The Breaking of a Man. Written by John R.

Statistics are supposed to be dry, but sometimes they make me cry.

It is hard to see the breaking of a man laid out by statistics. To see a man who is trying to do it all right; pay the mortgage, pay his bills, go to work and do everything he is supposed to do be reduced to nothing is heart breaking.

He first stayed two nights in 2005. He was sober.

He does not appear again for almost a year and a half, but now he is drinking heavily. He goes through periods where he seems to be trying very hard, and is always sober, but then things fall apart. He is hospitalized with a life-threatening infection and almost dies, but is able to make a full recovery.

Our records show he is staying with us more often, drinking less, but still struggling with the stress of meeting his financial obligations, and keeping his employment while living in a shelter. He might be offered a transfer with his work, but not to where he really wants to go; back home to the place that he has been paying the mortgage on for all these years.

When I see statistics like this, I want to cry, and then I get angry that we as Canadians allow this to be.

Written by: John R., Manager of Data Systems

Love, fellowship, and support at the DI Written by Roger G.

I have at times prided myself on my work with clients at the DI, believing that I was a good listener and sometimes a useful guide. But one day this summer I was humbled to stand and watch tough love at work.

For a few months, we had two guys on 4th floor who I'll call Billy and Bobby. They were "good ol' boys", Maritimers both, and gave me some interesting challenges during their stay with us; never before or since have I had to put a lid on a game of Frisbee taking place in the hallway, for instance. One evening a young client from 3rd floor who I'll call Sam came to the door and told me he wanted to see Bobby. I asked him to wait at the stairwell door (we discourage visiting between the sleeping floors, and only 4th floor clients are allowed on the 4th floor) while I went and found Bobby, as usual, playing guitar on the smoke deck. I told him about his visitor, watched him meet Sam at the door, and got busy with something else for a couple of minutes.
Next thing I knew their voices were getting louder, meaning that I'd need to step in on behalf of dozens of sleeping men in hearing distance of the argument.

"We can see it in your face," was the only phrase I caught.

Billy joined in at this point, ushering the other two out the door and into the stairwell, waving a sign to me that they would take this outside and that he and Bobby would return shortly.

I followed even so, and caught the word "dope" as their voices receded down the stairs. Billy returned first, and got more honest with me than he ever had.

"I'm a crackhead, Roger," he said. "Sam is the one who helped me and Bobby clean up three weeks ago. Now he's having a rough time, and he gave Bobby his money today so that he wouldn't go out and spend it on dope. Now he wants it back, and we're not giving it to him."

Almost on cue, Bobby came back in the door with a determined Sam following close behind, and I watched as Billy and Bobby stood their ground with their friend; "No, we won't! We care about you; we love you, man."

The DI has a pretty firm policy against debt collecting in the building, not to mention keeping peace and quiet on the sleeping floors, giving me the authority to inform Sam that he must go back downstairs as I called on the radio for staff backup to make sure he would do so. In less than a minute Sam was facing Billy, Bobby, and 4 staff on the stairs, but he took only a few reluctant steps until I threatened that I'd call CPS if necessary. Finally he walked with Bobby and me down to the first floor and made no attempt to follow us back upstairs again when we left him, leaving me to reflect on how ignorant I am of what happens at the DI. But I also found myself feeling good about my job, knowing that there must be far more tough love happening all around me than I had ever imagined.

Billy and Bobby got their own place and moved out in August. I still see Sam in the building; he says "Hello", and shakes my hand. And I remember that, while there's a time and a place for a floor supervisor to speak up, when love and true strength are at work the smartest thing I can do is shut up and get out the way.

Written by: Roger G.
Night supervisor

If not me, who?

It is mid afternoon. I am walking on 4th Ave. back towards the DI.

On the avenue traffic speeds towards me, racing to reach the safety of the downtown core. It comes in spits and spurts, regulated by the light at the end of the bridge that connects this part of the city to the northern shore. I walk. Traffic stops coming. The avenue is empty.

Ahead, I spy a group of people sitting on a small knoll. Two men stand facing eachother. One tall. The other, hunched over. His grey jacket slumped back off his shoulders, his hands forward, palms facing up. The group is watching the duo. Faces turned up in anticipation of the drama about to unfold. Drama I am not prepared for.

Suddenly, the taller man flips the younger man to the ground. He laughs. Says something I can't hear to the crowd. I want to hear nervousness in their responsive laughter. I could be imagining it. The taller man leans over the body of the man he's flipped to the ground. He tears the earphones from his head. Rips the CD player from the pocket of his jacket. He looks around. No traffic. He musn't see me. Or, if he does, he doesn't see the threat in a lone woman walking down the street. He stands up. Lifts his boot and stomps it on the head of the man on the ground. He steps over the man and sits down with the group.

I am stunned. Not quite sure I actually saw what I saw. I am alone. One person. A group of four or six sitting on the hillside. I know the tall man is the dealer. I know the others are his clients. I know I need to do something. I don't know what. I am at risk. I keep walking. I look for a police cruiser. There's normally one in the neighbourhood. Around the corner, at the side of the hotel, I see one.

I walk over. The officer knows me. I tell him what I witnessed. "I'll check it out right away," he says. With a wave and a parting, "I know where to find you if I need you," he flips on his lights and spins around, turns the corner towards the group. I walk back to my office.

Behind me, I see the cruiser in front of the tableau of people sitting on the hill. I know nothing will happen. I know the man whose head was stomped won't say anything. I know the group will not reveal the perpetrator of the drama that unfolded. I know all this and still I want it to be different. I want them to stop doing what they're doing to kill themselves. To stop hurting eachother. To stop giving up on themselves and life and living. I want them to awaken.

I have no questions today. No answers. I know I cannot change the world. I know I cannot stop anyone from speeding down the wrong way on a one way street to destiny. I can only do what I can do. I can only give my best. Do my best. Be my best. My best is good enough.

And still my heart cries. My soul weeps for those who have lost their way and find themselves in the hellhole of an addiction, living on the street, living by their wits, living off the drugs dealers peddle that keep them from turning away from street life back to mainstreet.

Yesterday, in the self-esteem course I was teaching one of the students asked me after we had talked about attitude and the benefits of staying your course to reach your goals, "But how do I do that when I get out of rehab and have to come back here? How do I quit using when everyone around me wants me to keep being who I was and keeps encouraging me to go back to my old ways?"

"Do you want to go back to your old ways?" I asked him.

His response was fast and vehement. "No."

"I don't have the answer for you," I told him. "All I can tell you is, the choice is yours. If getting out of here is your goal, measure every step you take against your goal. Does it take you closer, or further away from where you want to be?"

"Yeah, but these guys are my friends. When I won't go partying with them, they make fun of me, they even pick fights with me."

"Friends don't hold you back from attaining your goals, but an addict will always try to keep you from breaking free," I told him. "If you break free then that means they could too. And what addict wants to know they can get away from the thing they use to ease their pain? You are an inspiration, and a curse. In you, they see the possibilities. And possibilities are scary."

"So, I could be a role model?" he asked. (We had spoken of the kind of man he wanted to be earlier. A role model was key.)

"You are their role model. You are their light, their hope, their possibility. They're afraid of what you're doing but they want what you're doing to be possible for them. Facing their desire, however, is scary. What you've done is the unknown. The dealers got what they know and he knows how to keep them using."

"Yeah," he agreed. "The last thing the dealer wants is to lose another customer."

Another student piped up. "Who cares. There'll always be another one after the last one."

The reality of addictions. "There'll always be another one after the last one."

For that young man lying on the hillside, there is always hope he will awaken. As long as he stays alive. For the dealer, there is always hope he will awaken too. As long as he stays alive. Perhaps one day he will face the consequences of his actions. Perhaps one day, someone will do to him what he did to another human being and he will awaken from the darkness.

I don't know. I do know that to give up on those who are lost is to give into the darkness of their despair. To give up would be to give over control to those who would want to deal with impunity in the underbelly of someone's addiction. To give up would be impossible.

I am proud of the work I do. I am proud of the people I work with. The courageous souls who will not give up on anyone, even when that person has given up on themselves. I am grateful for the work I do. I am grateful there are those who will not give up, who continue to fight for the oppressed all over this world. I am grateful for the officer who so quickly responded to my call. I am grateful for the students in my class yesterday who are courageously moving forward, even while they struggle to make sense of the world around them. I am grateful I live in a world where possibilities exist, where spirits can awaken to the beauty of our human condition, where ever they are in the world today.

I am grateful I can make a difference.

If not me, who? If not now, when?

Because of My Uniqueness. (By Jerry)

Jerry wrote the following as part of an assignment in a job-readiness training program he was taking here at the DI. These are his experiences, his words, his beliefs.

The opinions expressed in this article are the opinions of the author only.

Hello, I have been asked to relate an experience of “discrimination or prejudice towards me based on my appearance or living situation”, and how I reacted to it. There are two situations that come to mind so I pass them both along.

It was a warm sunny May day about eight years ago. Although it was warm, the wind was blowing and thus messing with my otherwise well tended tresses. I was not having a particularly good day, and really just wanted to be left alone and pursue my own interests.

I was heading east on 7 ave. (between 9 and 8 street), when from a group of midlevel office people that were sitting on the steps of an office building I hear, “ Hey look, Encino Man.”

