A day in the life of a housing worker in St. John’s

Well, imagine if everything you owned, all of your possessions, could fit into this tent. On the windy days and the cold nights, this is where you live. Now, most people, when they see a tent like this in a park or off a path, they turn away. They don't want to know what's inside. But for the people who work within homelessness, this is what they're on the lookout for. These are the people that they want to meet. These are the people they want to help, the people who are living in these tents. and Christine Byrne is one of those people. Can I ask, like we set this tent up as kind of a demonstration and I'm curious can you sort of show me what it is you do? Like imagine if someone were in this tent and you wanted to approach them, what would you do? Like how how close would you walk up to the tent? What would you say can you kind of show me so we always have snacks with us and we usually have hot pots depending on the weather conditions because we try to provide what we can for basic needs so basically you know we wouldn't be this close we would walk in announce ourselves who we are to say we're here you know to see if you need anything would you like you know a snack and if If they answer and just want to be left alone, we would just, okay, that's fine. We respect that and explain that we'll probably eventually be out again to do a check-in. But the majority of times, people that we come up to, we give them a snack, we have a quick chat, try and get as much info as we can and see what supports that they do have or they don't have. We make ourselves known from a distance for safety reasons. We don't want the individual that's in there to, you know, be startled, be scared or anything like that. We ask if we can approach, just to have a chat, see who's in there, see what we can do in the moment. A lot of times they're there, can't get in the shelter system, so then we will approach and give the assistance we can to contact Shelterline. If they don't want to go in shelter, we'll still support them on a regular basis and come back and revisit. What do they tell you about what brought them to be in this situation? The housing crisis, mental health, you know they're not getting the supports that they need. Some people need supportive housing and with the lack of housing right now in our community they tend to slip through the cracks basically and they end up in tents and we are seeing more and more of it and you know individuals are choosing not to go in shelter due to safety reasons and the support is not available in shelters so they feel more safe being out in the woods somewhere or in a parking in a tent yes yeah yeah I guess they have their own space they have their own choices they can leave or come back or move their tent it's it's like they're it's not a home but it's their home at the moment so christine i guess the best case scenario is that you come up to someone who's living in a tent and they're game they they want help they come out and then what do you do considering the escalation right now with people who are homeless and sleeping outside or rough sleeping we're seeing a lot more mental health crisis they're at their lowest point and of course the mental health is not going to get any better. The addictions are not going to get any better if they're out staying in a tent. But if, you know, we can connect them through housing, supportive housing, or get them matched with housing access workers to, you know, just watch them go through and get the wraparound services provided, it's very rewarding. We've seen individuals from at their lowest and we've also seen individuals that we started supporting who are now currently stable in housing. It's all about systems navigation. How difficult is it for you personally? As the frontline worker it is very difficult. I've been in this sector now 22 years and past two years with outreach and it drew me to it because it's it's very hard but you know you we have we lean on each other as a team um sure there's rough days there's gonna be days that i mean with the addictions and stuff um you know there's grief there's a lot of mental health crisis in the moment but we you know we look after each other with also we talk about a lot about self-care um and how you look after yourself. Myself, I, you know, I look at it every day as we go to work. We do what we can in the moment. And, you know, I don't take it home with me. But I've learned to, okay, the next day is another day, but we can go back, start over again, and try and, you know, succeed, right? Some people might look at it and be like, you know, these, these people, they're choosing to be here, there are options, they could be in the shelter. They think, well, if they choose to be there then they choose to be there and dismiss it um what would you say to that right now i mean our shelter system is plugged up is full a lot of times people call the shelter line and you know they can't there's no beds available you're working with this individual who are ready to go into um shelter in the moment and then you know they can't get in shelter because of the the beds are not available right and that's one of the hardest parts of our job because we're trying to get them out of the situation they're in into a warm bed for a night and option is not available for them so you mentioned about paperwork uh this van is not just about helping people get warm giving them snacks you're also helping them get back into the system right yes yep we do um our intake and consent, get them in our system. Then if they require IDs or income tax, which are a lot of barriers to the individuals and could be getting housing or getting funding, we would certainly fill it out and get the paperwork completed for them. What do you think needs to change? We need more affordable housing. We need more supportive housing. The amount that individuals are getting to pay their rent and their amount of like what their income support is, is not enough to pay the rent. Despite all of these challenges, what keeps you coming back every day to do this job? This job is very rewarding when you see people who are at their lowest and then you see them when they're housed and stable. Christine Byrne, thank you so much. Thank you so much.