Our free income tax clinic opens today!  If your income is less than $35000 we will file your taxes for free. 
Call Charlene at 204-380-2692 to book a time.

Taxes + Covid = Physical distancing
Because of covid we've got things set up a little differently this year.  We are really encouraging people to make appointments so that we can manage how many people we have in our space at one time.  When you come in for your appointment just let a volunteer know why you are there and they will take you to an area in the back so we can physical distance properly and keep the front end open to those needing to access our food and clothing areas.  We will have masks available for those who need them.
Walk ins will still be accepted if we have the time and space to see you, but it's best to make an appointment so you don't end up having to wait a few hours in the parking lot.

What to bring
When you come to your appointment please bring your

• T4s or T5007 or whatever official statements of income apply to you
• T4A if you collected CERB, CRB, CPP, or withdrew pension or T4RSP if you drew from your RRSPs
• Any official receipts for prescriptions, optometrists or daycare that you paid for out of your own pocket
• Rent reciept
• receipts for money you donated or put into RRSPs
• addresses for all the places you've lived since the last time you filed taxes
• and of course know your SIN

If you haven't filed your taxes in a few years you may have money owing to you.  We do file taxes for previous years so if you need to taxes for a few years back bring along all the paperwork you can find for those years.

Today I’d like to tell you a story about someone we’ve been working with for quite a few years.  Jack (not his real name) first found himself homeless right around 15 years old after his family got evicted from their apartment.  He comes from a broken home and both parents struggle with addictions.  In the summer between grade 9 and 10 Jack dropped out of school and spent his days hanging out at friends places playing video games.  Jack made his way through life couch surfing and crashing at friends places until a year and a half ago.
One chilly evening in October  Myra was driving down the road and saw Jack and his girlfriend sitting on the corner.  She recognized Jack from when he’d come in to Outreach a couple of times and stopped to say hello.  Immediately she realized something was wrong.  They literally had their head in their hands, their shoulders were slumped.  All of their body language screamed “help me.”  As Myra got closer she realized Jack had been crying.  When you know somebody who is usually dancing and jumping around Outreach, and see them in a state like this it really weighs heavy on your heart.  Turns out they had no place to go that night and didn’t know what they were going to do.  Here’s a young guy who has hit rock bottom before he’d even turned 20. Myra gave them the number for Today House with detailed instructions for what to do and told them to come to Outreach the next morning.  They never did make it in to Today House that night, but they did come in to Outreach the next morning.  The team got busy figuring out a plan that would work for them.
Jack had no money, no bank account, no ID, nothing.  He had lived off of whatever he could find in that moment.  All those things that parents and teachers do to help our kids with throughout their teenage years,  so they can become self sufficient adults, had not been done with Jack.  At the point Jack came in to Outreach at 19 years old he had been a homeless youth for about 5 years.
Not having ID or any source of income is pretty common when you are homeless.  Especially if you are a homeless youth.  Here’s how it works…
You can’t rent an apartment unless you have a source of income.  You can’t get on to EIA (welfare) unless you have a bank account.  You can’t get a bank account unless you have ID.  You can’t get ID unless you have an address.  It’s a vicious cycle.  Most youth use their parent’s address when they get their first pieces of ID, but Jack’s dad was homeless as well at this point and his mom was out of the province.  He had no friends that had stable addresses or that he would trust with his ID when it would be mailed to them. It’s a pretty labour intensive process trying to prove that someone is a real person so that they can get ID. It can take a month or more. Only then we can start the process of getting them a bank account and on to EIA and into an apartment.  Eventually we were able to find him a place with roommates that he could afford.
So as Irene was working through this process with Jack many more things came to light.  Irene used to be a resource teacher and red flags kept popping up that made her resource teacher brain kick in.  She did some digging and using the connections she had at HSD, she tracked down Jack’s assessments from elementary school.  Sure enough early on Jack had had evaluations done and was diagnosed with low IQ and other disorders.  All of this combined meant Jack couldn’t recognize when he had a problem, much less identify who he needed to reach out to get help solving his problems.  He can’t read or write or plan ahead.  He simply lives in the moment.  When he’s hungry he eats whatever food happens to be around.  When he’s tired he sleeps on whatever couch he happens to be sitting on.  Had he gone to high school he would’ve been involved with resource who would have come up with a plan for life after graduation, and would have connected him with adult services (CLDS), but because he’d dropped out before he got to high school that never did happen for him.  About a year ago Irene began the process of trying to connect him with CLDS (Community Living Disability Services). 
Things were going well for Jack for about a year.  He was settled and had a routine.  Then covid hit.  Jack and his roommates used to go out to party, but they couldn’t do that anymore.  Nothing was open.  Hanging out anywhere, outside or in was not allowed anymore.  So they partied at home which led to their eviction.  Stressed out because he was back to couch surfing Jack began cutting himself.  Myra and Jack have made many trips to the hospital, talked to mental health workers and called CSU many times but they keep sending him back out the doors.  They don’t have room or resources for him either.  They are too overworked.  
A recently retired resource teacher began volunteering with us a couple of months ago and it became her job to leverage her connections with CLDS and phone them every week to push his application forward.  A year after the initial application went in and after several weeks of persistent calls and emails we finally got a response.  Applications had to be resent and resent again.  Delays caused by covid didn’t help much either.  The verdict came back that they wanted to help but he would not qualify because his evaluations were too old.  He had to have new ones which you couldn’t get unless you have a social worker, and he does not.  As an adult he could pay $3000 to get them done at one place, or wait for years to get them free at the other place.  When you are homeless you don’t have $3000 or years to wait.  However, after a lot of back and forth we did manage to get a number for the person in charge of the assessments at the free place, to see what exceptions could be made because of the urgency of his situation.  Obviously everyone wants to help so negotiations are taking place and things are looking hopeful.  In the meantime Jack has applied to a rehab program and a local church is willing to sponsor half the cost.  We are just waiting to hear back to see if he is accepted.
Jack’s story really illustrates how easy it is for people to fall between the gaps in the system.  He doesn’t quite meet this criteria, or quite fit the profile for that program, and the third place wants to help but he doesn’t quite meet their requirements either.  It has taken a team of people and several volunteers leveraging their connections and doing quite a bit of arm twisting, just to get this far. If it wasn’t for them Jack’s story would surely end in suicide.  

