Randy’s Story: Seven Day Service Means Meals on Weekends

“I wish you guys introduced weekend meals a year earlier. I was homeless during the winter of 2009/10. I had nowhere to go and nothing to eat on the weekends.

I slept at Sunset Beach for three months. I had money for an apartment from income assistance but everywhere I went I kept hearing the same two words: ’Credit check’. So, I ended up homeless.

I used to work. I used to live in a house. And I used to have pets. I was a truck driver, Class 1 long-haul out of Edmonton. I’d go as far up as Yellowknife and as far east as Montreal. But I lost everything.

My mom passed away in July of 1995, and I got an inheritance. I should have bought a new truck for my work with that money, but cocaine took it all. When the money was gone, I discovered that I had contracted HIV. Sometimes the regret and the poverty hurt more than the [diagnosis of] HIV itself.

The Dr. Peter Centre is a place to come and be with people who are no different than me. And now that the Centre is open seven days a week, I don’t starve on the weekends. Even though I have housing now, I can’t really eat at home. Those SRO [single room occupancy] hotel rooms only have a little bar fridge and a hot plate. It makes it really hard to make the healthy meals you need when you have HIV.

I know that everyone is real happy to be able to come to the Dr. Peter Centre for a meal or a movie, or even just to get out of the rain. It can get so lonely on Sundays; there’s no place open and there’s nothing to eat. It feels so good to know there’s a place where I can go.”