Category Archives: Homelessness

When Hope Is All There Is to Hold On To. (a story)

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Why are you here? he asked, pulling down the black hoodie covering his head.

To see you, she replied, reaching out to touch a stringy strand of oil dark hair that hung limply along his cheekbone.

You’ve never really seen me, he said. Why start now?

She stepped back. The pain of his words piercing her like sleet driving into the night.

That’s not true.

Yeah? Then why’d you leave me? Why’d you let me go?

She swallowed. Closed her blue eyes for one brief moment. Opened them wide and looked into his. Deep blue into deep blue. Mirrors. Reflections. Gene pools spilling over with familial bonds cascading through the years. His birth. Precious. Filled with promise. Anger. An arm swinging, hitting. The father. A dark figure. Gone. Leaving her and her baby. Alone. Afraid. Young mother. Young child. Struggling. Fearing. She’d lost him for awhile. Got him back. Worked hard. But he kept running away. Leaving. Never really settling in upon his return.

I didn’t let you go. They took you. I was always there. I just didn’t know what to do. Her words rushed out. A stream of letters tumbling in a frothy brew of discordant notes, pouring into the void between them. Never enough. No never enough to fill that space. But they were all she had to give.

You were supposed to know. His voice hissed. Steam rising. A pool of heated water shimmering with words unspoken.

You were supposed to know.

She sighed. Her shoulders rose. She arched her neck. Raised her chin. A silent prayer. Grant me the serenity to accept…

His anger.

His pain.

His…

confusion.

He was but a child. A boy. Runaway. Running to. Running from. Running.

She was…

No longer a child. Legal age come and gone long ago in the pain of childbirth. She grew up in the rush of his screaming fight to enter the world ripping her apart. Teenage girl to mother in one cut of the umbilical cord.

She’d never had a chance to catch up.To untie the knots of her past. To become his mother without yearning for someone to mother her. But still she kept running after him. Reaching out to catch him.

Reaching into that place where he kept running to. Running. Fast. Hard. Into that place where pain recoiled and fear froze in the cold reality of his life. Street teen. Addict. Panhandler. Words that collided on the frozen landscape of his life lost to the street.

She was eighteen plus eighteen. Eighteen at his birth. Eighteen years since he came into this world.

It was his birthday today. She came to find him. It had been six months since she’d last had word. She wanted to invite him for lunch. Tea. Coffee. Anything.

And here she stood. A mother pleading for her son’s life. A mother standing before a son whose life was so far away she did not know how to reach him. Did not know how to find him amidst this life she could not understand.

He had run away. Again. For the … she had lost count.

she had followed him. Again. Finally finding him. Here. In this place where he said he fit in. Belonged. Knew. who he was. Who his friends were.

Friends.

She looked around. The room was crowded. People sat at tables. Heads down on folded arms. Chatting. Playing cards. Reading. Staring into space. People sat and walked and hung about. Busy room. Chaos.

She’d been here before. The last time. She hadn’t found him then. She had found him now. She had to try. to reach out. to reach him. To reach within his closed off heart.

I’m here now, she whispered quietly into the space between them. She stepped one step closer. closing the gap. Closer.

It’s not enough.

She stepped closer.

You’re being here. You’re too late.

It’s never too late. She spoke the words. Desperately wanting to believe them.

He smiled. Briefly. A flitting upward motion of his lips. Like hers. Full-bodied. She looked at the sore beside his mouth. Red. Blistered. Cracked. Crack sore.

She ached to touch it. To heal his pain. To take away the drugs that were eating him from the inside out.

She kept her hands to herself. She looked into his eyes.

It’s never too late.

I wish that were true, he said. I wish… and he stopped. His blue eyes flitted around the room, darting from left to right. Up. Down. He blinked.

I don’t know. And he repeated, softly. I don’t know.

That’s okay, she said. You don’t have to know. Let me help you.

I’m not ready.

I am. And she paused. I know it’s taken me too long. I know I’m late. But let me help. Let me…

He shook his head.

No.

She gulped. Breathed deeply. Reached into her jacket pocket. Pulled out an envelope.

Let me give you this. And she handed the envelope across the space between them. Pushed it into his hand that hung by his side.

He gripped the envelope. Crumpled it. Held on tightly.

You know if it’s money I’ll just spend it on drugs.

Pain. Sharp. Cutting. Another arrow to her soul. She breathed. Deeply.

That’s your choice. Pause. Can I take you for lunch?

