GUEST COLUMN – On being harassed, robbed and shunned

This is part two of a column about conversations between Kamloops writer Lynne Stonier-Newman and three homeless folks.

By LYNNE STONIER-NEWMAN
Guest Columnist

I MET AGAIN withThomas, Connie and Pat to continue the previous day’s discussion about being ‘Homeless in Kamloops.’

I was sitting on my walker, Thomas was stretched out on the grass by the bench on the south side of the fountain and Connie and Pat were on the park bench. Pat was on a rolled-up quilt, explained it helped some with his worn-out hips.

As we’d parted the day before, I’d asked, “What word best describes your current living situation? Street person, homeless – is there an okay word?”

Thomas told me he’d been mulling my question overnight at the Stuart Wood shelter and both homeless and street person described him. He didn’t have his own door and he was in limbo between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. daily.

“I borrowed a friend’s Fitbit last week and on one day, I’d walked 36 kms.

“To be honest, Lynne, I found your question naive,” Pat said. “Sure, I’m a street person who is homeless, without work, have no stability. Our bureaucracies describe me as ‘A Person With No Fixed Address.’ And because I have to carry our duffel with the bare necessities, toothbrushes, soap, towels, couple of changes of clothes, this quilt, I’m immediately identifiable.”

“Our stuff is a big problem. Both keeping it safe and not being allowed to take it into many places,” Thomas said.

See also: GUEST COLUMN – Surviving on the street in limbo from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

“But we are not similar to about 60 percent of the homeless who’ve probably never had stable work, and will probably never be able to work more than part-time. Sure, some pushing their shopping carts are scheming how to get a hit but others are just sad folks, protecting their cartful of a few precious belongings,” Connie declared.

We looked across the fountain to three loaded carts parked there that afternoon. Five people were sitting or stretched out on the grass.

“Whatever I’m called or labelled doesn’t change who I am,” Pat stated firmly as he stood and stretched. “I’m a capable man who will get good work again, just need surgeries before I can return to full time … and I’m so very weary of barely surviving and trying to get help.”

“But we now have ID’s again and we return to Calgary tomorrow,” Connie said. “Pat will have a better chance to get his operations there and as Alberta Health pays more than B.C. does for street people’s medical needs, he’ll get healing time … And I’ve former customers who might want housecleaning again and I’ll advertise on FaceBook. But even when I’m earning again, finding housing will be as tough there as here.”

“We’re all caught in this Catch-22,” Thomas joined in. “Can’t get hired without my electrician tools and work clothes … and can’t get WorkBC’s help to buy those items until someone employs me. When I wake up in my tiny open sleeping cubicle and hear the coughing, throat clearing, crying, smell the other 24 overnighters in the Stuart Wood shelter’s crowded sleeping quarters, it takes me a minute to believe … believe where I am, and facing another day of survival.”

“Hard,” I say, struggling to find a word. “Must make you ache inside.”

Thomas muttered, “A lot! My late Nan, she was special … when I was a kid, she’d tell me the people in fixes like I’m now in were ‘the poor lost souls.’ Now I’m one and, yes, my biggest dilemma as a red seal electrician seeking work is having ‘No Fixed Address.”

“You should have seen him a couple of weeks ago,” Pat interjects. “Looked as battered as he was.”

“Yeah, no one would have hired me. Think I was targeted by a guy who drives a big pick-up and is about 150 pounds heavier than me at the washroom at Riverside Park. My girlfriend was waiting with my knapsack when he kicked the door open, grabbed me, started kicking and pounding me, screaming ‘You f..king homeless creep, get out of town.'”

“What?” I asked. “Did you know him? Why? and did you report it?”

“Come on, Lynne!” Thomas sat up, brushing grass off the elbow he’d been leaning on. “Who’d listen? Yeah, I’d seen him before. He’d yelled at us earlier that week when a group of us were sitting at a picnic table. Showing off to his buddies. Ordered us to get the hell out of ‘HIS’ park.”

“Is this common?” I asked, so sad for these three … yet aware of how cautious, and sometimes nervous, I could feel around groups of ‘Kamloops’ Street People.’

