December 6, 2003
In the shelter of a kind word
Maltreated teens – no one’s sure how many – eke out a bleak life on the margins. Calling them back takes rebuilding faith, one deed at a time, by Leslie Scrivener
On any given day, 22,000 cars sweep across the old iron bridge at the foot of Bathurst St. toward the railway corridor, never knowing they are driving above 18-year-old Chantal Gagnon’s home.It’s a shack, built into the bridge abutment with found lumber, sandwich boards and cardboard. It’s looking good so far – except for the rats.
How do you keep them out?
Michelle Rickard
Special to ChristianWeek
Mississauga, ON – A new book launched in May will help children to understand the issues of homelessness.
The Cardboard Shack Beneath the Bridge: Helping Children Understand Homelessness, written and illustrated by Tim Huff, lays the groundwork for parents and teachers to start talking with children about homelessness.
“The world won’t be shaped into something better because we’ve blocked or hidden children from difficult things. But it can be changed in miraculous ways if we hold them tight and walk through the harsh things of the world with them,” explains H
uff, a Toronto resident who has dedicated his life to young people living on the streets.
For nearly two decades, Huff has worked full time among poor and marginalized youth in the Greater Toronto Area with Youth Unlimited (Toronto Youth for Christ), where he founded Frontlines Youth Centre and pioneered Youth Unlimited’s Light Patrol street outreach. His work on the streets among homeless youth and adults has led him into alleyways, under bridges and off-ramps and into other dark corners of the city.
“Homelessness has been called one of the greatest tragedies of our time. In an age of prosperity and plenty, hundreds of thousands of people continue to find themselves homeless.”
3am. Not the ideal time to be up and writing… but indeed the time my heart tells me. There is an underworld of night-crawlers sneaking through the city while it sleeps. Dozens of individuals that eat from trash bins after midnight, and only feel safe to explore the world by moonlight. Lost souls, purposely hiding.
