Pubdate: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 Source: Vancouver Courier (CN BC) Copyright: 2005 Vancouver Courier Contact: http://www.vancourier.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/474 Author: Mike Howell MAKING THE HOMELESS COUNT The man in his 30s curled up in the shadows of a parking lot under the Burrard Street Bridge confides that he's a drug addict who collects bottles to pay for food and his habit. The long-haired 53-year-old woman pushing a buggy full of junk outside the McDonald's on Granville Street keeps her distance from the foul-mouthed, pot-smoking young men on the sidewalk. The bearded man with the Newfoundland accent standing outside a closed convenience store on Bute Street jokes with the hardscrabble lot lying on the sidewalk. It's one week before Christmas on a mild Wednesday morning, and life as these people know it doesn't change much from day to day; it only worsens when you're addicted, mentally ill and flat broke. If they have any hope on this morning, it's because of what the soft-spoken, 55-year-old woman in the powder-blue rain jacket, jeans and black runners is doing for them. Judy Graves, in her gentle, disarming way, has spoken to them, taken their names, their birth dates and their social insurance numbers to try to get them on welfare. She gives each a piece of paper with the address of the welfare office in the West End, and tells them to show up the next day. Mention her name, she says, they will know her. For 13 years, Graves has worked for the city's housing centre trying to get people off the streets. As the coordinator of the tenant assistance program, her job includes counting the number of homeless. This means roaming alleys, parks and parkades from midnight to 6 a.m. to check in with a transient population which is hard to track by day, and often wants to be left alone. About 600 people sleep on the streets in the winter months with 1,200 in the summer, according to Graves' conservative estimates. That's double the number of homeless from three years ago. A combination of cuts to welfare, health care, insane house prices, a shortage of low-cost housing, limited shelter space and a paltry minimum wage are reasons, she says. Graves' work is not only crucial for the homeless, but for social service agencies, bureaucrats, police and politicians making decisions on reducing homelessness, tackling addiction and treating the mentally ill. She points out homelessness is often one of the main issues during a political campaign, of which there will be two this year-the provincial election in May, the municipal election in November. Graves can't help but be political, but notes she doesn't take sides. "I really don't care what the motivation of politicians is as long as they do the right thing. It doesn't matter to me which party is in power because the issue is too important. The homeless will tell you they can't wait for a particular party to be elected." Before Graves begins her morning patrol, she meets for "breakfast" at Denny's restaurant at Thurlow and Davie. It's midnight and Dana Walker, the city's coordinator of the West End's Coordinated Response Program, is sitting in the booth next to Graves. The 45-year-old Walker is the facts man to a new advisory committee comprising police, health workers, various community organizations and business people. The committee's first priority is the homeless and Walker has come to the right person to learn about the estimated 200 people sleeping in the streets from Granville Street to Stanley Park. After eggs, toast and a few cups of coffee, Graves pulls candy, dog treats and cigarettes out of a bag and places them on the table. The candy and cigarettes are for the homeless, the milk bones are to keep their dogs happy. "I'm always amazed how much information Judy can get from somebody with a few chocolates and some cigarettes," says Walker, who escorted Graves on previous patrols when he worked for the parks board. Outside on Davie Street, Graves and Walker pull new scarves, gloves, socks and hats from the back of a car and fill their backpacks. The clothes are courtesy of Graves' friends, who held a party to collect the merchandise. The weather is mild, but the streets are wet from days of heavy rainfall. The only real activity on Davie comes from Celebrities nightclub down the block, where a queue is forming on the sidewalk. It takes a stroll along Bute and through Nelson Park before Graves comes upon a homeless person. He's a 58-year-old man bundled in a blanket at the top of the steps of St. Andrew's-Wesley Church, next to St. Paul's Hospital. He's not talkative, and doesn't want to be bothered. Graves leaves her card and gently pats him on the shoulder before descending the steps to Burrard Street. She's known the mentally ill man for about two years. He's the same age as another man, likely suffering from dementia, sleeping behind a stairwell at First Baptist Church across the street. He gladly takes a cigarette and is happy to talk about his medical problems, including a sore shoulder. He gives Graves his personal information before graciously accepting a pair of wool socks. "Thank you, thank you Judy." She records the information of both men in a notebook, and will forward it to the welfare office. Whether either man will make it to the office is something Graves won't know until the next time she sees them. "The welfare office doesn't tend to phone me back, and plus they do have to keep a person's information confidential," she says as she continues along Burrard Street. Graves doesn't like to prod too deeply into a person's life. In some cases it takes her several years before she knows people's names or gets them help. But for many of the homeless, Graves is the only person they've talked to in days. "For my own records, I don't ever want to violate somebody's privacy. But if they want me to do advocacy with the Ministry of Human Resources, then I do need their name, their social insurance number and their birth date. At that point, if they want help, they're quite glad to give that. But not everybody wants help." The next hour is spent in the alleys and streets between Howe and Granville, with the most desperate scene unfolding in front of a shoe store in the 800-block Granville Street. A woman in her 20s, with long black hair, and a passing resemblance to Canadian pop star Alanis Morrissette, is darting up and down the street, whimpering and screaming in French gibberish. The madness is softened by the soaring voice of another young woman sitting across the street, who is singing for money to rent a room at the nearby Dufferin Hotel. "Roll the stone away, roll the stone, Lord God almighty, I'm going to roll the stone away," she sings as Graves calls 911 on her cell phone to see if the police can respond to the woman in crisis. Vancouver police operate Car 87, the only police-mental health nurse team available in the city. The nurse's job is to assess the person while the police officer decides whether to admit the person to