“Hard to describe all the ways we are harassed, pushed around and shunned,” Thomas admitted softly. “Many people who are probably kind to animals are not kind to us. Some of that is fear … you were feeling vulnerable yesterday, Lynne. By all of us homeless just being here, we are changing downtown Kamloops. So many of us wandering, it does make it less comfortable, it feels less safe, especially you seniors. Do you understand how the numbers living on the streets, river banks and using Kamloops’ shelters are increasing monthly?”

I nodded, though don’t know. But seeing the homeless with the only possessions they have left in an over-loaded shopping cart is like a billboard to me, advertising our failing as a society.

“But the reality is very few street people are a danger, even the druggies. Sure, they steal but almost all are not dangerous, especially for someone like you,” Pat pointed out. “You remind them of their aunties and grandmothers.”

“Yeah, it’s the malicious Kamloops’ guys who bully or beat us, enjoy breaking stuff, smashing car and building windows and stealing, knowing that the homeless will be blamed. This is a mean city,” Connie said, and murmured, “What hurts me most is ‘the pretend-she’s-invisible looks’ some give us. Certainly not everyone … some people are kind, exchange a smile or a few words, offer to share food but a lot don’t.”

“You know what’s the worst for me?” Thomas asked. “Being in a cafe or restaurant as a paying customer and not being allowed the key to the washroom! Being told, ‘Sorry, our toilet is broken’, though the person at the next table has obviously just returned from using it.”

“Again, because having to carry our needed stuff everywhere identifies us,” Pat repeated.

I nodded, then asked for details about the robberies they’ve had …

Pat stretched, using the bench for balance. “All three of us have lost our identification, which is awful, as well as money and belongings more than once. Nowhere is safe and thefts are usual in a shelter.”

“Pat and I were bullied and our ID was stolen in March,” Connie said. “Just received the replacements, took eight weeks – a kind Mustard Seed employee helped us send for replacements. But what’s strange is instead of a new SIN card, I only received a piece of paper. Doesn’t matter to me because I have my number memorized but having a SIN card for ID is preferable to paper!”

“It’s so hard to feel safe, especially since I was beat up. Always risks, disturbances,” Thomas said. “Quite a few of street people are high or they have mental health issues and are out of the meds they need … Do you know welfare is only distributed once a month?”

“I do.” Listening to these three homeless folks’ issues is illuminating and frustrating … and I feel apologetic for the failures of B.C.’s governance.

“And are you aware we have no recourse in the shelters … or anywhere?” Thomas asked. “A staff person interprets how you are following the rules. Many are fair but certainly not all. They’re in low paying jobs, and some are hired without any training. I was expelled from a shelter where I had my own room with a door. A staff member mis-identified me. Claimed I was who’d broken rules but he knew it was someone else. While I was out, he heaved my stuff from my room into the garbage bin and told me when I returned that I was banned, to go somewhere else.”

Thomas’ voice broke; he stood and walked a little away.

“This is his first time being homeless, too,” Connie told me. ‘And his struggles have been so long because of Covid and all the screw-ups it caused. He had UI credits but a counsellor decided he only qualified for, or maybe, he was better off on CERB. That enabled him to get a monthly hotel for almost a year but limited other stuff. Covid meant electricians were laid off around the distancing rules. And although Kamloops is Thomas’ home town, he doesn’t really have contacts here because he worked for East Kootenay companies.”

“More than anything,” Pat summarized, “is our governments are not effective, unable to use common sense to deal with the homeless issues. The total numbers about how many of us there are, are malarkey. We all know Kamloops has at least three times the official homeless counts than the officials here pretend. What is being achieved, Lynne, by throwing all this money into homeless programs with no accountability? I want facts, like how many jobs have been found in the past six months by those well-paid counsellors? Why isn’t better coordinated, crisis planning happening?

“Yeah, we need more accountability and much better accounting of the public dollars being spent. That’s desperately needed,” I agreed as I turned off the tape recorder. We exchanged contact info, Connie gave me a big hug and we wrapped it up.

Lynne Stonier-Newman is a resident of Kamloops. She’s a social marketing and communication consultant, and a B.C. historian and author.