Just yesterday we had an email from a young family who have often seen a man walking in their neighborhood and around town.  This man had a scraggly beard, torn jacket and always carried a Sobeys shopping bag with him wherever he went.  They really wanted to help him out and asked our advice on the best way to give him assistance.

Recently Steinbach Online shared Marc Penner's story about what it was like to sleep out in the Manitoba cold last week.  Fortunately he was able to get into Today House and has plans to move into an apartment in the near future.  However it's far too often that we hear stories of people hunkering down outdoors for the night in whatever sheltered place they can find.

Here's a list of 12 things you can do to help out someone who is sleeping rough in the frigid cold.​
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1. A Hot Bowl of Soup:  I'll never forget one chilly day in late October one of our chronic homeless friends came in and said he'd had the best day ever yesterday!  He'd been hanging out in a small park all afternoon and was just leaving when a lady came running out of her house and chased him down.  At first he was nervous she'd yell at him for being a nuisance, but it turns out she'd been watching him from her kitchen window all day whilst cooking soup for supper and wanted him to have a bowl.  She shoved a monster sized steaming hot bowl of borscht into his hands and chatted with him at the park while he ate.  It was the best thing that had happened to him that month.  Putting soup in a to go mug works too if you're not wanting to hang around so you can have your bowl back.
2. Hand & Feet Warmers:  Giving someone those little heat packs that you can stick in your mitts and socks is always appreciated.  They are ideal for keeping your body warm when the weather is not.
3. Socks:  We have one guy that takes as many socks as we will let him every time he comes in.  Once I asked him what he did with all those socks all the time.  Turns out you can double them up on your hands for mittens, tie them together around your head to make an ear warmer, use them as oven mitts when you're heating food over a fire, and a few other things that I won't mention publicly.  Then there's the fact that when you live out of a backpack you don't have a place to do laundry so once they're crunchy you toss them and take out new ones.
4. Small heater: We've been getting a lot of requests recently for small space heaters.  For those people who are camping out in a shed or garage a small space heater makes sleeping rough slightly more bearable.  It might be weird if you ran up to some random person on the street and offered them a heater, but if you want to drop one off at Outreach we can gladly pass it on to people we know who need them.
5. Tarp: A tarp can be put under a sleeping bag to keep the moisture from the ground seeping up or tossed over a park bench or tree branches as a makeshift tent to keep out the wind.
6. Buy them a Sandwich instead of Giving Cash:  We recommend that you do not give out cash.  If you are approached by someone on the street offer to buy them a sandwich at the nearest cafe instead.
7. Blankets:  Blankets or sleeping bags are always appreciated.  Our guests recommend ones that are small enough to be stuffed into a backpack, but are warm enough to sleep in the snow.  However when they are indoors either couch surfing they revel in the luxury of a puffy queen sized blanket.
8. Giftcards: A while ago I overheard a few of our guests sharing stories about getting kicked out of 24 hour restaurants and gas stations because they don't have the money to buy something when they go in there at night to get out of the cold.  If you choose to buy a giftcard we recommend a $10 card to Tim Hortons, McDonalds or gas stations so they can purchase something hot and justify their place at the table.  Gas station cards are especially welcomed by those people who are living in their cars.
9. Mini First Aid Kits: Having a few bandages and swabs on hand when you are living rough is always useful. Fingers have nearly been lost when one is trying to open a tin can with a jackknife. 
10. Hand Sanitizer: Even before Covid having a small bottle of hand sanitizer is useful for those times when you can't access a sink and soap.  
11. Waterproof Mittens:  Knitted mittens are nice but when you are shoveling driveways for extra cash and walking everywhere you go you really need warm mitts that keep out the wind and wet snow.  
12. Hoodies:  Hoodies provide an extra layer of warmth and can be pulled up over the head in the absence of a toque.

Small gestures can make a person's day.  We are currently working with a dozen or so homeless people who are couch surfing or sleeping rough.  The extreme cold and covid make it difficult but we do what we can and hope for the best.