No. Pause. Thanks. I just ate. And he swept the hand that held the envelope out towards the room. Here.

I gotta go. Pause. He turned away. Light hit his face. It streamed in through the cloudy glass of a window high above. In its light, she saw him through the years. Young boy running. Stomping through mud puddles. Building a fort under the kitchen table. First steps. First day of school. First cut knee. Tears and fears and cries she could not relieve. She saw him running through the years. He turned to walk away. Stopped. turned back.

Thanks for coming down. He held up the envelope. Thanks for this. Pause.

She waited. Silently.

I know I look a mess. I got out of Detox yesterday. Words began tumbling out. I’m still clean. He held up the envelope again. I’m not really going to use it on drugs. I wanna get straight. Stay clean. I’m looking at a course. Here. Maybe go back and finish my GED. Get a job. I wanna let it go but I gotta do it my way. I gotta find my own path. I can’t keep running back to you and back to here. And if I come back to you, I’m scared I’ll just come back here. So I need to start from here and see where I go. I gotta do it my way.

She bit her lip. Held her breath. She searched for the right words.

I’ll always welcome you back. No matter what. And she paused. Took a breath. No matter what, I’ll never quit loving you.

He stood in front of her. This boy/man searching for his way. Searching for the path out of the darkness.

Yeah. I know.

And he turned, pulled his hood up over his head and walked away.

She stood. Watched his back fade into the crowd of grey and black bodies sheltered beneath the roof of this place where so many like him waited out the time until they found the courage to take the next step on the path away from where this place that sheltered them where they were, as they were.

She stood and watched and knew he was doing it his way. She would do it hers with heart held open in love.

She stood and watched and said a silent prayer of gratitude. He was safe. He was alive. There was hope.

©2019 Louise Gallagher

___________________________________

I wrote this story some time ago shortly after I stopped working at a single’s adult homeless shelter. I had forgotten about it until I found it in my archives this morning.

I wrote it to honour the many encounters I had while working at that shelters with family members coming to the shelter to try to find their loved ones. It was always so emotionally challenging to have to tell them we couldn’t give them information – Privacy is privacy and we could not violate the privacy of those we served.

I share it again today in honour of all the mothers and fathers who never give up hope and all the children who feel lost and without hope. There is always hope as long as life continues.

Namaste.

Knit One. Pearl One.

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It was just a plain cardboard box labelled with my name and address. The name of a town in New Brunswick the only clue as to the sender.

I knew who sent it. A woman named Sharon who for the past three years had been sending an identical box because two of her children had once found their way to the emergency homeless shelter where I worked before finding their way back home several years later.

In her note that year she wrote:

“Enclosed is a box of handmade mitts and hats from two gals from New Brunswick who truly believe in the work that you and your volunteers offer the residents of Calgary. As in the past, you have supported our children as they went out west to find employment, and start a new life, that may not have been so glamorous, and ended up in your shelter.

In our appreciation, please accept these small tokens, made with huge hearts by mothers who know what it is like to have a child that has lived on the streets in Calgary. May these warm gifts from our heart help others that are in need this coming winter.

As in past years, these items are made with wool from sheep that have grazed in New Brunswick, wool spun and manufactured at Briggs & Little in New Brunswick and knitted by myself, a New Brunswicker and Marg, a Newfoundlander.

May you and your volunteers know that your work has not gone unnoticed but has encouraged many, even mothers on the east coast of Atlantic Canada.”

A plain cardboard box that held all the prayers and hopes of mothers the world over. May my child come home, safe and sound — for Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan. Whatever the occasion. May my child come home, safe and sound.

We never know when something we do will make a difference. We never know what that difference will be. We never know whose heart we’ll touch.

Sharon touched my heart that day and memories of her grace and kindness continue to resonate in my world today.

She reminds me that this is an amazing world. A world where on one side of the street people walk wrapped up in the warm coats of lives stitched together from one moment to the next filled with things to do, places to go, people to see. A world where, sadness and bleakness wear weary paths to the place where shelter is found in every kind of weather, just across the street.

A world where, just across the nation, mothers, like Sharon and Marg, sit together and knit away the dark hours of winter to the soothing hum of knit one, pearl one.

A world where knitting needles click and two mothers create a gift that will shelter the hands of those who have been left out in the cold.

