His other hand is around his coffee mug as Ashton tells me he’s been up since the day before on one of his regular “walks.” He says he often leaves his Dartmouth home and treks around Halifax, visiting soup kitchens and missions, and sometimes staying in a shelter, to check on the friends he made over the past few years while living full-time at the Metro Turning Point men’s shelter.
“Making sure certain people are off the streets and they’ve got somewhere,” Ashton, 48, says, adding he sometimes has to act as peacekeeper when disagreements spring up in shelters.
“I know certain people, and I realize they have liquor in them and that’s what’s talking,” he adds. “If I can help one individual, I’ve succeeded.”
As we walk down the street, he stops to chat with a grey-haired man carrying a pharmacy bag and Ashton promises to come by his apartment. As we keep walking, Ashton smiles and nods, telling me he’s glad to see the man taking his medication without being reminded.
After growing up in Waverley and Shubenacadie, Ashton says he started travelling in his 20s to Toronto and Vancouver, where he worked as a stagehand to acts such as The Rolling Stones and Cirque du Soleil before coming home in 2010 when his mother passed away.
Ashton says he is bipolar, and at the time he had a hard time finding the right medication while living in a rural area outside of Halifax, leading to weight gain and insomnia. He contemplated suicide until he switched medications and listened to a Dead Sara song – “and all of a sudden, life wasn’t too bad.”
Ashton says he “purposefully” moved to the Metro Turning Point as it was easier to look for a job on the peninsula and he doesn’t drive. He found support, not only from staff who helped him set goals, but from other residents. Their kind gestures, such as leaving dimes, rolling papers and cigarette butts on his bed while he slept, would make a huge difference, he says, adding it “starts your day and expands it from there.”
With the support of the shelter community, Ashton says he succeeded last summer in getting a Dartmouth apartment and part-time event technician job.
Melissa Phillips, acting executive director for Shelter Nova Scotia, says while the “housing first” model is gaining ground, there are long wait lists for public housing in Halifax (1,268 people in 2012 according to Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia) and the hardest work for residents is often maintaining housing once it’s found.
Combating loneliness is key, Phillips says, since people often talk about the real sense of community in the shelter system and making connections with others facing similar challenges.
“I don’t think that should be minimized,” Phillips explains.
She adds it’s important to have a variety of housing such as units scattered in a neighbourhood with a range of incomes for those who want privacy and independence, and congregate-style units such as those at The Rebuilding where men leaving Turning Point can choose to stay in an apartment next to someone they know and are comfortable with.
Dr. Jeff Karabanow, professor of social work at Dalhousie University, says there’s also merit to boarding-room style living, where residents have their own room but share a kitchen with friends, and housing co-ops, both which work to curb feelings of isolation.
“There is a real community … that gets fractured when you start moving people off the street into more secure environments, so we have to be cautious,” he says.
Ashton says people panhandling in Halifax want to be acknowledged, even when you don’t have anything to give. He says one of the best musicians he’s ever heard plays guitar on the street for his income.
“He was playing one day down on the harbour front and … the acoustics and his voice was unreal. Unreal,” Ashton tells me, shaking his head.
“The (Vancouver) downtown east side is the poorest postal code in Canada, and people see nothing but alcoholics and junkies down there, but it’s family. And it’s the same way down here.”
‘Living here has really opened my eyes’
Although the idea of living in a homeless shelter was uncomfortable for Sharon, she says the staff and other women set her at ease as soon as she stepped into Barry House.
Sharon.
Sharon, who preferred not to give her last name, grew up in New Brunswick and travelled the country before walking 200 kilometres and hitchhiking to Halifax from Moncton last summer.
She hasn’t been able to find a job in her janitorial field just yet, and moved into Barry House a month ago, but Sharon says she knows there is a company out there waiting for a janitor with high standards.
“It was kind of difficult at first because I’m an independent person,” the 58-year-old says, sitting with crossed legs on a chair in the Barry House office as staff type away on computers and call for more bus tickets.
“I never in my wildest dreams ever thought that I’d be out of work.”
A lot of support comes from the staff, Sharon says, and other women in the house who all have a different story.
“It surely does teach you a lot about what we miss in other individuals, and how fortunate we all are that we have a job, that we have a home,” she says, leaning forward and peering through tinted glasses.
“Living here has really opened my eyes in so many ways, that we’re all human beings and we just want a decent life.”
By the numbers
About 90 per cent of people in shelters stay once, or for a short period of time, according to Shelter Nova Scotia.
According to the HRM report card on homelessness by Affordable Housing Nova Scotia, monthly income assistance for one person was $538 and an average bachelor apartment cost $690 per month in 2012.
There were 1,860 people who stayed in HRM shelters in 2012 (which includes 1,018 men an 570 women), according to the report card.
