Understanding Encampments: Homelessness, Advocacy, and Respecting Personal Boundaries
A personal reflection on the experiences of visiting local encampments and learning how to support individuals experiencing homelessness. Explores the importance of respecting residents' boundaries, challenging misconceptions, and understanding that meaningful advocacy begins with listening.
HUMAN INTEREST
Katherine Amal Al-Zanoun
11/4/20263 min read
I remember the first time I visited the encampment because I remember how it made me feel, not because of the actual memory. It wasn’t long after I had moved in with two of our HearTH members, Sara, and Oviya, when they started talking about making sandwiches to take to the encampment on Weber and Victoria. At that point I had barely entered downtown Kitchener, feeling no real need to go down there so I wasn’t familiar with what was going on. This was before Heart of the Homeless was started. I was quite shy back then, so I was a bit unsure of going anywhere unfamiliar, let alone passing out food to strangers.
When we arrived at the encampment, I was immediately hit with the feeling of being unwelcomed, and felt deterred from going in, so I convinced Oviya and Sara to leave the bags on a rock in front of the encampment. I had felt like I was intruding, and technically, we are. There is a common misconception where individuals feel as though they can just walk into the encampment as though it is a public area. What people need to realize is that this is their home, this space needs to be respected just like someone living in a ‘traditional home’.
While it is hard to shake that feeling of intruding, I kept going back there, wanting to support my friends and the people that live there. This is an important boundary that I make sure never to cross, because while the residents are inviting me into their home, they can just as easily revoke their invitations.
When HearTH was founded, we started going to the encampment more often, and honestly, to this day, I still feel like I’m being intrusive and I am always on guard, braving the couple of minutes it takes for us to drop off the food or resources, ask the residents if they need anything else, and leave. The residents have never given me any reason to feel this way, as most of the time, they are just looking for food to eat or gloves to wear.
I’ve learned that asking the residents or site workers what resources the encampment needs is much better than assuming what they need and giving them something unhelpful. The term “any donation helps” doesn't always apply as I’ve seen some donations that look like someone is just clearing out their pantry. Advocacy should involve listening rather than simply showing up with a random assortment of things.
To make sure the members of HearTH are able to properly support the residents at the encampment, we have done some training with the help of local advocates in the city. While this training was meant to help us be prepared for every possible scenario, it scared me even more. This deterred me from going to the encampment all together for a while. This mindset is not very helpful when I want to go and support the residents, since this training outlines every single bad thing that could happen, I went in thinking the worst.
However, by going back and doing it over and over, it doesn’t get easier, but I remind myself that it is important to be kind and approachable, because the residents don’t want to be treated as though they are something to be afraid of, they’re just trying to survive. Most people see the encampment through the screens of their phones or televisions, they forget that they are real people living in really rough conditions, and they don’t need pity, they need support.
Looking back, I realize that a lot of my discomfort has to do with not knowing what to expect, or what to do when something happens. I had little to no experience with people living in encampments as it wasn’t something I was exposed to. When you’re unfamiliar with something, it is so easy to make assumptions and form prejudices against things you don’t completely understand. It’s so easy to let these preconceived notions dictate how you think about people and certain situations. I no longer have the assumptions that I once had, what’s left is only care that I take to make sure that I am not causing discomfort to the residents.
I first started volunteering because it was important to my friends, but the more I did it, the more I saw how much community is needed in order to make a change. We are nowhere near a proper solution to this issue, but we are close to figuring out what we can do to support the residents and the people going through hard times. We often associate making a difference with large donations at a distance, but sometimes it’s showing up consistently, and treating everyone with the same kindness and compassion that you would anyone else. People don’t have to have homes or clean clothes in order to deserve community.