It took me two or three steps to fully register what the “gentleman” had said about me, but when realization did hit, I stopped, turned around, walked back to the group, stopping in front of the quipster.

In my most restrained manner I said, “ I’m sure that you’re parents taught you better manners than that.”

Whereupon he said, “ Oh sorry, should I have said Mr. Encino Man?”

I am sorry to say, I slapped him, (ok, maybe I’m not sorry), told him that “his grandparents should have done THAT more often”, and walked away.

This may not sound like a large transgression in the big picture of life, but then you have to understand just how often in a month, week, or day that something like this or worse happens. How often does a row of vehicles at a stop and go light hit their power locks as you are walking down the sidewalk?? As if I’m going to carjack them while they’re stuck in traffic!! How about the mother with stroller and toddler, who crosses the street rather than walk by you. Let us not forget about the two little old ladies at the department store who purposefully go through the door eight feet away even though you were holding the door right in front of them for them. This is the type of attitude I have to deal with day in and day out.

The following is another specific example of unprofessional behavior. It might be noted also that it is not always in ones best interest to retaliate against prejudice. This incident happened in the middle of winter. At one time in the not too distant past, the drug trade was driven across the river and into the environs of the neighborhood coffee shop.

I was being driven back downtown about six in the morning intending to be dropped at the coffee shop. Upon pulling into the parking lot, it was evident that the police were rousting the nefarious element hanging about. As to be expected, the car was surrounded, our identification checked and we were freed to leave.

Rather than go to the coffee shop, (too much action about), I figured to grab my coffee at the Esso station. On the walk across the lot it came to my attention that the police had a cruiser in the south west corner of the lot with an officer announcing through the PA system that, “ You crack heads stay on that side of the bridge. You have no business here. Go back to your side of the bridge.”

This was being repeated over and over by the officers. It should be made clear that the people he was talking to were the fellows who work everyday, and are picked up by their rides or bosses at the coffee shop. The majority of them weren’t druggies at all!!!

Though I was miffed, I made my way without incident into the station and poured my coffee. While waiting to pay, one of the officers that checked my friends and me came in. I said to him, “I understand the concern of the businesses and neighborhood about the criminal element and activity in the area. But is it really necessary to group everyone under one umbrella?”

The officer understood that I was talking not only about myself, but also about the people just wanting to come over to conduct their normal daily routine before going to work. The reply given to me was, “ If you look like them, talk with them and act like them, then you must be one of them.”

The camel screamed, its back was finally broken.

In a state of controlled cold fury I looked directly into the officers eyes and said, “Using that premise, looking at you I should see a guy who leaves his family at home on a Saturday afternoon, goes to a fellow officer’s house for a barbeque, drinks his face off all afternoon, jumps into his sports ute all f'd up, drives the wrong way down 22X, has a head on with another vehicle killing all four occupants two of whom were children. It’s a good thing I’m not that cynical yet.”

(The incident I have just described DID happen with an officer of CPS. The outcome was that the officer was suspended with pay pending his successful completion of a twenty-eight day treatment program whereupon he was reinstated to the force.) The officer immediately left the store, which is when I realized that I had made my point too well. When I left the store, the officers were waiting for me. They called me to their car, I was apologizing as I was nearing them. Fortunate for me these officers were not blinded by their biases. I received a dressing down, but was allowed to leave unscathed.

These are just a couple of examples of the type of bias and prejudice that I endure on nearly a daily basis. Generally I accept people’s comments, actions, and behaviors, it was not always this way. Often I get asked why I don’t change the way I look. To this I always say, “What does it matter how I look compared to who I am.” Richard Nixon was clean cut, Adolph Hitler was groomed and brushed, yet they were both less than nice people. It is nice to know that not all people have phobias about people like me.

There are times where because of my uniqueness I am hounded.

I guess I’ve got to accept the good with the bad.

Change Happens When The Caring Starts

Written and Submitted by Christa B. Night Staff Satellite Location: 2507

It was just over a year ago that I met Buddy. I was a new transfer staff member and he was a long time resident. My first introduction to him was when there not enough towels for him at 02:45 am and he was grumpy at the office staff. Two hours later he threw back his lunch as he did not like it. This interaction with him went on for a few weeks. There were times when I got a smile out of him however those were rare times.

One morning, I was working at the office during wake ups and my supervisor asked me to take a look at Buddy’s leg. Having had education in health care, I assessed his leg and found it to be reddened, swollen, warm to touch and painful to weight gain on. I asked Buddy to seek medical attention during his day and if he chose not to do so, advised him that medical attention would be sought out for him that night. As it turned out, the redness had traveled up his leg during the day and he was finding it hard to walk, which caused concern for all staff members at the main building on Riverfront Avenue. Non Emergency E.M.S. was called out to assess his leg.

Later on, I found out that Buddy had not sought attention as he did not have the provincial medical coverage and was scared that he would be billed. E.M.S. transported him to the hospital that night, and I packed a bag of toiletries with some of his clothes for him to have at the hospital, which was sent up with a staff member. Buddy was in the hospital for a few rotations, calling every few days to let the staff know that he was all right.

The night that he returned to the warehouse from hospital will be one that I will never forget. He was the first one on the second bus and when he stepped onto the bus and saw me, he said, “How many thank you’s should I give you. You saved my leg.”

On the ride out to the warehouse he shared that he was in the hospital under isolation and was treated for cellulitis, which the doctor feared would have turned into the flesh eating infection if it had not been caught and treated when it was.

Since that night, Buddy and I have developed a helping relationship. He's come to me to help him with his pension application as well as other things that he needed advice or feedback on. He accepts a towel that I keep back for him at night, and he never complains of his lunch. He has opened up to the staff and allowed us into his life.

Buddy and other hard to love guys are the reason that I do what I do. Someone needs to care for those who society has not cared for.

Change happens when the caring starts.

Written by Christa B. Night staff, Satellite location

Falling down to get back up.

I sat in my 6th floor office and watched an elderly man stumble down the street far below. He pushed his metal walker before him, a human barstool on the move. He came to the curb, attempted to navigate the bump, and fell. He struggled to get up but with each attempt, he fell back to the ground. Sitting up in my eerie, I had an eagle's eye view, and I was helpless. I phoned the security desk on the main floor to ask a staff to go out and help him but as I started to speak, two people came up and assisted the man. Later I went downstairs to ensure the man had made it safely to his destination, the DI. He had.

"Our greatest glory consists not in never failing but in rising every time we fall." Oliver Goldsmith

This man fell down. He got up. A tiny success in a seemingly endless journey through the haze of alcohol that constantly fogs his mind. Once again, I am in awe of the spirit's need to live, of the drive for survival.

This man's life may have little sense to it. It may appear to be a futile attempt to wrest a few more moments or days from fate. But, in the end, this man's life is all he's got. He is a late stage alcoholic. A man for whom sobriety is a long lost relative to the despair that permeates his spirit like alcohol pouring through his veins.

There is little we can do for him other than provide a safe landing when he falls. Provide him assistance with his daily ablutions, clean him up when he messes up, watch over him when he has a seizure and provide him food and a safe place to sleep when he comes in from the street.

The help we provide him is not based on 'cleaning him up' or even getting him into rehab. Too many brain cells have hit the dust, too many synapses have mis-fired. He is walking towards his destiny. A tragic story of one man's life gone grievously astray. A human being no long able to do anything other than what he's doing today -- drinking himself to death.

Is it tragic? Absolutely. Did he make choices? Absolutely. Do his choices make a difference to him today? They make a difference to his quality of life, what he might have done, or been or had. But for today, his choices are limited to a narrow corridor of insobriety, a singular path to keeping himself numbed under the influence.

Does this man need help today? Absolutely. Does he deserve to be helped? Yes.

Regardless of the circumstances that led him down his dark and drunken street, he is where he's at. He is helpless to help himself. All we can do is watch over him as best we can. Provide him the help he needs and will take, and ultimately, note his passing and gather his belongings when he's gone.

We've had and have many clients like this man. Individuals self-medicating themselves to death. We try to intervene whenever we can. We attempt to redirect their attention to some other path. Sometimes, no matter what we do, we cannot divert them from their self-directed date with destiny. For whatever reason, their lives have gone wildly astray, their paths become a constant struggle to get up.

Regardless of the reason, we cannot deny their need. It would be inhumane. No one deserves the street. No one deserves to die there. If he were a dog who had been hit by a car and been left bleeding on the road, we would not hesitate to pick him up and rush him to a vet. And yet, with a human being, we often stop in judgement and say, "It's his own fault."

In the end, it doesn't make a difference who's fault it is. He is falling and needs help. We cannot change his destiny. All we can do is provide the best care we can while he walks in the direction he's going. All we can do is walk beside him whenever we can, hold his hand when he needs us, and let him know we care enough to continue to make whatever difference we can.

Yee Haw! It's Stampede in the City

It's Stampede once again in Calgary. Wannbe cowboys dust off their boots and don their Stetsons to hit the trails, and the bars, for a foot stompin' good time in the new heart of the west. Suddenly every street side cafe is corralled off with wooden barn boards and bales of hay as the city gets down to celebrating how the west was won. In the spirit of the times, normally law abiding citizens let loose and stagger out of hotel bars at 8 am, their bellies full of sausages and eggs swirling in a bath of vodka and OJ.

