Christopher Robson recently moved back to the Waterloo Region area, and landed in Conestogo.
When he heard about the tent encampment on Roos Island in Kitchener’s Victoria Park, he decided to donate materials that could be useful to people opting to live in tents during the winter. Recently he put out a call on Facebook asking residents to donate materials.
Items such as shipping skids, packing foam, tinfoil, insulation and carpet cut-offs are on the list of needed items.
These things may seem like junk to some people, but Robson says he’s learned they are actually really valuable to unhoused people.
“The hard thing about tenting or camping is where you’re going to lose a lot of your heat is the ground. It just leaks the heat and if you don’t have a barrier, you’re going to experience a lot of that loss,” he explained.
He says the skids are used to lift the tents off the ground, and the foam, styrofoam and insulation pieces insulate the tents.
People have responded to his request, and he’s collected everything from warm socks and underwear, jackets and boots, to pieces of foam, carpets, and grass mats and the like. The mats help keep dirt out of the tents, he says.
Robson says many people wonder why people living in tents don’t go to shelters.
“These individuals are just trying to seek refuge because there’s various reasons why someone decides to camp or put up a tent. A shelter is not the only option for folks, which a lot of individuals think. They’re, like, well, ‘there’s shelters.’ Well until people actually experience what a shelter is like, and the lifestyle of being in a shelter (they won’t understand),” he said.
He mentioned theft can be high at shelters, and impermanent as people need to constantly leave during the day. Tents offer some amount of continuity for people, he said, and when they are grouped together, people can form a community, he said.
“They’re there for solidarity and support and alliance with other individuals in similar positions. Because it becomes a community for these individuals, they have individuals looking out for each other,” he said.
Staff at the Crowsfoot Smokehaus in Conestogo responded and set aside shipping skids for Robson to pick up.
“We have them (skids) constantly stacking up outside. We don’t use them for anything,” said Kevin Augustus, general manager at the restaurant.
“When we found out it would be for a good cause, we said ‘absolutely.’”
The skids were taken before Robson could go pick them up, but someone else on Facebook offered more.
Robson says he experienced homelessness for about six months in his life, and this is a driving factor for why he is collecting these materials for those living in the park.
People have been living in tents on Roos Island in Victoria Park since the summer, in part as a protest to raise awareness about the growing housing crisis in the region.
Last year, the Region of Waterloo estimated more than a thousand people experienced homelessness. Of this, 412 were living in encampments, on the street or in their vehicles. The rest were in emergency shelters, living out hidden homelessness-meaning they were staying temporarily with friends or other people though with no place of their own, in transitional housing or in institutions.
Last week about 30 people gathered in support of people living at the encampment, because there was speculation city staff were planning to evict people.
Robson says he is hoping no one will be evicted, and will continue collecting and donating items.
Robson says the best way to be in touch about donations and to hear more is through the Facebook page www.facebook.com/Surviving.KW.
