One Night Out

Hello, all! I’m back from the half-dead (i.e. collapsing into bed the minute you come home and not budging for the next ten hours) with a unique experience to share.

Some of you may have heard of “One Night Out,” and some of you may even have participated in it. For those of you who don’t know, “One Night Out” is a campaign spearheaded by Free the Children in order to raise awareness about homelessness. The basic idea is that students will get together and camp outside or sleep inside the gym, without any of the luxury they’re used to, and get a feel of what it’s like to be homeless in the streets or in the shelters.

Our school’s wasn’t as big an event as we’d hoped to make it, as rain scared the majority of the people who had signed up, and only a handful of people actually came. But we did receive substantial donations for the local food bank and clothing for shelters so I’m not complaining.

I’ve been volunteering at the local Salvation Army for the last three years, but I was shocked at everything I learned during our event. I had no idea there were over 65,000 homeless youths (and that was back in 2004), out of the 150,000 to 300,000 experiencing homelessness across Canada. 3.2 million people in Canada live below the poverty line, and in 2008, the economic downturn forced 95,700 of those people into homelessness. You know what else took me by surprise? The fact that 1/3 of Toronto’s homeless are immigrants. Isn’t it ironic that these people come to Canada to have a better life and end up in the streets?

We had a guest speaker come and talk about his experiences of when he had been homeless, and the reality of the situation in the streets and the shelters is heartbreaking. A lot of the shelters still need great support, and often turn out to be inadequate or dangerous. Even without those problems, a lot of the people who have been homeless for a long time will refuse to go into shelters. They’ve lived in the streets for so long that they do not know how to join society again and they do not want to abide by any rules or regulations. Since many (NOT all) of the homeless have a mental illness and/or drug addiction, this makes the problem even more complicated.

Although a large number of the homeless population have been made homeless due to various situations and only require a solid support system to get back on their feet, the problem of homelessness itself isn’t going to be solved by more affordable housing or government support, etc., though those are also necessary. The causes of homelessness – substance abuse, mental illness, etc – will have to be addressed and individuals will need to be rehabilitated back into society if we really want everyone in Canada to have a proper home and life. This is going to require a great deal of education and awareness about homelessness as well. We all have so much to do.

So anyway, I slept out in the school courtyard in a tent with a group of people (of course, I didn’t get much sleep, hence the ten hours of unconsciousness the minute I arrived home), and it wasn’t too bad. We were packed in, and it started to get a little cold during the night so that was a little uncomfortable…but the thing was, I could go into the school any time I wanted to and access warmth and running water. I also had a home and a cozy bed to go back to. And our awesome teachers FED us. It still wasn’t a cup of tea and the One Night Out was plenty uncomfortable for us students, but realizing that thousands and thousands of people spent every night of their lives in much worse circumstances was incredibly humbling.

Has anyone else participated in the One Night Out or something similar? I’d love to hear about the experience.