Last night, I left a restaurant on 17th Avenue as dusk was settling in. The streets were still alive with Stampede revelers as I walked to my car. In the distance, I saw a man stumbling towards me. He'd obviously had a few too many at some cowboy joint down the road. His hat was askew. His gait unsteady. As he navigated the sidewalk he smiled blearily at passers-by who deftly sidestepped his unsteady progress. Like everyone else, I gave him a wide-berth. Drunken wannabe cowboy's can be unpredictable.

As the man reached an intersection, the light turned red. He didn't hesitate. He stepped off the curb and kept on walking. Brakes squealed as drivers stopped to give him safe passage. A couple of horns blared. He laughed and smiled and kept moving. He made it safely to the other side, waved at the drivers who had stopped to let him pass and kept on going. People laughed and waved back.

Hey dude! It's Stampede. It's all in the spirit of the greatest outdoor show on earth.

It's a far cry from a scene I'd witnessed earlier that day when walking to a meeting in the East Village. A couple of blocks from the Calgary Drop-In & Rehab Centre where I work, a man whose tattered clothing easily labeled him 'visibly homeless', jay-walked on a red light. Cars slammed on brakes. Horns honked. Expletives filled the air. One man called out from his car, "____ idiot. Get off the ____ road and get back in your ____ dumpster." He didn't wait for the man to reach the other side of the road. With a gunning of his engine, he swerved around him, and peeled away in his shiny black sports car.

Stampede is a great time to celebrate the spirit of our ancestors who toughed it out on the prairies to create this great City of boundless energy and opportunity. It's a great time to saddle up to the bar and get real close to your neighbours. It's all about community spirit. It's a spirit that's hard to ignore, especially if you work in the downtown core. Conversations around water-coolers extol the revelries of the night-before; that's if you happen to even make it in to work. On every street, line-ups form outside hastily erected tents that span parking lots. Under their white plastic domes, thirsty office workers, eager to partake in the opportunity to consume their body weight in alcohol, enjoy some good ole' fashioned western hospitality before hittin' the dusty trail homeward bound.

At the DI, where we are home to 1100 people a night, we struggle to keep clients safe from the excesses they encounter on the streets during Stampede. Visibly homeless individuals are easy prey for drunken party-goers who perceive them as fair game on the open range. A man peacefully sleeping on a grassy verge may find his sleep interrupted by a citizen who, proudly sporting a sparkling tin badge on his chest, feels obliged to give the homeless guy a kick in the ass, with a slurred, "Move along there pardner. You don't belong here."

Problem is, there aren't many places for a homeless Calgarian to belong. Stampede or not, there's no place under the sun to sleep it off without the risk of coming in contact with a passer-by filled with condemnation of the seemingly dead-end choices you've made that lead you to nowhere but what they deem to be the wrong side of the street.

In our city of high spirits and sky-rocketing prices, what's sauce for the goose, is not sauce for the gander. It's okay for drunken Stampede-goers to stumble along searching for the next opportunity to get into the spirit of the wild west. It's not okay for a visibly homeless man to stumble in his quest to find a safe place to rest until he can make it back home.

That's the way it goes in the land of opportunity. If you haven't got what it takes to survive on the streets of the wild west, you'd better not fall. Someone might kick you while you're down.

But hey! Don't let it get you down. It's Stampede. Yee Haw! Have a drink pardner.

Homelessness Sucks

Olympic athlete, Dan O'Brien said, "The only way to overcome is to hang in."

For most of the clients at the DI, hanging in, hanging out, hanging on, is all they can do.

Direction is a place called confusion. Purpose an upside down world of despair. They don't know what they're going to do to fix the mess their lives are in, but wait. Wait for someone to ask, 'Hey buddy, Gotta fix?' And someone answers. Someone always does when you're livin' on the dark side of the street.

"You gotta find a new direction. Get a job." society tells them. Frigthened, they run away. Can't they see? This is the only direction they've ever known. Their lives have led them to this. How can they find a 'new' direction when they don't know how to change the direction they've always gone. Down. Down to the street. To street level. To outside looking in. To never havin', always takin'.

It. Us. Them.

They don't know if there's a place they can go where despair will let them off the hook of desperation. They don't know. And so they hang in, hang out, hang on.

One Sunday in May, 150 youth (16 to 28) from a faith-based organization came in to volunteer for the day. They sorted clothes, washed walls, cleaned up garbage, took a tour of the facility. They made a difference and still they wanted to know, what more can we do to end homelessness?

Now that's a complex question with many diverse answers. The simple answer is: we can't end a social ill without healing the causes of the illness.

The complex answer is: Depends upon for whom.

Is it the guy who has been chronically homeless for most of his adult life and who, at 55, collects bottles in order to earn enough money to buy a bottle of schlock that will last him, maybe a couple of hours, maybe the night? He used to have a place. One room. Hot plate. B&W TV. He was content living his life the way he wanted. But that place was sold. Turned into a multi-story glass and metal office tower. He had no place to go. And so, he comes here, to the shelter whenever he wants to get in from the cold or needs a meal.

Is it the woman who has turned to selling her body to support the addiction that's destroying her beauty, just as 'the trade' has destroyed her spirit? She had a home once too. It had a family in it. Husband. Two kids. The husband was good for nothing. Well, almost nothing. He threw a mean left hook. She only ever wanted the best for her kids. She couldn't give it to them. She didn't know how. Got rid of the husband. No big loss. Lost the kids. It almost destroyed her. And now, she's living on the abyss of despair, on a suicide mission with her life on the line. Maybe one day, she says, but not today. I'm not ready.

Is it that young guy with the mohawk? Nineteen years old. He went into foster care at 2. Ran away at 16 from the seventh foster home he'd lived in. He's survived the streets on his own by sheer wits. He uses marijuana. It's self-medication he says. Nobody can help me. I gotta take care of me. Despair is his watchword. Desperation his condition. We think he might deal in order to survive, but we've never caught him with drugs in the building. He volunteers. Helps out. Hangs on. We could bar him, but where would that leave him? No place to stay. Desperate. Who knows what he'd do.

Or what about that guy, over there. The one in the wheelchair. We put his name in for a new program designed to house the 'difficult to house'. They turned him down. 'He has a history of violence,' they said. Violence? He also has a history of mental illness. He cannot help himself. Look at him. He's 65. Feeble. Confined to a wheelchair. He's dying. He needs help and he needs a level of care we can't provide. 'They' never interviewed him. Never met with him. They read his file and turned him down. How do you end the homelessness he's living when the only agency with the capacity to do so won't accept him because a paper file says he doesn't fit their mandate?

Is it that woman? The tall one, died red hair, slim, open sores on her face. She's 66. A lifetime of abuse. Her last husband died and she was evicted. She had a place just awhile ago. Isolated. Lonely. Scared. She started drinking again. It got bad. Real bad. And now she's back. She hates it here but she hated it more when she was alone. She's got mental health issues. To live on her own she needs a multiple of supports. We don't have the resources to supply them and she too doesn't fit the mandate of any other agency in town.

We talk about ten year plans and our commitment to 'end homelessness'. We talk about the cost, the financial burden and the strain 'the homeless' place upon our society. But we don't talk about the people. The unique individuals whose lives have been decimated by abuse, divorce, family violence, addictions, mental health disorders and a host of other problems that deliver them into homelessness.

We talk about ending homelessness but we don't talk about ending the financial drive that underlies the tearing down of existing low-income housing stock, or the gentrification of our inner cities that is pushing the very people we say we want to help out to the edges of our communities.

Outside looking in. It is the plight of those who lack the economic, political and physical will to fight for themselves. Whose resources have been drained and whose energy has been expended fighting for that next fix, that next trick, that next inch of ground where they can make a stand if only for a moment, to catch their breath, sell a trick, buy a toke, hold on.

They're choosing this life, we say. Well, maybe once upon a time they made a choice that brought them down to street level. Too long looking at the dirt, the choice to get back up is too far gone on the road to desperation. Up is too far away. Up is an unknown direction. And so they fall down. Further and further from where they wanted to be, long ago when they had the choice to go somewhere else other than where they're at. Hanging in, hanging out, hanging onto a table at a homeless shelter where they feel a part of a community that cares about the fact they're alive, living a life nobody wants.

Homelessness sucks. Homelessness saps you of energy. It tears away the fabric of your life, exposing your underbelly to the grit and grime of an existence no one would wish upon even their worst enemy.

Homelessness kills. Spirit. Health. Will.

End it? Yes please. Pass me the needle. Give me the hit that will end the futility of all of this.

But please, save me your diatribe about how I gotta get out of this place. This place is the only place that has ever held me long enough to give me a chance to figure out where I'm at.

Broken Dreams and Hope

He's in his thirties. Spent a vast majority of his adult life in 'the lock-up'. Four years out he knows where he never wants to go again. "But I don't know where I want to go now," he told me yesterday during a course I teach on Self-esteem that is part of the Career Training Initiative (CTI) here at the DI.

"Anywhere but here," piped up a good-looking younger man who was part of the course. "All I want is to get my tickets, get a job and get out of here."

