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."
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MAP posted-by: Beth