Stories from the front line of Hamilton’s social navigator program

Outside Hamilton police central station on King William Street, Sgt. Pete Wiesner bumps into a group of guys who enthusiastically call out to him.

Wiesner jokes they are not there to sing his praises for the benefit of a Spectator reporter. But there is no faking it. As we walk past drop-in programs, street corners and shelters downtown, they all know Officer Pete.

He hands out a coffee, makes arrangements to bring boots for someone, promises to sort out a shelter issue for another. One man, barely visible under blankets, tells him he's been banned from a shelter for 10 years. Nearby shelter workers are sweeping the street of debris, one removes an empty syringe.

Wiesner was the Hamilton police social navigator officer for years. About a year ago, he became acting sergeant as the crisis response unit co-ordinator, which includes the social navigator and other programs dealing with mental health and crisis outreach.

The social navigator program (SNP) has been around for 11 years and pairs an officer with a paramedic to respond to the city's most vulnerable, including those with mental illness and the chronically homeless. At first, they were mostly medical calls, but that has evolved.

Const. Dan Fleming, an interim social navigator officer, is investigating the life of a senior dropped off at the Good Shepherd shelter in Hamilton from Georgetown Hospital, even though he could speak only one word: his name, Sam. After more than a month, police learned his real name is Sab Duanopbmmy, but Fleming continues to piece together his life, trying to find family and get him out of hospital into a safe place to live.

The idea is to navigate people to social service or health-care programs - helping them get a spot in a shelter, fill out ODSP paperwork, or giving them boots or a winter coat.

The small-but-mighty team includes a co-ordinator, an officer and, thanks to funding amid the pandemic, two paramedics.

Paramedic Naomi Henderson is looking at tent encampments and is on the task force the city has established to examine solutions to the issue.

Co-ordinator Sandra Kurdziel says people don't realize police don't take the lead on dismantling encampments that violate city bylaws. Police are there to ensure safety.

They do not throw out tents. Instead, the team has offered, with permission, to help pack them up. They offer food, water and help find spaces in shelters or hotels.

Police are not mental-health experts, but Wiesner and others say they need to be part of the solution, because in a crisis, it's police who are called.

In the last year, demand has doubled for social navigator services.

As of the end of November, they had 440 referrals to the program; there were 283 referrals in all of 2019.

The program has distributed winter coats and gear to 196 people. They've made 303 referrals to various social services and health-care services.

The key with the social navigator program is we do more than just push people into pigeon holes," Wiesner said.

The Spectator accompanied three clients of the program, at various stages in their lives, to learn about how they became homeless, their struggles and what the program has meant to them.

Ray's story

When Ray Perrier found himself homeless last April, he didn't want anyone knowing.

I was embarrassed, my pride stopped me from asking for help," he said. I didn't want people to know the situation I was in."

So with only a backpack and bag of belongings, he moved into Confederation Park, sleeping in pavilions and on picnic tables.

Perrier had been struggling after a long relationship and a suicide attempt. He is an addict, but has been clean for some time. He's also completing an anger-management course.

He has two sides. One guy is rough," he said, who doesn't stand for stealing or crossing him. The other would volunteer to drop off donations or give away half his sandwich, despite not having eaten for days.

I learned that if I'm in a situation it's already too late," he said. So I make the right choices now."

That meant shelters were out. If someone stole or confronted him, he knows he would potentially hurt someone. So he found himself alone.

The rain was the worst, because once he got wet he could not dry.

Parks staff gave him a hard time.

They would gave me 10 (minutes) to get my stuff together and get lost," he said.

The way they would look at and talk to him, it was like he wasn't a person, he recalls. Like he was garbage."

The way I was being treated, I've never experienced that in my life," Perrier said, calling the treatment harassment.

People would look through me, past me."

As the months got colder, he got a tent, but soon found someone had cut the tarp.

At night, people stared into his camp area. He found dog poop flung on his tent. As homelessness worsened in the city and bylaw officers began clearing out encampments, Perrier saw people pushed out from the downtown.

There is a code among the homeless not to enter someone's camp site. But addicts often don't abide, and one night Perrier came upon two guys trying to steal from him. The old" Perrier would have punished them, hurt them. But he held back and they ran, dropping his possessions.

In October, police received a complaint from the park, which is run by the Hamilton Conservation Authority, about a man sleeping under a pavilion for several months. The social navigator program responded.

Perrier felt, for the first time, that someone was listening.

(Const. Dan Fleming) never looked through me, never looked down on me," he said.

Instead, they explained to park officials that Perrier had nowhere to go while waiting for housing. Shelters weren't an option. The harassment stopped. They got him winter boots, a coat and ski pants. When his tent broke, they helped set up his new one.