The older man responded quickly. "But I like it here. I've been institutionalized most of my life. This place makes me feel safe. I've got a community here. People who understand me. I ain't got nothing out there." And he motioned with his left arm to the verdant green river valley and tree-covered hillside beyond the windows of the sixth floor CTI training room where we were meeting.

The man beside me joined in the conversation. In his twenties, he's been 'in and out' since 'juvie'. He's on parole, out since March. He too knows where he never, ever wants to go back.

"I need this place," he said. "I need to do something different 'cause getting angry, going to jail is not working for me anymore. And 'out there', I risk getting angry." In front of him sat a worn and tattered copy of Don Miguel Ruiz', The Four Agreements. Slid between the pages were his hand-written notes, proof of his laborious efforts to transcribe the agreements and their definitions. "No one ever taught me this stuff," he told the class, after reading his notes out loud. "My mom said she knew I was gonna be bad right from the moment I was born. I don't wanna be bad."

Stories of the street. Of lives in disarray. Lives on the mend. Stories of men for whom the only break they ever had was with the law. Bustin' it. Breakin' it. They end up broken down. Broken up. Living lives of broken promises. Broken families. Broken dreams. No where else to go. They end up here. At a homeless shelter. Struggling to put back together something they'd never had before. Their lives free of the past.

The perspectives were vast. Cultural differences diverse. Ethiopia, South Africa. The former Czech Republic. Belarus. 'Hardened criminals'. Youth.

Vast differences. Similar stories. Gotta get going. Gotta get real. Gotta quit what I'm doing and find something better. Gotta find a way out of this place to somewhere else.

"I don't dream," said one man. "Dreamers are fools. God doesn't like dreamers."

"I gotta dream," said another. "If I don't got dreams, I may as well just pack it in right here."

"Yeah," chimed in another. "Dreams are free. No one ever put you in jail for dreaming."

Sometimes the dream is as simple as never having to panhandle again.

"I've done it a few times," said the man who'd spent a lot of time doing time. "I hate it. It's embarrassing."

He looked at me. Smiled. His face lit up. Boyish. A child with no front teeth, the gap where once his used to be was wide.

"It would have been easier to hold someone at knife point and tell them to give me the money. But I don't wanna do that. That way's a ticket back to jail."

The exigencies of the street. Pan-handling to stay out of jail. Pan-handling for bus fare because the employer refused you the job. Worn out shoes. Worn down spirit.

At the end of the class I asked each participant to write themselves a letter. "Make it a love letter," I told them. "Make it something that will support you. Give you strength when you're down. Write what you'd like to hear from your mom, or dad, grandmother that maybe you've never ever heard."

They hesitated. Joked. Laughed. Love letter? To myself? Never wrote one to no girl. Why would I write one to myself?

"Because you deserve it," I said. "Because you need to put on paper the words you need to hear about how amazing you are, not the ones your mind keeps repeating about what a loser you've become."

Still they hesitated. Slowly, one by one, they began to write.

The quiet in the room was profound. Concentration. Fear. Hope.

"Can I read my letter to the group?" asked the man who was on parole.

"That is your choice," I told him. "Do you want to?"

"Yes," he replied.

I asked the group, "Are you willing to listen with open hearts and minds?"

Everyone nodded their heads.

The man smiled. Haltingly he began to read. I felt tears pricking at the back of my eyes. My heart soften.

I watched his face as he read. Focused. His brow furrowed. One finger following the words he'd written on the page.

I could see him swallow. Clench his teeth and keep on reading.

Words he needs to hear. A story he wants to tell. A dream he wants to live.

We were silent when he finished. Silent. And in awe.

Real lives finding themselves in a place where no one ever wants to end up. Homeless. Lost. Frightened. Alone.

Real lives coming together to find a common goal of moving on. Moving forward. Moving out in spite of the fear. Out from a place where courage is born. Where dreams unfold.

At Street Level

Last night I was part of Voices from the Street 2008. A group of social service agencies and volunteers conducting a homeless street count in Calgary on the night of May 14th. Over the course of two to three hours, one hundred volunteers wandered the city streets identifying how many people were without shelter, sleeping rough. Each group had a specific geographic area to walk, a clipboard with census sheet to mark off how many people were 'visibly homeless' and a shopping bag full of 'goodies' to give away to those willing to engage in conversation.

The purpose of the count is to identify trends -- the count has been conducted by the City every second year since 1992. Homelessness has risen by 32% every two years since the first count. Is that continuing? Are more people sleeping out? Are more people drifting into homelessness? The count helps project forward what facilities will be needed. And, helps identify what's working. What's not? Where are the gaps?

Moments from last night stand out in my memory like dewdrops in morning sunlight. Crystal clear. A perfect prism encapsulating the moment, magnifying all that is wrong, all that is sad about homelessness.

It took awhile for my group of four to find our feet on the street. We weren't sure how to approach someone. How to engage in conversation. The first man we enumerated walked past us. "Do you think he's homeless?" a team member asked. "Hmmmm. Not sure." We backtracked and called out to him. "Excuse me. We're doing a street count. Would you be willing to answer a few questions?"

The man replied, his demeanor open, the tone of his voice pleasant. "Sure." He swayed slightly on his feet. A tattered black leather jacket hung off one arm. A backpack swung from one shoulder.

"Do you have a place to sleep tonight?"

"Me? Hell no." He laughed. "I like to rough it. Expose myself to the stars."

"Do you ever use the shelters?"

"Not any more," he said. "I'm barred." He paused. Looked at us. Looked down at the ground. "I'm not a bad person," he pushed a rock away with the toe of his workboot. "I drink. That doesn't make me a bad person."

We gave him a couple of cigarettes. A bag of cheesies. A bottle of water. "Thanks for taking the time to chat with us," we said as we parted and walked in opposite directions.

We didn't ask everyone. Two guys walked by, their open necked shirts clean and crisp, a cell phone in one hand. No cigarette. No can of beer tucked into a pocket. We didn't stop them. Another man walked towards us, backpack, weary posture, unshaven face. We stopped and spoke to him.

We were making judgments with every step we took. Every person we met.

Some of the folks were easy to identify. Sleeping in the park. Sitting on a park bench, shopping cart parked beside them. A bottle of booze tucked into their bag but still visible. Shaggy hair. Shaggy beard. Scruffy clothes. Dirty hands. Torn pants. Scuffed up shoes. Those people were easy to identify. When we approached them they were always friendly. Always open about talking about their lives -- albeit determining fact from fiction was not so simple. Alcohol was generally the common ingredient in the mix of their perspectives.

At one point, we walked across a darkened parking lot and found three men sitting on the ground in a far corner. A case of beer sat beside them. Two boxes of donuts were open on the ground. In front of them, plugged into a block heater outlet, a small colour TV blared the news. We walked up, said hi. They welcomed us graciously. "Want a donut? The guy at the donut shop always gives them to us at 10pm. He's great."

We told them why we were there. I recognized two of them from the Drop-In. They didn't recognize me.

They willingly answered our questions. Age. How long in the city? How long on the street? Where did they come from before here? Did they have a job? Did they ever use the shelter system? If not, why not?

They laughed and joked amongst each other. They regaled us with stories of their adventures (and misadventures). Stories of sneaking into boarded up buildings to stay out of the cold winter winds. Of hide-aways with cable TV because the building management forgot to turn it off when they'd turned everyone out in anticipation of tearing the building down. Of cops swarming them in another parking lot where they'd set up their nightly camp because the building owners were afraid of their presence in the dark. They swore us to secrecy as they told us about one building manager and his inability to keep them out of his buildings.

I wondered why they asked us to keep their secret. And why they immediately trusted us when we quickly replied, "Of course." A vulnerability of the street? Misplaced trust. Trust given too quickly. A history of trusting the untrustworthy. An assumption of co-conspiracy? Assumed community?

We talked to teen prostitutes. Runaway teens. Elderly men with years and years of street life pounded into their worn out shoes. Pockets dragging with the weight of hands buried deep within their folds, holding off the cold, clutching a bottle for support.

We put a granola bar in front of a woman lying on the grass in a park. She looked pregnant. Sound asleep? Passed out? A man walked up and told us, "She's okay. Just napping. She'll wake up in a bit and move on."

We talked to teens hanging out. Teens hanging on to some vestige of humanity as they politely thanked us for the chocolate bars and water bottles we handed out.

We didn't talk to one man wheeling a spiffy looking bike down a quiet avenue. His companion stopped to chat with us but he kept moving. Kept putting distance between him and us.

Them and us.

Two sides of the street.

One of the last men we talked to stood in front of us as we waited at a red light to cross the street. I wasn't sure about talking to him. He stood aggressively. His arms lifting up from his sides as if he thought he might be able to fly away. It was late. 11pm. Dark.

One member of the team tried to open a conversation with him. "Hi, we're doing a street count. Do you have a place to stay tonight?"

The expletives flew fast and furious. He aggressively pushed his body towards us. I wanted to calm his anger. He seemed stoned. Or perhaps he had a mental disability. I offered him a cigarette. He thought I meant a smoke of something more potent. I backed away. We all backed away. We crossed the street. Kept walking away, his expletives colouring the air behind us.

As we worked our way back to our starting point, we came upon the first man we'd encountered earlier that evening. He was sitting on the sidewalk at the back of a gas station. Beside him, an older gentlemen sat in a wheelchair.

