Today we’ve finally been getting snow that sticks and stays. There isn’t a lot, but there is enough to call snow! This intrepid cyclist is still out and about on her bicycle and having no trouble getting from A-B. Tomorrow, however, may be icy in the morning…
(This picture doesn’t capture the snow other than the snow remaining on my bicycle wheel after I brought it into the shed. The ground is completely covered! Really!)
It always amazes me that people are so intrigued by the work I do at the emergency shelter. I never really stop to think about what it is that I do – I just do it. When the job offer came, I didn’t stop and think about whether or not I would take the job, I just did. So I always feel a little uncomfortable when people express admiration for what I do: it has to be done, it is my job to do it, and I think I am good at it.
Sometimes people will ask me for advise on how to interact with the homeless or ask for stories about my job. Only once, today, have I been asked if I have met a specific person. To be clear, I cannot ever say (for legal/privacy reasons) if someone is or has been at the shelter unless they have signed a release of information for me to talk with that person/group. And so I did not confirm or deny the presence of an individual when asked today… but as my friend described her friend’s sister and what circumstance may have led to her being homeless, it brought home the fact that everyone I meet at the shelter has a back-story that I don’t always get to know. Everyone is someone’s father, mother, brother, sister, daughter, son. There are people who love them, care about them, search for them or who have given up on them. There is always a story. It can be hard to look past the mental illness or drug addictions sometimes and see that. It can be hard, in the moment, to realize that an individual may once have behaved or existed in a completely different way to how they do right now.
So to my friend with whom I shared this short conversation today, thank you for the reminder that each person has that other side to their life, that they have a bigger story.
Last night was the opening evening of this years synod for the Diocese of BC. I hadn’t intended to go to any of it except the registration time to staff a PWRDF information table, but I ended up going to the opening Eucharist. It was the usual collection of priests, deacons, bishops, and bunch of random lay-keeners… and the Irish Poet.
The Cathedral is a downtown church. We’re not as downtown as the churches that are right beside Our Place, but downtown we are. The south lawn of the Cathedral is a great place to hang out with shopping carts and buggies full of belongings and on cold days like the last few, people living on the street will come inside the church whenever it is open.
Last night was no exception. Mid-way through the service, a bent man in a long jacket carrying a bulky bag over his shoulder, long stringy hair falling in front of his face, walked in and sat down in one of the last pews in a side chapel. The words of the bishop chanting the liturgy were punctuated by loud words and curses from the man who had walked in. I sensed one of the priests sitting a the back head out to speak with a verger who came in to keep an eye on the situation and I hoped that would be all that was needed. I work with this population every day… can’t I have a church service to myself?
As he continued to speak, one of the deacons went over to sit and talk with him. I tried to focus on the words the bishop was saying… “You who sat with outcasts and sinners…” A chuckle escaped me. The irony. The timing. Am I supposed to have a different response than just sitting here and receiving from this service? I just want a break from working with folks like him. I don’t want to do this right now, God. Can’t someone else just deal with this? But no one else really wants to “deal with this” – it is uncomfortable and a little scary. But there were the words of the liturgy… Do we actually get what we are supposed to be and do with the outcasts of our society?
Then it was time to go up for communion. I knelt, elbow to elbow with others – not outcasts – and received the bread and wine. As I walked back to my seat, the deacon who had been sitting with the man at the back of the church got up to take her turn for communion. So I walked over, “Can I sit here?” “Sure, I don’t care. You’re beautiful.” Yeah, how is that for an opener. I sat, we talked. He had an Irish accent and I think I recognized him as the one we call “The Irish Poet” at work. He ranted on about church and religion and how it is all full of bullshit. I agreed, after all, so much of the tradition and trappings associated with church really does seem like a load of bullshit. We talked some more. About smoking, the pope, Beethoven, and various other things.
Then he got agitated and got up, so I walked outside with him. Standing on the front steps, I was shivering in just my sweater, but he didn’t seem to notice the cold. We talked more. Then, just as quickly, the conversation was over. He said he had to pee and was going to pee on the church. I suggested he head around to the side of the building so he wouldn’t be in plain view and he said he didn’t care. “Well, it was nice to talk with you. Have a good evening.” No acknowledgement as he walked away.
Still shivering, I went back inside just as the recessional hymn was ending and all the priests in their fancy robes were congregating at the back of the church, oblivious to the conversations that had been going on out of their line of sight. Despite our best attempts at “reaching out” to the broader community we find ourselves in, I felt a strange disconnect in that 10 step walk from the front steps with the Poet to the back of the nave with the procession. How do we bridge that gap?
When I returned to Victoria in February 2007 after my first prolonged absence since I initially moved here in 2004, I lived in the growing area known as “The Railyards” in Vic West. At the time, there were only a couple of townhouse/condo buildings there. Now the area has exploded with popularity. There were a number of things I loved about living there; proximity to downtown, views overlooking the Gorge waterway, and being right on the Galloping Goose Regional Trail were just some of the perks. I often did my grocery, or vegetable anyway, shopping just over the bridge in Chinatown.
Then I came back from Offshore and moved out to the “suburbs”. Not quite as far out as I had lived during my undergrad and certainly a more manageable bicycle ride into town (20-25 min), but nevertheless, not downtown. And there I lived from October 2008 until December 2011. It was wonderful, and I thoroughly enjoyed some of the perks of that area.