With each knit one, pearl one, Sharon and Marg stitch together the possibility of hope arising in the hearts of those who receive their gifts — no matter the state of their lives or their position at the shelter — because each stitch has been cast with a pearl one of gratitude, a knit one of hope.

In opening the box of multi-coloured mittens, I was reminded that when we knit one in hope, pearl one in gratitude, we stitch into the tapestry of this world all the love a mother’s heart can hold. A love that, no matter the distance between us, can never be torn apart, can never come unstitched. Is never lost, no matter how lost we may feel.

May we all be blessed with pearls of hope stitching our lives into a tapestry full of the possibility to our returning home where ever that may be.

A good night’s rest

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Episode 32

In the homeless serving sector where I used to work, people would often ask things like, “Why can’t they just take a shower, cut their hair, put on some decent clothes and get a job?’ Or, “Why do they keep making such bad decisions?” (The ‘they’ being individuals experiencing homelessness.)

My answer was generally focused on helping ‘the housed’ understand the challenges and stressors of homelessness.

Making a ‘good’ decision when constantly worrying about where you will sleep that night, or whether or not you’ll survive the night, or even when you’ll get your next fix when the fix is the only thing that eases the pain and fear and trauma of your life, is relative.

A good decision when housed is ensuring you’ve got money in the bank to pay your rent or mortgage, put food on the table, fill your car, what movie to go see, what pair of shoes to wear, what to order at a restaurant.

Decisions when ‘housed’ are based on the choices we have to create change.

In homelessness, the lack of choice impacts every decision.

A good decision in homelessness could be deciding to eat pork, which is contrary to your religious beliefs, because it’s the only thing the shelter kitchen is serving that night and you are hungry.

A good decision in homelessness could be deciding to sleep in the shelter when it’s -30C outside even though the last time you did someone stole your backpack which had the photos of your family in it, the family you haven’t seen in six years but whose photos you couldn’t stop looking at.

A good decision could be deciding to go to the supervised consumption site because you truly do not want to die. Being somewhere safe when you put the needle into your arm could be the difference between life and death. And you choosse life.

And, a good decision could be deciding to get in that pick-up truck with the guy who says he’s got a job for the day at 10 bucks an hour. You know it’s not fair pay but you’re trying to save up to buy a safety helmet, work gloves, and steel-toed boots to get one on the big job sites that pay $25+ an hour.

By the very nature of having to choose between one course of action or the other, every time we make a decision, we encounter stress.

For each of us that level of stress is determined by our environment, circumstances, age, experiences, nature and ability to adapt depending upon the outcome of our decision.

Yesterday, because of my interrupted sleep the night before, I was really, really tired all day. I had a project I needed to get done for work and, even though I don’t work Mondays, I chose to do it yesterday rather than leaving it for today. That decision meant when I went to bed last night I wasn’t stressed about ‘the deadline’ today and had a really good night’s sleep.

This morning I feel rested and refreshed. Eager to meet the day and create something meaningful.

I’ve learned, with age, that putting off until tomorrow something I can do today only adds to my stress load. And, when I’m stressed, I do not sleep well.

Sleep isn’t just important. It’s vital.

In the homeless-serving sector, it’s often said that homelessness ages an individual 10 years. Life expectancy is shorter – not because of the dangers of homelessness. It’s shorter because of the stress load people carry and its impact on their physiological well-being. It’s also shorter because of poor diet, poor health care, uncertainty, stress and so many other factors including… a lack of good sleep.

Want to live well, healthy and vibrant? Get a good night’s rest.

The Two Faces of Poverty and Privilege

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I am at the park for my early morning walk with Beaumont the Sheepadoodle. He has attempted to demonstrate to a little grey fluff ball of a dog that he is boss. The fluff ball will have none of Beau’s nonsense.

I call Beaumont to my side. “He truly does not know his size,” I say to the woman walking with the fluff ball. “I’m sorry he acted so inconsiderately.”

The woman leans on her walking cane, laughs and tells me not to worry. “She’s 13. She takes no guff from nobody.”

I thank her for her understanding and am about to turn away when she says, “I know you. You look really familiar.”

I turn back towards her and look at her weathered face closely. I don’t think I know her but my memory for faces is often suspect.

“What’s your name?” she asks.

I tell her and she smiles, nods her head and says, “I knew I knew you!” And she mentions an agency I did some consulting for several years ago. It’s a social services agency providing housing and supports for Calgarians facing physical and mental barriers. Many of their clients are housed through Calgary’s 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness.