You can tell they care," Perrier said, naming Dan Fleming, Naomi Henderson and Sandra Kurdziel of the social navigator team. And unlike others who have offered to help and then disappeared, they keep their promises.

If they say we'll see you on Tuesday, they show up on Tuesday."

Meanwhile, Perrier was following a Facebook group called recycling kindness." He had offered to drop off donations for the Hamilton group before, but was embarrassed to reach out and ask for help himself.

Finally, he posted a message: this is the face of homelessness, a guy who used to have a job and home and decent life. A guy who grew up in east Hamilton, who had friends and family, but had pushed them away.

He got 300 responses. It blew him away. So many willing to help. People started dropping off food.

In one of his earlier posts, he made a request for a can opener. Kristy Hamilton was in the area and thought it was an easy task.

Hamilton works in community health, and often uses the recycling kindness group to help find patients with spinal cord issues equipment such as bath benches. When she first messaged Perrier, she didn't fully realize his situation, but soon learned he was camping at the park. She dropped off the can opener and groceries.

But there was something about Perrier.

I just couldn't walk away," she said.

They're both from Newfoundland. She is a Christian. Perrier follows his Indigenous traditions.

Soon she was doing his laundry, texting him to check in. She helped with housing forms. He was invited to her family's home for Christmas.

The way I view it, is that God put you in my path for a reason," she told him.

Hamilton used to manage a supportive housing building for DMS Property Management. She called and asked for personal favour, vouched for Perrier, asked the landlord to perform an act of compassion."

It worked and Perrier secured a one-bedroom apartment at a Jarvis Street building for Dec. 15.

When The Spectator met Perrier, he was staying at an Airbnb, friends had temporarily put him up there for the week before he got his new place. On Dec. 8, his 55th birthday, Perrier woke up in a bed for the first time in eight months.

But there was one other surprise. Before Perrier moved in, Hamilton and others cleaned the unit and furnished it with donated items. They set up a Christmas tree covered in gift cards.

He cried with joy. Perrier sent The Spectator pictures, including smiling selfies of himself around his beautiful apartment.

With funds from ODSP and subsidized housing while he's on a wait list for city housing, the rent is manageable.

Perrier said it took him a long time to accept he deserved this help. It's a message of what can come when you open yourself up.

But Perrier also wants people to apply the same kindness to others, because there are so many that need compassion.

Erik's story

Sometimes Erik Kenyon feels like the world is conspiring against him.

I feel like every time I tried to do something it just wasn't going to plan," he said. My mom wanted to name me Murphy, for Murphy's law ... I just feel like I couldn't catch a break."

The 25-year-old Hamilton man has been through a lot in his life. Brain surgery, being shot and stabbed. He's overdosed, seen friends shot and saved people from overdosing.

Kenyon is one of only a few who are court-ordered to be part of the social navigator program. Yet through it, he's found support to keep going, even when he falls off track.

He sees Sgt. Pete Wiesner almost as a father figure. Pete and Kenyon's ex-girlfriend - who is still in his life - have stood by him for years, he said.

As a teen, Kenyon says he was on track to be drafted to the Ontario Hockey League, when he needed brain surgery. It turned out to be a lesion on his brain he says was caused by hits to the head on the ice. With a metal plate in his head, he couldn't play hockey anymore.

The brain injury affects his memory. It is hard to keep dates straight. If he gets upset, he has trouble thinking before acting.

School fell apart, he started hanging out with a girl who offered him drugs. He thought it was cocaine, but it was heroin. He slept for two days and vomited.

I woke up and I said I want more," he said.

That was the beginning of his opiate addiction.

It's like you put an infinite string around you and the other end of it is ... like a winding wheel, pulling you in," Kenyon said.

He had a job roofing, but stopped showing up. He left home. He destroyed relationships.

When he was 20, Kenyon was homeless. He would sleep in stairwells, but usually couch-surfed. He would hide his bag in the bushes behind the A&W on King Street West, near Hess Village. He would go out with friends at night at Hess. Often he'd meet a girl, who would bring him home.

Not my proudest moment," he says now.

Then he met his girlfriend. She helped him, setting him up in a hotel with clothes and food.

But by that point, he had drug charges. He had been part of the social navigator program for about a year when Wiesner took over and things changed.

I've got good news and bad news for you," Kenyon recalls Wiesner telling him.

The bad news was he was going to jail, for 56 days. But he was going to get clean and, when he got out, Wiesner would be waiting. It was Kenyon's first time at the Barton jail (Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre) and he was scared. But it was also a kick in the pants.

When he got out, Wiesner was there. He had an apartment lined up and a job at a local club.

