When there really is no place like home: Finding affordable housing can be ‘stepping stone to better things...’

Brandon Cochrane was like a lot of us when it comes to homeless people. Most times, he looked away.

Until he became homeless himself, about five years ago.

It went from having no experience in being homeless to being fully immersed in this homeless life, and totally exposed to what chronic homelessness actually meant," he says.

Since then, Cochrane, 38, has lived rough in shelters sometimes, and other times had a room of his own.

Home can be a space to feel safe. To stretch out. Store all your stuff and shut out the world.

Cochrane fit his stuff into two backpacks when he moved into his new place.

It's an upstairs room in a house in downtown St. Catharines; he moved in just before Christmas. He keeps a few more things in a duffel bag at a friend's place.

For a person living rough, with no roof over their head, to actually get a home the difference would be like night and day," Cochrane says.

It's a huge change, to have a place that you can rely on as being there ... to have that level of stability that is not afforded to a lot of people in this situation.

At least it serves as a stepping stone to better things..."

A place to change your clothes in private. Where you can have a bad day without being on public display.

For him, home is just having that stability and being able to have a bit of privacy, which is such an increasingly scarce commodity," he says.

Being able to close the door and have a place you can call your own ... I'm not sure how I got along without it before."

Cochrane got his place with help from Niagara Assertive Street Outreach, or NASO, a Niagara Region program.

It's tough, we live in a society where affordable housing is scarce and it's really, really hard to find," said Shelly Mousseau, homelessness program manager for Welland-based Gateway Residential and Community Support Services.

The beauty of NASO is we establish rapports with our landlords. We know landlords who are willing to work with us to help find housing options for the individuals who need it.

The need for housing is always, always there."

NASO is funded by the Region as a collaboration between lead agency Gateway, The Raft and Southridge Community Church in St. Catharines, and Port Cares in Port Colborne, which receive United Way funding.

It has outreach staff across Niagara working with people who are chronically homeless - individuals sleeping rough, individuals who could be in an abandoned building, sleeping outdoors, in their car, in encampments ...," says Mousseau.

Anyone can help a person they see living or sleeping on the street or who is obviously homeless - phone 211, leave a detailed message, and an outreach worker will be alerted to find the person and offer assistance.

Last year, NASO moved 178 people into housing from being homeless.

Gateway's Housing First and Home for Good programs found housing for another 95 people, including a subsidy to offset their costs plus ongoing support to keep them housed.

By early March, it expects to offer 25 more housing spaces at a former Niagara Falls hotel property.

A person who is homeless and who qualifies for both Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program assistance, gets monthly rent help of approximately $395 and $495. Gateway also offers a subsidy.

Cochrane says after his rent is paid, he's left with about $100 to last him a month.

It's tough, right?" says Mousseau. And that's where we struggle with our housing market.

Because we're seeing skyrocketing rents being charged - sometimes two to three times what they were a few years ago - and it's hard, it's very difficult for the individuals that we serve to survive.

That's where we really count on our other community programs, like food banks and other resources out there."

Gateway is always looking for more landlords to provide housing, Mousseau said.

Getting his new place is a good sign for Cochrane, whose life hasn't always gone according to plan.

There was bad luck and, he admits, bad choices. There was alcohol, and drugs. He's continuing to work on getting sober, and said he has a good shot at getting a job soon.

People are free to judge, but homelessness is a hard life.

Last summer, NASO helped Cochrane find a room in a place off Welland Avenue in St. Catharines. About a half-dozen others lived there, including him.

I had really high hopes for that, I thought everything was going to be pretty good," he says, but soon it became an unwelcoming environment."

He was away for a couple of days, and when he returned the landlord had boxed up everything he owns and dumped it on the front lawn.

He says the landlord talked about damage and drug-dealing; he denies it, and says he was thrown under the bus" over problems between tenants.

Cochrane waited three hours for the landlord to show up.

It was about this time somebody rode by on a bike and saw an opportunity to grab my guitar case, which had my guitar in it and also my laptop.

Of all the items that could have been grabbed, that was the most devastating."

He tried to chase the guy but couldn't catch him.

Totally gutted," he says he stayed up all night just walking, with nowhere to go.

When you're that alone and something like that happens, you just kind of suck it up and move forward."

Now Cochrane has a home, but he can think of at least 50 others who still need one.

It really baffles me to see people who were housed, and then were homeless, and the place where they were living is simply boarded up and forgotten about," he says.

These homes are just going unused and unmaintained ... the property owner, I'm sure they've got something in mind ... with the property in the future, but in the meantime it seems like a perfectly good location just goes squandered because it's boarded up instead of put to good use."

Please, he says: Don't judge homeless people.

When you see somebody who is freaking out in public, or having like a really bad day, that shouldn't be used to define this person's life ...

I think it's easier to succumb to these types of situations when you really have nowhere to turn, and you've got no idea where you're sleeping that night and you've got a multitude of problems you have to face.

And you have to face them publicly because you've got no door to close to be behind and figure this out. There's nowhere to sort of sit and reflect and figure out what your next step is going to be, because you've got no place to go."

Gord Howard is a St. Catharines-based reporter with the Standard. Reach him via email: gord.howard@niagaradailies.com