How to combat homelessness? Opening the door is just a start (Globe & Mail)
The Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Jan. 09 2015, 3:40 PM EST
When asked what frustrates her most about her job, Joyce Rankin gives a simple answer: “That it has to be.”
As director of the Out of the Cold program for the homeless at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church near Yonge and St. Clair, she feels blessed to be doing such useful work, watching over those who come in from the weather to eat a hot meal and doss down on the floor of the basketball court for the night. She overflows with talk as she shows a visitor around the basement set-up, from the welcoming station to the long serving table to the big kitchen in the back. Yorkminster Park even offers a “foot spa.”
The program, she says, is a “well-oiled machine.” The volunteers are cheerful and attentive. The cost for taking in up to 68 overnight visitors once a week is modest: about $18,000 a year. At a time of declining church attendance in the city, the enterprise gives Yorkminster Park a renewed sense of purpose.
And, yet, as proud as she is of the program, “I find it shameful. I’m disgusted it has to exist.”
Link: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/joyce-rankin-has-the-worst-job-in-toronto/article22386606/?cmpid=rss1
Though I am not religious, I truly appreciate all the good work these organisations and volunteers do for those in need.
