Community donates emergency tents for unhoused after Canada Day storm

Geza Wordofa holds a donated tent next to a damaged one at the homeless encampment behind the Downie Street parking lot. Twenty-five tents were donated by the community after the Canada Day storm damaged many used by Stratford’s unhoused.

By: CONNOR LUCZKA, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Geza Wordofa, Stratford city councillor and founder of the Multicultural Association of Perth-Huron (MAPH), was set to join his fellow citizens during the annual Canada Day parade on July 1. As a storm with winds exceeding 100 kilometres an hour hit Stratford, he got word of a homeless gentleman’s tent being damaged, a person he has been communing with for the last little while, and left to see how he could help. He soon found that many, if not all, of the tents used by the city’s unhoused were damaged, leaving them outside with no shelter.

With stores closed for the holiday, Wordofa didn’t have many options, so posted on MAPH’s Facebook page asking for donations.

The community responded immediately. Instead of just one tent being donated, Wordofa and his organization received 25, completely filling the need.

“I’m very proud of (the) people who gave me these tents,” Wordofa said. “I’m just standing again, bowing. I’m bowing to say thank you. We are doing good things.”

Wordofa and MAPH have been working to curb the effects of the rising cost of living and the homelessness epidemic facing Canada and Ontario locally. Along with gathering tents and their advocacy, MAPH also runs a mobile foodbank operating on weekends and assists with individuals trying to rehabilitate and overcome personal challenges.

Wordofa said that he was immensely proud of the community for their recent donations, adding that a national epidemic like homelessness is a local one that needs to be addressed with a local mindset.

“This is not a government problem. This is not (a) federal problem, is not provincial. This is a community problem,” Wordofa continued. “If we are waiting for emergency government (intervention), maybe (it will) never happen.

“… We have to be working together with local business, with local community. with local church, otherwise it's not fixing (the problem). But for me this is humanity, the people who (are) there, they need help, they need support.”

As always, Wordofa urged local residents to continue to treat its unhoused population with dignity and kindness.

“When I go there, I saw them. They are human. These people (are) born here, some (are) local people, people who I know. People who gave me coffee yesterday, today they are homeless people. These are our problems.”

According to the last report on homelessness published by the social services department at its March committee meeting, as of January of this year, 122 households were experiencing homelessness in Stratford, St. Marys and Perth County. One hundred and three were single adults, eight were youth, 11 were families, 106 were experiencing chronic homelessness, 35 were unsheltered and 14 identified as Indigenous.

The next social services committee meeting is scheduled for July 14.