Advocacy:  Being a Voice

Tim Huff
Director, Light Patrol and Homelessness Initiatives

“Spare change – for my friend on the next block. He’s going home.”

In over 20 years of street work, I had never seen a sign like this. I quizzed homelesss young Terrance on his sign, as he sat panhandling on Queen Street. And he explained, his buddy “Shaggy” was ready to return home, now that his mom had separated from his very abusive dad, and he just needed money for a train ticket east.

Terrance had nothing. One rung below Shaggy’s plight, he didn’t even know where mom was. Any change he could reel in from strangers, he could more than use for himself. But, while his life and prospects were cold and dark, his heart was the warmest and brightest light on the Queen Street strip.

This is not a story about panhandling or begging, or meant for the controversial dialogue it often brings. It is not really even a story about homelessness. It is a story about advocacy.

The word “advocate” gets thrown around a lot in this day and age. Measured up against the notion of “armchair quarterbacks”, there are countless water cooler advocates across the country, soap-boxing on every issue under the sun. Sometimes the title “advocate” is owned with more pride than goodwill. But the heart of advocacy is not words on a page or spoken aloud. They have their place, but they are not at the core.

Empathy, selflessness, and a passion for justice – these create the bedrock for godly advocates. It is impossible to imagine a Messiah that would only talk about serving the poor and loving His neighbour, or merely speculate on dying for our sins. The words were, and are, transforming because they coincide with the humility and sacrifice of actions.

Through my highest and lowest of times at Youth Unlimited, one of the constant encouragements to me has been listening to the hearts of our staff as they share the challenges of the young people they are among. Heartfelt words born out of seeing, experiencing, doing, and wanting to do more. This is advocacy. This is what makes words spoken aloud or on a page come to life, and become more than just opinions.

Shaggy went home. Two thirds of the train fare were paid for by Terrance, who hugged him goodbye at the train station, and returned to his cold, wet corner. The day Shaggy left, Terrance had one small sign in front of his empty coffee cup. Asking for nothing, it simply read, “Thank you, my friend is home.”

This is advocacy.

Printed in the Youth Unlimited (Toronto YFC) Times, Volume 10, Issue 2, Spring 2009.

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While reds and greens are standard Christmas colours, blue ornaments, blue tinsel and blue lights have inexplicably been my favourite. And if ever I hedged on that, these blue lights sealed the deal.

Jimmy-D is a boy wonder. One of countless brilliant minds hidden in the cracks of our nation’s city streets and alleyways. Tucked away on the external side of an abandoned lakeside sawmill, his make-shift dwelling is a monument to ingenuity and street genius. Several times he had cooked me hot dogs using two nails and electrodes wired to 9 volt batteries. He kept a small space heater working on a timer via a car battery and re-jigged booster cables. And a string of ten blue Christmas lights were lit for five minute intervals on a WWII radio hand generator he bought at an army surplus store. Sad, beautiful blue bulbs that would slowly begin to fade as the juice ran out; an ironic metaphor for street life, too profound to miss.

One night while we roasted marshmallows over a wheel-rim fireplace, I asked him, “Why blue lights?” (Then told him they were my favourite.)

He answered with a soft smile, “Grandpa told me blue is the colour of depth… and everything deep in your soul is blue.” Grandpa was both artist and poet. And lifeline.

Jimmy-D’s grandpa died when he was twelve, just two years before Jimmy-D escaped his abusive home. A bright blue light in Jimmy-D’s soul.

God’s secret weapons in the fight for faith are warm grandpas and tender grandpas. There are more safe and loving memories and wise quotes from grandparents floating along curbsides in Canada than from any other source – including parents, peers, teachers and preachers.

We sat below the blue bulbs at brow level, weaved betweed skid-planks, and ate toasted marshmallows in silence. Between each roasting, he would lean over and re-hinge the hand generator’s handle and wind the bulbs to a brighter blue.

A few marshmallows and rewinds later, I asked, “What else can you tell me about your grandpa?”

Jimmy-D leaned into his shanty and rummaged around. And he handed me an old leather Bible. An old-school, Grandpa-looking Bible, with a cover that folded over the tissue-thin, gold-edged pages. He didn’t say a thing. He couldn’t. So he wound up the lights, opened the Bible on my knees and tapped his finger on the inscription.

In Grandpa’s lovely cursive writing, it read:

“My dear James, no matter what goes wrong in life, this will always be right. I will always love you – Grandpa.”

I read the inscription out loud. Then we sat in silence until the lights went out.

May your Christmas be filled with the depth of blue and what’s truly “right.”

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“Dana on Queen St. West”
December, 1999

“Good Night Young One”
December, 2000

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Christmas 2007 

Though it was broken, she treated it as though it was nothing less than priceless. For after all – it was.

Trudy wouldn’t say why she had left home. The most she ever surrendered was said one evening as she ran her finger across the sharp edges of her sacred keepsake – “You can only get so broken and still be worth something.” Enough said.

A Christmas ornament. An ordinary round, red ball and hook, hanging from her worn napsack.

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Christmas 2006

A fake Santa Claus and a homeless man, sitting on the wet sidewalk on Christmas Eve… singing, no less. Not a typical Christmas image. But indeed… sacred.

When my daughter was two years old, I thought it would be fun for her to see Santa Claus sneaking around in her own backyard, on Christmas Eve. That notion grew into an annual tradition that keeps me scurrying about friends’ backyards across the GTA, ending in my own. A Santa suit rental became a Santa suit creation, and December visits to hospitals and group homes are now all part of the big picture.

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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.

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