Nowhere to Call Home

March 15, 2008

By Robert Mangelsdorf
Maple Ridge News

Everyone makes mistakes, says Pete Johnson, and then you end up out here.
For him, that is the woods behind Catalina Pools and Spas, off the Haney Bypass in downtown Maple Ridge, where Johnson calls home.
On Tuesday, dozens of volunteers scoured local streets, back alleys and shelters looking for people like Johnson, those living without a home in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows as part of the Metro Vancouver Homeless Count.
While official numbers won’t be released until April 8, many involved with the count said the local numbers were up from the last count in 2005.
“Some people will be shocked with the results,” says David Spears, project manager with Alouette Home Start, who was helping to co-ordinate efforts locally.
Johnson doesn’t need a survey to tell him what he already knows.
“There’s a lot more, a hell of a lot more out here these days,” he says. “A lot people hate it, they don’t want to be out here. They just want a home, but they can’t afford one.”
Johnson has been homeless for more than five years, by choice.
“My wife kicked me out one day,” he says, lying down on a cardboard refrigerator box, sharpening a large metal blade with a whittled whetstone. “She thought I’d come back, but I learned to like it out here.”
Johnson stayed at the Salvation Army shelter for a while, but was asked to leave after getting in a skirmish with his wife, who still stays there.
Rob McGowan stayed at the shelter and was also kicked out. He camps with Johnson now and says he also prefers living in the woods.
“I’m an advocate for freedom,” says McGowan. “It’s a lifestyle.”
Both say they love to sleep under the stars, not having to answer to anyone and doing as they please, but they are not young men any more.
“It’s getting harder and harder,” to live outside, says Johnson. “I’m getting old and I’m sore.”
He is in his 40s and has spent much of his adult life in and out of jail, mainly for parole violations, he says.
“Jail is like a vacation, especially in the winter time. It’s warm, they feed you, and no one messes with you if you don’t mess with them.”
McGowan just turned 50, though his face belies a man who has seen many more years. His coal-grey hands are hard and dirty, and flecked with cuts and scabs. A crescent of ripe pink flesh surrounds the finger nail of his left index finger, it’s clean freshness a sharp contrast to his dark, weathered skin.
“My finger’s all infected,” he says. “So I had to cut away all the rotten flesh.”
McGowan would like to get a place to stay, if he could, but there’s not much available for guys like him.
Most single resident occupancy units are $300 a month, but in Maple Ridge there’s nothing under $500.
“How are we supposed to afford that?” McGowan says.
Johnson has tried to find accommodation, but says he’s always turned away because of his criminal record. Some landlords won’t have anything to do with him because they’ve seen him on the streets, “And they have their own opinions about me.”
The homeless count is an important way to gauge a community’s need for shelters and support, says Spears.
“Essentially, it provides a snap-shot of the homeless situation. If a community shows a need, there will be resources given to them.”
The count also looks to identify trends in homelessness by asking people living on the street what are their reasons for being homeless, how long have they been homeless, where are they from, where they stay at night, and what services they use.
Spears said the definition of a homeless person used in the count is someone who lacks a fixed, regular and/or adequate nighttime residence.
However, the “hidden homeless” are harder to count.
“Someone might have a roof over their head, but no fixed address,” Spears says. “They can’t afford, or don’t have the ability to pay rent, so they’re couchsurfing.”
“Unless they contact us, it’s hard for us to count them.”
Johnson says he talked to the canvassers on Tuesday, but McGowan says he didn’t see them.
In the 2005 count, 42 people were counted as being homeless in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows, down from 62 in 2002.
Despite the drop in homeless numbers, Sheila McLaughlin, president of the Alouette Home Start Society, says the problem is getting worse, and will keep getting worse until there is more adequate low-income housing in the community.
She’s spearheading a project to construct a three- to four-storey supportive housing apartment complex with on-site outreach staff.
Currently, there is no supportive housing in Maple Ridge.
Her group already has a $5.4 million grant from the Provincial Homelessness Initiative to build the facility, but it is hoping the District of Maple Ridge will provide a site for free.
“That kind of money doesn’t go too far in this construction market,” she said.
Three years ago, Alouette Home Start proposed a similar project on Burnett Street, but that fell through after funding was turned down and neighbours complained.
Salvation Army Captain Kathie Chiu said this year’s numbers at the 18-bed Caring Place shelter she runs were double what they were in 2005, and until there is more affordable housing, those numbers will keep going up.
“No matter how much shelter space there is, there’s still a lack of affordable housing,” Chiu says. “Staying here forever is not an option.”
She says that even if someone gets off the streets and goes into rehab, when they get out, there is nowhere for them to live, and they inevitably relapse.
“It’s a very frustrating cycle.”
She says she supports McLaughlin’s project and hopes this year’s homeless count will help people realize what is happening on the streets.
“Hopefully the community will see what happens without supportive housing and get behind the project.”
Both Johnson and McGowan say they would be interested.
“I think it would help,” says Johnson “It’s just getting crazy out here.”