal reservoir of compassion toward those in need there's nothing like a road trip to start a conversation so on the supplied trips to pick up food Julie opened up about why she fights so passionately for the invisible among us why she pours her heart and soul into what can only be described as their last resort like low barrier shelters are important because if you are currently using you have now limited the places you can go for the night if you are currently using and in crisis you've narrowed that down to about two when then you take into consideration barriers like men and women gender anything like that you're limiting places all together that's why low barrier is important that's what we see on a regular basis is the people that have been banned or kicked out from everywhere else this truly is the last place that they can go for the night and I just really for my own personal self believe the punishment for not adhering to the rules can't be deaf that's not appropriate for me to determine so we let people in in whatever condition they're in because tonight may be the night that they overdose or tonight may be the night that they freeze to death they don't have a support system somebody that they can come to and just pour out their problems to somebody I can't help everybody's situation I'm not a counselor but I can listen to what they have to say and when they trust me I they trust me enough to send them out to resources I know we'll help them and they'll they'll take your advice at that point for the most part you can walk up to a random person on the street and say well your addictions got a little out of control at this point you know and they're gonna tell you definitely but if you have a relationship built you can say man I really see the decline happening right now is there something that we can do to help you you know can we get you in touch with somebody who is willing to speak with you but that's the first step to getting them comfortable with the resource that we're providing for them I don't get paid or do this for telling people how to live their life I can only be the example and show a different way to do things and offer them hope that's really all I have to offer them at this point is hope that there's better someday we still believe in you you haven't lost your worth you're still worthy of all of the things that everybody else is worthy of and you just lost your way for a little while that happens to all of us after watching warming centers come and go over the years in Spokane and then spending extended time at the chemistry warming Center I've come to a conclusion does the secret to a successful and low barrier warming center isn't the building the location or the public policy but the person the secret to a successful low barrier warming Center is someone at the helm who's driven by fearless compassionate an unshakable vision dogged determination and a genuine unconditional love for struggling people whom the rest of society has written off as either unredeemable or disposable Robert F Kennedy once said some men see things as they are and as part I dream of things that never were and ask why not to operate a truly successful warming center they have to be someone who dreams of things that never work and who's willing to pay the price or pursuing the dream [Music] I have a drive and a passion for this I have I'm a certified recovery coach from C car and that's it that's in between chemical dependency counselor and the sponsor from a 12-step program I've worked at Boys Ranch for troubled youth which I've learned a lot from that and I just have a lot of human compassion and I'm a recovering drug addict with almost six years clean that works and I work out myself every single day that's what I have to do to be able to be there [Music] ever wonder what it takes to operate a low barrier homeless shelter on a daily basis like your house and family a shelter has a daily life cycle and routine and Canada's no exception routine is the rhythm of live in your house and routine is the rhythm of life in a homeless shelter especially one which runs 24/7 welcome to a day in the life of the Kansas tree warm soon the place 90 men and women call home this is the rhythm of their life we are a night by night stay by stay place where low barriers so anybody in any condition can come same as hoc the city actually considers house of charity a warming Center as well because they are night by night they don't save beds and people can check in and check out hi buddy hi have you stayed with us before no what's your name okay alright so I'm gonna walk you through our rules no drugs no alcohol no weapons of any kind you understand you may be using it please don't do it on the premises okay we do serve dinner our capacity is a total of 98 people in this building including all of staff we've lowered our staff down to the minimum amount we can have so that increases the number of beds which is 93 actual beds that we have every night we have a waitlist from about 10 to 12 people that will stand outside hoping to get in sometime in the night whether or not somebody gets up and leaves or somebody can't maintain themselves through the night and gets kicked out those guys are here waiting for a bed and we bus everybody to different centers city gate for our women hoc we have truth and ugm so we bus to all four of those places some people that usually stay are the people that are banned from all of those places and just waiting for a bed so they start their day at 7:00 with lights on at 7:30 they go outside the we do serve coffee outside at that time but they are forced to stay out there