Sue’s Story: Healing Trauma to Overcome Homelessness and Addiction

Last fall, a fire torched her Hamilton apartment, sending her to the street.

Sue, 61, recounts some of the milestones that have framed her turbulent life.

But after a bout with homelessness, she has found stability at Wesley’s special care unit and aims to kick an addiction to fentanyl.

Reaching this point hasn’t been like flipping a switch, says Sue, who notes she has used drugs since she was 11.

“You throw up. Some have diarrhea. You have bad cramps. You’re like curling up in a ball. You’re sweating.”

But at the special care unit on Main Street East, where she was admitted in May, she hasn’t gone cold turkey.

Sue has continued to use fentanyl while reducing her consumption with the help of prescribed drugs and support from staff.

“Probably at least 50 per cent, at least,” she says, noting her goal is to stop using altogether.

(Sue requested want her last name used out of concern that stigma associated with her drug use could hinder her chances of securing housing.)

For about 20 years, Wesley has operated a managed alcohol consumption program.

This week, city council backed a boost of 20 beds, bringing the special care unit’s spaces to about 30, as the social-service agency pilots a polysubstance program expansion.

The roughly $400,000 initiative is part of a temporary boost of 192 indoor spaces, mostly in shelters, to help alleviate the plight of roughly 300 people estimated to be living outside in Hamilton.

Council’s overall $18.3-million expenditure also includes the creation of a sanctioned outdoor shelter site with services for as many as 80 people on a city brownfield off Barton Street West near CN’s rail yard.

Participants in Wesley’s program aren’t expected to quit using while they find their bearings after homelessness.

They’re supported by a team of staff, including doctors and nurses, as well as specialists in harm reduction, psychotherapy and case management.

Along the way, they receive help reconnecting with families, finding employment and securing housing or long-term care in some cases.

Through clinics, clients can maintain their use of methadone or suboxone to help diminish cravings. Outside doctors prescribe safer-supply drugs, such as hydromorphone, meant to replace volatile concoctions of fentanyl sold on the street.

Hamilton, like other cities across North America, is awash with unpredictable and deadly opioid mixes driving an overdose crisis that has affected all walks of life, including those without housing.

But harm reduction, especially with “wraparound support,” is proven to be successful in addressing addiction and stabilizing people’s lives, Afif says.

“You need to provide them a space and give them the dignity and autonomy to make a decision, and so that’s what this program is about.”

As clients decide their path, for most, trips to the emergency room “drastically drop” and interactions with police “go to almost zero,” Afif says.

That’s part of Wesley’s pitch for provincial funding.

“We know that the city money is temporary. We would like to continue our conversation with the province. I think this will give us a good opportunity to show how this program is going to work.”

Wesley CEO Rashed Afif says clients at the social-service agency’s special care unit are afforded the “dignity and autonomy” to determine their goals. The Hamilton Spectator file photo

The ‘spiral’ interrupted

For Sue, her room at Wesley is a stabilizing force, a retreat where she can relax.

“It’s like my own space. It’s great.”

Unlike the street, where the rigours of homelessness not only pose formidable obstacles to recovery, but also feed addiction.

A “spiral” is how program director Robyn Currie describes it.

“You’re going through a cycle of trying to find your drugs, using your drugs, and then going into withdrawal and trying to find your drugs again.”

Wesley’s program aims to take that edge off by alleviating clients of the nagging pressure to find drugs on the street.

“So that you can focus on something else. You don’t have to worry about going into withdrawals,” Currie says.

“That’s why we don’t want unsheltered homelessness to persist,” Bruce says. “I think we hold people to really high expectations as to how they should act sometimes.”

Sue knows about the spiral.

Before her life went up in flames, she struggled to pay the rent, despite a monthly government supplement.

The diminutive mother of four says her apartment wasn’t perfect. Some cupboards were missing. Electrical outlets didn’t work.

“It was a mess and they ended up cutting off my hydro,” recalls Sue, who gets by on a disability pension.

After three unsuccessful attempts to rescue Kitty Cat, her beloved and aptly named feline, she left.

“I had no shoes on and I just ran. I had my pyjamas on. That’s it,” says Sue, who is unclear on what caused the fire.

That night, she ended up in a couple’s tent pitched in a park. No running water or bathroom.

“It was terrible,” says Sue, noting she’d had her own place since she was 15.

From there, she “bounced” from one tent or couch to another, running the gauntlet of homelessness for the first time.

“If you ended up in a place where stuff was going on, you had to just leave your stuff and go.”

But it wasn’t always possible to avoid danger.

“To steal my drugs, they beat me,” she says. “They were people that I thought were my friends.”

Sue says she didn’t stay in shelters because they were full. But she managed warm up for spells at a drop-in centre.

All the while, through the grind, her spirits continued to sink.

“You may as well be using,” Sue says of the despair. “You’re escaping the horrible way you’re living.”

Sue has two daughters in Saskatchewan who are doing well. Her two sons, who live in Hamilton, not so much.

“They’re both using … and they’re outside.”

Not a straight line

Sue says she’d tried to quit before.

But this time, homeless and thinking about her kids as she turned 60, something else clicked.

“I don’t want my kids to be embarrassed, and I want a better life.”

Through word on the street, she connected with an outreach worker who told her about an opening at the Wesley program.

So she took the plunge.

As she works toward her goal of quitting altogether, Sue takes methadone and Dilaudid, which is hydromorphone.

“That’s working OK.”

But it hasn’t been a straight line. “I slipped once.”

Worried, she went out looking for her younger son after not seeing him for a few days.

When she got back, she had to start over.

Was quitting cold turkey ever an option? Not with fentanyl, Sue quickly replies.

“I couldn’t have come here with complete withdrawal, with no help with the drugs.”

At Wesley, she has the support, her own room. There’s also the garden she worked on this past summer, rekindling a passion of hers.

“You think clearer. And it’s the environment here. I don’t know. I feel like I don’t want to disappoint anybody.”

And there is no hard timeline. But Sue aspires to move on and get her own place.

“When I feel that I’m ready.”

Meanwhile, Kitty Cat is waiting for her.

It turned out that firefighters were able to rescue her black-and-white tabby after all.

Kitty Cat is staying with a friend of a Wesley worker.

“He’s been bounced around a little, and I don’t like that. He’s been through so much.”