Here is a slightly edited version of an email I just sent to my building manager this morning:
"Well, I did put my unit number on the list for St. Nicholas Day. I forgot to put out a shoe, so no candy for me. Am I being punished for something? Anyway, as usual I will not be at Christmas dinner. There are never vegetarian options, it feels like charity, and I don't like St. Peter's Fireside, given the auspices under which they left my church (Anglican), and the fact that the ones I have met have generally been hostile and unpleasant, and no, i did not try to bait them into anything, I just happened to be in the elevator. Another time, I walked in on one of their dinners, and all those well off looking young white people simply ignored me and just talked to each other instead. When I mentioned this to the previous manager, her response was understandably hostile because she is a rubber stamp for authority and doesn't respect the tenants, so have a nice day, everyone."
I suppose that does seem rather petulant, but there are legitimate issues here. And it is a small price to pay for relative housing security in this impossibly difficult city to live in. But this is rather like living under a feudal system. They really want us to be grateful, our housing providers, More than a Roof with the Mennonite Central Committee, for giving us housing and doing so many wonderful things for us. What they don't seem to realize, or care about, is how much they are perpetuating a system of class inequality that keeps power and decision making centralized at the top, and we, the grateful serfs and vassals that live on the King's land have little option but be grateful. Or simply shut up. So, we do as we're told. But I write this blog!
St. Peter's Fireside is problematic. They are a church with the Anglican Network, which was formed by breakaway parishes that left the Anglican Communion some sixteen or seventeen years ago, because they didn't approve of marriage equality. They may insist till their faces turn blue that they are not homophobic. I am not ready to believe them. And I, as a queer man, would understandably feel every bit as comfortable being served dinner by those people, as if I were a person of colour being served dinner by a bunch of white supremacists! I did have two unfortunate encounters with two of them in the elevator. Each time they demanded to know why I didn't want to eat the dinner they were so awesomely providing us poor unfortunate losers who live in social housing (not their words, but the tone was unmistakable). They seemed hostile and angry, especially when I replied that I am vegetarian, and really prefer my own cooking.
In terms of St. Nicholas Day, I really don't care one way or the other about getting free candy. I have plenty of goodies in my own kitchen: all the ingredients needed for making delicious hot cocoa from scratch; and lovely chocolate chip cookies and shortbread cookies made by my own hands and baked in the oven in my own ridiculously cramped little kitchen. But I do feel left out, and sometimes wonder if that is intentional, given that I tend to be rather a vocal critic of management here, and they don't like that, and well, too bad. I am not going to shut up! It might also be that I didn't write my name next to my unit number on the sign up sheet in the elevator, since that's how they would know about leaving candy in a shoe outside our apartments overnight. I didn't write my name because we have some rather unstable and volatile tenants living here and I simply don't want them to know where I live. Privacy, you know. This doesn't really square with More Than a Roof's idea of community, and they really want to impose it on us. So, I forgot to put out a shoe, and I get nothing. Uh-huh. Well, I am enjoying my cookies and if the manager is reasonable and nice, which he usually is, then I might even give him and his colleague a lovely sweet little treat this Christmas.
Well, besides living downtown, which kind of sucks, those are my complaints about living here. On the balance side, I have a roof over my head, the rent is affordable and I generally feel safe and also supported here. I do wish they would get over their ideologically based homophobia, but I think they are making steps in that direction. It was nice seeing for the first time that they were advertising the Pride Parade last summer and had also planted a little rainbow flag in the lobby. I am also doing my utmost to take care not to judge the individuals working here on the basis of their employers, but it isn't always easy. Just as it isn't always easy having me for a tenant.
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