I am surprised she recognizes me. It’s a bright but chilly morning. I am wearing sunglasses and a toque pulled low on my forehead.

I say, “Wow. What a great memory.”

She laughs, picks up her cane and waves it in the air as she replies. “My body may be falling apart but at 63 I’ve still got my faculties about me.”

She goes on to tell me about her mom who, at 95, still drives and lives on her own in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. “Though she is thinking it’s time she gave up driving.”

I tell her about my mom, who when she died at 97 last year, was still intellectually sharp, though her physical health was decimated by arthritis.

She looks at me and says, “When you get to be my age you’ll be grateful for your mom’s sound mind too.”

I do not tell her I am five years older than she is. I also don’t tell her I am surprised by her age. Looking at her weathered and lined face I would have given her at least 10 – 12 more years.

And I wonder if what I see is the price of poverty, of a life lived on the margins and its constant struggle to make every dollar and cent stretch to meet a month with too many days. Of worry and strain and fear of one more mishap leading to the last place you want to go, a homeless shelter.

Because I do remember her. Not from the agency that provides housing for her now. I remember her from the adult homeless shelter where I used to work. She wasn’t there long. An adult, predominantly male homeless shelter, is not a particularly safe environment for a woman. Once in, getting out is the number one priority for most women.

But it can be difficult. Especially for ‘older’ women. Lack of education, lack of work experience make it difficult to divine a way back out beyond the shelter’s doors. Compounded by a life time of living on the margins, divorce, death of a spouse, spousal abuse, loss of health and/or an addiction, what little emotional, physical or financial reserves women had are stripped away, leaving them exposed to not just homelessness, but the hopelessness that walks in its every step.

This woman was one of the fortunate ones. She connected to the appropriate supports and is hanging on to them with every breath and every step she takes.

As I sit at my desk this morning looking out at the beauty of my environment, the green/golden leaves of autumn not yet ready to fall, the river flowing past beneath a cerulean sky, I think about my life and the lives of other women in my cohort.

Our privilege is subtle, but it is there. It creates a natural anti-aging barrier that keeps it from lining our faces with worry and stress, aging us beyond our years. It gave us options throughout our lives that women like the woman at the park probably never had – access to education and training, access to gyms and massages and facials and so much more. It allowed us to choose between a live-in or live-out nanny because we could afford to pay for what we wanted. It filled our fridges with an abundance of foods that left us free of having to make the difficult decisions of whether to send our children to school with a breakfast in their belly or have a dinner for them on the table that night.

It opened doors to career-paths of our choice. Because, if we chose to work or stay at home, if we took a minimum wage job or a second part-time one, it wasn’t out of necessity. It was our choice.

For too many women, the deck they were dealt is weighed down by poverty and its limited choices. Full hands are rare and under the weight of of poverty’s pervasive nature, every card played can take you out of the game, leaving you empty-handed, fighting for your survival.

I met a woman at the park this morning. She reminded me how blessed and fortunate I am to live this life of mine.

I am grateful she is safe now.

I am grateful she touched my life.

I am grateful for it all.

Namaste

When Life Hit Hard – a poem

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No. 2 #ShePersisted Series — They said, be quiet. She spoke up.

This poem came to me this morning as I sat at my desk watching the river flow past.

Earlier, my daughter and I and our pups had walked at a park near their house and while walking along a trail through the woods came upon a large encampment.

It wasn’t there just a few days ago when we walked the same path, but now, it is well ensconced and easily visible. A bright blue tarp is draped across trees providing both shelter and privacy to the occupants. The smell of food cooking on an open fire permeates the air.

I understand the desire to build such an encampment, particularly if someone has no place to call home.

But there are challenges and dangers.

Community residents might not look favourably upon such an encampment and might decide to take matters into their own hands. Or, might call upon the City and insist something be done. In the past, this has sometimes resulted in City Parks staff dismantling and removing the encampment without showing much concern for the belongings or needs of the campers.

And, an open fire in the dense woods where this encampment is situated is problematic.

We are fortunate in Calgary to have the Downtown Outreach Addictions Partnership (DOAP) and the Encampment Team through Alpha House Society, an agency serving vulnerable, at risk Calgarians. Their focus is to interact with individuals where they’re at, and to support them in addressing their needs. The Encampment Team, in partnership with City-ByLaw, supports ‘rough sleepers’ to help them address their safety, well-being and housing needs.

