Pubdate: Sat, 30 Mar 2013
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2013 The Vancouver Sun
Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Kevin Griffin

JOURNEY TO THE DARK SIDE OF TOWN

Month living with homeless in Vancouver gives Toronto's Jay Barton a
new perspective on street life

On a cold evening in early spring, Jay Barton carried several sheets
of cardboard under his right arm. He wasn't going to turn them into
moving boxes. He was going to use them to make his bed for the night.

Barton was sleeping outside on a loading dock in east Vancouver. He
was sharing the space with Heath Noble, a buddy he'd made while living
on the street.

As part of an experiment to live like a homeless person in the
Downtown Eastside, Barton initially wanted to sleep outside in the
neighbourhood.

But Noble advised him otherwise. Noble told him that sleeping outdoors
anywhere in the Downtown Eastside was dangerous. There was a good
chance, he said, that someone might randomly attack him while he slept.

Noble had a better suggestion. Homeless himself for about a year, he
had found an ideal spot near Main and 5th. The loading dock he found
was high enough so raccoons or skunks wouldn't come sniffing around.
Plus, an overhang protected them if it rained. And by casting them in
shadow, it made two guys lying down almost invisible to anyone passing
by in the lane.

Finding safe shelter

The forecast was for the temperature to drop to zero overnight. A
slight breeze made it feel even colder. Barton was prepared: in
addition to two sleeping bags, he wore two pairs of socks, pants,
three shirts, a coat and a toque.

Plus he had the cardboard. Barton realized early on how important it
was to have a thin layer of corrugated paper as insulation on the
ground. Next to the cardboard Barton laid down a thin blanket and then
his sleeping bags. Barton's head was next to the sliding back door;
Noble's was in the left corner.

As Noble smoked a cigarette, Barton got comfortable inside his cocoon.
They both turned in by 8: 30 p. m.

"At least you can see the stars," Barton said, trying to see the
upside of sleeping outside on a virtually cloudless night. He was
right: the stars were twinkling and the moon was a sharp crescent in
the night sky.

As the two of them made their beds, they were photographed by The
Vancouver Sun. While that happened, a man came out of a nearby door
and asked questions about what was going on.

He thought a photo on the loading dock was misleading because he was
convinced no one ever slept there. When I told him Noble had been
sleeping off and on for a year on the loading dock, he wouldn't
believe me. We talked a bit more and he went back into the building
and closed the door. The incident appeared to be over.

But it wasn't. Barton said the man came by about an hour later. Barton
was still awake and saw him take a photograph of the two of them on
the loading dock.

For some reason, being photographed angered Barton. He felt a
momentary urge to react - to tell the guy off or do something more.
For the better part of a month, he'd been relying on charity. He spent
several weeks sleeping outside and in shelters, standing in endless
lineups for food, panhandling for cash and wearing old clothes. Barton
saw it as yet another example how your dignity gets stripped away
while living on the street.

 From Barton's perspective, they wouldn't inconvenience anyone. They'd
be gone early in the morning, usually by 6 a. m. They would also clean
up after themselves so no one would even notice they'd been there. The
possibility of being questioned and denied something as simple as a
place to sleep got under his skin.

But he calmed himself down. He remembered what his brother-in-law
told him: "There are no heroes on this trip."

The trip begins

Barton's journey to the Downtown Eastside started in downtown Toronto.
For the past decade, Barton has worked with the homeless and the poor
at the Salvation Army Gateway. He also fundraises for Sanctuary, a
Christian-based inner city ministry.

Back home, he works to break down barriers between rich and poor by
arranging one-on-one meetings between corporate executives and the
homeless.

He organizes events that involve bringing the two groups together for
breakfasts at The Fairmont Royal York Hotel in downtown Toronto.

For about three years, he's wanted to get a better understanding of
life on the street by living like a homeless person.

He picked Vancouver because he's too well known in Toronto to pull off
living anonymously in shelters. He was also drawn to the unique
concentration of poverty in the Downtown Eastside.

Barton is aware of the irony of his situation. With a wife and child
as well as a home and career in Toronto, he's not really homeless. He
knows he's playing homeless. He even expects he'll be criticized for '
poverty tourism.'

"If I want to work with this group of people, and get a better
understanding, I had to come here," Barton said. "There is nothing
like this anywhere in the country. I'm here as an observer. I'm not
here to tell anyone how it should be done.

"It's an education for me. I've learned more from these people and
these service providers than I've learned back home in a number of
years."

He admits that living on the street will enhance his credibility among
the poor in Toronto. It will also help him fundraise and, as he says,
convince more of the one per cent to part with their money.

Choosing Vancouver

Barton's own story gives him a unique bond with the homeless, many of
whom are battling substance abuse. For about 20 years, Barton was a
crack addict.

He went through four bouts of rehab before getting clean about a
decade ago.

Barton said all his homeless friends in Toronto thought living on the
street in Vancouver was a brilliant idea. His business friends weren't
so keen.

"I don't know why," he said. "Maybe it's a bit too radical. It's hard.
It's scary and uncomfortable. I think it scares the hell out of them."

I interviewed Barton every Tuesday for four weeks to record his
impressions of life on the street. He came across as personable and
outgoing and totally dedicated to living as a homeless person. He's
the kind of guy you'd want to have as a friend. One thing he realized
very early is that living without a home is extremely difficult. The
experience humbled him in a way he never imagined. It's made him
realize he's not as tough as he thought he was.

