I am thinking of the article in the newspaper about bottle-pickers and the conversation I just had with a friend who volunteers as a board member for an agency in the homeless sector as I pull into the laneway leading to my garage. “We need to ensure we have a portfolio of affordable housing that will not be sold, that will always be managed well to ensure those who need it will have a secure source of appropriate and well-maintained housing,” he’d said over coffee. I’d shown him the article on bottle-pickers. The men interviewed have a ‘home’. They were housed through the ‘housing first’ model under the city’s 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness.

And I wonder about the ‘full circle’. There were many men like them in the past who used to live in SROs (Single Room Occupancy) apartments. The difference back then, before the boom, before ‘economic growth’ dictated tearing down vast swaths of low-rent housing to make way for gentrification of inner city neighbourhoods, was that the landlords were ‘for-profit’, the rents were cheap but the accommodation sub-standard. The men in the article have all they need — low rent, support, a roof of their own, and a means to augment their monthly stipends — bottle-picking.

When I lived in the inner city, I had Greg. He came and picked up the bottles I left out on my back porch every week. He sometimes brought me ‘gifts’. A barbeque arrived on my back porch one day. I didn’t ask its pedigree. I think he may have found it in a laneway, placed there by its previous owner who didn’t want to take it to the dump. It was not in fine shape. But Greg’s enthusiasm over its possibilities was engaging. I paid him $30 and later had it hauled away to the dump. Greg did me a service every week, cleaning up my bottles. It was an easy way to repay his work.

I live slightly outside the ‘inner city’ line now. Not in the suburbs. But not downtown either. Bottle pickers are not as common out here.

I thought.

And then, I drove up to the garage and couldn’t get in because there was a rust riddled pick-up truck, motor running with a distinctive, putt-putt-miss-a-spark- putt-putt sound, parked in front of the door. Two men were digging through the blue bin, tossing any bottles they found into the back of their empty-bottle-laden truck.

I pushed the opener for the garage door. One of the men, hearing the sound, withdrew his head from within the blue bin. He looked around, saw me. Gave me a sheepish grin and a wave.

I smiled. Rolled down my window. “Do you come every week for the bottles?” I asked.

He looked worried. One of the comments in the newspaper article this morning was that removing items from bins is an infraction of city bylaws.

“It’s okay if you do. If you like I could just leave the bottles in a bag beside the bin. Would that help?”

He smiled. A gapped-tooth grin like so many grins I used to see at the shelter where I worked.  “That would be great!” He paused. Glanced back at his partner who was still sorting through the blue bin. “Got any more bottles inside?” and he motioned to the interior of the garage.

“No. I put them all in the bin this morning.”

Mission accomplished, the other man came out with one more bottle. Threw it into the back of the truck. The two men climbed into the cab of the truck, the driver’s door giving a big groan as the man used two hands to force it open. Another sheepish grin, wave and they drove off to the next bin and I drove into the garage.

Sure, giving your bottles to pickers is frowned upon by some. One writer wrote in a neighbourhood newsletter that it’s not good to “feed the bears’.  He upset me with his derogatory take on the human beings engaged in bottle-picking. I figure it’s a good way to help someone make a difference in their life by supporting them through whatever circumstance they’re encountering. If the extra income from cashing in my empty bottles helps them, why not let it? ‘Cause I’m not doing it. Why shouldn’t he?