For Calgarians, the benefit of these teams is that it gives everyone an opportunity to reach out and support someone in distress or in need of housing supports, knowing the response will be compassionate and humane.

I have phoned the Encampment team to alert them of the situation. I know that their response will honour the individuals involved and provide them support in a way that reflects their humanity and their needs and their rights.

If you have concern for someone on the street in Calgary who is intoxicated or in distress, please call the DOAP Team first. The number is: 403.998.7388

If you have a concern about an Encampment – call the Encampment Team. Their number is: 403.805.7388

It can be hard sometimes to know what the most humane response is. The DOAP and Encampment Teams are the right response.

And… if like me you need to give voice to what you experience, witness, hear and see, write a poem, speak up, volunteer…

And support the agencies doing the work on the front lines. They need our help to do the important work they do supporting vulnerable people in our communities.

When Life Hit Hard
by Louise Gallagher

When life hit
     hard
she stumbled 
and fell
     hard

She got back 
     up
and when life tripped her
     up
again
she fell
     not so hard
this time
but getting up
     was harder.

Life kept happening
and she kept falling
until the falling
     down
     was easier
than the getting up
until the staying 
     down
     was safer
than trying to find
     a way 
     to stop
falling
.

She no longer
     cries
     out
for help
when she falls

She no longer 
     reaches
     out
for help
to get back up

Trapped
between the fall
and getting up
she lies
     silent
dreaming
of a hand reaching
     out 
to help her
     get back up.

Crash!

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Background for No 72 #shepersisted series – acrylic inks, inks, acrylic paint, gesso

For the past two days, I have been working on the process video for No. 72 of my #shepersisted series.

One thing I’m careful to do is… save my work throughout the process.

One thing my computer didn’t actually do was… save all my work.

Not its fault actually… I discovered this after about 6 hours of work yesterday when it crashed and I discovered I’d lost the final hour of edits.

I couldn’t figure out why every clip I downloaded kept coming in garbled. The video file was getting too large for the limited memory available on my computer. Each download would take me about three tries to get it to import successfully. Include the fact that my phone automatically uploads long videos to the cloud to save space, requiring first the downloading of said video and then the editing because I filmed everything upside down (and no that was not intentional) and you can see why it was taking me so long to edit!

Anyway, the gift of ‘the crash’ is it gave me insight into the importance of emptying memory banks to clear up space for fresh ideas.

See, we humans like to hang onto things. A lot.

We harbour grudges. Disappointments. Regrets.

We roll past hurts over and over in our minds, picking off pieces and chewing on them with the verocity of a baby robin grabbing for a worm dangling out of its mother’s beak.

We act like emotional hoarders, stuffing feelings deep down into our psyches, layering more and more on top so that the ones below can’t get out.

Until… one day… we crash.

Oh, maybe it’s not cataclysmic. Maybe it doesn’t even make the Richter scale of emotional disturbance.

But for each of us, there is a breaking point.

I used to see it everyday when I worked in a homeless shelter. People entering with nothing except the emotional baggage they carried as if those angry, hurting thoughts and feelings could protect them from the painful past that led them to the shelter’s doors.

There was a man at the shelter once who was known for his anger. He was in some ways just one of many except I got to know him better than others because he used to come to the art project I’d started and jam with other musicians. When he was being ‘himself’ he was a loving, caring man. And then, a burst of anger would erupt up and out of his body and he turned into a whirling, crashing terror. A guy bent on self-destruction determined to take everything around him down too.

One day, faced with a possible jail term due to his latest outburst, he came into my office and cried, “Help! I don’t want to be an angry man.”

We got him enrolled in a program that helped him face his past and his demons. He took anger management. He learned to meditate. He worked, hard, on being ‘himself.’

When it came time to go to court to face the consequences of his past actions, he asked if I’d go with him. On the day of his appearance, I waited outside the doors while he stood in front of a judge. “I know I gotta face the consequences of my actions,” he said before going in. “But I sure hope the judge sees I’m a changed man.”

In his hands he held tightly to the certificates he’d received from the various courses he’d taken to create the change he wanted, knew he needed, to be the man he was beneath the anger and pain that hid his inner beauty.

When he came out of the courtroom, he was smiling. Almost dancing. His entire being infused with delight, relief, joy. He’d received a suspended sentence. Community service. No jail time.

I haven’t thought of that man in awhile. He moved on. Went back to the province he’d come from when he was running away from his past. Through the occasional email or phone call, I learned he’d reconnected with his kids. Had a good job. His own place. Was living life.