until we're done cleaning disinfect everything spray everything Beach everything change the linen sweep mop disinfect all the water stations hopefully we get them back in within 40 minutes usually you know that that's our goal yesterday days before we get it in like 30 so it was like super exciting because it's cold out there then they come back in they have breakfast about 8:30 people come in and out throughout the day lunch is served at noon at 2:00 everybody goes back outside gathers all their things together stands in line until we clean and do check-in again where they can check into a bed and then the rest of the evening they will be on that bed a day in the life of the chemistry warming center is filled with a steady stream of non-stop activity all designed to meet the practical needs and to protect the safety of the residents who call the shelter home we change all of the bed linen twice a day so we change from night linen to daelin and we put the white sheets over the top of our mattresses so that people can lay down wherever there's no assigned bed so anyone can lay down wherever they want but we do an amazing amount of laundry every day so this would be more effective if we had a laundry facility here otherwise we're spending about twelve thousand dollars a month to do laundry this is one laundry from overnight so Judy's closet came out today they pick up donations of clothing all week long and then they come in bring it to our guests hand it out and have conversations that I want donations and they delivered them to my house and quickly yeah big need for clothing and Judy helps us here but she also does street outreach too so people out on the street they know who she is and they know where to come for help so cleaning it's super important out here because people are spitting and but we all sleep on the same bed so anything they get on their shoes they're bringing in any kind of germs so he just comes through about once or twice a week and he'll power wash with bleach everything out here that way it's clean and sanitary as clean and sanitary as we can make the outside anyway we don't let them bring in any bedding any pillows blankets nothing like that just to keep bedbugs down to a minimum so we'll give them blankets we have sheets but their bedding needs to be bagged outside and then we have a company that comes in and it heat treats both of those units so that when they get it back it's if they did have bed bugs or body lice anything that we see on a regular basis hopefully it's gone so 25 of our 31 employees all have lived experience they're all people with barriers to employment that normally wouldn't be able to access a job like this so what we did was lowered our employment barriers we now have two main ones one is that you're not currently using and that you have no crimes against the person so any kind of violent crime against another human is something that will disqualify for you from working with any vulnerable population so we've used that as one of our barriers other than that we do reserve the right to drug test at any time we actually have five random drug tests tomorrow we are patient employers so we're able to teach people who have not been in the workforce for a really long time we're able to be patient and have time to teach them how to interact with not only our guests but other staff so that when they're done with their employment here whether it's because we closed or they've decided to move on to something else they have something to put on their resume some kind of experience and they're employable at the time that they leave us this is my good friend Bob peeler he is the snap outreach worker he comes into our Center on a regular basis to talk with our clients and help them find housing here at Cannon we've had 18 people now I guess they count as two so 20 20 people receive housing in the three months that we have been open today we're going to get housing for a grandmother and her disabled granddaughter and bob has worked very hard to arrange housing for them a partnership Cathy Carey's going to pay a full deposit yeah we're paying the prorated rent you're paying appropriate yeah so that they can move in tomorrow I see a lot of people here that need to be inside because there's a vulnerability because of the illness because of their social anxiety this lesson that if you being in the camp and the grandmother and granddaughter really need more care than we can provide here this is not the best place for them but it is their only place at the moment it's a safest place for them to be that's amazing about the 20 bit more than half percent Nega see rate so when a unit was available there's more people applying for it you can throw money at it but you can't get them out we can't get we're going down we're going to Costco Costco donates to us on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning they give us all of their bread that's about to be expired so we get bread rolls and desserts twice a week from pump our goal is to use repurposed food for everything that way we can cut our food costs down the average cost for food and mills in the United States is 435 per person per day and we've using repurposed food cut our budget down to one dollar per person for three meals a day so that's a big difference for us and for the taxpayers who fund us we give them the name of our nonprofit and they have our cart ready to go we battle with the church ladies on Sunday because we have to split our donations so we try to get here before them so we can split it equally [Music] I understand if they have some help their lives could be vastly different