For a time, things were good, but Kenyon started taking crystal meth as a way to stay up and feel alert at work.

He often felt tired and sluggish from his past opiate use, but on crystal meth, Kenyon convinced himself it made him feel normal. But it soon caught up with him. He started missing work.

Kenyon is a bike fanatic and would spend all day riding around the city. He ran with a dangerous crowd, carrying a zip gun - a homemade, single-shot gun made from a small pipe. This is how he got shot, fleeing from a fight in Hess Village. It fell and went off, and went through his leg.

He forgot the zip gun was in his pocket one day when he went to sign in for probation. He was arrested and charged.

He was looking at possible prison time, but when the gun wouldn't fire during ballistics tests the charges were reduced. He spent about six months in Barton that time - he got out a little over a year ago.

During that stay, he got off methadone and decided: I don't want to be here, I don't want to live like this."

And when he got out, Wiesner was there for him again.

Wiesner said he could see Kenyon had matured.

Now, the 25-year-old is back in the apartment building he lived in before. And Wiesner is still there for him.

It's the small things, like knowing his Tim Hortons order: chocolate milk, not coffee. Bringing groceries. Just checking in.

Kenyon knows he needs to keep focused. But more important, he knows he's not alone.

Danny's story

Danny Muckle has been surrounded by addiction, substance use and mental illness all his life.

In recounting his childhood, he says his dad sold drugs, and that there was always drinking and drugs in the house. His mom was constantly in jail or hospital because of addiction and mental illness. His older brothers raised him and, in turn, he parented a younger brother. Many family members have schizophrenia or other forms of mental illness that cause psychosis.

Growing up, I didn't realize that wasn't an average home," the 27-year-old said, sitting in the YMCA men's residence on James Street South.

Muckle recently got out of detox and is living at the men's residence while he works, with the help of the social navigator program, to get his life back on track. He's feeling more confident, but also anxious about relapsing.

He started drinking at the age of eight and was an alcoholic by 10. He got in fights at school; got himself suspended so he could go home and drink.

At the time, he thought it was a way to connect with his older brothers. Now he recognizes it as the beginning of his alcoholism.

His dad didn't seem to care or notice, he said. If he was to add up all the time his mom was at home, Muckle estimates it was six months of his life.

She died by suicide in 2004 - Muckle found her and still has flashbacks during occasional psychotic episodes.

Muckle was born in Hamilton. His family lived on their First Nation reserve - Wabaseemoong - near Kenora, Ont. From the time Muckle was age 10 to 18, he was in foster care. Now he is estranged from most family.

Muckle worked as a welder for National Steel Car when he was 19. But that job, just like his schooling, his relationships and a handful of apartments, was lost because of addiction.

Muckle met Sgt. Pete Wiesner when Wiesner was the Hamilton police social navigator program officer. Wiesner is now the co-ordinator of the crisis response unit, which includes the social navigator.

At that time, Muckle was sleeping on a bench near the Salvation Army.

I considered it my home," Muckle said. He would get kicked out of the shelter for being drunk and sleep on the bench.

Someone must have complained, because the city stepped in to remove the bench and Muckle, intoxicated, was fighting it. Wiesner arrested Muckle, but didn't charge him.

After that, Wiesner would check in on Muckle, but he wasn't ready yet to join the social navigator program. That happened when he phoned Wiesner a couple of months ago.

Muckle reached a breaking point recently after five people he knows died of alcoholism and drink.

Muckle said he would drink from the moment he woke to the moment he passed out. He had tremors, withdrawal and seizures.

The reason I called Pete, he's the only person who was actually willing to help," Muckle said. He's had others try to help him before, but nobody who would stick with him.

Now Muckle knows if he doesn't show up to an appointment, Wiesner is going to come find him. Wiesner got him into detox, connected him with mental-health services, helped him find a family doctor. He has a job lined up for when he's more stable and he recently began volunteering at the Hub, a drop-in program behind the Salvation Army.

He's given me a little bit more of a sense of responsibility and purpose, as well as a lot more self-reliance," Muckle said.

Because of depression and alcoholism, the 27-year-old would go days without eating. Now, Wiesner and Muckle talk about healthy eating, and Wiesner drops by with breakfast some days. Muckle is back on his anti-depression and antipsychotic medication. He plans to return to trade school and hopes to move out of the YMCA.

His relationship with Wiesner is unlike any other he's had with a police officer.

Muckle said he wants more people to know about the social navigator program. He had heard of it before, but didn't know how much it could help.

It's completely different for a police officer being willing to help me instead of throwing some cuffs on me and letting me sit in a cell," he said.

Nicole O'Reilly is a Hamilton-based reporter covering crime and justice for The Spectator. Reach her via email: noreilly@thespec.com