lives changed: Mike

Homelessness doesn’t always have a face

He wears a tie with a tie clip. His long-sleeved shirt is always buttoned at the cuffs. His clothes are clean, his fingernails trimmed, his demeanour confident and positive. But look more closely at his face and you know there’s a story or two there.

Most days you can find Mike helping out in the kitchen of a daytime drop-in centre that serves homeless and transient populations. He’s giving back to the place that was there for him when he needed help the most. He is also a volunteer on the centre’s program advisory committee and, as a formal advocate for the people he has come to know and appreciate, is happy to speak on behalf of all those he knows and sees daily.

“Many of us are just one paycheque away being homeless,” he says.

British-born and raised, Mike began his career in the British Navy. On a sojourn to Canada during the FLQ crisis, he fell in love with a French Canadian and made the country his home in 1973, working in the shipyards in Saint John, New Brunswick and then Sorel, Quebec City and Montreal as a naval architect. When the shipyards closed, he became a chef, usually working the night shift at different restaurants.

A divorce set him back financially. Determined to start fresh in a new place, Mike moved to a new city and a new province. He rented a room at a shelter and the very next day began working there in the kitchen. He stayed for almost three years before accepting a job as a superintendent at an apartment building. In 2002, when the company went bankrupt, he became homeless.

“Staying at the shelter at night and walking the streets was a disaster,” he says. Major health challenges that caused him to fall down unexpectedly meant that people thought he was drunk. Through the centre, Mike got help to find the treatment he needed and to rebuild his life — again. When he was eligible to receive disability and government pensions, he moved into a small apartment — a relief now that he’s 60.

And, Mike continues to wear his tie. After all, he says, “You don’t have to look homeless to be homeless.”

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