This year’s Sleep Out So Others Can Sleep In will be the last

At last year’s Sleep Out event in Belleville, $10,675 was raised for transitional housing. File photo by Sarah Law, QNet News

By Olivia Waldriff

BELLEVILLE – For the last time, Belleville’s residents will experience what it’s like to be homeless for one night to raise money for a local mental-health association.

The Canadian Mental Health Association Hastings and Prince Edward branch has been doing Sleep Out So Others Can Sleep In for 13 years. Last year participants raised over $10,000, and this year the branch is hoping to double that, because the proceeds will be split with Grace Inn Shelter, Belleville’s first homeless shelter, which opened in late 2019.

“We thought we’d split it with them and hopefully they can have some money for anything that they might need for people currently staying there,” Cassidy Hill, executive director of the local CMHA, said. The money that the CMHA keeps will go toward the cost of offering transitional housing for homeless people.

Caitlin Moyles, a community counsellor at CMHA, said: “It’s really about being community partners and how can we utilize the support to our clients who need it the most. And so we thought this year it would be fair to split our revenue with Grace Inn.”

Sandie Sidsworth, the executive director of the Canadian Mental Health Association Hastings and Prince Edward Branch, was at the very first Sleep Out So Others Can Sleep In at Market Square. File photo by Sarah Law, QNet News

Sandie Sidsworth, the CMHA branch’s executive director, says the Sleep Out event was started after a s staffer with the branch heard about the Red Tent Movement in Paris. In 2006 a group of French activists pitched tents in the centre of Paris and refused to leave until the government did something to help the homeless.

At the Belleville event, which is this Friday at the CMHA offices on Sidney Street, there will be a number of speakers throughout the night to raise awareness about homelessness in the community.

“I feel like people don’t necessarily see how many people are homeless,” Hill told QNet News. “And for them to kind of experience for one night what it’s like to be homeless and living on the street – it gathers awareness, and that’s really what we’re trying to do.”

Although the event has been successful, this will be the last year it is held.

“We thought it was time to explore other fundraising avenues,” Moyles said. “And we do currently have some up in the air … we’re just trying to finalize some things.”

The new projects will keep the transitional homes in mind, she said: “I think no matter what fundraising avenue we take, that’s always going to be one of our main focuses.”

The event runs from 7 p.m. Friday to 7 a.m. Saturday at 250 Sidney St. Participants can get pledge sheets at the CMHA office, or just show up on Friday.