The difference between living on the street and having a solid roof over your head can sometimes come down to the kindness of others, giving them a break they need to get ahead.
Jason, a 29-year-old man from Jamaica, arrived in Barrie in late February.
Back home he worked as a music producer.
He ended up in Canada after he followed a musician here for a show.
Jason says he liked what he saw and decided to stay to “find a job, a girl and live life. That’s all,” he told BarrieToday at the end of May.
He was sitting under a tree on a side street near Barrie’s downtown, his bicycle lying next to him on the ground along with his backpack.
Jason is within sight of a homeless encampment near the city’s downtown, where there is a real possibility he could be facing living on the street like so many others in Barrie if he doesn’t find work.
He is also just one of the countless people relying on the goodness of others, as they cling to their fragile and temporary housing situations in the city.
Jason says he's paying $100 per week to stay at someone’s home in town, in their basement.
The cheap rent is offered out of kindness and understanding, he says, “because she knows my situation and she’s not pressuring me to pay rent when I can’t pay rent.”
But if he wasn’t getting help from kindhearted people, he says he would probably just go back home to Jamaica.
“Everyone is a stranger to me here. I don’t have any family (here) and I don’t want to be burdening anyone,” he explains.
His backpack has resumes stuffed into it as he is looking for work.
“I can do all types of jobs, but mostly labourer jobs. I can drive a truck, too,” he says.
Hard work runs in his family, Jason adds.
“Of course, my father was a very hard-working man," he says. “I grew up around my mom and dad with seven children in the house. My dad went out every morning. Sometimes he took me to work on the weekends when I wasn’t going to school. So I’ve been working for a long while.”
Jason says he likes Barrie.
“It’s a good community, a good city. It’s quiet and peaceful, like the country,” he says.
The hardest part of his battle to stay housed right now is finding cash “to make sure I have some money in my pocket before the day ends.”
Meanwhile, a man known as 'Whitey' who has been living at a Victoria Street encampment, and who BarrieToday has previously reported on, has finally found an apartment to move into.
He says he discovered it in an Instagram post.
“Right now, I don’t care how much it is," Whitey told BarrieToday. “I want it. I miss my cooking, a shower.”
It’s a full one-bedroom apartment with amenities, listed for $1,050 per month.
He said it was then lowered to $850, which made it more affordable for him to get off the streets.
When he spoke with BarrieToday at the end of May, Whitey had just 10 more days to live in his plywood-and-tarp structure he called home for one full year.
He says he’s already paid the first and last month’s rent on the new place.
With the landlord kindly lowering the rent cost for him from the initial rate, Whitey is also paying it forward by helping out a fellow homeless person.
He is giving his elaborate shed dwelling, which he worked hard to construct, to a homeless woman who just broke up with her boyfriend.
“She’s been sleeping under a tarp for three months,” Whitey says. “So I’m giving it to her. That way it can be well used. It will be good for her. It doesn’t leak.
“When I built it, I made sure it wasn’t going to leak. And she can have whatever is in there,” he adds.
Everything Whitey is taking with him to his apartment is packed up and piled along a wall in his shed.
He’s ready for a new chapter.
Will he miss anything at the encampment?
“No,” Whitey says matter-of-factly. “I want out. I don’t want to live like this. This isn't camping. I love camping, but this isn’t camping.”
He moved into the wooded area on May 2, 2023.
Assistance he received from people over the past year has been good to him and the other residents in the small community, he says.
“We had a lot of help from people driving by who brought us food, brought us everything,” Whitey says.
“I didn’t need the food, but I took it, because everybody else did and I would feel out of place if I didn’t. And I ended up giving most of it away, anyway, to someone who could use it."
Whitey says he appreciated the community there.
“We watch each other’s stuff,” he says, while also describing theft by other transient homeless people as a big problem if you leave your spot for any length of time during the day or night.
“I’m going to miss them, but I’m going to keep coming back and have a few beers,” Whitey says.
He says he's not sure what will happen after he gets settled into his new place.
“I haven't decided that. I’ll probably find a couple of cash jobs. You know, putter around,” Whitey explains.
Four weeks after Jason spoke to BarrieToday, he says he misses his family. He has a young daughter back home who is seven years old.
“I always think about them. I call them every two or three days. She calls me as well. ‘Daddy, what’s up?’”
Well, he can now tell her he has secured employment, where he has found a job working for a recycling company in Barrie.
With just a couple of simple kind acts of generosity when it comes to housing, both Whitey and Jason appear to have made positive steps forward in their lives.