hospital. As Walker watches the frantic woman, he points out how this would be an ideal situation for intervention by a rolling social service team. This way, he says, the woman would get what she needs, whether it be counselling, medical attention, housing or welfare. "There's not much available for someone like this at this time of night. Car 87 is stretched, and it doesn't have everything this woman needs. We need the service to come to her, to work with her, to get something started for her." Graves isn't given a firm answer from the 911 operator whether Car 87 can attend, but there is obviously not much she can do so she continues up the street. Her morning gets brighter a few blocks away at Howe and Robson when an aboriginal man with a cane sidles up to her at a crosswalk. "Judy Graves," he says, and gives her a bear hug. He's an old face from the streets, and Graves helped him find housing in the Downtown Eastside. He jokes that he now has a dishwasher-which Graves lacks-and that he's been waiting for her to bring over her dirty dishes. He also has a painting for her, he says, and wants to make sure she gets it before Christmas. He'll drop it off at the Carnegie community centre, he says, before continuing down the street. Graves won't get into detail about the man's history, but says he had a tough life. She pauses for a moment to watch him walk away. "He looks good, it's nice to see." She crosses the street to the Vancouver Art Gallery, where another person is sleeping on the steps under a huge banner, advertising the Massive Change exhibit. Graves stops long enough to say hello and moves on to an alley north of Robson Street. She records information from several people sleeping in alcoves, partially hidden by dumpsters. Walker remarks on the series of metal barricades installed along the back of stores to prevent the homeless and others from using stairwells. "I'm seeing a lot more of this-a sign of how things have changed down here. It could be a trend." At Robson and Nicola, Graves meets a 54-year-old man named Bobby, sitting in the shadows of a storefront. He's lively and extends a welcoming hand. He has thin, dirty hair, a grubby beard and his blackened hands look as if he's been working on cars. He's wearing a black nylon jacket, dirty khaki pants and black work boots. Bobby goes on to talk about a head injury, being charged for a bank robbery in Toronto and then trails off on a tangent concerning the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Before Graves leaves Bobby, she gives him a wool hat and some reading glasses. He takes her card and says he'll make sure to go to the welfare office the next day. "I'll be there," he says. Farther down Robson, near a 7-Eleven at Cardero, a man in his 30s is sleeping in an alcove, which is barricaded by his bicycle covered in plastic bags. He says he's from "an important family" near Toronto, and doesn't need welfare because he's doing $100 million in business. The weather doesn't bother him, either. "This is nothing-this is Florida weather. No problem." The man showed clear signs of schizophrenia, an illness Graves easily recognizes after spending 12 years as a care worker at a residence for the mentally ill in the Downtown Eastside. From 1979 to 1991, Graves cared for people at Cordova House, where she worked 12-hour shifts and learned about the madness of mental illness and the effect on the brain. People were stricken with personality disorders, depression, schizophrenia-diseases many people often have before becoming homeless but are never diagnosed with, she says. "Men, especially, will tend to cover the symptoms with alcohol or drugs. They don't think of it as being an illness, so you wind up with people who have both a mental illness and a substance abuse problem." A person in that state can rarely find their way to a welfare office, and even if they do-and are given money for food-finding housing on their own is almost impossible, she says. It's a fact evident in Graves' patrol. Taking a coffee break at a Blenz on Denman Street, she reviews her notes to find that six people told her they were receiving welfare, only for food, not for housing. Welfare will not give money for rent, unless a person can prove he or she has found stable housing. Even so, Graves points out she is working with three homeless people who suffer from Tourette's Syndome, but can't find a room for them because they are prone to shouting and swearing loudly. "It's a terrible gap, and once a person is outside, they're very unlikely to receive any medical care, as well. The simplest life tasks for a lot of these people is so complicated, and it's really depressing when you're probably at the lowest point in your life." As of 3:25 a.m., Graves has spoken to 21 homeless people, ranging in age from their 20s to late 50s. Five were women, at least 12 people showed signs of mental illness and 15 were not on welfare. Her findings are consistent with previous patrols in the West End, but she points out, as she heads back onto Denman, that this neighbourhood never used to be synonymous with homelessness. In fact, she recalls 10 years ago the entire city had few homeless people. She never imagined such an increase in the 1990s. "When I was 19, the West End was covered with old houses, and so anybody having a tough time finding housing could find a room. I was making minimum wage, and I took home about $184 a month, and I could get a room for $56." The neighbourhood is now dominated by a forest of highrises, high-end shops and fewer residences for people on welfare and low incomes. Over the next two hours, Graves finds another 29 people sleeping in gazebos, under the Burrard Street Bridge, next to the Aquatic Centre, in storefronts and finally to the most unsettling scene of the night at Bute and Davie, where she began her patrol. Dubbed "crystal corner" by police because of the prevalence of crystal methamphetamine, it is home to a 33-year-old heavily made-up aboriginal woman sprawled out in front of a convenience store. She is swearing loudly from behind a shopping cart, while another man lying in the alcove next to her picks at a moldy piece of garlic bread. A tall black man, his face mostly covered by a hooded jacket, sits on a flower stand and stares vacantly into the distance. Another young man, with a handlebar moustache, rolls by on rollerblades, asking if "anybody has got anything." Still, Graves manages to get personal information from two people before walking back to Davie. It's now 5:45 a.m., and traffic is beginning to pick up and joggers are out. Taking a seat in Walker's car, she reflects on another patrol that will stay with her as she goes home to sleep. It's always hard to erase such desperation from your mind, she says. "Right now, my mind is going back to the young man under the Burrard Bridge, the man lying on the cold floor of the gazebo, all those people in the alleys off Robson Street. I'm wondering if any of them will be able to get off the street. I sure hope so." - --- MAP posted-by: Beth