Stories from the Streets: Kaylene’s Story

Over the past six months, 650 CKOM Senior Reporter Lara Fominoff spent time with several people who are homeless, or recently considered themselves homeless. Each of their stories and experiences is unique.

In Part 1 of our four-part series “Stories from the Street,” we meet Kaylene, an Indigenous mother of four who’s working hard to make a better life for her family.

Kaylene was sitting in a chair at a round table in what she described as a lunchroom on the second floor of the former Emergency Wellness Centre in downtown Saskatoon.

At one end of the room were coffee pots and bowls with snacks in them. Several other women looked over, appearing to be curious about why a reporter was there.

As the 30-year-old woman got ready for her interview, two of Kaylene’s four young children asked what she was doing. They watched intently as she spoke.

“I’m Kaylene. I’m from Mosquito Grizzly Bear’s Head Lean Man First Nation, 30 minutes south from North Battleford,” she said into the microphone.

650 CKOM is not using Kaylene’s last name to help protect her identity and the identity of her children.

Last September, Kaylene and her children were staying on the second floor of the EWC building. They had been there for about a month when we spoke.

“OK, you guys go in the toy room,” she said. “I’ll be right there. Please help me out.”

Kaylene was born in North Battleford, but moved to Saskatoon after a death in the family. When she turned 18, she moved to Edmonton. At the time, she was dealing with addiction after what she described as a lifetime of physical and mental abuse — much of it, she said, at the hands of her parents.

“I was probably about 13, 14 when I started drinking and doing coke. Within the last five years it was meth and crack mostly,” she said. “I used drugs and stuff to a point where I couldn’t handle it anymore.”

In 2019, Kaylene came back to Saskatoon to stay with relatives. When that became too hectic, she didn’t have anywhere else to go.

“There was three adults and about 10 kids. It was a pretty small house. I didn’t really know where else to go. I have a lot of family here, but they’re not 100 per cent on board with me and the choices I’ve made in the past. So it’s just me and my kids,” she explained.

She tried going to the YWCA, but the facility was full at the time. It was then that someone told her about the EWC, which is run by the Saskatoon Tribal Council.

“They welcomed us right away. It was really fast,” she recalled. “This is the most comfortable I’ve felt since being back from Edmonton, being here.”

At the centre, she had a daily routine which included getting up before her children in the morning, and having coffee with some of the older women staying on the same floor.

“I’ve never felt family. It felt like family here. I like it and I hope we get out of here, because it’s not always nice to be in a shelter,” she said. “It can’t be something permanent, especially when there’s kids involved.”

Her children were adapting to the circumstances, and family routine included going to the downtown public library to read and to use the computers. She hoped her children could eventually attend a nearby school with a Cree immersion program.

Kaylene described how her children’s well-being was her top priority, as was giving them a better life than what she experienced as a child and young adult.

She recalled how during the height of her addiction, she wanted to show them she could become sober. So she called a treatment facility in Bonnyville, Alta., every day until she was finally admitted.

“I never knew how to heal until I went to treatment. Treatment really helped … I just want to make everything right. I just woke up one day and … ‘OK. I’m done,’ ” she said.

While in treatment, Kaylene also vowed to end the cycle of intergenerational trauma.

“It had to end with me,” she said. “I couldn’t let my kids carry that on. What I went through was not their fault.”

What Kaylene went through included physical and mental abuse to the point where she made the decision to break away from her parents.

“My parents are still dealing with addictions,” she said. “They’re still dealing with that trauma. So I had to set boundaries and build walls to keep that toxic away from me.

“I finally just let go of my dad. I haven’t had a relationship with my mom in 15 years.”

After arriving at the EWC, Kaylene applied for school at the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technology (SIIT). She was also on the cusp of getting a new home.

“(EWC staff) are going to help me with moving, with damage and rent … I’m not going to start with nothing. Clothes, food — they’re paying outstanding bills for me,” she said through tears.

“I didn’t think I’d get the help ever again, because I’ve been through this once.”

She hoped that even though she broke ties with her parents, they would one day be proud of her.

“My parents always said, ‘You’re never going to do anything with your life,’ ” she said. “I’m still trying to show them that I’m going to be better than them (and) be a better parent.”

Looking toward the future, Kaylene hopes to eventually work as a mental health and addictions counsellor for others who were in similar situations.

“My story could save somebody. My story could save not one but a few people, if they just heard,” she said.