Wesley plans to offer the new beds in June. Each room has a washroom, television, microwave, refrigerator and closet, as well as a door that locks.
“If you want people to move away from homelessness, you need to give them a little bit of privacy,” Afif says during a tour. “At least they can sleep at night.”
For Aichie, the restrictive hours of shelters were tough. With his weekend overnight work in Grimsby, he ran the risk of losing his shelter bed due to not making curfew. But he rolled the dice, bouncing from one shelter to another in the process.
A room in a shared private rental home solved that problem. But travelling from central Hamilton to Grimsby was another obstacle. That’s where Trinity United Church in Grimsby came in.
“The church adopted me,” says Aichie, a man of faith who calls his Hamilton journey a “divine arrangement.”
He sought out the church on foot after paying about $40 for an Uber ride to work. In response, the sexton took him in. Then, a support network of congregants formed around him, giving him rides and places to rest between shifts.
“And now it’s like he’s part of our community,” Rev. Donalee Williams says.
Meanwhile, helping Aichie has helped fill a need for local elder care, Williams points out.
“It has been just an absolute gift to get to know Kelvin. He’s an inspiration to me. He’s wonderful.”
Wesley CEO Afif, who came to Canada as a refugee from Afghanistan in 2009, encourages that spirit, noting how Hamilton extended a warm embrace to Ukrainians fleeing war.
“We do need community support. We cannot take the load alone.”
Afif is confident that, with the right services in place, this cohort of asylum seekers — and future ones — will find their bearings in a matter of months.
“We have highly motivated individuals who are ready to work … at a time that we are really suffering from lack of labour in a lot of industries. The first thing they always say: ‘When can I work?’”
Refuge executive director Terri Bedminster also sees that drive to succeed.
“We have folks who have landed jobs and started working as soon as they got their work permits.”
The key to successful support is collaboration and co-ordination of services, Bedminster emphasizes.
Aichie, who in Nigeria worked in IT, prefers to keep the circumstances of his departure private.
But through metaphor, he describes what led to his decision to leave.
“My case was like a frog in water and the temperature began to change,” he says. “You have to jump out. At that point, you don’t mind where you are jumping to. Do you understand?”
His next goals are passing his final exam, lining up full-time work and finding a better place to live.
For others who might be following in his footsteps, Aichie offers this advice:
“I just encourage whoever is in my shoes to be strong because you will meet challenges.”
