Family docs have a way of aging with their patients.

For a decade or more, I looked after patients in central west Toronto, their average age about mine. I especially admired four of them; I called them the four horsemen. Yvan (the names are made up; definitely not the people), the railroad worker who helped build spur lines from Manitoba west. Janusz, the Hungarian refugee who did odd jobs, and drank as much as he made. Kosta, the schizophrenic, a three cigarette pack-a-day phenom. Billy, the funny, cocky blind guy. All unemployed, a product of war, poor luck, bad genes, worse marriages and often awful choices. All single men. All living pretty successfully, I have to say, in rundown, one-room apartments or rooming houses, in Toronto’s Little Italy, though none of us (sadly) were Italian. They’d panhandle or save whatever government cheques they could muster, and once a week could be found at the Mars Restaurant on College Street for a meal. I think the restaurant is gone now, but not my memory of it. Or them for that matter.

All but one of us had been homeless at some point in our lives.

There they were, living side-by-side with yuppies and Brazilian fun-lovers, with new and old Canadians from Jamaica and Hong Kong, with multi-generational Italians and Portuguese, and with people named MacLean and Steinberg. Was it perfect for them or the neighbourhood? Of course not. Was it decent housing? Yes, for the most part. Were there objections to their location in an increasingly gentrified neighbourhood? I’m sure, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter; the horsemen were part of the scenery. NIMBYism? Not there, at least. Not then.

Fast forward a few years. Move south a few miles. Welcome to Hamilton, its never-ending struggle with homelessness, and a leadership that can’t agree where to put even handful of tiny houses. One of them sits empty and useless in my church’s parking lot. “Not in my ward!” one councillor says. “We’ve already got a homeless shelter!” from another. The dithering has persisted right through this cold winter, perpetuated by people who, I imagine, have never been homeless.

Here’s a part of the problem: our councillors represent only one ward, as though that was their city. Let me offer a little scene to illustrate — a Hamilton councillor on holiday in Vancouver.

“Where you from?” a stranger asks him/her.

“Beautiful Ward 31,” he/she says. “Yup, west end of Lake Ontario, right there on top of the Ward 31 escarpment, lookin’ over the poor folks who don’t live in 31. I forget what they’re called.” Proudly showing off his/her T-shirt. “31 Forever!” it says.

To be fair, I can understand the councillor’s bond with the 31’s residents; that’s who elected them after all. I can understand legitimate concerns about safety for the occasional case, or fear for our kids, or about needles. But I can’t understand this: the homeless aren’t going away, are they? The little parking-lot-house doesn’t seem to be moving anywhere rapidly either. And the failure to grasp the obvious link between housing and health? Not that either. The result: pushing this problem down the road, a negligent and dangerous act, or in this case, non-act.

NIMBYism is a little like those COVID mask problems, isn’t it — thinking of ourselves and not the other guy. How do you beat it? Negotiation, even Canadian-style arm-twisting: mayor-to-province, mayor-to-councillor; councillor-to-resident. Appealing to big hearts, not small minds. Pro quid quo thinking (“You want that new park in Ward 31?” an engaged mayor might say. “How be you take a homeless shelter too?”) Calling out the NIMBY in the argument, the tiny heart instead of the tiny shelter. Oh, and maybe realizing (and convincing others) that the people with the fake names and real stories — the Kosta’s, Janusz’, Yvan’s and Billy’s — are no different than you and me.

They’re Hamiltonians after all, not Ward 31sters. Less careful about their lifestyle, yes. Dirtier, possibly. Non-human? No way. For the most part, they’re just, you know, unluckier.

Let’s, for God’s sake, find a home for them.