you need to look at each one because it's not a one-size-fits-all story you need to build capacity but we need to provide services to help the people who want to move on to the next step in their life so I'm thankful they're here the people are thankful they're here and really the city of Spokane should be thankful they're here because really without this center or other warming centers our city is not the city I really believe as a city we have the capacity to do better we just have to get together and do it we're doing something down here that hasn't been done before people might have tried it but it never worked for because they didn't have the heart for it they didn't they didn't have to understand in a traditional low-barrier warming center normally sets a very low bar for measuring success perhaps nothing more than the number of people sleeping on mats every night the higher the number the greater the success but the Kansas Street warming Center under drools helping hands raised that bar measuring their success by such tangible metrics as the number of homeless guests who found jobs the number of people who exited to stable housing the number of guests who moved from addiction to sobriety and the number of community partners who stepped up to provide such things as feed or clothes but cannon also had a more basic and human metric that we can all appreciate welcome to a homeless block party celebrating success sobriety housing employment community and great food my name is diamonds Oh I've been working here for about two weeks now I've been clean for about three weeks I'm I've been homeless for about two years and the innovating is used in my use user meth and heroin I'm just trying to get up on my feet man I want some responsibility I want to be independent and I want to get up off these streets and Jules has helped me do that Thank You Jules I'm Brandis and I've been an addict alcoholic for most it says by eleven twenty five now so it's been a rough life been homeless for two years I'm tired of that being here is helping me that was stable foundation like to go to my IOP and work my program keep doing that Ambree um I've been using drugs and alcohol on and off from age 14 up until two and a half months ago I was homeless from 16 up until January of this year I was in recovery prior to that I went to the hospital because of my drinking and drug use and that didn't stop me obviously but after I started working here and I met everybody I'm gonna cry my life changed and it was you guys and I love you guys a lot days like today are amazing to me they are the best days of the world we have music playing we have people dancing there's people smiling and laughing this is the the community that we were always trying to create when we did outreach which is why we bring the showers we would bring food and we would bring music because if you can provide food and music it's like a backyard picnic with your family and that's that's the community that I'm deal right now is everybody just it's a big family right now everybody's having a good time everybody's dancing and smiling it makes my heart happy but we didn't know how a sense of community we could build with this many people we built it out on the street in relationship but watching it happen here it proves to us what we do work and that love is always answered we we were worried about being able to create community it was it going to work we know it works but how do we do it how do we implement it and watching it happen this is just an example of emotion people caring about each other wanting to talk to each other hang out together no one's fighting no one's arguing it's just people together and they feel like a family and that's what they are is one big family one big support system this is what community and success for the residents of Hanlon look like on the eve before life changed for all of them and especially for the homeless community I had owed Dean three times in April and it was either to time to change or quit living that's how I felt so I got in a drug court and really tried to stay clean and actually succeeded this time I'm a 13 year heroin and meth IV user I've been to nine different treatments and I thought it was impossible to get clean I'd given up on the thought of getting clean and since I've started working here the chemistry warm and center my life has definitely changed tremendously I get to come in and help people in the position that I used to be in and I thought I would remain in forever I've worked myself out of the despair and the nightmare that I was stuck in for years [Music] you injected to get the fever after that any coffee anything else going on you definitely got a fever the other thing is could you have coronavirus okay I want to put this on your finger okay to get you sense of your pulse and how good your oxygen is doing okay what's your name in Georgia it may be kind of fever it may not be your heart rates going really fast 133 I see your hands you just had fevers since yesterday he said [Music] yeah do you have any pains in your joints any muscle aches yeah those are all things that are pretty concerning for having coronavirus so name's dr. Luis Rodriguez a family physician helping set up the street medicine team with AJ Chas WCC College of Medicine and the Regional Health District tools helping hands here basically we're reaching out to check in on people who wouldn't otherwise be seen who wouldn't otherwise receive care because of for whatever reason they don't want to go in to be seen they're suspicious of the healthcare system or their you know I've been discharged from the