I like this person I’ve become, he told me in one of his calls.

He’d become a champion in his own life.

_______________________

The other day, Goff James shared a video and story on his blog of Ben E. King’s iconic hit, Stand by Me. In my comments, I shared the story of how musicians from the shelter where I used to work along with musicians from the community-at-large came together to create a recording of the song.

I hadn’t thought of that man in awhile. Until there he was, amidst all the other performers, sharing the music of his heart, creating change for all the world to know, when we stand together, anything is possible.

_______________________

This post is also part of Eugi’s Causerie – todays’ prompt is ‘Champion’

Your Weekly Prompt – Champion – February 18, 2021

balance in ventures 
breathes strength into champions 
heroes of today


Haiku written by Eugi

Go where the prompt leads you and publish a post on your own blog that responds to the prompt. It can be any variation of the prompt and/or image. Please keep it family friendly. Prompts close 7 days from the close of my post.

Anyone can participate — go on… try it… it’s fun!

Racism: What We Do Next Matters. A Lot.

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Even as the economic outlook of the province declined and a once almost 0% vacancy rate climbed up towards double digits, it was happening.

Even as the 94 Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Report provided a clear path towards justice, reparations and healing, it was happening.

And, even as non-settler centric Indigenous history was being taught in elementary schools, and Indigenous culture and awareness courses at Universities were filling up, it was happening.

Every day. Everywhere.

Case in point. An Indigenous parent of three children calls a landlord about a vacant apartment. Sets up an appointment to view it, only to be told, one hour later, when the landlord opens the door to view the face of the applicant, “It’s already rented.” Door closed. No explanation. And no truth to the landlord’s assertions either.

Or, a housing locator for a social services agency, knowing the challenges Indigenous families face in finding housing in our city, goes to a landlord, and, without disclosing the ethnicity of the applicant, which would be a violation of their human rights, organizes the lease on behalf of the applicant. When the family arrives, the landlord refuses to hand over the keys, stating a family emergency has lead to the unit no longer being available for rent. The Indigenous family, too accustomed to such treatment, walks away. They know their life would be hell in that apartment anyway. Why risk abuse from a racist landlord?

Or, the neighbour to an apartment building that houses low-income families specifically targets those units that house Indigenous families. He takes videos and photos of the families going about living their daily lives. Files complaint after complaint with the owners of the building, the social service agency providing supports to assist the families in settling in, his City Councillor’s office about the noise of the young children, about adults smoking on the balcony, about what he calls, ‘those people’. Yet, he refuses to meet to discuss his complaints or to learn about the program of ending homelessness, reducing poverty and building community. “I want them gone,” is his only response.

I could go on.

After almost 18 years working in the homeless-serving sector in Calgary, many of them spent doing community engagement work, the stories of racial profiling, discrimination and abuse are numbing.

I have sat at boardroom tables with community members decrying the pending presence of housing for formerly homeless individuals and families in their community. I have listened to their fears, their insistence that this housing will drive down their property values or create parking concerns, two of the 3 top concerns community members voice when opposing low-income housing, the other one being, rising crime rates. Even when the data clearly shows those fears are unfounded, the objections and the name-calling continues.

I have faced angry mobs opposing the purchase of land for low-income housing, standing in a circle around me and my co-workers, arms raised, fists clenched above their heads as they shake them in the air, yelling at the top of their voices, “We don’t want you here.”

I have listened to people call fellow human beings names that make me want me to peel off my skin right down to my skeleton to show them our blood is the same colour, and all of our skeletons are white, but that would just further enforce the notion, white is better.

And, unfortunately, their fear, their ignorance, their misconceptions and yes, their white privilege closed their minds to the fact that those against whom they railed were just like them, seeking to make a better life for themselves and their families. It’s just the circumstances of their lives had put them far, far below the poverty line to where they struggled just to catch a breath of the very same air that we all breathe freely.

“They don’t deserve the air they breathe,” has sometimes been the response.

So yes. Black Lives Matter. Brown Lives Matter.

And what we do next, the white privileged who have never known what it feels like to have our skin colour make us the target of other human beings’ abuse, disdain, fear… What we do next matters. A lot.

It’s easy to say, “But those are the few bad apples.” And, while that is fundamentally true, most people don’t support overt racism, the fact remains, we are complicit in our inaction, in our not speaking up, in our not decrying and outing such behaviour. In our not examining why skin colour matters in the first place.

