When you consider my mentors when I was twenty-four-Mother Teresa, Jean Vanier, Henri Nouwen, and Simone Weil-it stands to reason that home care work would amount to being for me a dream job. I had a huge desire to serve God, not just in a furtive, I hate my day job sort of way, but as a way of really and fully serving the poor, suffering and outcast of society. The pay was dreadful but I managed to cobble together a fulltime position taking me to private homes all over Vancouver. I cleaned house, cooked, shopped, bathed and ministered to the personal care needs of elderly, disabled, mentally ill and dying people. I received on the job training and a frightfully low wage. I was happy to have a job, much more a job that aligned with my values. I was not able to access other, better paid employment for one simple reason: no matter where I looked, no matter who I talked to, I could not persuade anyone to hire me. I lacked experience, training, credentials and most of all, connections.
So, I accepted home care, or, home support work, as a gift and call from God, while settling to pay low rent in a basement apartment in East Vancouver, while eschewing having a car (cost and environmental concerns were great disincentives) and basically living on a tight budget. Gradually things eroded. I tried to take night classes in order to work towards an English degree but found, following one semester, that my demanding job sucked all my energy. It was not going to be both and. As policy and training requirements began to tighten in my field of work I realized that I never had quite enough money to pay for the required extra training and credentials. The right of centre government in my province began to slash funding and hours in home support and I soon had to struggle to get enough hours to live on. My inability to access extra training kept my wage low. I still wasn't able to pay off my student loan.
As I felt called into fulltime community and Christian street and bar ministry downtown, my job soon became a hindrance and I soon was doing poorly at it and had to resign. I ended up in grinding poverty, with a partner in community and ministry who refused to pull his weight and then others joined us and provided us with funding. The ministry flourished for a while, then personality conflicts and conflicting visions destroyed everything. Funding ran out. I had no idea where to turn vocationally as our community and work of Christian ministry died an unnatural and prolonged and agonized death. I had been out of the paid workforce for most of three years, so I took part time work as a home support worker. The slash and burn policies of our governments left me with part time hours and no benefits. I was living alone again and just struggling to get by. I didn't have the energy to find other employment. My mental health began to suffer from all the stress along with some very evil people who were out to destroy me. I ended up homeless.
Almost a year later I found housing, got on welfare and was also working sporadically as a housecleaner and a professional artist. I also had PTSD, making fulltime, and even most part time employment out of my reach.
After three years of unsafe and inadequate housing I was given a subsidized apartment and then my life began to turn around.
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