It was a crisp Saturday morning, like many mornings over the past six weeks, when Honour Driscoll neatly placed five cat leashes on the ground at Confederation Park.
The black and blue leashes are always parallel from one another and are placed in the birth order of her cats. It’s a system that has granted Driscoll a sense of predictability, especially when much of her life has felt out of control recently.
Diva — a charming black and white cat — arguably the smallest and youngest of the bunch, is leashed first. Diva’s siblings — Diamond and Jubilee — are leashed next. The two black cats are almost impossible to discern from one another. To everyone but Driscoll, that is.
Diamond’s stature is more like Ryko, her father, Driscoll says. He’s stockier and walks like he has been sure of himself his entire life. But Diamond is also calm like her mother, Jemima, the seven-year old Siamese cat that had been sunbathing all morning. Jubilee, on the other hand, has the stature of her mother but is as friendly as Ryko, her dad.
Together, the five cats — Ryko, Jemima, Diamond, Jubilee and Diva — are family to Driscoll. That was why it felt impossible for Driscoll to give them up, even if that decision meant homelessness.
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Since Aug. 14, Driscoll and her five cats have been experiencing Ottawa from a different perspective, with her saying the city’s “more than broken systems” are glaringly obvious. After living with her aunt for two years, what she describes as a family dispute has left her without a home. She faced a dilemma when she became unhoused: to give up her cats for a spot in the shelter system, or keep them and live without a home.
Driscoll said was denied shelter space because of her cats.
“If (shelters) were concerned about me leaving the cats, make me sign a waiver or explain it to me instead of just saying ‘no,’” she says.
“How could I give them up?” she asks, her voice cracking from emotion. Driscoll has known real loss in her lifetime, but says the most painful was when she had to give up her sixth cat when she left her aunt’s house. (That cat didn’t travel well, which according to her severely impacted the other cats.)
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By anyone’s standards, Driscoll’s cats are gorgeous.
It was therefore perhaps unsurprising that, when this reporter first met Driscoll on Sept. 26, the date of Ottawa’s 200th birthday celebration, at least two dozen pedestrians stopped and stood with palms on their hearts and gazed at her cats.
Most of the pedestrians crossing Confederation Park, who on any given day have complimented her cats, wouldn’t immediately know that Driscoll is unhoused. It’s a reality that the 42-year-old had never imagined herself.
“They all probably think I’m on a picnic with my cats,” Driscoll says, laughing as she makes light of her situation. “But it’s not easy.
“Being out here the last six weeks has softened me,” Driscoll says as she sits on a bench in Confederation Park, which she says has been the “safest spot” for her thus far compared to locations like the intersection of Bank and Somerset street and in front of the Rideau Centre mall.
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According to Driscoll, her situation worsened when she discovered last week that the monthly cheque she received from the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) had been cut in half. She learned later that ODSP axed her “housing costs,” which covered rent expenses when she lived with her aunt.
“Do they think it costs less to be homeless,” Driscoll asks rhetorically.
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Driscoll serves Ryko, Jemima, Diva, Diamond and Jubilee with both dry and wet food three times a day. At the clacking sound of the dry cat food hitting the bowls, the cats assemble for a feast.
Many individuals have knelt down and asked the same questions, offered help and showed kindness for which Driscoll says she is grateful, adding she is now known in the community as “the staple of Confederation.”
As flattering as those remarks and gestures are, however, Driscoll says she also feels a twinge of shame. Perhaps it is from the stigma often associated with homelessness. “At the end of the day, I know I don’t want to be homeless,” she says.
“I would not be out here like this if I had a shelter space. Why can’t the city help?”
“If I put (the cats) in foster homes, I can’t see them, I can’t go where they are. What am I supposed to do?” she says. “This is why I don’t ask people for anything and I’m very grateful for people who want to help, but I’m also understanding of people that don’t understand.
“Would you go to a place that wouldn’t welcome all of you?” she asks.
At some point over the years, her cats have become a part of Driscoll. Perhaps that was why they never run off for good despite being at the park.
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