And, while it’s easy to point at yourself and say, “I’m not racist,” living that truth? That’s a whole other matter.

And if you haven’t already done so, read the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Report: Calls to Action. It matters. A lot.

To Be or Not To Be. What’s the Real Question?

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how bright will

A bird does not ask if one day it will fly. A fish does not wonder if it will swim just as a river does not worry about where it’s flowing. It just flows.

It’s only us human beings who wonder, “What will I be?”

It starts at an early age.

When I was a little girl I would tell people I wanted to be an actress when I grew up because I wanted to make people laugh and cry and feel all the colours of the rainbow. That occupation did not sit well in my household so I changed it to a psychologist – maybe I could help people smile more?

And then, I grew up, (well at least kind of) and neither of those occupations were on my radar. But then, neither was becoming a leader in the not-for-profit sector working in homelessness on my agenda either. It just kind of happened.

Which brings me back to Hamlet’s famous question,

“To be or not to be.
That is the question.
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer,
the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
or to take arms against a sea of troubles.”

There is nothing noble in suffering. No rewards. No commendations. No aspirational title like, “Chief Sufferer of Life’s Slings and Arrows.”

There is only suffering in suffering. And I don’t know about you, but when I’m suffering, I kinda like to see the world as suffering along with me. It feels less lonely.

The situations that create suffering in our lives are not always of our design or choice. The things we do to keep us tied to the suffering, well, those are sometimes based on choices we make, albeit often unconscious and often circumscribed by the limitations of our environment and history. And while it is possible to change our circumstances, when we’re mired in suffering that keeps us tethered to the pain of our existence, it’s hard to recognize — there is another way To Be.

Working in a homeless shelter, I encountered daily people whose belief in themselves was so limited by their circumstances they could not see any hope of the possibility of change. Their roads had been dark so long, there was no glimmer of light in the tunnel of the dark and gloomy past, present and future they believed was theirs and theirs alone.

When I first started working in the sector, I started an art program in the shelter where I worked. I believe that it doesn’t matter where we’ve landed on the road of life, what matters is we stand up again and again and take one little step after another, again and again.

And that can be hard when the bottom feels like it is constantly falling away.

Which is where ‘creative expression’ plays a leading role. Standing up is hard without a foundation. Tapping into our creative core gives us access to a solid place to begin to see there is a possibility of some kind of ‘different’. As we dive in, we begin to see the world in varying hues of grey until the darkness opens up to all the colours of the rainbow.

And so, I come full circle.

The view from where I sit this morning as I type.

This morning, as I look out through my window at the beautiful blue sky above, two birds fly swiftly by. A gentle morning breeze brushes the snow clinging to the bare-limbed arms of the tree lining the river, pushing it gently into the air. Beneath the surface of the swiftly flowing river, fish swim in its depths.

Birds fly. Fish swim. The river flows. The sun rises and I smile at the symmetry of my life.

Once upon a time, I wanted to be a light so that I didn’t feel so alone in the dark and maybe, others wouldn’t too.

Today I know there is no choice to be or not to be a light. The question is, “How bright am I willing to shine?”

How bright are you willing to shine?

SPENT: Can you beat poverty?

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I took The Challenge. I clicked on SPENT, an online simulation of living life in the poverty zone.

Poverty sucks.

There’s no way to win at life, get ahead, to make the ‘ethical’ choice when the decisions you have to make always come back down to — will I have enough money to pay the rent, buy food to feed my children, pay their school fees, pay insurance, utilities and get to my minimum wage job on time.

At one point in the game, while driving my children to school, I hit an icy patch and my car slid into a parked car causing damage. I had a choice. Stop. Try to find the owner. Leave a note. Get the kids to school and be late for work (which would cost me precious money). OR. Leave the scene and hope no one saw me. Except my kids of course. They were watching from the back seat. Tracking every move I took. Learning from every decision I made.

Sure, in my non-poverty defined real life, I wouldn’t drive away. I would be accountable.

But in my real life, I have more than $326 left in the bank to take me to the end of the month 20 long days away. I earn more than $9.00 an hour.

In my real life, I have resources, resilience, possibilities.

