Passerby takes in homeless Winnipeg man after watching police remove him from bank

WINNIPEG – A man who has struggled with addiction is recounting the moment things turned around for him—the moment a helping hand reached out and gave him a shot at a new path.

In December 2019, Pat McCallum was at a Winnipeg strip mall when he noticed police removing a homeless man from this bank vestibule. But instead of watching, he spoke up.

“I told the cops, I said, ‘Yeah, that guy’s with me,’” said McCallum. “I couldn’t let him stay out there when it was minus 40 or 35 or whatever it was that day.”

McCallum took the man, Dave Schindel, back to his condo where he thought he’d crash for a night or two. They ended up living together for three months.

“I can’t stress enough how significant that was,” said Schindel. “Because if you don’t have a roof over your head, a mailing address, a place to go, you don’t have a hope of getting out of that situation.”

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health says one in every five Canadians will suffer from an addiction. Schindel, who McCallum knew through mutual friends, was one of those people.

“I think everybody deserves a chance. People don’t choose to be addicts,” said McCallum. “I couldn’t relate but I showed empathy. And a little bit of tough love.”

“There wasn’t a lot of positivity surrounding me. And it was good to see that again,” said Schindel.

McCallum made Schindel a makeshift bed in his living room and took him to get a library card so he could spend his days there while McCallum was at work.

“He gave me an environment that was apart from that entire life, that lifestyle and all the people and the things associated with it. And was very rigid in his desire for me to get clean and healthy,” said Schindel.

After McCallum accepted a job transfer to Alberta, Schindel found himself back on the street for a bit.

But now he has a roof over his head. Schindel lives with a friend for whom he does handyman work.

And he’s been clean for six months.

“It’s hard to adjust normally from that situation for people and trying to adjust back into it when there’s so many restrictions and lack of jobs out there for someone. If you can’t find work, you got to keep busy, which is something I’m very good at. I have ideas of where I want to go from here. It’s just going to take time to get there. But It took time to get  here, so”

Just this week, Schindel reached out to McCallum for the first time since he moved.

“It was really good to hear from him,” said McCallum.

“There’s only one way to go from here, right?” said Schindel.