The other day the gentleman who delivers our bread came in with our usual order.  As I collected our boxes of bread from him he explained he had met someone on his route this morning.  They had struck up a conversation and it was obvious the person was homeless.  So our delivery man said he knew of a place that could possibly help and offered the man a ride to our drop in centre.
The person who came through the doors was the quintessential picture of a homeless man.  He was tall and scruffy looking with an unkempt beard and two green reusable bags stuffed with all of his worldly belongings slung over his shoulder.  
I introduced myself and invited him to have a seat and warm up.  He placed his bags on floor within direct sight of where he was sitting and shared his story.
He was quite an interesting character.  At different points in the conversation he described himself as an inventor and a researcher of people.  He said the bread man had asked him if he was homeless, but he wasn't homeless, he was travelling.  He preferred to sleep rough in order to reduce his carbon footprint.  I asked him where he'd slept last night and he named a spot we were familiar with in the bushes next to the library. It's amazing to me how even out of towners have an instinct for finding the places in town to sleep to get out of the wind. The previous couple of nights he'd slept in other places familiar to us.  An entryway where the heat blew straight down on you and an atm vestibule.
He was headed from BC to Ontario where he would stop and see his sister before he decided where to go next.  On the way he wanted to interact with all the cultures and had come to Steinbach looking for Mennonites. He'd been in town for a few days but hadn't noticed any.  I explained that the Mennonites around here looked and acted just normal people every where else.  It wasn't like the old days of horse and buggy.  He looked a little disappointed but then said maybe he'd find some Amish on his travels.  I suggested he look around the Vita area south of here.
He stayed with us at the drop in center all day that day, mostly doing research on human behavior at our computer station by watching Youtube videos, music videos and reading articles online.  He had a habit of sucking the flavouring off of potato chips for his lunch and then discarding the soggy chips afterwards.  He also enjoyed a tin of meat with his meal when it was offered to him. He came back to the drop in center every day for about a week, watching the people come and go and visiting with our regulars, until one day he didn't.  We heard he was spotted south of Grunthal with his two large green bags hooked over his shoulder.  I like to think he was on his way to spot some Amish.
Every once in a while we get a person through here who is simply a traveler making their way across the country.  They always have an interesting story to share and a world view that makes one pause and assess their own point of view.  Is it sleeping rough or is it eliminating your carbon footprint?  Is it goofing off online or is it the study of human behaviour?

​Not everyone who comes through our doors is homeless.  In fact a large chunk of the people who come through our doors are working people who have homes but struggle to put food on the table.  They come in to get help with food, clothing, resumes, and a bunch of other things that have nothing to do with housing.
Last week I was speaking with DeeDee (not her real name) who had come in to pick up a food hamper.  DeeDee does work, but it’s very difficult to raise a family on one income with a minimum wage job.  She was saying that Tuesdays she eats at Soups On, every other Wednesday is Helping Hands and the alternate Wednesdays she has a co-worker who invites her over for supper, Thursdays she picks up food from Outreach and Fridays is Soups On again.  Saturday to Monday she makes do with whatever is left in the fridge.  
The simple fact is that the majority of the people who access our services survive this way.  They are choosing between buying their groceries or paying their hydro bill each month.
The other day I was speaking with Nancy (also not her real name).  She comes in every couple of weeks to file her report for EI/CERB online because she doesn’t have internet access at home.  Both DeeDee and Nancy have been laid off of work due to covid and both of them said they make more on CERB than they did working.  They have been putting that extra money towards paying off debts and are finally able to pay all of their bills and still have a some left over for the extra groceries they need to get through the week.
Neither of them is at ease though. Both of them realize they will owe money at tax time.  It was quite an adjustment for them when they started collecting CERB.  At first, to realize that they didn’t have to scrimp and count every dime, and that they could pay all of their bills as they were due was a huge mental 180 for them.  When you see that big CERB payment in your bank account that easily doubled what you earned working, it’s hard to resist the urge to splurge.  To realize that is what the government thinks the average person in Canada earns and that you are no where near that is heartbreaking.  At first these ladies were scared to get comfortable with that money because they were waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Then they did get comfortable, but now as restrictions are lifting, they are preparing themselves to go back to scrimping because when they return to work they will also return to living on half of what they are getting from CERB.
When covid first started we thought the number of people coming to Outreach for help would go up, but in fact the opposite happened.  Our numbers went down.  We suspect this happened because the majority of our working poor were able to afford to buy their own groceries and clothing when they went on CERB.  These are the people who work as cleaners in hotels, dishwashers in restaurants, EA’s, daycare helpers, casual workers, seasonal workers, and other various minimum wage jobs.  These are responsible, contentious people who are normally struggling to make their way through life trying to raise a family on one income with a minimum wage job.  As restrictions lift and our guests return to work our numbers are starting to rise again.  The pandemic has been hard, but it did provide a moment of relief for some.  Most of us are looking forward to the time when life can return back to normal, but for some their normal life is actually more of a struggle than their pandemic life.  I only hope that when this is all over that our decision makers recognize stories like this and that it influences them to make decisions that will strengthen and uplift our social network.

