First came the apartment. Then he became clean. Now he's giving back

The first time Colin Beaudry was arrested, he was only 13 years old. Now, at age 47, Beaudry is finally breaking a cycle of addiction, incarceration and homelessness — a change he hopes will inspire others.

Beaudry now lives alone in an apartment he finally secured in April after a year of living on the streets. He even has a cat named Kit Kat.

“Maybe I'll give someone else hope too,” Beaudry said as he sat at a picnic table in Dundonald Park in Ottawa's Centretown neighbourhood.

“If they see that someone else could make it, who was in the same shoes as them – not many people make it from where we are – maybe it will show someone else that you can do it.”

Beaudry is tall and lanky with shoulder-length brown hair. He speaks softly and smiles subtly.

He says he was bullied at school and that's why he started lashing out. Before he turned 12, Beaudry moved to residential care at Algoma Hospital in Sudbury, now part of Health Sciences North.

All I needed was a permanent place that was safe for me. I don't have to be around anyone if I don't want to. It just makes it a lot easier to get off drugs that way.-Colin Beaudry

At the time of his first arrest, Beaudry was living in a group home in Sudbury, Ont. One summer, the staff took the children to camp and Beaudry took the opportunity to break into nearby cottages and steal alcohol. That event marked the beginning of many years spent in and out of prison for offenses primarily related to burglary.

“I was addicted to drugs. I had to maintain a habit, so you commit crime to get the drugs you need,” he said.

Beaudry also served three separate federal sentences, the last four years of which he spent behind bars. At that point, being inside was easier than outside, Beaudry said.

“I feel more comfortable inside because that's where you spend your whole life,” he said. “It's easier for me there than here on the street. I find it difficult sometimes because I feel like I can't connect with people.”

The tragedy delivers another blow

When Beaudry was released from prison in 2012, he worked on himself, he said. He met a woman and two years later they had a baby named Autumn Wendy.

Sadly, Autumn died seven weeks after contracting group B strep, which turned into pneumonia. She died of sepsis, Beaudry said. Two years later the couple separated.

“It led to me being back on the streets,” he said.

In 2020, Beaudry moved to Ottawa and met Shawna Thibodeau, a woman who had escaped abuse in 2008 and fled to Ottawa to start a new life.

“When I got here with my child, I needed help, just like many of us,” Thibodeau said.

Once she got back on her feet, Thibodeau began volunteering at various service agencies and began handing out bags of toiletries and snacks to vulnerable people, including Beaudry. By 2023, he was homeless, living on the streets and sometimes sleeping at the Ottawa Mission.

“It wasn't that good…it's always full there. Hard to go to bed and stuff,” Beaudry said of the downtown shelter. Overcoming drug addiction is nearly impossible if you don't have a safe and private place to live, he said.

“When you're homeless, it's always around you and it's hard to escape,” Beaudry says. “So you end up using it. It's always in front of you.'

Ultimately, Beaudry ended up in the Mission's live-in treatment program, which does not require clients to abstain. That was the start of his road to recovery, he said.

“You can stay in your room all day if you want, so that helped me until I got my spot,” Beaudry said.

It took a house to get clean

Last April, with the help of a Canadian Mental Health Association staff member, Beaudry was offered an apartment, paid monthly through the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP). Today, he's mostly clean, he said.

“All I needed was a permanent place that was safe for me,” he said. “I don't have to be around anyone if I don't want to. It just makes it a lot easier to get off drugs that way.”

It's a sentiment that housing advocates have long harbored.

“To get clean, to get your life back on track, first you need a house, you need a foundation,” says Austin Ward, a Métis from Manitoba and a housing specialist at Options Housing, a nonprofit organization that provides supportive manages housing in Ottawa.

Although Beaudry is not currently working, he hopes to do so. He enrolled online in Willis College's one-year addiction community services program, a private career college. He hopes to graduate in the spring.

“I thought I wanted to help too — maybe help someone like me who was previously addicted,” Beaudry said. He also recently contacted Thibodeau to see if he could help her distribute her bags.

“It's like a proud mother bird and your bird just flew out of the nest,” Thibodeau said. 'I was bawling my eyes out. It's a beautiful story.'

“I feel good pretty much every day,” Beaudry said. “Not every day there's peaches and cream, whatever, but I'll get through it.”