Home is where the hurt is

Many view homelessness and the ensuing violence - or violence and the ensuing homelessness - as deplorable, particularly in a country like Canada.

But few go beyond the snapshot images of national news stories or brief encounters on city sidewalks.

Freeman and Glenda Cull did.

The Englee husband and wife travelled to Alberta in 2006 as support workers at a homeless shelter operated by the Salvation Army in Fort McMurray.

Freeman captured the often rattling experience of four years (five four month contracts) of service in northern Alberta in his book Home Is Where The Hurt Is: The Cull's Journey from Englee, NL to Fort McMurray, AB, released late 2009.

JR: Who is this book directed towards?

FC: (Pause) That's a good question. We just wanted to tell our story, basically, and hopefully somebody else would get the message - yes, there's work out there to do - and challenge people to try it, give a little. No, I wouldn't discourage anybody from going, even though we burnt out. There's a mission out there, it's going to be stressful; it's dangerous. A lot of these people are drug dealers, they're armed, I mean they have knives...I've seen knives fall out of people. I've been up in the middle of the night, two o'clock in the morning, people walking and daggers falling on the floor.

JR: You wrote as close to truth or what you saw as you could...

FC: That's...Yeah, yes.

JR: If written differently it almost sounds like the book could be preachy.

FC: I never thought that way, no. I was just focused on telling our story. There's so many young people who dabbled in drugs and alcohol, if that book could help one person to consider what they're doing, I would be blessed. That would make me feel like I've done something worthwhile, I'll say that much.

If I could discourage a young person from trying these things, which are certainly not necessary, they don't do you any good and it hurts so many people. If you could get that much out of it...But that's not why I wrote it, we just wanted to tell our story, which to us, it was just a good story.

JR: What's important to keep in mind when you go to volunteer at this sort of place and deal with these problems?

FC: For me it was very, very stressful. Glenda seemed to be able to handle it better than I could. For me, I always had to grow up rough, I always had to work. And I won't say if you didn't work you didn't eat, but that's what Dad believed. So for me to see people lying around and not doing anything, I had a job to deal with it. She could still put her arms around them and tell them she loved them. I loved them too, but it was in a different way; I believe in responsibility, doing something. So, if you're going to do much, you have to have more than an idea that, yes, you feed somebody; if you're going to help rehabilitate these people, you have to be able to put your arms around them and talk to them and listen to them and hopefully steer them in the right direction. It was tough. I found it really tough, I was stressed every day.

JR: Why did you stay for so long?

FC: It was a mission for us. We always worked in church, and of course this was run by the Salvation Army. The mandate of the Salvation Army was, Heart to God, Hand to Man. General William Booth (founder of the church) believed that if you were going to tell a man that God loved him, and not put any food in his stomach, you wouldn't be that effective. What he felt was that, if you fed him and gave him a cake of soap and a clean shirt and a bed to lie on, then you could talk to him, which is practical, makes sense. That was our focus.

JR: Could you measure success while you were there, or could you even look at the time?

FC: I still think we did good work. But we burned out. We had no more to give. I found out, basically, there's only two types of people, and that's givers and takers. If you are a giver and I give to you, the thing that I give you you will appreciate. You'll say, 'Why did you do that, I don't deserve that,' or, 'Can you afford this?' And a vibe comes back to me that you appreciate what I'm doing for you. But if you give to a taker, and we've seen lots of these, they'll just grab it and say, 'You're not giving me anything, the government is paying for this. You're here because you're getting your stamps, you're here because you're getting your wage out of this,' all this kind of stuff. So you wear out.

JR: Looking back on the experience, what do you think about it?

FC: I never thought I ever would work at a homeless shelter. It challenged me totally, both my working ability and my spirit. I tell ya, it challenged me.

Empty Listerine bottles on the step of the Salvation Army shelter, one of the many photos depicting street life.