'Everybody needs friendship': How Helping Hands Street Mission in Hamilton is meeting that need

Friendship is at the heart of everything the small staff does at Helping Hands Street Mission in Hamilton, and the organization's executive director says the need for it is especially important over the holidays.

Alice Plug-Buist said Helen Norris started the mission 21 years ago because she was inspired by a woman who befriended her and helped her out during a "very difficult" period in her life.

While Norris "started out with a van full of supplies for people," Plug-Buist said, the founder always knew it "was about much more than just stuff that really helped her out of her difficult situation," so relationships, and being seen, heard, valued and befriended were even more important for her.

Norris and her husband Tom later rented a Barton Street storefront, where they set up a store of supplies that people could get free. Free coffee was also provided, Plug-Buist said.

"All that time, it's always been like, 'How can we help provide for the needs of people, but actually dig deeper and engage people?'" Plug-Buist  told CBC Hamilton.

"So that's kind of where that whole friendship piece grew out of."

Years later, the organization hired an outreach worker to support people with their everyday needs, but Plug-Buist said it started becoming a bit too clinical and too much of a social service provision rather than about maintaining friendship.

Plug-Buist said that over the last five years, Helping Hands Street Mission, which is a registered charity, has tried to return to more of a friendship-based support space. 

"We're not trying to take the place of other social service providers in the area, but instead we're trying to be that piece in between that gives someone a friend to walk alongside them to access all those other resources that are in the city, so that they're not alone in their journey of trying to find housing or trying to find grief support, trying to find medical support and things like that.

"There are friends who will walk alongside them when they don't have any other stable people in their lives who can provide that kind of friendship support that many of us who have larger support circles have," Plug-Buist said.

Small staff aided by dozens of volunteers    

As Helping Hands refocused on its core mission, the outreach worker role morphed into a new position about three years ago, with a new title — friendship manager, Plug-Buist said.

"The friendship manager is the front-line person of this. The person doesn't do all that friendship themselves, but helps all of our volunteers as well as just community members to learn how to be those kinds of friends for people," she said.

"We have a tiny team of five people at Helping Hands as our staff team, but we have over 50 volunteers who we are trying to … train and empower to be those kinds of friends to each of the people that come to Helping Hands." 

Helping Hands operates a free store where people share their closets with friends, Plug-Buist said.

"Our program room, the idea is that it's our living room and friends share their living rooms with each other — you invite people in to share a cup of coffee together with you, to play games together with you," she said. 

"We try to just be that friendship space, that community space where people can just be there for each other and walk alongside each other."

Ensuring no one misses out over the holidays

Jessica Maxwell, acting director of the social psychology program at McMaster University, said friendships are important because everyone has "this fundamental need to belong," and to feel like they're part of a community and connect with others.

"Everybody needs friendship," Maxwell told CBC News.

But friendship takes on an even greater role this time of the year, as the holidays are a reminder to connect with others, she said.

"It's a time when a lot of people unfortunately feel quite lonely. So, our close relationships, including our friendships, can be a really great way to help us feel less lonely and just feel more better about everything," she said.

"I think also the holidays bring about a lot of reflections. It's a time when people want to turn to close others … maybe we feel like 2024 has passed and we haven't met our goals — that's when we want to turn to other people. So friends can be a great way of bolstering that." 

Maxwell said the Helping Hands friendship manager role is a "great step," recognizing our social needs are important. 

Every Dec. 25, Helping Hands opens to people who may not have families and friends they can be with on Christmas Day.

"From 1 p.m. till 3 p.m., we'll be open to have our friends come by. We'll be carolling together, we'll be giving each other gifts, we'll be having Santa come by actually on Christmas Day," Plug-Buist said.

"I think that's a really good picture of what Christmas really is for a lot of people, and what a lot of people who are marginalized, who don't have a lot of family and friends, normally ... end up missing out on at Christmas time."