In SPENT, I lasted 11 days before I hit bottom. And even then, if my life had been circumscribed by longterm exposure to poverty, I may not have chosen to pay for my kids field trip because that $15 made a difference between milk and bread on the table for the week, or not. And maybe I would have bought a new shirt for work when I spilt bleach on it while helping the dishwasher. At least then I wouldn’t have lost a day’s pay because my boss sent me home for ‘bad attitude’. And maybe…

That’s the challenge of poverty. “Maybe tomorrow will be better” is never an option. The decisions today are between one hard rock place and losing it all. There’s no soft landing, no cushion. There’s only rock bottom, every day.

In the game, when I spent out, I didn’t worry about what happened to my kids when we didn’t have a roof over our heads. Or all my stuff, at least the stuff I was able to salvage when I lost my home and had to move to a rental apartment. It was just a game.

But what about in real life? What really happens?

Yup. Poverty Sucks.

It sucks the life, hope, possibility out of daily living turning it into a daily grind against hard rock places that will not give you a break.

What about you? Can you beat poverty?

 

We’re all on this journey of life together.

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I have stopped by my old hairdressers to buy the shampoo I love. They recently moved and this is my first time at their new Beltline area location.

As I am about to pay, I ask the young woman at the desk how she likes the new location.

“We love it,” she replies enthusiastically. “Except for all the hobos and street people everywhere. They’re awful.” And she goes on to talk about how annoyed she is by ‘their’ presence.

I take a breath. For a moment I consider not buying my products. Or, buying and leaving without saying anything.

Silence in the face of ignorance is not my strong suit.

“Just as a piece of information,” I say to her as calmly and kindly as I can. “Hobo is a really derogatory term. The individuals you are referencing are human beings, like you and me, who have fallen on really hard times. You may want to consider using the phrase ‘individuals experiencing homelessness’. It’s less offensive.”

She looks at me. Squirms a little and pastes on a smile. “Oh well, you know, it’s just a word,” she said.

“Yes. And words have power. Did you know there’s an apartment building across the street that provides housing…”

And before I can finish my sentence she chimes in. “Oh yes. It’s a halfway house.”

I take another breath. “Actually, it’s not. It’s Permanent Supportive Housing for individuals exiting homelessness. In this case, the building supports veterans who were experiencing homelessness before moving into the building. That building is their permanent home. They live there as residents of this community. Halfway houses are generally for individuals existing the justice system in preparation of their moving on to their own housing.”

“Oh. Well there’s always lots of activity over there.” She says it in a way that makes me grit my teeth as though I’ve just heard nails scraping along a blackboard.

I breathe deeply and remind myself that ignorance is not a crime. It comes from a lack of understanding.

“I’m sure there is. It can be a struggle to leave the homeless identity behind. After years of service to your country, and then years of struggling on the street it’s hard to believe people care or that you’ve actually got a home of your own.” I take another breath and ask, “Have you gone over to meet the staff and residents?”

She looks at me with wide eyes. “Of course not!”

I smile at her and say, “It’s one way to get a better understanding of what’s going on,” I tell her. I know I probably sound a little condescending. I don’t mean to but I can feel my blood coursing through my veins. I am vibrating at a little too high a frequency.

I work on calming my racing mind. On changing my tone and position.

“I worked in the homeless sector for a lot of years,” I tell her. “Connecting and getting to know your neighbours is a great way to build a community.”

She packs up my products into a paper bag and hands it to me. “Well you have a nice day,” she says.

“I will,” I reply. “I hope you do too.”

And I leave.

And inside I feel sad and angry. Upset and dissatisfied.

For fifteen years I worked to shift perceptions of homelessness in our city. And here was a young woman, probably early 20s, who still carried the bias and misconceptions that existed when I first started working in the homeless serving sector.

We cannot know the answers unless we’re willing to ask the questions.

And we cannot ask the questions unless we hear the truth of where our judgements mislead us.

For that young woman, she may never ask another question about homelessness. Hopefully, if nothing else, she will stop spreading misinformation.

Then again, the story she shares may be about the nasty old lady who walked in and was all uppity and judgemental about her use of the word ‘hobo’ who then had to give her a lecture on homelessness..

And I breathe.

We are all just struggling to make sense of our world.

We are all on this human journey together, sharing life on this round ball circling the sun. Sometimes, we walk in darkness. Sometimes, we travel in the light. Wherever we walk on this planet earth, may we step lightly, treating one another with loving kindness, dignity and respect. May we seek first to understand before casting judgement on our companions who like us, sometimes struggle on this journey called life.

And in my heart I say a prayer for both of us.

Bless her.
Forgive me.
Bless me.
Forgive her.

Namaste.