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.​
​

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.

​Out of all the tools in an outreach worker’s toolbelt there is definitely one that gets pulled out the most.  The humble cup of coffee.  Coffee plays so many roles here, working non stop night and day.  Last year Outreach helped transition 64 people off the streets and prevented another 22 families and individuals from becoming homeless.  Almost every one of those stories began with a cup of coffee.

Coffee and Connection
As you may know, at Outreach, we focus on providing food, clothing, shelter and connection. The biggest of these has always been connection. At SCO people typically come through our doors for the first time looking for food or help finding shelter, but they stay for the coffee.  Coffee has helped us connect with each other in a way that would never have happened without the simple offer of “Can I get you a cup…” We’ve seen some amazing friendships develop over a cup of coffee.  We’ve even seen romantic relationships develop over a cup of coffee.  We chat, commiserate, cry and laugh together over a cup of coffee.  For a group of people who struggle to connect, the almighty cup of coffee has brought us together as one big family.

​Coffee as the fuel of the Social Justice Warrior
Coffee plays another role at SCO.  Coffee is the fuel of the social justice warrior.  More than just bringing people together at the drop in center, it does some pretty important outreach work on the street.  Case in point:  One Sunday morning, several years ago, Irene was set to give a sermon at one of the churches here in town.  While drinking her morning cuppa and reviewing her sermon Irene answered a call.  It was a report of some homeless people sleeping in their car at AD Penner park.  Irene slogged down her coffee and set out for the day.  After delivering her sermon Irene went straight from the podium, to see to these people in need.  On her way to the park she stopped at Tim Hortons to pick up some coffee and sandwiches.  Irene found the couple sitting at a picnic table in the park not far from the parking lot.  After offering them a hot drink sharing her lunch they opened up about their story.  It turns out they were travelling from AB to ON to get help from family there.  They had run out of gas and had no money to go any further.  They hadn’t eaten in in two days and were stuck in Steinbach living out of their car with no cash for food or fuel.  Irene explained who she was and what she did and offered to help. Together, over several more cups of coffee, they came up with a plan to get some food and shelter for the short term and reconnect with their family in ON.  Two weeks later she received a text from this couple saying how grateful they were and asking for a mailing address so that they could repay the kindness.  It’s a small blip in the grand scheme of what we do here at Outreach, but that offer of a cup of coffee ended up making a huge difference in these people’s lives. 

Coffee as an Act of Compassion
Sometimes our blessings come from the most unexpected sources. 10 year old Drayton Loewen had been driving around Winnipeg and Steinbach and saw so many people struggling in the cold.  He wanted to do something about it.  So he called us.  Almost every single one of our guests has to walk every where they go.  They walk from the south end of town and downtown where the affordable housing is, several kilometers to the north end of town where we are, and where Superstore and Walmart are.  Winters in Manitoba are pretty harsh so when they’d come in to get whatever help they needed from us they’d usually warm up with a cup of coffee before they’d set out again.  With Covid protocols limiting the amount of people in we are allowed to have in our space, this winter they walk to us only to have to wait in line, outside in the cold wind.  Drayton and his mum offered to set up a stand at our doors and hand out a hot cup of coffee to our guests waiting in line.  I can’t even begin to tell you how grateful we feel and what a blessing that small act from that 10 year old boy has been.  It has made a huge difference to our SCO family.  It was such an easy way to do something positive in such trying times.  In line people started people started conversing again, physically distant of course, but talking and laughing all the same.  Word got out about what he was doing and the community jumped on board.  What an inspiring act!  We were flooded with calls from people offering to do the same.  Week after week the coffee has been flowing, and several of the coffee bringers even joined our SCO family as volunteers.

