Powell Street

Just following the attack on the World Trade Centre and the resultant carnage I like many was feeling traumatized and on edge.  I didn't fear the terrorists.  I feared our own governments, that they would curtail human rights in our own countries while launching vindictive destructive and useless wars in the Middle East that would in the long term worsen things for everyone and further hurt global stability.  So it happened.  In this climate of fear a new right wing government was elected to power in my province with a pronounced vendetta against welfare recipients.  They tried to force the unemployable into the work force while denying assistance to anyone who didn't fit their criteria.  Very quickly our homeless population in Vancouver alone mushroomed by almost four hundred percent.

My welfare worker, already an unfortunate excuse for humanity, became especially hectoring and sadistic.  While doing everything I could and more according to their new and strict criteria to find a job and convince skeptical employers to try to hire me she became particularly vile and persecuting towards me.  I left her two angry messages on her voice mail, fired her and demanded to speak to her supervisor.  The following day her supervisor called me in for an interview.  She took my side almost on sight, realized I was not well, had my file changed and assigned me to a new, and compassionate, worker. 

I began doing volunteer work in early 2002 in a church homeless shelter and soon was helping in their weekly breakfast program.  My name came up on the waiting list for a social housing building in the Downtown Eastside on Powell Street.  By this time my living situation was getting a bit precarious and dangerous.  The young crack head next door, while not threatening me was acting out very strangely and I was becoming concerned about my safety.  I moved at the end of March, without giving the Pakistani Slumlord his month's notice.  I simply gave him a lengthy and very angry voicemail message, and refused to respond to his request that I call him.

My new apartment was a small bachelor unit in a BC Housing building recently opened.  The kitchen was huge and dominated the unit so that I felt almost as though I lived in a dining room.  I managed to use my few sticks of furniture obtained free in a second hand store, thanks to a welfare benefit that no longer exists, and my art and textiles to make the place functional and in my way beautiful.  The noise from the drug addicts outside was deplorable and intolerable and the building manager turned deaf ears to my request to be moved to one of the many vacant units that faced either the lovely courtyard or the back alley.

I kept busy.  I enjoyed my weekly volunteer work and meeting and befriending others in the Baptist church downtown.  In June 2002, burnt-out from the Anglican Church's unhealthy obsession over gay marriage, I renounced my confirmation and began attending the Baptist church where I lasted nine months until, burnt-out from their homophobia, left church altogether for a while. 

Meanwhile, I enjoyed long daily hikes in the forest of Stanley Park, leisurely coffee visits with friends and painting and promoting my art.  I still house cleaned for Doreen, who lived just two blocks away.  In the spring and summer evenings I strolled in nearby Crab Beach Park especially enjoying the redwing blackbirds in the rewilded  marsh.  I had a friend in the building, a very clever but traumatized loser, kind of like me in some ways, and we often visited each other's suites.

Still, the noise and some of the difficult and occasionally dangerous denizens of the neighbourhood were getting to me.  In May I got another phone call.  There was a new building on Granville near the bridge run by the Mennonite Central Committee.  I was called in for an interview.  I was accepted.  In July I moved in to my new apartment where I still live today more than thirteen years later.