The brutal realities of being homeless were experienced in several shades this week by a handful of notable Whitehorse faces, including Mayor Bev Buckway, Yukon NDP Leader Liz Hanson and federal Green Party candidate John Streicker.

The three agreed to spend 96 hours away from the nightly comfort of their own beds, sleeping on couches, floors, and in Streicker's case, outside and at the mercy of the elements.

Part of the Yukon Anti-Poverty Coalition's campaign to raise awareness for an issue affecting more than 70 people in the downtown, the idea was to put individuals with stable housing in the shoes of somebody without.

"I didn't want to go and stay with friends,” Streicker said this morning of how he approached the challenge.

"‘Couch surfing' was within the scope of what we were allowed to do, but I was hoping to try and push myself a bit so I might experience a little of what it might be like to be on the street.”

Nursing wet feet, an unsatisfied hunger and a four days' worth of stubble grown through an equal amount of nights sleeping rough – two in the bed of his pickup truck, one at the Salvation Army and another on the banks of the Yukon River – Streicker encountered some whose everyday reality is fraught with where to spend the following night.

Here's Streicker on his evening stretched across three plastic chairs in the Salvation Army's cafeteria:

"I didn't want to displace anyone by taking one of the 10 beds, but I wanted to find out what it's like for them, so I slept on the chairs.

"At night, they'll let you lay down on the chairs ... they're plastic and really uncomfortable. Doing this night in and night out has got to be hard on the body, on top of everything else, substance use and abuse and for many, challenges with mental illness.”

While participants were allowed $20 a day, Streicker went cashless, relying on food from the Salvation Army, the Outreach Van and the kindness of strangers.

"I used some money the first day to buy some bedding at the thrift store but that was it ... and when I slept down by the river, I tried to go around and collect stuff from dumpsters, like cardboard and things like that to make a little encampment,” he said. "That was tough, and by far the coldest night.”

Hanson did not go as extreme as Streicker, but her experience hopping from one acquaintances' couch to another evoked memories of a past job.

"It was the winter of 1977-78, I was a relatively young social worker spending my nights on Calgary streets for an after-hours social services project ... trying to make contact with people who were not accessing municipal or social services,” recalled the NDP leader.

Because several people died of exposure in the city the previous winter, public outcry in Calgary spurred authorities into action and Hanson was a frontline worker.

"I spent from the time it got dark to early in the norning, getting people to recognize our faces ... going everywhere from bars to slummy hotel rooms or places people lived,” said Hanson. "And those realities, here in a microcosm in Whitehorse, are very much the same 30 years later, which isn't very encouraging.”

Here's Hanson on her strategy for finding a place to sleep after the "couch surfing” experiment began Monday:

"Towards the end of each day or evening, I'd make phone calls to people. I didn't have a vehicle this week so I was confined to the downtown. I phoned people that I knew, I didn't go through the phonebook and chose random numbers, and I asked them if I could stay with them. One evening, there wasn't anobody home for a couple of numbers.”

Because Hanson had the luxury of a cell phone and an extensive network of friends, she realizes her situation would be a far cry from that of a newcomer.

"Nobody refused me, but I think that it would be different with cold calling. And if somebody were new in town, they wouldn't know anybody and they probably wouldn't have a cell phone. So it would be tough if you're trying to find 50 cents to make a bunch of phone calls.”

Buckway, who agreed to participate in spite of being in the midst of defending her mayoralty in the municipal election, admitted she had things somewhat easier than her territorial and federal political colleagues.

"It wasn't too onerous for me. When I mentioned what I was going to do, people started calling me offering their couches,” Buckway told the Star today. "Which, of course isn't the way it is in the real world.”

But for a busy mayor to be cut off from the comforts of home, Buckway said she better understands how hard it could be for people stuck in such a situation.

"You're cut off from a normal routine of newspapers and the radio and if you're truly homeless, you don't know where you're going to be from one night to the next,” she said.

"And it's the little things we take for granted ... you start thinking of all the difficulties involved for people, like having to take their belongings with them.”

So after a week of having her choice of couches to surf, what does Buckway think of how Streicker approached the challenge?

"Oh man, he just took it right to the limit, that guy, and more credit to him,” said Buckway. "And we've had some good discussions about what he saw and heard. I give him just 100 per cent credit for doing the full task for us.”