COVID-19: Homeless advocate Cam Noyes takes to street to help where he can

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When Cameron Noyes leaves his house these days, he brings a couple of supply bags with him.

“Oh, let’s see,” he says, slightly under his breath. “I have bottles of Ensure, sterilized Ziplocs with socks in them, toilet paper, home-made sanitary wipes people made with rubbing alcohol, naloxone kits.”

While some people have been prepping for the COVID-19 pandemic by stocking up on flour, toilet paper, pasta and other items, Noyes is thinking about the homeless in his Old Strathcona neighbourhood. He’s not a part of any official organization, but the activist, musician, promoter and sometime artist manager feels very keenly for those who have fallen through the cracks, especially as the streets clear, people stay inside, businesses shutter their doors.

“(March 18) I ran into this woman on Whyte Ave. who has been on the streets for years,” he says. “She was asking where everyone was, and why all the stores were closed. Nobody had told her.”

Others have also expressed dismay to Noyes at how they’ve been left behind.

“I ran into a young couple outside who were lifting up garbage can lids,” he sighs. “The women asked me, ‘Why didn’t they tell us?’ They only found out a couple of days after the fact why stores were closed down. I gave them some rubber gloves so they didn’t have to touch metal.”

Edmonton might be turning into a ghost town, but there are still a number of people haunting the streets. Noyes has kept up with them, handing out necessities, and giving advice. The problem is finding them, as the usual hub around which many street people congregate has closed down with no notice.

“We need to get the public washroom on Whyte (northeast corner of Whyte Ave. and Gateway Blvd.) opened again,” Noyes says with a certain amount of urgency. “There are other matters, sure, but we need to have a spot for street people to clean themselves. The first rule of this pandemic is to wash your hands and don’t touch your face. How can people do this if nothing is open?”

Noyes, who is known in the neighbourhood as much for his friendly dog Boudica as for advocacy, is insistent on this getting sorted. A couple of area businesses have stepped up to help with their own toilets, which he’s grateful for, but it’s not enough. The public washroom, which has been staffed by Boyle Street Ventures since late 2019, is an automatic meeting point. In his most recent forays out he’s seen a number of people testing the doors; Noyes has taken to carrying a spray bottle full of disinfectant to use on the handles.

He might be doing this for a while, as there appear to be no plans to reopen the space at the moment.

“It was a decision by the city,” matter-of-factly says Elliott Tanti, Boyle Street media and communications director. “I imagine they’re trying to limit contact. We did have staff who were ready and willing to do it, but we have no say in the matter, unfortunately.”

So Noyes continues with his route. He’s had experience; in the ’90s he was part of a group of people who helped with refugees in the then-Yugoslavia, bringing in food, cigarettes, whatever was needed. He helped with refugee claims, and got victims of the war across borders.

To see it happen in the city he calls home is somewhat surreal, however. As people stay inside the street economy crumbles. Little in the way of cans or bottles to take to the bottle depot, no coins to panhandle for, even if someone was willing to get within the advised distance.

“It’s mostly confusion out there,” Noyes says. “One guy was really paranoid, off his meds, and told me, ‘They won’t listen to me.’ I assured him that they weren’t listening to me, either. Someone had told him not to be in large crowds, so he refuses to go to the shelter. At the end of our conversation I’m not sure that he knew much more than when we started.”

Noyes is willing to continue, and is looking for general help (kindcull@yahoo.ca) with anything that anyone can offer. He’s navigating on the fly, identifying future problems. “Many financially challenged people have pets, so that’s going to be an issue soon.”

Mostly, he’s just trying to do his best.

“I don’t want to get the coronavirus,” he says. “I have no desire to be sick. I just need to do this. I can’t even tell you why. Maybe it’s just basic community mindedness, but if the system isn’t going to help, we need to step up ourselves.”