"Hey," the man said. "I know you. I met you before."

We smiled and reminded him of our encounter earlier.

"I remember!" I didn’t know if he was surprised he remembered, surprised to see us again, or surprised we remembered him.

He was visibly more inebriated than before. He had trouble holding himself upright and unlike previously where his conversation was lucid and polite, his words were laced with expletives. He wasn't threatening. Just colourful. Between the expletives he kept insisting, "I'm not a bad person."

I asked the gentleman in the wheelchair if he had a place to sleep that night. "Oh yeah," he replied. "I'm going there." And he pointed down the street to a building two blocks away where those under the influence can spend the night.

The other man interjected. "I'm going to push him there in a little while." He added his signature phrase. "I'm not a bad person." And then promised. "I'll be careful with him." He pointed to his buddy. "I'm not a bad person. He's my friend. I take good care of him."

The language of the street. I'm not a bad person. He's my friend. I take good care of him.

The street with a language of its own. Colourful. Filled with expletives. Filled with the human condition pouring out in words of denial. Words of fear. Of pain. Of defiance. Of camaraderie. Of shared experienced. Common ground.

The young woman standing on a corner, looking for business. "I'm not a crackhead," she told us when we asked if she had a place to sleep that night. "I got my own place. I quit doing that shit six months ago. I can take care of myself."

The young couple, tattoos and spiky hair, demographic markers on the dark side of the street. "We don't use no shelter. We can take care of ourselves."

Taking care. Good care. Any care on the street is not easy.

Being careful is not part of street life.

Exposed. Vulnerable. Naked to the eyes of passers-by. Easily identifiable. Easily targeted. Easily counted by census takers on a warm night in May.

We didn't ask everyone if they had a place to sleep last night. Only those who looked like they didn't. They were easy to identify.

And when we parted we wished them well with a concerned admonishment to, 'be safe'.

As darkness descends, the street can turn mean. You gotta be safe.

What Is Poverty by Jo Goodwin Parker

The following speech "What is Poverty" by Jo Goodwin Parker, was required reading in a class Tim G., Afternoon Building Supervisor, took while in University. It's a powerful, disturbing commentary on the horrendous cost of poverty to the human spirit.

What is Poverty. by Jo Goodwin Parker

You ask me what is poverty? Listen to me. Here I am, dirty, smelly, and with no "proper" underwear on and with the stench of my rotting teeth near you. I will tell you. Listen to me. Listen without pity. I cannot use your pity. Listen with understanding. Put yourself in my dirty, worn out, ill-fitting shoes, and hear me.

Poverty is getting up every morning from a dirt- and illness-stained mattress. The sheets have long since been used for diapers. Poverty is living in a smell that never leaves. This is a smell of urine, sour milk, and spoiling food sometimes joined with the strong smell of long-cooked onions. Onions are cheap. If you have smelled this smell, you did not know how it came. It is the smell of the outdoor privy. It is the smell of young children who cannot walk the long dark way in the night. It is the smell of the mattresses where years of "accidents" have happened. It is the smell of the milk which has gone sour because the refrigerator long has not worked, and it costs money to get it fixed. It is the smell of rotting garbage. I could bury it, but where is the shovel? Shovels cost money.

Poverty is being tired. I have always been tired. They told me at the hospital when the last baby came that I had chronic anemia caused from poor diet, a bad case of worms, and that I needed a corrective operation. I listened politely - the poor are always polite. The poor always listen. They don't say that there is no money for iron pills, or better food, or worm medicine. The idea of an operation is frightening and costs so much that, if I had dared, I would have laughed. Who takes care of my children? Recovery from an operation takes a long time. I have three children. When I left them with "Granny" the last time I had a job, I came home to find the baby covered with fly specks, and a diaper that had not been changed since I left. When the dried diaper came off, bits of my baby's flesh came with it. My other child was playing with a sharp bit of broken glass, and my oldest was playing alone at the edge of a lake. I made twenty-two dollars a week, and a good nursery school costs twenty dollars a week for three children. I quit my job.

Poverty is dirt. You can say in your clean clothes coming from your clean house, "Anybody can be clean." Let me explain about housekeeping with no money. For breakfast I give my children grits with no oleo or cornbread without eggs and oleo. This does not use up many dishes. What dishes there are, I wash in cold water and with no soap. Even the cheapest soap has to be saved for the baby's diapers. Look at my hands, so cracked and red. Once I saved for two months to buy a jar of Vaseline for my hands and the baby's diaper rash. When I had saved enough, I went to buy it and the price had gone up two cents. The baby and I suffered on. I have to decide every day if I can bear to put my cracked sore hands into the cold water and strong soap. But you ask, why not hot water? Fuel costs money. If you have a wood fire it costs money. If you burn electricity, it costs money. Hot water is a luxury. I do not have luxuries. I know you will be surprised when I tell you how young I am. I look so much older. My back has been bent over the wash tubs every day for so long, I cannot remember when I ever did anything else. Every night I wash every stitch my school age child has on and just hope her clothes will be dry by morning.

Poverty is staying up all night on' cold nights to watch the fire knowing one spark on the newspaper covering the walls means your sleeping child dies in flames. In summer poverty is watching gnats and flies devour your baby's tears when he cries. The screens are torn and you pay so little rent you know they will never be fixed. Poverty means insects in your food, in your nose, in your eyes, and crawling over you when you sleep. Poverty is hoping it never rains because diapers won't dry when it rains and soon you are using newspapers. Poverty is seeing your children forever with runny noses. Paper handkerchiefs cost money and all your rags you need for other things. Even more costly are antihistamines. Poverty is cooking without food and cleaning without soap.

Poverty is asking for help. Have you ever had to ask for help, knowing your children will suffer unless you get it? Think about asking for a loan from a relative, if this is the only way you can imagine asking for help. I will tell you how it feels. You find out where the office is that you are supposed to visit. You circle that block four or five times. Thinking of your children, you go in. Everyone is very busy. Finally, someone comes out and you tell her that you need help. That never is the person you need to see. You go see another person, and after spilling the whole shame of your poverty all over the desk between you, you find that this isn't the right office after all-you must repeat the whole process, and it never is any easier at the next place.

You have asked for help, and after all it has a cost. You are again told to wait. You are told why, but you don't really hear because of the red cloud of shame and the rising cloud of despair.

Poverty is remembering. It is remembering quitting school in junior high because "nice" children had been so cruel about my clothes and my smell. The attendance officer came. My mother told him I was pregnant. I wasn't, but she thought that I could get a job and help out. I had jobs off and on, but never long enough to learn anything. Mostly I remember being married. I was so young then. I am still young. For a time, we had all the things you have. There was a little house in another town, with hot water and everything. Then my husband lost his job. There was unemployment insurance for a while and what few jobs I could get. Soon, all our nice things were repossessed and we moved back here. I was pregnant then. This house didn't look so bad when we first moved in. Every week it gets worse. Nothing is ever fixed. We now had no money. There were a few odd jobs for my husband, but everything went for food then, as it does now. I don't know how we lived through three years and three babies, but we did. I'll tell you something, after the last baby I destroyed my marriage. It had been a good one, but could you keep on bringing children in this dirt? Did you ever think how much it costs for any kind of birth control? I knew my husband was leaving the day he left, but there were no goodbye between us. I hope he has been able to climb out of this mess somewhere. He never could hope with us to drag him down.

That's when I asked for help. When I got it, you know how much it was? It was, and is, seventy-eight dollars a month for the four of us; that is all I ever can get. Now you know why there is no soap, no needles and thread, no hot water, no aspirin, no worm medicine, no hand cream, no shampoo. None of these things forever and ever and ever. So that you can see clearly, I pay twenty dollars a month rent, and most of the rest goes for food. For grits and cornmeal, and rice and milk and beans. I try my best to use only the minimum electricity. If I use more, there is that much less for food.

Poverty is looking into a black future. Your children won't play with my boys. They will turn to other boys who steal to get what they want. I can already see them behind the bars of their prison instead of behind the bars of my poverty. Or they will turn to the freedom of alcohol or drugs, and find themselves enslaved. And my daughter? At best, there is for her a life like mine.

But you say to me, there are schools. Yes, there are schools. My children have no extra books, no magazines, no extra pencils, or crayons, or paper and most important of all, they do not have health. They have worms, they have infections, they have pink-eye all summer. They do not sleep well on the floor, or with me in my one bed. They do not suffer from hunger, my seventy-eight dollars keeps us alive, but they do suffer from malnutrition. Oh yes, I do remember what I was taught about health in school. It doesn't do much good.

In some places there is a surplus commodities program. Not here. The country said it cost too much. There is a school lunch program. But I have two children who will already be damaged by the time they get to school.

But, you say to me, there are health clinics. Yes, there are health clinics and they are in the towns. I live out here eight miles from town. I can walk that far (even if it is sixteen miles both ways), but can my little children? My neighbor will take me when he goes; but he expects to get paid, one way or another. I bet you know my neighbor. He is that large man who spends his time at the gas station, the barbershop, and the corner store complaining about the government spending money on the immoral mothers of illegitimate children.

Poverty is an acid that drips on pride until all pride is worn away. Poverty is a chisel that chips on honor until honor is worn away. Some of you say that you would do something in my situation, and maybe you would, for the first week or the first month, but for year after year after year?