Barton arrived in Vancouver on March 1.

By 2: 30 p. m., he was standing in the pouring rain at Main and
Hastings in old baggy, faded jeans, a light blue Gore Tex jacket that
had seen better days. He didn't have a cent in his pockets. He took
off his wedding ring, too. He blended right in.

Barton spent his first night in The Haven, the Salvation Army shelter
on East Cordova and Columbia. That was when he realized he was no
longer being seen as a respected fundraiser and activist. He was
another nobody looking for a place to sleep.

Barton slept in a dormitory with three strangers. It smelled of feet
and unwashed bodies. During the night, he got a chill, but staff
wouldn't give him an extra blanket.

"I remember waking up at about four or five in the morning with a
brutal headache," he said. "I was cold all night. I was really tense.
I thought: ' What have I got myself into'? This is my first morning
and I have 29 more to go."

After four days at The Haven, he left for the Union Gospel Mission on
East Hastings and Princess. Over the course of his exploration of
homelessness, he would visit most of the secular social service and
Christian based organizations in the neighbourhood, ranging from First
United Church, The Dugout, and the Carnegie Community Centre to The
Lord's Rain, Oppenheimer Park Drop-in and PHS Drug Users Resources
Centre.

He saw how the different organizations operate in the
neighbourhood.

"All these shelters have their niche in the marketplace, "he said.
"It's a business. The Haven is geared to a crowd that's for the most
part 40- years plus. Their illnesses or addictions aren't always
readily apparent. They're broken. They've almost become a product of
the system."

At First United Church at the corner of East Hastings and Gore, he
said the crowd is younger and much edgier. Mental health issues and
addictions are on the surface. It attracts more women from the sex
trade and more people with attitude. He saw more anger and much more
desperation.

Union Gospel Mission had a mix of older people who have been through
the system and know how it works. It has its share of the mentally ill
and what Barton called "sad cases.

"They have a lot of crackerjacks - people who reek, addicts, the worst
of the worst," he said. "They know they can go there."

What's appealing about UGM, he said, is that every night you slept on
clean sheets that you don't have to share with bedbugs. If you have
dirty laundry, it's cleaned and folded and placed at the end of your
bed so that it's ready in the morning.

Discovering the DTES

One of Barton's worst days came during his second week. After being
given a sleeping bag at UGM, he planned to spend his first night
outside at what he thought would be a relatively safe place at Water
and Abbott. That's when he met Noble, who convinced him that it wasn't
a good idea. He invited Barton to share the loading dock near Main and
5th. But Barton chickened out.

"I woke up Saturday and felt like a big failure," he said. "I hadn't
stuck to my plan. I was really down. I said to myself: ' Jay, don't
look at staying out for a week. Take it one day at a time. If you
can't handle it after one night, you can go back to a shelter.'"

Barton realized he was spending most of his time figuring out how to
survive. It was only after adjusting to his situation that he started
to notice his environment. He saw older guys who looked like they'd
been so beaten down they were virtually institutionalized. He saw
young guys in shelters turning down a day's work, lunch included. He
also has seen acts of kindness at shelters by both staff and the homeless.

As a former crack addict, Barton found himself sensitive to the open
drug use in the neighbourhood.

One day he was at the Carnegie Centre when someone was chased out for
shooting up in the washroom. He knew what went on in the Downtown
Eastside, but it still surprised him to see men and women using drugs
so openly in the lanes and sidewalks.

Drugs, he said, are about 25- per-cent cheaper here than they are in
Toronto. At Main and Hastings, you can get a rock of crack cocaine for
$ 2. A crack pipe already loaded with a rock is $ 5.

Barton believes the prices, lack of enforcement by police and the
weather are among the reasons why addicts from elsewhere in the
country head west to the Downtown Eastside. He recognized two drug
users from the streets in Toronto.

"It's completely different from Toronto," he said. "There are so many
drugs and so many choices 24- 7 within a few blocks.

"If I'd known about this place when I was an addict, I would have come
out here. I wouldn't have worried about getting busted. People come
here to party for a week - and some don't leave."

Barton said he's not criticizing harm reduction programs. He realizes
police can't arrest everybody who openly uses drugs on the street. He
doesn't intend to be judgmental by saying what he's seen on the
streets of the Downtown Eastside.

"In Toronto, it's behind closed doors and in little pockets throughout
the city," he said. "It's not condensed in a few blocks like here."

What's also surprised him are the constant challenges around food.
He's come to understand what the saying "beggars can't be choosers"
really means.

There is very little chance to ask anyone to cook or prepare food the
way you want it. When you're relying on charity, you have to take the
food the way it's served to you.

Complicating matters is that Barton is a vegetarian. He found it a
constant struggle to find meals where meat isn't served.

In the prison-like atmosphere in shelters and soup kitchens with its
male pecking order, making it known you're a vegetarian means standing
out in a way that's not welcome. Over the course of the month, he lost
about nine kilograms ( 20 lbs.) and dropped to 74 kgs ( 165 lbs.).

"I've had staff look me in the eye. I know they're thinking: ' Geez
this bum, he's here at our place and I'm about to give him chili and
he says he'd like a vegetarian option. Who does he think he is?'"

Barton said his time on the Downtown Eastside has been a spiritual
journey for him. Many nights he's prayed for the strength to get
through the night and the next day.

"My upbringing taught me that you don't judge anyone," he said. "Just
because you have a Mercedes you're no better, and just because you
push a cart you're no worse." 
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D