healthcare system while we were filming this documentary the corona virus pandemic hit the news and life quickly changed for all of us including the homeless community and shelters like him we interviewed Julie Garcia roughly ten days before the state of Washington issued a statewide shelter-in-place order but the shelter was already making changes to distance and isolate guests so this is basically what we call coronavirus triage we have people coming in every day when they walk through the door they fill out a form we assess them we take their temperature their Oh two stats we find out if they have a fever or a cough a rash anything that we should be concerned with and then we decide whether or not they can go into our regular population or into our quarantine area if they're in our quarantine area it just means we're watching them and if we have to send them out we will we're gonna put tents inside of the tents that's our plan for tonight we had 129 people checked in last night there's 129 checked in for our day services tonight we're expecting they're gonna close down the sta Plaza lobby and they're releasing people from jail that's all people that don't have places to go tonight I can expect that they're all going to show up here and we're going to need to find shelter beds available we're disinfecting four or five times a day we're sending people out we're feeding people outside where it's sunny out our day to day routine has been turned upside down because we have to have our beds six feet apart our mat six feet apart and the people sleeping head foot which means we had to eliminate our mat and set tents up outside with the six feet away rule to deal with all this we're still at capacity more so it's it's chaos right now it's chaos and it's kind of stressful we were also present when representatives from the Spokane Regional Health District visited the shelter to check on procedures and to offer advice on how best to keep everyone safe we're working on trying to ensure that we have more protection for the the homeless by ensuring that there's more spacing you know and less crowding in the shelters and part of what needs to happen with that is we're working with the city to find other sites that we can open up you know to increase capacity so that we're minimizing you know the the crowding of people in shelters and that will minimize the risk of transmission occurring or outbreaks occurring in a shelter setting they like the tents outside because it is when and if we get cases that will be the best place to quarantine them where it's in open air the weather is holding up nicely I looked at the 15 day forecast it looks like we're in the 50s still getting down into the 20s at night but not something that we can't maintain with blankets and heaters a social distancing began to take hold it quickly became apparent that more shelter space would be needed the city opened up the first floor of the downtown Public Library for additional bed space and social distancing but this also highlighted a long-standing fracture in the shelter system our city has never had adequate available shelter beds to accommodate the need during normal times makeshift tent camps outside of the Cannon Street warming Center early in this crisis gave visible tangible evidence of this long-standing fracture in the shelter system the fragile shalom of the homeless community and the shelters that serve them was quickly shattered by this crisis perhaps when this crisis is over you and I may discover that the great pandemic of 2020 was a test not only of our medical system but of our faith and compassion as a community toward those who most need our faith and compassion to lean on in difficult time little did we know at the time that the fractured salom of the homeless community was about to get worse I think what separates cannon from the other centers and typically is that we build more of a stronger sense of community here we work one-on-one we build relationships and friendships with our residents guests I think it's important that we stay because we've kind of built a foundation for these people and consistency and relationships and I think that it's very important for us to remain consistent with them so we can better their lives low-barrier is important because we have to build independence for these people and we have to allow them to building to make their own choices for the good of their lives when we start enforcing implementing rules that they don't want to follow they will choose other lifestyles and we've proven here that giving people the ability to make the right choices nine times out of ten they do that okay so I'm gonna try not to cry through this with you guys but we are closing the library in Cannon tomorrow both are gonna be closed no we have no beds for the hundred and ten guests that we have here the city's contract with Jules helping hands to operate the chemistry warming center had always been scheduled to end at midnight on Thursday April 30th because of the governor's state wide coronavirus stay at home order expectations were that the contract would be temporarily extended but on Wednesday April the 29th the city of Spokane informed Jules helping hands that their contract would not be extended and that the city plan to close the shelter for renovations 110 residents would be displaced with nowhere to go after all and was the shelter nobody wanted and allowing it to end with the expiration the contract seems like a simple solution we were present that evening when Julie announced the shelter closing to the staff and residents I want to tell you what you guys have managed to do for