Even the poor can dream. A dream of a time when there is money. Money for the right kinds of food, for worm medicine, for iron pills, for toothbrushes, for hand cream, for a hammer and nails and a bit of screening, for a shovel, for a bit of paint, for some sheeting, for needles and thread. Money to pay in money for a trip to town. And, oh, money for hot water and money for soap. A dream of when asking for help does not eat away the last bit of pride. When the office you visit is as nice as the offices of other governmental agencies, when there are enough workers to help you quickly, when workers do not quit in defeat and despair. When you have to tell your story to only one person, and that person can send you for other help and you don't have to prove your poverty over and over and over again.

I have come out of my despair to tell you this. Remember I did not come from another place or another time. Others like me are all around you. Look at us with an angry heart, anger that will help

As Long As Hope Lives

It is just a piece of paper hanging on the wall of an office at the Drop-In. A white piece of paper with a picture of a man standing between two teenagers, his arms around their shoulders. I can see their smiles but the eyes of the teenage girls are blacked out. The man's whole face is visible. He's wearing a cowboy hat. Black shirt. Black jeans. He's got a Johnny Cash kind of look, a cocky stance as he smiles, obviously happy to be between his daughters. I know he's their father. The message on the paper tells me. "Has anyone seen this man?" And then, beneath it, "Dad, please call home. We love you."

A simple, heartfelt message. A pain too great to fathom.

It is a story often repeated at the Drop-In and other homeless shelters across the country. Mother's call in looking for their sons. Daughters look for their mothers. Brothers come in search of their twin, wives search for 'their better halves'.

It is a story that reminds me of what I once did to my daughters. Disappeared. Vanished. Left with no forwarding address.

Hard to imagine. But true.

I look back on that woman who believed so completely that she had no value, no meaning in anyone else's life but the abuse and terror she was enduring. I feel the pain of those lost souls trying to escape the loving arms reaching out to them, wanting to tell them a simple truth, We love you. And I know the sorrow of those reaching out in fear they've lost the one they love forever.

It's hard to hear someone loves you when you believe you are completely unworthy. The mind cries out. You must escape from the burden of their love, escape from the truth of the self-hatred burning inside for all that you are, all you've become. You must run and hide.

It was a relationship that brought me down. A man who believed it was his right to control me, to take over my life because he could. And I bought into his lies. Let go of the sacred trust my daughters depended upon to give their lives meaning. At some point in that journey through hell, the responsibility of their love became too great, too hot to touch. The truth of what I'd done became too great a burden to carry. In my fall from grace I had to deny the one thing I craved, the one thing that gave my life meaning-- to be connected through the circle of love to the one's I loved. Lost on the road of life, I told myself I didn't deserve their love. I was not worthy.

And so, I ran away. Disappeared. Vanished.

I was blessed. I was found before I was erased from this planet. I was found before all I left behind was the painful memory of my journey through hell, a bitter reminder for those who loved me to grapple with, make sense of, understand. In my 'finding' I found the gift of healing, of forgiveness, of love.

At the Drop-In, sometimes the lost are not found. They pass by and pass away, their lives an untold story never to unfold. Like the young man a volunteer told me about on Saturday. Her husband had befriended him. He was a schizophrenic. Twenty-eight years old. He used to sit on the sidewalk outside the man's office building and panhandle. Her husband would give him coins, buy him coffee and a muffin, sometimes take him for lunch. And then one day, he disappeared.

The husband wondered where he'd gone and then continued on with his life. Until a week after his disappearance when the police appeared. The young man had died. An overdose. His story ended. We found your business card amongst his belongings, they told him. You're the only contact name we have. Can you help us connect with his family? The husband knew of a brother, which led to a parent. Thanks for letting us know, they said. They didn't come for the funeral. The volunteer and the husband were the only one's there. Two strangers saying a prayer over a man whose life had lost all connection to this world. At least the family knows what happened to him, the husband said. At least they won't have to keep worrying about him.

Sometimes, the lost cannot be found again. Sometimes, there's no one looking for them.

I hope and pray those two daughters find some sign of their father. I pray one day he will find himself on the road of living in love and joy reconnected to the ones he loves.

Until that time, we must hold open the doors that lead the way off the street so those who are lost can find their way home again. We must keep hope alive for those who are searching for the one's they love so that they do not give up hope that all will be lost with the passing away of the mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces who are missing.

In honour of Augie. Written by: Roger G.

While putting my laundry in the washer this morning, I thought back to the beautiful memorial service I attended yesterday for Augie Simonaitis. Clients and staff and friends came together to fill the MultiPurpose Room on the 6th floor; staff I've worked with, some who have moved on to new ventures, and others I only know by name. There were clients whom I have watched as they've ridden roller-coasters of success and failure, a client who has found contentment with the slow road of building on small triumphs rather than chasing after the dramatic life changes that have eluded him, a client whom I've watched waste away, and another who just keeps plodding along, seemingly in his own little world most of the time. We were all there to pay our respect to Augie, and it felt very much like a family.

I knew Augie for the six years I've worked at the Drop-In. For three of those years I was one of the front line workers greeting clients, donators, EMS and CPS at the main doors, while he was in "the fishbowl", the Security office behind us. I can remember one night when Augie was being a bit bossy for my liking, calling out his
opinion of every little thing we were doing as we tried to keep the peace out in the lobby. I finally went to his window and said to him, "Augie, we just got a phone call from Environment Canada. They say that the hot air from your mouth is affecting weather systems all across the Prairies, and they say they'll give you a silver-framed barometer to hang on your wall if you'll shut up." To my surprise, he did. For a little while.

When I was first offered a supervisor's position, my response was "Who, me? a supervisor? Are you kidding?" And it took me about a year before I felt comfortable and competent in that role. But Augie had confidence in me; he would tell me that he believed I was good at my job and I could handle whatever came up. I needed those words, especially from people who knew where I had come from, what I was good at, and what I wasn't.

Due to the foresight and care of my own supervisor Linda, who had heard from nurse James that Augie might not make it through the night, my work was done by others last Tuesday, while it came to me to be with him when he died. I phoned Dr. Hurley just after 1:00 a.m., so she could come to the apartment, phone the funeral home, and sit with Augie and I while we waited for them to come pick him up. But until the service yesterday, I never knew that Augie had been a client. I had known nothing of his life of hard struggle with self-destructive habits. And I never guessed at the many lives that he had touched so deeply. The memorial gave us a chance to briefly sketch out for each other a few outlines of who this man was and how we had each been touched. Appropriately, we were met a the door with a beautiful pencil drawing of Augie done by Jeff, one of our new Security staff, who had the chance to meet Augie before he left us.

I am grateful towards Andrew Joo, John Rowland, Dermot Baldwin, and whoever else organized this memorial for Augie so that we may have a chance to gather together and tell each other stories about our friend. Is this not a fine, fine way for us to accept death as part of life? to process our loss and to give thanks for the flawed,
imperfect, fully human lifegiver who has passed on?

For us, life goes on; in our booming city there are a thousand ways to get the short end of the stick and various addictions to shorten the stick further still, so there are still clients to feed and house at the Drop-In. There are mouths to feed at home. I'm on my days off, and my laundry is now ready to go out on the clothesline.

Roger G. continues to work nights for the Drop-In, as he always has.

In celebration of a heartfelt man.

Her cheeks are caved in where once her teeth held the shape of her face in place. Her dark eyes dart around the room as if constantly searching for an exit or perhaps she's just making sure she's ready to make a quick exit in case someone comes to tell her she has to leave, this isn't where she belongs. The pinkish white flesh of her scalp shows through between the strands of her salt and pepper hair which flies about her face like feathery whiskers on a cat. She's tall. Thin. Almost emaciated. She never wears shoes, her stockinged feet shuffle as she walks.

She isn't comfortable sitting amidst the black suits and dresses. And yet, she's come. She's here. She must pay respects to the man who gave her a gift no one else ever had.

She cannot get up to speak at the podium, "Talking in front of people makes me nervous," she tells the MC. She sits in her seat and holds a conversation with him as if there's no one else there. We strain to listen, to hear her. What she has to say is important.

"I came in one day, stoned, like I always was," she says, her eyes never leaving the MC's. "I'm an addict," she says by way of explanation.

Her entire body is in motion where she sits on the edge of her chair, leaning into the conversation. She nods, her arm lifts up, she straightens her pointer finger and jabs the air. "He saw me stumbling and came out from behind the glass window towards me. I could barely stand. I was crying. He came over, put his arm around me, held me up and said, 'It's okay. It's okay. You've got a good heart."

She stops and swallows. "He said that to me. 'You've got a good heart.'" She shakes her head. "Nobody's ever said that to me before. He did. And I'll never forget it. You've got a good heart."

She sits back in her chair, her thin lips pulled back from her reddened gums in a smile as innocent as a baby's. She nods her head, mutters to herself and rocks her body. "I have a good heart," she whispers.

He died last Wednesday. This man who could see the good heart within each of us. His care giver had turned away to make a cup of tea and in those brief moments, he slipped from his earthly form to another plane.

It is how he lived his life. On his terms.

It is how we are celebrating his passing. Nothing fancy. No formal service. Just a roomful of people gathered to celebrate the life of a man whose past is a blur, but whose impact in the ten years many had known him was profound.

