No Mother Teresa

I will be the first to admit that I am no Mother Teresa.  I have been greatly inspired and influenced by her, ever since I first heard of her in 1976 when she spoke at the Habitat For Humanity Forum in Vancouver.  Soon after a friend introduced me to a book or two about her and I was sold.  I spent years trying to emulate her in my lacklustre Western comfortable life sort of way.  Since there are no lepers in Vancouver I did what I could to help people poorer than me: giving money to beggars, sometimes feeding them. spending time and befriending some of them, offering my couch for the homeless at times.  All this I manoeuvred while living myself on a low income, working at what ever low skill job would sustain me and enable me to pay the rent.  I never really felt I was getting anywhere with most of them and as I learned how formidable their needs were I eventually stepped back to let others take over.  As I became more professionally engaged in helping others I also came to appreciate aspects of the professional approach that for years I dismissed.  The detached impersonal methods that had appalled me turned out to be the very professional boundaries and limits that made the care giving experience a safe place for all, especially for the client and patient but also for the care provider.  I came to understand the need for team work, a group effort with excellent communications between everyone working for the good and welfare of the client.  I came to appreciate that some, perhaps many of our most destitute people on the street are also accomplished liars, a skill they have often needed to acquire and perfect for their own survival but which also has undermined many efforts to help them.  

     As a legacy of globalization and the many free trade agreements that have changed the world economy we have now many street homeless in Vancouver.  I walk by many of them every day since I live downtown.  I used to be very generous towards them, although I was barely getting by myself.  I did feel a keen survivor's guilt because I was finally safe in social housing while others were languishing on the curb.  I had had the good fortune of meeting Judy Graves the recently retired housing support worker for the City of Vancouver.  She helped me connect with a lot of good housing resources, got me on several wait lists and within months I had a decent place to live, this following three years of unsafe or substandard housing which followed nearly a year of homelessness.  Knowing I could do nothing to alleviate the situation of the local homeless I thought that I could at least give back.  Within a year I learned to not give money to those who panhandled within a radius of six blocks from where I live. Enough uncomfortable and potentially dangerous situations occurred to teach me to keep this kind of generosity away from home.  Some people came to expect money from me and would get cranky if I didn't pay, or would demand more if I gave something, or would see me giving to someone else and then begin to personally harass me for money.  I was not feeling safe in my own neighbourhood. 

     Working with the street homeless, first as a voluntee, then for a year in a professional position in a homeless shelter I saw first hand how huge the need is and that more than hand outs of fifty cents or one or two dollars, people were needing a place to live, friends, treatment for mental health concerns and addictions and someone to connect them with services and help.  No one working alone would be able to do it for them.  This would require a team effort regarding trained professionals, staff and volunteers all working in a number of situations and at full capacity.  It would also require the cooperation of the homeless themselves.

     Almost every day on Davie Street I see a young man panhandling in front of the community garden.  He has two large dogs.  I have never given him money because of the dogs.  I have nothing against dogs and know they need to eat.  What I do have trouble with is this guy is clearly not in a situation where he can give those dogs a home, yet from what I have heard many homeless people with dogs would sooner starve than see their pets go hungry.  The dogs also make it impossible for him to have access to housing because almost all the low cost housing developments do not allow dogs and there are huge wait lists.  I know it seems mean and churlish of me but to me the human takes priority over the animal.  This young man eventually will have to relinquish his animals if he wants housing and I don't think he is likely to.  I do not want to see my hard earned money get flushed down the toilet but I also wish this guy well and hope he can connect to all the help that he needs.  I have tried to say hi to him and begin a rapport but he has not responded and I assume that my help is probably neither needed or welcome.  There is another group of homeless, friends I think of this fellow, many of them aboriginal who panhandle across the street with wittily written cardboard signs soliciting money for beer and drugs.  We smile and say hi and they know better than expect money form me.  Then there are the two men, they seem almost like father and son, who panhandle within a block of where I live.  Because they are close to home I don't give them money, sometimes fruit if I've been out shopping.  We always smile and say hi.

     I cannot offer much in the way of practical help.  This is what social workers and street workers and shelter and housing workers are there for along with mental health staff.  I am a mental health worker and professionally I often connect with people who are homeless but it is always within a professional context where I am working with a team of dedicated others to help them connect with housing. 

     I am not going to play blame the victim.  Welfare rates are scandalously low and assistance is harder than ever to get which has shoved a lot of people out onto the street.  Housing costs have gone through the roof and the difficulty of connecting effectively with mental health and addiction and housing support services is sometimes insurmountable.  I also suspect that many of them already are connected and that they are panhandling not necessarily for food but for alcohol, drugs or cigarettes.  I think that in a lot of cases they have spent all their welfare money in two or three days or that they have been extorted by loan sharks or by others with whom they have debts pending.

     I still give money sometimes, maybe once or twice a week, and I always give money to the food bank at Safeway where I shop usually twice a week or so as well as donating to my church and our advocacy office.  I always make sure that I feel okay about it, that somehow the money is going to be used to feed them or something.  I will not give to someone with dogs, because I want the person to be fed first and my funds are very limited.  And I certainly will not give money to a smoker, suspecting where my spare loony or toonie is going to end up.  In the meantime I try not to ignore those who beg.  I try to see them, get their attention, smile and say hi, and if I don't feel in a position where I can help them financially I explain politely and respectfully that I am on a very tight budget or that I am on a low income.  They are almost always gracious about it.

     Today at church I was given a lesson in kindness that positively shamed me.  Following the Eucharist, in the church hall downstairs we were having a vestry meeting about approving a loan of money to a government subsidized housing facility for low income seniors that is associated with our church.  In walked one of our local homeless First Nations people.  This man would be in his fifties, perhaps older.  He is disabled and walks with a cane.  He is an alcoholic with mental health issues and I also suspect brain damage.  I do not know whether he is a survivor of the residential schools or not but I'm pretty sure that he is.  He can also be very volatile and he has been disruptive and very obnoxious in the past which can really put a strain on relations one might say.  As he was walking in, Lesley, one of our church elders, greeted him at the door, took him by the arm and escorted him to the table in the back that had some pastries because we knew he would want something to eat.   Linda, who is very kind and generous, took over from there, saw that he was seated at the table while another parishioner, Patty helped see that he had coffee and a plate to eat from.  While I was dreading problems from this aboriginal elder, as Patty has referred to him and in a very kind and respectful tone, my fellow parishioners taught me again of the infinite value of love and how love alone can overcome fear.

     To those reading this article who ask themselves what they can do to help this is my answer: you cannot do everything, but you can do something, however small, and if it is within your power to do it, then please do it.