It’s bitterly cold.
The packed snow underfoot squeaks like Styrofoam as the wind rips through clothes, biting at the skin underneath.
Behind St. Paul’s Anglican Church in downtown Kamloops, Eugene stumbles in the dark and icy alley.
He’s homeless, inebriated and freezing — a dangerous combination when the mercury has been hovering around -20 C for nearly two consecutive weeks.
“Can you help me?” Eugene whispers, his voice hoarse, barely audible.
His breath reeks of booze.
“Please help me.”
He isn’t wearing gloves.
Painfully, he tries to ring the doorbell, but he can’t push in the button.
His fingers are a scarlet purple.
Eugene nearly falls over backward as the door to the Out of the Cold emergency shelter in the church opens.
The shift captain peeks his head out.
“Can you wait half an hour?” he asks as Eugene tries to push his way inside.
“We’re not open yet. We’re not ready.”
He looks at Eugene, who has lived on the city’s streets for more than a decade. He can see just how cold he is — wearing dirty sweat pants, a sweater, a white and red bath towel wrapped like a scarf under his thin jacket and tattered sneakers.
“Please, please,” Eugene mumbles, shaking, “I’m so cold.”
The shift captain opens the door wide and lets the man inside.
In the kitchen, the first shift of volunteers is getting dinner ready.
Tonight, it’s macaroni with ground beef and tomato sauce, thick vegetable soup and a bun with a slice of cheddar cheese.
When the doors open at 7 p.m., there’s a slow but steady trickle of people who come in, seeking refuge from the cold.
Fourteen people — three women — will sleep in the church’s basement tonight.
Not as many as the week before, with an average of 23 people each night, but welfare checks came out that week.
Ron Tronson is worried about what will happen in mid-January when the money runs out.
As president of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, which runs the shelter program, he knows the cycle of the marginalized.
Many of the guys, he says, will get together and share a hotel room and drink until the money runs out.
After it’s gone, that’s when the shelters fill up.
Between the hostel and the mission, Tronson says the society’s program is there to fill the gaps.
“We’re here to catch the people who fall through the cracks.”
Out of the Cold runs every Wednesday from November through March.
But on nights when it’s -10 C or colder, the shelter is open every night.
As of Thursday, it’s been open for 13 consecutive nights to the city’s homeless — children, women and men who can be sober, drunk or high.
“We’re not here to fix ‘em,” Tronson says, “just to get them out of the cold so they don’t end up as a stat on tomorrow’s news.”
In the dinning room, Eugene is at the one long table decorated with poinsettias. There’s a small Christmas tree in the corner.
There are no presents under its branches.
He’s got a spot right in front of a TV playing a 1980s Mel Gibson movie.
Thawed and fed, Eugene is feeling good.
He jokes and laughs with his friend, Mike.
Mike returns the smile, a toothless grin.
The small, frail-looking man brushes his long hair back from his eyes and continues eating the steaming pasta.
He used to have a high-paying construction job in Prince George, but ended up in Kamloops five-and-a-half years ago, when his boss ditched him and took off with a month’s worth of wages.
Since then, Mike’s alternated between employed and unemployed.
Tonight, he’s thankful just to have a hot meal and a warm place to stay.
“It’s not easy,” he says, leaning back on the grey metal chair, musing about his time spent on the streets
Just for a brief moment, his liquid blue eyes reveal his despair.
“By God’s grace, you get by.”
Armed with only a tarp — a necessity to fend off the elements — Mike will endure another bone-chilling night outside if he can’t get a place at the shelter or the hostel.
“I just find a place where it doesn’t snow — under a bridge down by the river or sometimes in a doorway,” Mike says casually, adding it’s often too difficult to get to a shelter if he’s too cold.
“You just can’t because you burn up all your energy.”
The Out of the Cold program is a “shot of the Lord” and, without it, there would be “frozen bodies on the streets everywhere,” Mike says.
“It’d be awful.”
Soon, the home-cooked food is finished and the movie credits roll on the TV screen.
Eugene is sitting silently, watching the flickering screen, while his tired eyes start to close.
Mike pushes in his chair and heads back out into the frigid night for one final smoke before bed.
Tonight, the men will sleep easy.
Tonight, they are spared.
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