I'd only known him two years. Since coming to work at the Drop-In. I knew him as a security guard. Committed to giving his best. To ensuring the rules were followed. Procedures maintained so that everyone was as safe as possible in an environment where chaos is the order of the day. He always had a kind word. A gentle smile. An outreached arm lengthened by his pointer finger jabbing the air to get your attention or to bring your attention to a point that he believed must be made.

He'd once been a client. A man, like so many others, struggling to let go of a past that haunted his waking moments as he slipped into a bottle that gave him courage to face the day. It was a past that slithered through his nights on velvety whispers that would not let him forget where he'd been and what he'd done.

But he wanted to. Forget that is. Forget what he'd done. Forget where he'd been. Forget the past so he could be free to live today for all he was worth.

And he did. Let go. But he couldn't forget. He didn't really want to. It was his legacy, and his way out. He couldn't forget it, but he could at least forgive himself and the past that had caused such trouble in his life.

At the shelter he found the road out of the past to living each day with dignity. He found the path away from the darkness of the addiction that gave him false courage into the sobriety that gave his life meaning.

I remember him making his rounds of the building. He was a tall man. Thin. Handsome in a Clint Eastwood kind of way. He wore his black vest with the gold lettering with pride. His footsteps were measured. Sure. As he walked and tested doors, he held his clipboard in one arm, carefully checking off that locks were secured and everything was as it should be.

The routine gave him meaning. It made me feel safe where ever I was in the building.

If it was after hours and no one else was around he'd sit for a moment in the blue chair across from my desk and chat. Sometimes, he'd tell me a story of another time. He wanted to share what he'd learned through living life on the wrong side of the street he told me. He wanted to use his story to give hope and strength to others who were lost on the road of life like he once was.

"I gotta give back to give meaning to my life today," he said.

He was a man of few words, but when he spoke, I listened.

"I once tried to go back," he told me. "I thought it was time I reconnected to my past. I went east. Checked out some of my family. It didn't work out. Too much water under the bridge. So I came back. Here. Where I belong." He paused, lifted his right arm up, extended the pointer finger, nodded his head and said. "There's never any going back. You've always got to find where you belong right where you are."

Yesterday, dozens of people gathered together to celebrate the life of Augie. A gentle spirit. A wise soul. A heartfelt man.

A Tribute to Augie -- written by John R.

He had a gruff voice.

He growled at my kids, but he did not scare them.

For me this says it all. Augie was one of those gruff men, with a soft interior, and my children knew this instinctively. No matter how much he barked, they were not scared. He barked at them telling them to be careful, and then gave them his chair so they could play with the cameras. For my children he was one of the most important people in the Drop-In. There were sad when they found out he had passed away. [Augie passed away, Wednesday, April 23, 2008]

He was a man who was both differential to me out of respect, yet willing to assert his authority by calling me on my cell phone to remind me that I had a master key signed out, and had not returned it.

He always told me that he did not want “Alan on his case”, but I always knew that really it was because working security in the Drop-In was a matter of pride for him. He did his job to the best of his ability.

For those of us who have known Augie for a long time, we know that there are two sides to the man. He was a gentle giant; there is no doubt about that. But neither is there any doubt about the past that he worked to put behind him. I would be curious to hear from someone who knew the old Augie what he was like. I can imagine, but I will never know.

Augie always expressed gratitude to the people who gave him a chance to live differently than his past, especially a woman from Edmonton who gave him a job in a hotel. He spoke to me several times about this women (who’s name unfortunately I do not know) and how by giving him a job when no one else would when he got out of jail, she turned his life around.

I think in a similar way, the staff at C110 who listened to Augie as he struggled to build a life in Calgary, and then when the Drop-In gave him a job doing security on the construction site that became this building also gave Augie something important to those of us who are human.

Redemption.

I may be wrong, because I never heard Augie say this, but I think working security for the Drop-In was Augie’s way of making up for all the other stuff in his life. His way of contributing something good to this world.

Augie, thank you for showing my children what a kind caring person you were. Thank you for letting them play in your chair.

Submitted by: John R.

His Guitar -- written by Nurse James

Written by: Nurse James

It’s late April, at 8:45PM and our lobby is packed. It is snowing outside and cold. Minus 8, with windchill, minus 13. It’s very busy at the Drop-In.

*Jesse*is playing his new guitar in the lobby on the first floor. He received it as a gift for staying sober.

He plays a good rendition of Johnny B. Goode, and then goes onto some other Drop-In favorites; House of the Rising Sun, Rambling Man. He starts his version of Wild Horses and a young man joins in to sing with him. Soon the two are really in sync and as Jesse plays, his new partner belts out a five-minute rap song about street life and coming together and living at the D.I.

The crowd is right into the song, lots of people clapping and whooping along to the five minutes of singing and rapping.

Jesse swings his guitar over his head and with his arms bent backwards and his guitar inverted, begins playing the song faster and faster. His partner sings and raps faster and faster along with him.

As the song winds down and comes to a close, many in the lobby are on their feet cheering and clapping. The song ends, Jesse takes a bow and embraces his rapper friend. Everyone is now standing and giving the two a standing ovation, including the staff who are present.

It is a happy time. I am glad to see that so many can find so much joy and comfort in the short impromptu concert. Happy that so many are enjoying themselves despite the fact that they have next to nothing. Happy to see that so many people, from so many varied backgrounds and ethnic groups are standing together as one to cheer on one of their own.

They own so little, yet they have so much to live for. So many little opportunities, yet so much love, joy and attention they have to give to each other.

The laughter and smiles coming from the clients in the crowd is a stark contrast from the dreary attitudes that are usually present on a cold blustery day.

This is one reason I cite when people ask, “Why do you work at the homeless shelter?” Sometimes, they even ask me why I choose to come here instead of working elsewhere?

Because of the people I tell them.

The people here are like nowhere else. The people here are so close, and so caring. They have so much fun with so few items and possessions.

The short but energetic jam session had me seeing hope, not despair, laughter, not sadness, and something that a lot of people in this world crave and need the most, a sense of family and belonging.

*Not his real name*

Written by: Nurse James

Hope for a better life

He was 53 the first time he tried crack. After a lifetime of sobriety, he still wonders today what made him do, what in retrospective, turned out to be a really bad idea. But, on that night, ten years ago, when a buddy came over to watch a movie and offered him a snort on his crack pipe, it seemed like not too bad an idea.

“I figured I had a strong foundation that proved I was not the ‘addict’ type,” he told me when he dropped by my office for a visit. “I’d never even tried marijuana. I didn’t drink and I’d always preached to my kids about the dangers of drugs. I figured it wouldn’t hurt me to try it, just once.”

That ‘just once’ led to a ten-year odyssey through drug abuse. “When my buddy was leaving that night, I gave him some money and asked him to get me some more. There wasn’t any question that I wasn’t going to smoke it again. I was hooked,” he said, shaking his head in dismay.

It didn’t take long for John to sell his welding truck and pawn everything he owned. In need of money for his addiction, when his supplier offered him the opportunity to run a crack house in the northern city was he was living, he quickly jumped at the offer.

“I didn’t look like your average crack dealer,” he said, his blue eyes twinkling. “I was 53. Slimmer in those days.” He pauses to pat his belly. “I was forty pounds lighter when I was using,” he adds before continuing to tell me about his crackhouse days.

“I ran a tight ship,” he says. “We were in an upscale area of the city. The Mercedes and BMW’s of my clients didn’t raise any eyebrows when they parked in front of the apartment building for fifteen minutes and then left. We only operated from 7pm to 7am, not the 24 hour stuff of flophouses. People came in. They bought. They left. Whatever was left over when the sun came up, me and my partner would smoke. We’d do that for 3 or 4 days and then one of us would crash. And the cycle would continue. My suppliers thought I was great. I always paid them first and on time. Never caused them any trouble.”

And then, about four years after beginning his journey into hell, the apartment was raided. “I was lucky. I didn’t happen to be there at the time,” he says. “So, when my supplier came to me and asked me what I was going to do, I told him I was getting out. Because of my age, the poor state of my health due to my heavy use and my history with the gang that supplied the drugs, they let me go.”

John came to Calgary and began the slow process of recovery. “It wasn’t a straight path,” he adds. “I went into a treatment centre and in 2002, when I got out, I hooked up with a younger woman who was also getting out of treatment. That’s a recipe for disaster. Two addicts, fresh out of treatment with no place to go.”

It’s one of the aspects of recovery that John finds difficult to understand. “We put people who have nothing but the clothes on their backs through treatment and then we make no provision for what they’re going to do, or where they’re going to go once they’re out.”

John and his lady-friend ended up in a low income apartment building in the inner city. “We both had jobs but the building was rife with lots of opportunity to buy drugs. We were too fresh into recovery and couldn’t resist the lure of using together. But just on weekends,” he adds with a chuckle. “During the week, we’d both work to pay for the drugs we’d do on weekends. Eventually, weekends became longer and workdays became fewer and suddenly, we were both back out on the street.”

They ended up at the Drop-In, homeless and addicted once again. “The staff and counselors did so much for me,” he says. “Eventually, I made it up to the fifth floor into transitional housing and Amanda and Darce (Drop-In counselors) really got me thinking about my life and what I wanted to do and how I was going to get there.”

