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

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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

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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

CHRISTINA WATTS of North Vancouver beat aut dozens of competitors to win the 18 years and over category in the recent B.C. Highland Dancing Champi-

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