I want to thank Fred Johns for sending the idea for this to me and asking if I would write it. The writer in me has only been free for a short period and relished the compliment of being asked to write this piece. So Fred put in the Olympics, Homeless and some of the obstacles they face every day … and out of my fevered brain poured:
The Games
Like the super bacteria that recently invaded my body, IT has spread across the media. Taking up thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of hours of radio and television airtime, forests laid waste to print the hundreds of thousands of newspaper and magazine pages, and just how many terabytes of information is on the internet is mind boggling to consider. Yes, I am referring to the 2006 Olympic Winter Games. So, to take advantage of the Olympic media frenzy I present:
The ABBOTSFORD HOMELESS WINTER GAMES
Short Track Speed
For the Homeless this does not involve racing around pylons set up on a skating rink, trying to avoid being bumped or falling. For the Homeless it is about scrambling/sprinting to find shelter on those nights that lack of adequate shelter can be life threatening. With shelter for only a few percent of the Homeless in Abbotsford it can be quite a scramble. As a strategy, I keep my 5 days in reserve for life threatening emergencies. So when the super bacterial invaded my body I was able to use one night for shelter. Of course, with the usual bureaucratic idiocy, after that there was no shelter available that could accommodate my twice daily IV antibiotic schedule, forcing me back out onto the street – spiking fevers, facing surgery to implant a drain for the puss and three (at this point) weeks of 2 ½ hour, twice daily hospital visits for IV treatment and dressing change.
Biathlon
Not two such dissimilar disciplines as skiing and shooting, but those interrelated needs of food and bedding/clothing. Food for the calories to burn through the long, cold, wet nights. Bedding/clothing to minimize heat loss and preserve calorie reserves in order to survive the nights. With the Downtown Business Association, the City of Abbotsford and the Abbotsford Police striving to prevent church groups from serving food to the hungry and distributing bedding/clothing to the cold, in the future this event will be even more difficult and demanding.
Ski Jumping – Large Hill
For the Homeless this involves attempting to jump through the hoops and over the barriers that the nattering nabobs of negativism in the social (un)assistance system delight in raising. Those workers have the killer instinct, going for the gold every time – the denial of help.
X country pursuit
A new event, added this winter. With the efforts to drive the Homeless out of downtown Abbotsford and into residential neighbourhoods, aided by some of the more ‘enthusiastic’ members of the Abbotsford Police Department (yes I have witnessed this ‘enthusiasm’ – but fortunately have avoided having it applied to my person). With the city government wearing its blindfold in regards to the Homeless this can be a very important event to the Homeless. Of course there is a great irony in the lawyers who make their living from the prostitutes, drug dealers, addicts, the mentally ill and any homeless unfortunate to run afoul of the police and courts – campaigning to drive them away from their offices and into the residential neighbourhoods of Abbotsford using the police. Still, the ability to avoid pursuit, avoid attracting the attention of the wrong police officers and remain under the radar can have very beneficial health benefits for those successful in this competition.
X country 50 Km
I feel a shared spirit with these competitors. In for the long haul, endurance, striving to put one foot in front of the other and struggling forward when it feels as though you are carrying a 100 Kg load on your back. The advantage the athletes have over me is that they know were the finish line is. I have no idea where the objective (employment, shelter, food) I am struggling to reach lies. Only that it is somewhere in front of me.
Figure Skating.
Choreography. Smoothness. Grace. Yet for all this the Olympic event requires nothing close to the intricate survival dance performed daily by the Homeless. The balancing of food, shelter, clothing, bedding, weather conditions, police harassment, bathing, drinking water, bureaucratic idiocy, transportation, etc. Not to mention job searching, resume submission, cover letters, coping with the lack of a phone (which the government claims is unneeded for finding employment!), finding computer access for job searching and applications, etc. Balancing all these different needs requires choreography and a grace that Olympic figure skaters can only envy.
Curling
This event may share the most in common with our Homeless Winter Games event as both involve throwing stones. At the Olympics this involves sliding or ‘throwing’ the stones (rocks) at targets at the end of the ice sheet surface. In the Homeless Games the stones they throw are the labels they apply to the Homeless. Bums; Addicts; Lazy; do not want to work; – these are but a few of the stone labels thrown at the Homeless.
The problem with these labels is that they are what governments base their policies on. Basing policy on labels and not reality gives you the same results you would get from building City Hall or the Legislature Building in a swamp full of quicksand and sink holes – an ineffective and disastrous outcome. In building the system upon these labels it denies those working hard to find employment the necessary help: Shelter – a place to clean up, wash clothes, dress properly for interviews and job searching, a warm, safe place to sleep, one less (major) distraction from your job search. Phone – very tough for employers to contact you for interviews or a job offer when you lack a phone. Laundry – keeping your clothing clean and presentable is not cheap and no matter how good you are, you need to dress the part to get the job. …and so on. The stones of preconceived ideas thrown and held by the government and the public are a major barrier to employment and getting back into the game of life.
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Of course we do share a major pitfall with Olympic athletes – drug use. I have never had a drug or alcohol problem (touch wood). But in dealing with the effects of the labels applied in making policy, the despair and fatigue of struggling forward to attain some unseen finish line (job! home! dignity!), or the pain of repeated frustrations and disappointments – the escape and oblivion of drugs is a constantly tempting way out. The system labels you a drug user and then beats you down until drugs become a major temptation in order to escape the bleakness of your existence.
In the struggle to avoid giving in to despair I must admit a certain envy for the athletes with access to psychological support and counseling (BOY, do I now appreciate the importance of good mental health). It is a daily struggle to maintain a positive attitude so I can attempt to overcome the barriers to getting my life back. Especially when your hopes are shattered. I found a job and it was going well. Then, literally overnight, a life-threatening bacterial infection made me a very sick man. As if the fevers, surgery to drain the puss and insert a drainage tube, and 2 ½ hours twice a day antibiotic treatments were not enough – my new employer terminated me as a result of said life-threatening illness. You go to bed with a future and wake up sick as a dog and the future disappears in a puff of smoke. Talk about struggling to maintain a positive attitude.
Above all else what I would most like to have in common with the Olympic athletes is accommodation. I do not need a fancy village serving sumptuous meals and snacks. A warm room with a bed, where I can spike fevers and suffer the chills of this infection without it being life threatening. Such are my Abbotsford Homeless Winter Games dreams.