He knew he was getting too old for street life. “I was committed to change and knew that for it to really happen, I had to break the cycle of my drug usage. The first step for me was to get out of the downtown core completely so that I could get away from my old haunts and the people I used with.”

John found a new job and took shared accommodation in a suburb as he began the process of cleaning himself up again. A year later, with sobriety firmly in place in his mind and heart, John has his own apartment in the inner city and has worked continuously for the same employer.

“I don’t have a lot,” he says, “but I appreciate what I’ve got so much today because I know what I’ve got to lose if I fall off the wagon again.”

To keep himself on track, he volunteers his time with the Nursing and Social Work Programs at the U of Calgary and the SafeWorks nurses at the Drop-In.

“I love working with the students,” he says, a big smile on his face. “I take them around, show them the places I used to be and where addicts still hangout. It helps me stay sober because it reminds me of where I never want to be again.”

He admits he never gives an addict money. But, he will share his story about how he beat his own addiction. “I want them to know there is hope for a better life than being an addict.”

The Miracle

Written by: Denise R.; Day Staff

For the past nine months, I have been helping a young drug addicted woman who has been a client at the Drop-In. She’s lived a hard life, working the streets to support her habit, coming into the Drop-In for respite after a drug run that could last from anywhere for five to seven days. She’d come in and sleep for two to three days, eat, catch her breath and then, the beast of her addiction would kick back in and she’d be off to feed it.

About eight months after she first appeared here, she realized she was pregnant. Her addiction, however, had a death grip on her and so, she continued to do her drug runs, returning once a week for food and shelter. Every time she came in, we watched in horror what she was doing to her body. We knew the affect her drugs were having on her unborn child. We knew the odds were against her and her baby. And we knew there was nothing we could do to intervene other than to continue to try to talk to her, somehow reach her to convince her to seek help. It was to no avail. She kept using and abusing as the life inside her continued to grow.

And then, on March 24, 2008, a miracle happened that changed my life. This young girl gave birth to a little angel. A perfectly healthy 5lb 12 oz. baby girl.

What a miracle.

Created in the hellhole of an addict’s life, a tiny, bright eyed, dark curly haired miracle came to life that day and brought with her the spark of hope, of humanity into the dark world into which she was conceived.

This tiny miracle came quietly into the world. She looked around with her bright shiny eyes, stared at the wonders of the world around her for at least three hours before falling into a contented sleep.

The mother wouldn’t hold her. She knew she’d never be able to give this miracle of life what she needed. She knew she couldn’t promise to kick her habit for the sake of this child’s life. And so, she did the bravest thing she could do and made the most difficult choice she could make. She gave her baby up. To ensure her baby has the life she cannot give her, this young mother gave her the one thing she had to give, the gift of life.

It is sad when the beast of an addiction is greater than a mother’s love but that’s the reality of addiction. That is the horrible truth of what crack does to body, mind, and spirit.

For this miracle of birth, however, she is one in a million. She’s come through her mother’s womb devoid of any signs of the ravages of the drugs that possess her mother and keep her on the path of self-abuse, over and over again.

For me, the miracle of this baby’s birth reminds me that we are all miracles of life, gifts of the Creator. Life isn't fair but for this tiny baby, I pray she find a home where two parents will love and cherish her for all she's worth. She deserves it.

And for the mother, I pray one day she realizes, she's worth fighting for too.


Written by: Denise R.; Day Staff

We are All People

Written by Nurse James

I was talking with a friend recently about my position as a Nurse at the Drop-In Centre.

The conversation went something like this.

Friend: Aren’t you scared to work there?

Me: No, should I be?

Friend: Yes! There are so many criminals and addicts there, so much crime happens there.

Me: Happens where?

Friend: At The Drop-In Centre.

Me: Inside the Drop-In Centre?

Friend: Well yeah, aren’t you scared for your safety and your life? So many drug dealers and prostitutes and criminals.

Me (again): Where, inside the Centre?

Friend: Yeah.

Me: Are we talking about the same place? The Drop-In Centre is filled with wonderful people. Lots of caring, compassionate and awesome people.

Friend: Yeah, but aren’t you afraid?

Me (again): Afraid of what? The People at the Centre are the same as you and I (I emphasized people for a reason). I work with, and am surrounded by people. Some make mistakes, some have addictions and some have money problems.

The person I was talking with did not seem to believe me. She was emphasizing the negative things of the city of Calgary in general. There are many negative things in this city, but the people who utilize the Drop-In Centre are not whom I would count as one of the negative things.

Calgary is a big city, with a big city comes big city crime. The ‘people’ at the Drop-In Centre are the same as you and I.

We have families, they have families. Some of them have money troubles; some of us have money issues. Some have problems with addictions. Whatever these addictions are, a lot of people in Calgary have them, some people just hide them better, we have family problems, and they have family problems.

Friend: Yeah, but aren’t you scared? (She could not let go of the fear that she thought I should be having while working inside the Drop-In Centre.)

Me: Scared of what, being hit by a plane falling out of the sky? Getting a bad grade on a homework assignment? Getting run over by a dump truck? No, I am not scared.

I went on to explain that I was more apprehensive about walking through on of the City’s shopping malls than I am being surrounded by a thousand people at Supper service in the Drop-In Centre. I am more concerned about being run off the road by some inattentive driver than I am of an incident while at work.

Most of the ‘people’ I emphasized again, are decent caring members of society, they are just having some problems right now.

How sad a state would this country be in if we refused to help a family member who was down on his luck? How sad a place this world would be to live in, if we refused to help a friend or a co-worker with clothing when they needed it? What a terrible position we would be in if we turned a brother or sister away who was fleeing an abusive relationship. What a horrible thing we would do if we turned our parents away when it is cold outside.

Bad things happen at the mall, road rage happens on Deerfoot Trail; fights happen in schoolyards, drunk drivers hurt people daily. Yet, somehow this all seems normal for some reason. So and so discovers that his or her child is smoking crack, or doing crystal meth. But, for some reason when I asked this friend and other friends if they were afraid of these things that happen in their homes, they said no. That this is going to happen in life.

We are all people; we all struggle with issues daily. Some issues are more prevalent than others. Some do not go away without help.

We are all people, we all have problems, whether we chose to admit it or not.

We are all people; we are all capable of love, and hate. We are all capable of doing despicable things, but we are also capable of doing great and wondrous things.

I choose to emphasize the positive, rather than the negative. I choose to do something. Instead of ignoring someone who has a problem, I choose to give them a hand however I can,

We are all people.

Written by Nurse James

The light and dark of saints and sinners

Written by Roger G., Night Supervisor, 4th Floor

One night in February I learned, when I began my shift at 9:00 pm on one of the transitional floors at the Drop In, that one of my guys was drunk. We try to maintain it as a sober floor, so I tracked "Bill" down and confirmed the assessment of his inebriation. I told him he had to leave for the night. and he asked me if he could get something from his locker but I knew in his state that could be a long and noisy operation, so I said I would send it down to him later. I asked him to get one of the 1st floor staff to contact me on the radio once things had settled down there, which happened about 9:40. I learned later in the night that the request I heard by radio had been edited; what "Bill" actually said was "Could you ask Retard Roger to send my stuff down now?"

Coming to the 4th floor under the influence that night - breaking the contract he'd agreed to - was a Strike 3 for "Bill" and I could have closed his bed over it, sending him down to long line-ups and daily uncertainty about where he would be sleeping at night. His two earlier strikes, however, were for different issues; leaving a mess on his bed when he left one morning, for instance. I decided to give him another chance, but first I wanted him to do some homework around his drinking and the recovery process. I gave him this assignment, basically a goal-setting exercise, the next morning when he came up to access his locker before leaving for the day.

A couple of nights later "Bill" brought to me his completed homework, and we had a long talk. We talked about what situations and interpersonal conflicts are troublesome for him. We talked about art, for which he has discovered a talent and a passion for in recent years. Finally, with his permission I led him through a simple imagination exercise I learned a few years ago. Tools like this can begin to clear away some of the baggage we carry around that may have far more to do with the opinions and judgement of others, than who we ourselves are at the core. He appreciated that, and told me afterwards that it was beautiful imagery. We left the office, and I went off to do a head count of the clients on the floor. My co-worker Art told me later that after leaving the office, "Bill" approached him and said "I feel like I've just had a conversation with Gandhi!"

So now I'm both Retard Roger, and Gandhi. Cool. This is one of the most important truths I'd like to help uncover for the guys on my floor, that we are all a mixture of light and dark, saint and sinner, good and bad. If they see that in me and begin to see it more in themselves, then I have served them well. An awareness of our own wholeness can loosen the bonds by which we are held by shame in smallness and isolation, increasing our capacity for acceptance of ourselves, and for honesty with ourselves and others.

"Bill" has been spending a lot of time drawing since then. He also told me last week that his favorite way to fall asleep lately has been to spend a few minutes with the images we walked through that night. He spent another night drunk on the first floor last week, though I didn't have to send him off the 4th floor in the evening. Maybe he's taking a step back, after the steps forward he's taken in the past month. That seems appropriate. Our journey through life is far more like spinning across a dance floor than along a railroad track; two steps forward and one step back works just fine.


Written by Roger G., Night Supervisor, 4th Floor