The weather is cold, the nights are long, and not everyone has a place where they can find safety, warmth and comfort — a place many of us are fortunate enough to call home where we also enjoy the privacy and right to sleep. Not everyone is fortunate enough to crawl into a comfortable bed each night.

Those who live on the streets are fighting to claim these same rights — to warmth, safety and sufficient sleep to survive. We try to accommodate the homeless with shelter, but there isn’t always enough space in the shelters and not everyone prefers to sleep under a roof. When those seeking shelter are turned away, they are forced to find a suitable place to enjoy a decent night’s sleep.

Recently, a group of people living on the streets joined together in a Right to Sleep campaign, protesting against the criminalization of sleeping outside. The group began to build a tent city, which was moved from St. Ann’s Academy to the Cridge Park.

David Arthur Johnston became a strong catalyst of the Right to Sleep campaign and tent city development, as he was repeatedly asked to move from one location to another during the night. He told me of his first tent city experience on the lawn of the Legislative building and how he witnessed "the ultimate healing nature of a loving community." The shared goal is to extend this healing into the community-at-large, while still ensuring that we abide laws that are structured to both protect us and not hinder our personal freedom.

The underlying motive for the Right to Sleep campaign was to protest harassment of homeless people by those in authority, but became a much larger movement for individuals who were experiencing the cold and solitude of living on the street. In the midst of the protest, the actions of the tent city dwellers spoke volumes about the basic human need for community.

The tent city provided a communal experience as another basic necessity of life, an emotional connection with other human beings that will help build positive feelings and personal strength.

There is a fear and misunderstanding of the unknown and, as much as everyone has the right to secure their own safety, we can easily take some of our creature comforts for granted through no direct fault of our own. Johnston observes, "The goal is to raise the awareness of the general public as fear of anarchy seems to be a major justification to ignore justice."

It is important to remember that there are so many less fortunate, and for whatever reason they are living out in the harsher elements they still deserve warmth and human compassion. The tent cities were courageously born out of basic necessity and compassion, and perhaps this is a first step to creating a more proactive approach to our growing homelessness problem.

by Andrea McKenzie