the last six months for six months the people that the city said couldn't do anything ran to shelters you guys kicked ass you've made it happen and you worked hard we didn't have any more problems than any other shelters had we had no major incidents and nobody died in our six months with that being said you guys have done amazing things more than I could've ever imagined you guys have stayed sober you guys have stayed consistent you guys have built relationships and these guys love depend and count on all of you Thursday morning in the absence of any communication or a plan from the city jewels helping hands arrange individual tents for all the residents who had nowhere else to go an attendant campement began to form in nearby coeur d'alene park behind the scenes and out of sight of news cameras homeless advocates were at work trying to make a difference and to save a hundred and ten shelter beds at that point the city had not communicated with the operators of the warming center they hadn't communicated with the people staying at the warming center or anybody in the community about any plans I was contacted by an attorney from Olympia who said that that that warming center was a facility that was covered under the governor's Proclamation and that they would be looking into it and we are thankful that we have a governor that thought of people who are experiencing homelessness and knew that they are just as vulnerable if not more from this deadly virus of spreading amongst us in our state that that that everybody needed to be protected so OnPoint over the last three years what we've seen is unpreparedness by the city they closed warming centers they don't open them on time it's all just a lack of preparation and a lack of feeling that these people are important and jewels helping hands and operating Cannon Street showed there's a better way to do it that's why in particular they should be one of the operators of warming centers in our community people deserve respect and human dignity at 1:00 p.m. on Thursday the city contacted another nonprofit and announced hastily made plans for the shelter to remain open but under a different operator residents were allowed to return to the Kansas Street Center Thursday night which is where we caught up with Julie Garcia to get her thoughts on the day's twists and turns I'm tired Maurice fighting with the city should not happen during city contracts all that needed to be done was an email explaining this is what happens here's the time need to leave here's when you can get your things no people can't be at this address we we dress this with the city last night we asked specifically where do we take 110 people or where do we tell them to go and they told us they did not have a plan yet what are we supposed to do at that point just sit here and hope that they have somewhere to sleep tonight we have to act so we purchased tents the city said that we are in violation of our contract because we didn't stay and keep everybody here until 11:59 and then kick them out all we do is serve homeless people where they're at we don't ask for anything more than that give us the space to serve people that need us and these guys need us when you're standing in front of 60 police and people are yelling we want to go home with Jules it breaks my heart to hear that because I know that tomorrow I'm not gonna be there for them but I will always be out on the street with them seven nights a week I will wander around and feed them but people don't understand when you build connections this is their family and this is their home they live it by 27 self canada and this is where they belong right now it's where they feel safe it's where they have support we're here to make sure that no matter who you are no matter your circumstance no matter your situation I can agree with you or I don't have to agree with you but I'm gonna welcome you in I'm gonna give you a bed and you're gonna be safe tonight and that's all I care about [Music] we began this documentary by reflecting on the two common denominators of homelessness loss of community resulting in broken trust and abandoned in deep personal trauma perhaps the worst most long-lasting impact of the city's actions surrounding the closing of camp was the reinforcement of those two common denominators once again the homeless experienced a loss of community broken trust in a sense of abandon and in the process already traumatized individuals were needlessly traumatized again by those responsible for implementing homeless policy in the city with time to process these events were faced with the painful truth that when it comes to those experiencing homelessness and those who served ins the salom of our community has been broken shattered by people claiming to be in charge of fixing it if Shalom is the way things ought to be and what we've witnessed is not the way things ought to be welcome to what broken Shalom broken trust abandonment control may look like in the homeless community how we as a community will restore broken trust heal the trauma and bring genuine Shalom to the homeless and to ourselves will be the critical question moving forward and each of us will need to be part of the answer [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] but this this is everything right here this is a warm place it's dry it's safe and the staff really do care without this place we have nothing and we need [Music] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: My Road Leads Home

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Length: 49min 57sec (2997 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 02 2020