In the three years since local barber Jason Gauthier began offering free haircuts to Moose Jaw's homeless population, he's impacted hundreds of lives.

He moved to Moose Jaw and started his organization StreetCuts Barber after a difficult road to recovery from his own drug addiction and suicidal crisis. He says that a simple haircut played a huge role in that process.

Around 15 years ago, Gauthier was working at a recovery treatment centre in Calgary after having worked through the same program himself. His relationship with the mother of his son had come to a difficult end and Gauthier found himself falling back into his previous drug addiction.

"I relapsed really hard while working as a counselor and I was afraid to go back to treatment and get help because I was so ashamed of myself," admits Gauthier. "I said to the director, 'I can't even show my face here, I've counseled half of the guys in here.'"

At the time, Gauthier had descended so far back into drug use that his hair had started to fall out and become discoloured. One of the staff members at the centre reached out and took Gauthier under his wing. One of the first things he did was arrange for Gauthier to have a haircut.

Jason Gauthier says a single haircut proved to be a turning point in his life. (Photo courtesy of Jason Gauthier).

"I didn't even know how to respond to that. I sat down in the chair and I was crying so hard that there was a pool of tears under the chair. The stylist asked why I was crying and I said, 'You don't know who I am. You don't know what I've done. I don't deserve this.' And she said, 'You're a human being. You're trying to get help...You deserve this.' I had felt like a wild animal in a cage and she humanized me."

Gauthier says he wept through the whole experience and when he asked how he could pay her back for her kindness, the stylist told him to go and do the same for someone else.

"I got help that day and a couple of years clean. It's just one act of kindness that can lead to your whole life changing."

Taking the stylist's words to heart, Gauthier - who had always been interested in hairstyling - taught himself how to cut hair. As he began to give back, he saw the cycle of kindness and recovery starting again.

"It was one of my first haircuts that I met a gentleman who was strung out on crystal meth and was broken," says Gauthier. "He had gotten to the point where he was going to kill himself. I knew he was serious so I said, 'Well you're not going to do it with that haircut.' As soon as touch his body while I was cutting his hair, he started crying. It was immediate vulnerability and that gap was bridged."

The man was suddenly willing to seek help and to keep living says Gauthier. He adds that he felt validated that he could use my story to show others how to recover.

"I'm not saying that I did that or that it was all the haircut. But the haircut was the catalyst."

Gauthier moved to Moose Jaw in 2017 to be able to spend more time with his son. While here, he started StreetCuts Barber and continued offering free haircuts to the city's homeless and chemically dependant population. Over the year's his efforts have grown to include more team members and he fulfilled a dream to open his own private salon. In the time he has spent with his clients he's come to see the dire need for a treatment centre here in Moose Jaw.

"I've worked at treatment centres in both B.C. and Alberta and whenever I had someone come from Saskatchewan, they would always say that there isn't enough help for mental health here. I'm not even joking, I think that we need at minimum a 30-person bed facility: 15 for men 15 for women. The homeless shelter that we have here in town is only for men and I've had women come into my shop begging for me to help them because they have nowhere to go. I know we have a couple of facilities to help them but we need something bigger."

From his own experience, Gauthier knows that the only reason he survived once been discharged from prison was that he had family close by to love and support him. However, for ex-cons transitioning out of the Saskatchewan Corrections system, there are no half-way houses anywhere near Moose Jaw, meaning that they can't be released close to their core support structure.

"One of the main reasons that people relapse is because they're not near their core support," argues Gauthier.

Despite the passion he has for our city and its homeless residents, Gauthier has come to the difficult decision that he can't be the one to take on such a project. Now that his son has graduated from high school and will be moving to Calgary to attend college, Gauthier has decided to follow him there.

(Photo courtesy of Jason Gauthier).

"The primary reason that I'm here in Moose Jaw is because of my boy. I missed years with him and I told him I'd follow him wherever he goes to college to support him. It doesn't matter if I had ten shops, I'd go with him. I'm going to soak up all the time I have with him."

Gauthier says his son has been crucial in his own recovery process. At times in his life when he had lost all hope and began considering suicide, he would hear his son's voice and immediately know that he couldn't leave him.

"In that sense, you could say that he did save my life."

While he may be moving on, the work that Gauthier has started here will be continuing. His stylist team will be taking over the shop and will continue to serve the many clients that have come to rely on Gauthier's organization.

"We're going to try and see if we can start offering haircuts out of Moose Jaw Pride. They have a fantastic facility where they already help out people who are less fortunate."

He encourages any local barbers or hairstylists who want to give the gift of their time and skills to reach out and volunteer when they can.

Gauthier's vision for a safer, kinder, and more supportive Moose Jaw is one that can surely be shared by all.