​Coffee and Covid
When covid hit, we made a huge effort to keep our coffee time open because we knew how important it was to our guests.  Unfortunately, month after month the restrictions got more and more stringent, and we were eventually required to shut our hangout time down all together.  In a world that requires us to be socially and physically distant, this has had a huge impact on the mental health of our guests, who are already struggling with social inclusion. 
“The people that are homeless and struggling and are actually trying to find a place to get their lives back in order need the most love.  They need Outreach.  We find it hard to stay 6 feet apart because all you want to do is embrace each other and celebrate their successes.  We’re already lonely. SCO needs their coffee time back.”  Tim Unrau – SCO guest

I’d like to introduce you to Courtney. (not her real name.)  Courtney heard about us from another agency in town that she was connected with.  She had just recovered from a mental health breakdown caused by a terrible living situation.  She had been living with a roommate who ended up being really quite aggressive.  Her roommate also had a child and Courtney ended up taking care of the baby most of the time because her roommate was out galivanting around town or visiting friends in other towns for days at a time.  Courtney’s roommate had schizophrenia but went off her meds which made her erratic behavior very difficult to live with.  She didn’t pay her share of the bills on time, if at all, and brought people into the house that made Courtney uncomfortable.
Courtney had problems of her own as well.  There was abuse in her past and physical and mental disabilities that she was working to overcome.  Eventually the past and the present clashed and it all became too much.  She checked herself in to CSU.  Through the recovery process it became clear she could not go back.  She could not go back but she had nowhere else to go.  She was homeless. 
Courtney ended up staying at Today House for a few of weeks while she looked for a cheap place to live.  Courtney is on EIA (welfare).  On EIA a single person gets $600 a month for rent and another $140 for basic needs.  The basic needs allowance is for everything else a person needs to live.  Things like groceries, hydro, clothing, bus or cab fare, cell phone, internet, etc.  If a person does not have a place to live, they don’t get the $600.  EIA keeps it.  They only get the $140.  That is what the government values a person’s life at.  I don’t know about you but my grocery bill alone for the month is more than that, and I don’t have any special dietary needs.  Most people living in poverty, like Courtney, have special diets because of the cheap unhealthy foods and poor cooking habits they’ve only ever had access to.  They have diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart problems, food allergies and eating disorders.  Courtney needs to eat gluten free, but because she couldn’t afford it, she ate whatever she could get her hands on, which left her sick a lot of the time.
​Imagine trying to find an apartment for $600 a month in Steinbach.  I’ll tell you right now, they don’t exist.  Imagine trying to find an apartment if you have no money for a cell phone or WIFI.  Impossible, as everything is advertised online these days.  So Outreach bought her some minutes for her phone and gave her access to the WIFI at Today House and SCO so she could connect with landlords and apply for apartments.
After over a month of searching Courtney finally found an apartment for $695 (an amazingly good price by the way) and Irene negotiated with the landlord to bring it down to $675. The landlord was basically giving it to Courtney at cost at that point and would be making no profit in order to help this girl out.  When EIA pays Courtney’s rent they take the extra $75 out of her basic needs allowance.  This now leaves Courtney with $65 a month to live off of.  That’s all she has to pay water, hydro and buy groceries.  There will be no WIFI, TV or cell phone minutes or new runners because she simply can’t afford it.  So, she has a roof over her head but nothing to fill her time except stare at the four walls.
Courtney is applying for disability, which would give her a little bit more money each month, but her disability application has been delayed and denied time after time because a certain paper needs to be submitted, or a doctor’s appointment needs to be made, or a doctor’s reference is now outdated and needs to be redone, or her case worker has been switched out.  Courtney’s doctor is half an hour away in another town, so just finding a ride to get to all the doctor’s appointments is another barrier.  Since she has no WIFI she can only check her emails when she walks over to SCO to use our WIFI.  Her EIA case worker can’t call to connect with her because she has no minutes on her phone. 
SCO has been able to help Courtney with her paperwork, given her rides to appointments, paid for phone minutes so she can connect with resources, set her up with the food bank and soup kitchen, but she still faces seemingly insurmountable barriers every day.  To be quite frank Courtney’s story is a prime example of how broken the system is. There is barrier after barrier that she has to face.  For a person who is already battling mental health issues trying to keep up with all the red tape is overwhelming.  It feels like she’s being beaten down at every turn.  Although EIA workers are trying their best to help people with the little resources they have available to them, and we really do appreciate your hard work, the EIA system is flawed and broken.  It offers a means of survival, but not hope or any kind of quality of life that would help a person move forward and better their circumstance.

The giving season is upon us and this year there are more people in need than ever.  Please consider doing a reverse advent calendar as a personal giving project to count down to Christmas this season.  Here's how it works...
Rather than pulling a chocolate out of a box every day, pull something out of your cupboards and put it in a box every day.  It's a great way to teach kids about giving to those in need while at the same time counting down to Christmas.
The items we hand out to those most in need are everyday items that you probably have on hand.  If there is an item on the list that you don't have on hand, feel free to substitute it with something else.  We can find a creative way to make use of pretty much anything that comes in.  All we ask is that you keep in mind that if it's something so expired or stained and ripped that you wouldn't eat it or wear it, it's not something people in need will be able to use either. 
It's gifts like these that allow us to help each other and strengthen our community.  Thank you for your generosity.
​Happy giving!