Homeless tour, Calgary – Aylam Bar Shalom

I just had the greatest experience today, touring Calgary (Alberta, Canada) along with two people who used to be homeless, just a short while ago. One of them is named Joseph, and he spent six years of his life on the street. He was addicted to drugs and alcohol, and is still facing a daily craving to go back to his addictions. He is such on honest and good man and I really appreciated is openness to tell us everything, down to the ugliest facts about his life.
The other person, with whom I talked in person for most of the tour, is named Elizabeth. She is now married to Joseph, whom she met on the street in her couple of months of homeless experience. Joseph was our official guide and Elizabeth hadn’t planed to talk at all on the tour. However, I can notice someone interesting and passionate when I see one, and had asked her a few questions. Soon I was listening to her while she went on and on about her story.
I was shocked at how much hope this girl, my age BTW, has within her eyes and heart. When she first started living on the street, she honestly believed all the homeless people she was going to meet were going to be nice and friendly people, like the native aboriginal and poor kids she used to go to school with. She soon discovered that people who lived on the street and were addicted to drugs could be really cruel and hard. She told me of so many hard situations she witnessed and went through, but never did she loose her childish taste for fun.
Elizabeth loves jumping into every puddle on the street, supporting other people and her dreams include that some day she will have enough resources to make a home for some homeless people to come to and start their lives over. However, as she was telling me, she does not want it to be like one of the governmental organization, which as she says are attempting to help homeless people, many of whom have lost hope in their lives, only with money and housing, which is a big part of the solution but doesn’t answer to their emotional needs. She told me that a lot of people who live on the street and who are drug addicts get used to the idea that they are worthless. They end up feeling that they have no purpose in life and the only thing that keeps them going is the next stash.

However, Elizabeth would like to give a few people, she believes she can reach out to, the type of human support and encouragement that they will need to give up their addictions because they have better, more positive and constructive things to do. In short, to make homeless people feel worthy and worthwhile. She holds on to an ideal of grass-root mutual support that is based on the assumption that if each and every one of us took care of one other person, and were looked after by one other person as well, we would have solved so many problems. She is so smart!
 So, how does she plan to do it? Well, by the end of the tour we started brainstorming on how she could get her dream project on the road even before getting any outside financial support for it. We came up with an idea of holding a bottle-collecting contest (it has been one of her sources of income for years now) in which homeless and non-homeless people would participate, and all the money would go to helping start off her “Homeless” home. She suggested street art and performances to raise money, after which I had told her about Rosemary and the Jewelry she teaches the escaped kidnapped girls to make in Uganda.
All in all, Elizabeth and I had an excellent time together. I got to know a wonderfully warm and courageous person with a narrative I have yet to hear, while she got to meet a person who’d gladly listen to her stories for over an hour with wide keen eyes and true curiosity. I don’t know how common that is for her. I just love the way she is a bit weird like me, and how with all the reasons she might have to give up, she is so ambitious!
I do hope for a better future for homeless and poor people, and I was glad to hear that things are getting gradually better in Calgary. I also know now more than ever that we have so much learn about faith and hope from the misfortunate people who have suffered and survived such cruel lives, and continue to seek better futures. Elizabeth is now carrying her second child. She has told me she lets her four-month-old son cry when he needs to and be true with his feelings. I think he is really lucky to have such a Mama as Elizabeth, even though she may not have much money, she has a gold mine of a heart. I am so very happy I had the chance to meet her. I am truly a bit more hopeful J