However, now that I am downtown, I am basking in my downtown-ness. The other week, I walked the four short blocks to my friends house and we walked her dog around downtown, coffee in hand. Sunday morning – New Years Day – I rolled out of bed less than half an hour before church began and made it in the door before the opening hymn. My commute to work is less than 10 minutes on the bicycle. But the thing that I enjoyed most today was a quick stroll down to Chinatown to obtain a tea ball for my teapot and do some vegetable shopping at my favorite Chinatown market.
It was doing that thing right on the edge of actually raining. That light sprinkle on already wet streets that gives a certain glow to the city. Add to the rain that twilight time of night when the lights are already glowing as well as Christmas lights still up all over the city, and you have a lovely evening of walking around and looking at glowing, reflecting lights twinkling all around. I began taking pictures just before entering the market, and by the time I left, not fifteen minutes later, the sun was well and truly down and darkness had descended on Chinatown. However the lights lit up the area like beacons in the darkness.
I’ve been knitting and sewing a lot over the last little while and many of these things have become gifts for people… here are some pictures!
Aside from the tie for a friend and the socks that were my Dad’s Christmas present, it seems that everything I’ve made and remembered to take photos of has been for babies. I’ve also sewn a few skirts, a couple of capes, some coasters, and a number of other things I’ve forgotten to photograph.
What do kicking someone out of their halfway house-type accommodation, calling emergency mental health services and then having someone forcibly removed from the premises by police, and finding a dead body have in common? Apparently they are all in a weeks work when you work at the largest emergency shelter in town.
But that isn’t what I came here to write about. I had wanted to write a story of happiness, of Christmas spirit and Christmas joy at work in the emergency shelters.
We are all familiar with the story of two young people travelling a long distance, one preggo, only to find there is no where for them to stay when they get to their destination. I don’t know if I’ve ever stopped to think about whether or not they had money for a place even if there was one to be found, but like it or not, they were homeless.
How might that story translate to 2011?
It is Christmas Eve and this young family with three children under six finds themselves unable to sleep in their car as they have been for the last while: it is raining and the back window is broken. Not only that but they have no food. Alone and strangers in town, they make their way to the emergency shelter.
Sorry, we can’t take children. We are a 19+ shelter only.
But what about families? Where are families supposed to go?
We’ll call the Ministry and see what they suggest … They are closed until Tuesday, there is nothing we can do … We’ll check with the Housing workers at the Community Centre that administers our family units … Also on holidays … Well, we just happen to have one of our family units vacant at the moment. It isn’t large, in fact there is only 1 bedroom for the five of you, but it is warm and dry and you can leave your small car in the parking lot …
And so some staff members went grocery shopping and then shopping to get Christmas gifts for three youngsters who’s parents were afraid to tell them it was Christmas Eve for fear of disappointing them with another year of nothing.
While it isn’t much, it is five more people out of the cold with a dry roof over their heads and a stable floor below their feet. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
I have high intentions of getting back onto the Friday Photo train, however that will have to wait until I can find the uploading device for my camera. I’m pretty certain which box it is in.
I was emailed this link by the manager of shelters at work. While I don’t post things about my work, after my facebook link earlier this week to a ten minute interview with “homeless poets” (from the writing workshop at my workplace), this one fits right in. In it, a young person volunteering her way across the country stopped for a while at my shelter and spent time volunteering with us. She writes about her experience with us.
Here I am, in the comfort of my new home. It has been a busy week. With visits to the 
doctor and police station keeping me nearly three hours late at work the day before last, it is a wonder I have unpacked as much as I have. Approximately four boxes remain and then it is a matter of making tweaks to the storage here and there. I enjoy the process of finding homes for everything more than I enjoy packing things up. I’ve even found time and space to put up my Christmas tree! (And have gotten compliments on it from everyone who has come to the door! Yay Dad!) And I’ve received my first piece of mail to the new address (Thanks Nancy!).
In the busy-ness of packing to move and adjusting to a new job, I have neglected posting.
A friend is a contributor to a site that has been posting short reflections each day of advent so far. One resonated with me, both because I am preparing to move to a new house and because I spend my days with those who have no house.
Imagine a world where everyone had a decent place to live. Everyone had a home.
Imagine a world where no one was homeless. No one slept on the streets. No one froze to death in winter.
Imagine a world without slums. Without slum landlords. Without housing unfit for dogs, let alone humans, to live in.
Just imagine!
Come Lord Jesus. Come quickly!
And then I dropped off of the face of the planet for two weeks. That might have had something to do with working 60 hours at one job (all overnight shifts) and 21 hours at the other in the space of eight days. I don’t really want to do that math, especially when you figure in all of the extra-curriculars that I had in there as well. And then lets not talk about the 16 hours I slept one afternoon/evening/night, sleeping through the alarm that was supposed to wake me in time to go to opening night of the world premier for an opera.
In more exciting news, last week was also one of events that have felt a long time coming. Within the space of 3 days, I interviewed and was offered a full time (temporary – maternity leave) position at the place where I have been working casual. It is something of a social work position working with individuals in transitional housing and an emergency shelter. I start next week with a three day conference in Vancouver. It is daytime hours only…!
Possibly more exciting things coming up in the next few weeks.
gillian's island 