A 37TH BIRTHDAY MANY WILL RECALL
The kids at school would laugh at her — all they saw was a 13-yearold girl with greasy hair and a dirty backpack.
And instead of telling them that she had been living on the streets of downtown Ottawa for the past month, she lied and said her hot water was broken. But the only thing broken was her home.
Diane Deschamps, now 36, has experienced homelessness firsthand.
“It wasn’t a choice. It wasn’t because I was lazy, uneducated or did not want to participate in society. It was just a reality of my then current situation,” she said. “The line between having somewhere to live and not is very thin.”
Deschamps said she believes that everybody deserves to have everyday essentials, including those without homes. But often, she says, the homeless don’t spend the little money they have on hygienic or medical necessities.
Which is why Deschamps, a clerk at the Citizenship and Immigration Canada office, has started an online fundraiser to provide 37 homeless care packages to those in need on the streets of Ottawa. She will be handing them out on May 12 — her 37th birthday.
“If everybody gave one care package a year to someone in need, it would just be phenomenal,” said Deschamps. “I’ve missed 36 birthdays, plus this year, so that’s why I’m doing it. A birthday is a great trigger because it always comes once a year.”
Each care package costs $30 to make. It will contain daily essentials such as toilet paper, toothpaste, deodorant and shampoo. Deschamps is using a crowd-funding website, Go Fund Me, to try to reach her goal of $1,300 by May 10.
Deschamps and her husband, Daniel, plan to take a birthday walk and hand out each care package to someone without a home. Daniel will film the endeavour and put the video up on Youtube so that people can see exactly where the donations went.
“I get to see my wife at the very best of what people can be,” he said. “I’ll admit I’m one of those people that she’s trying to wake up.”
Deschamps lived on the streets of Ottawa off and on from the time she was 13 until she was about 21. Due to her mother’s untreated battle with bipolar disorder, Deschamps often got thrown out of her house during her mom’s “hard times.”
Sometimes it would last a week, other times it would last more than a month.
“I know she loved me, but she just couldn’t deal with life,” said Deschamps, who has since reconciled with her mother.
“It was difficult. And when people would give me money, the only thing I would use it for was food. You get hungry and you’re not going to think of deodorant, you’re not going to think of shampoo.” Check out Deschamps’ gofundme page at www.gofundme.com/37homelesspackages