Today was a very productive day.  I had a meeting with Claudia Jahn today.  She is from
Community Action on Homelessness(CAH).  She is a very lovely lady.  I went to check out their office
space and then we went out for lunch.  This was a Partnership meeting for the CAH and Ve’ahavta.
CAH has agreed to accept and [...]

By: Janet Phelan
Winner: The Pen to Paper Prize
At daybreak
In the time of enormous suffering
I awake to the soft staccato
Of rain on the roof.
It has been raining now
For several months. Why
Doesn’t someone do something
About it?
I fix myself a breakfast
Of genetically modified stewed prunes
With a mound of yogurt
Culled from cows treated
With Growth Stimulating Hormone.
The other kind is [...]

By: Mo Ali
Winner: The Rashi Prize

Being sexually abused as a child is hard to deal with as a young adult.
Growing up, living in poverty was embarrassing.
Having to admit to my friends that I have four mental illnesses was terrifying.
But you know, coming clean about the abuse, poverty, and mental illness all seemed feasible –
And so [...]

By: Vaclovas Verikaitis
Winner: The Maimonides Prize
The sky was lifeless and without colour.
It hung over the city like a low ceiling in a dark, damp cellar.
The rain that came with it dripped down in hard droplets that seemed to pierce the skin.
It was an acid wash for the sins of a city gone mad.
Just a cursory [...]

By: Tom Hogarth
Winner: The Book of Life Prize
Long ago, when the world was yet young, mankind was but a new creature upon it. In this time the powers that be still walked the earth with man, and they were new to their powers. In this beginning time winter came to the land… and stayed on [...]

By: Lorren Stewart
Winner: The Chaim Potok Prize
This is my story. When my parents had me, I was addicted to heroin. I had to fight to stay alive. When I was six years old, my parents both died from heroin overdoses. I was put into foster homes until I started to run away at the age [...]

By: Liz
The Gilad Shalit Prize
What has become of my life?
I no longer have a life
I did not have a death
I had an eviction
So I simply became a ghost
I wander the streets, day and night
Invisible to the unknowing
Untouchable to the uncaring
Incomprehensible to myself
Inconsolable in my grief
For my life
Bewildered
Bereft
Desolate
Despairing
Despair being the unforgivable sin
Unwelcome in Heaven
Unwelcome on earth
Alone
I [...]

By: Anonymous
Winner: The Albert Einstein Prize
I can’t say where I am from
For I am a drifter of space and spaces
I can’t say where I am going
For the future is nothing but a perspective
But I can tell you where I am
I am here
And I am changing.
* * *
The Creative Writing Contest is part of Ve’ahavta’s Homeless [...]

By: Anonymous
Winner: The Joseph, Coat of Many Colours Prize
I am me. I am me
no fake outs, no excuses
no I will not, I will not let you
control me. Only respect me and my space
I will not sit by and let you degrade
me. No I will not forgive you for the
endless pain you have caused me. I [...]

By: Ruben Delgada
Winner: The Chai Prize
In the place I grew up in there were always troubles
that I never knew about until my age got doubled.
I grew up in a corrupt home, kept my feelings deep inside,
that’s why I felt alone,
criminal behaviour was seared into my dome,
because that’s all that I encountered
everyday I walked home.
My emotions [...]

By: J.L. Marlowe
Winner: The Aggadada Prize
It is mid-November. I am sitting beside the reflecting pool in Nathan Philips Square in downtown Toronto wondering where I can find some cardboard for a bed tonight. Skaters are doing turns around the pool, which at this time of year is an ice rink. The sounds of children laughing [...]

By: Nicole Luongo
Winner: The Shalom Alechem Prize
The following is an introduction to a book that is not yet written:
It’s freezing. The basement window is wide open, and the wind has blown the bedcovers off of my body and onto the floor. It’s mid-December, and all I’m wearing is unbalanced it feels, having on only one [...]

By: Jamie Rhiness
Winner: The People of the Book
So you wake up to the street cars rattling above you, as they cross the bridge keeping you sheltered from the rain or snow.
Pigeons painfully cry in vein as they are pecked at by others. The dusty ground is contaminated with PCB’s. You don’t know if it’s this [...]

By: Heather-Ann Michie
Grand Prize Winner
Like a leaf trembling in the breeze, I find the courage to get off my mattress, leave my empty place, and head out into another cold wintry day, even though I feel down.
This day, I have change for the bus.  People are staring at me.  Maybe my coat needs cleaning or [...]

By: Leif Hernborg
Winner: The Ahad Ha’am Prize
My name is Leif. I am 43 years old and homeless for the second time in my life.
I am currently fortunate enough to be in residence at a city-run shelter called “Fort York” which gives 60-90 males opportunities to work and save money and keeps a lot of us [...]