30 - Wednesday, May 13, 1992 - North Shore News

4

Cl

ose to home

Delving into the topic of homelessness in Canadian society

O WE have a homelessness problem in Canada,
and in British Columbia? Or does that nightmare
happen only in the developing nations and the

United States?

if our answer is no, that we
don'thave that problem, because
we don’t trip over rows of bodies
sleeping out on the streets of
North Vancouver every night,
maybe we need more under-
standing of what being homeless
means.

'

Because of my work with low-
income people, t thought that |
had a good understanding of
homelessness, until | read Sheila
Baxter’s book, Under the Viaduct.
Subtitled ‘Homeless in Beautiful
B.C.,” this: book has deepened my
understanding of the homelessness
that exists right in our com-
munities and has left me with
some disturbing knowledge that
won't conveniently go away.

There are 100,000 to 250,000
homeless in Canada, and the

Image size: 2146"x18", Edition 1500 S/N

“The
Perfect Spot”
by James Lumbers

You can get
the entire picture
at the

gallery below.

Authorized Dealer for the work of
Canadian Arist

JAMES LUMBER

109 East Ist Street
North Vancouver
985-4033
Guaranteed Qualiry, Service, Valu

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In Review
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number is growing rapidly. Baxter
presents these statistics, which are
uncomfortably large, with an
analysis of why we have
homelessness, and she suggests
solutions.

The strength of this book lies in
the human face Baxter puts on
homeless people and the voice

she gives them through her per-
sonal interviews with them and
with the front-line workers who
are involved in their lives. Her
ability to expand our definition of
homelessness helps us realize that
homelessness is more than the
American TV image of sleeping
under bridges.

The number of people in B.C.
who have no shelter and who live
on the street is small in com-
parison to the growing number of
those who are at risk of not having
any shelter, or who have no home
to call their own.

For example, when ‘Tracy’
left an abusive relationship she
went into a women’s shelter with
her five children but had to leave
after two months. She went to the
YWCA for a month and looked at
hundreds of places where the
landlord didn’t want to rent toa
single mother on welfare. Out of
desperation to find a place to live,
she moved back in with the per-
son who had abused her.

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Other single mothers in this sit-
uation are constantly on the move,
staying at friends for a week or two
at a time, or at run-down rooming
hotels, or at different emergency
shelters on different nights.

The homeless are the elderly
and our children, single men and
women, families where the
parents are under or unemployed,
and single mothers. They are also
those who are socially marginaliz-
ed because they are mentally ill,
or physicatly disabled or
chronically sick.

They are poor and, therefore,

face a market which does not
provide enough affordable, decent
housing, in a society which lacks
the political will to deal with un-
pleasant realities. Before they
became homeless, many of them
were not so different from people
whom we know.

Under the Viaduct is compelling
and unsettling reading and brings
us to see our neighborhoods and
those who live with us in our
community through new eyes.

— By Daphne Morrison, a legal
information counsellor at North
Shore Community Services.

NV dancer wins competition

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