Monday, October 22, 2007
James Breckenridge and The Missing Checkered Sock
from Something Cool News
Like most people with a functioning brain, I too have wondered about the mystery of the disappearing sock. You know, the one you put in the dryer with a bunch of other socks and yet, without exception or explanation, it always goes missing. No matter where you look or what you do, the sock goes missing. Every time. Some of the greatest minds of our generation have been unable to explain the enigma of the disappearing sock.
Except, it would seem, for one James Breckenridge. Breckenridge, the subject of this week’s mini-documentary Changing Lanes, had the opportunity to espouse his wisdom to me at a Starbuck’s in Abbotsford where he had been invited to partake in a coffee with his good friend Vince Dimanno. It was within the confines of this little establishment that he explained his theory to me, also an invited guest.
“In order to understand where these socks go,” he said, “we need to conduct a study, raise some funds so we can get a bunch of dryers which we can then experiment with. Once that process is complete, we need another set of dryers to try and replicate our results. After that, we need to invest in acquiring some experts to analyze those results. And then…”
It went on like this for a little while until the search for the missing sock was costing something like three billion dollars. It was a parable of course, a metaphor for the way government works. Rather than simply solve a problem, the wisdom of our modern day politicians seems to be to first study the problem, hold a never-ending series of conferences, write a number of reports and assessments and then start all over again, costing the taxpayers innumerate sums of money yet getting no closer to an actual solution to whatever the original problem was.
Now, two things struck me as I listened to James speak on this weighty subject. Firstly, how right he was. And secondly, how he was even able to tell this story given his current situation. For those not in the know, James is homeless and has been living in his car for the past few weeks. He was laughing and making wisecracks as he spoke, and I recall wondering how a man reduced to sleeping in the front seat of his car could find anything funny. Yet there he sat, chuckling at his own joke.
See, if I were James Breckenridge I’d be a very angry, angry man. This is a guy who has championed the homeless and worked tirelessly for them during his time at the Salvation Army Shelter where he works. And when not working, he has written extensively on his blog and to local newspapers, doing everything he can to raise awareness on the issue. Even now, homeless and alone, he is working on a way to get to Kamloops to attend a housing conference there or some such thing. He’s going to class to learn how to better help other people even as he himself needs help. Who is this guy?
And what result has James garnered for all this virtuous work? A giant goosegg, that’s what. He wrote a letter to local newspapers – a letter that was actually published – but not one of his friends/acquaintances stepped forward to offer him a place to live. These are the same people James tries to help when he can and defends when someone speaks ill of them. Even though some of them have a couch or a spare room they could lend, they remain silent and allow James to sleep in his 1987 Plymouth Duster.
The media hasn’t been any more accommodating. How do they repay him for all his insightful writing that he does for free? They also ignore his plight. The newspapers know he is homeless and living in his car – they published the letter that he wrote telling them so. Did they dispatch a single reporter to cover this development? Did they try and raise awareness about what he was going through? No – instead they remained silent, leaving it to SomethingCool News to tell the story.
Which, of course, we were more than happy to do. The point of it all is that we really shouldn’t have to, just as James really shouldn’t have to call a Rest Area along the freeway home. In a community that bills itself as caring and “Christian”, this kind of thing really should not be allowed.
It’s a point James understands well. “You know that thing that really pisses me off?” James said to me, taking a sip of his coveted coffee. “If I went into a local church, raised my hands and said, ‘Hallelujah, Praise the Lord!’, all of sudden everyone would come forward to help me. But because I don’t do that, I end up sleeping in my car. How’s that for a caring community?”
It reminds me something I read recently – a story in the newspaper about a church that was luring kids into church by allowing them to play the ultra-violent video game Halo 3. In justifying this, one of the pastors said, “We want to make it hard for teenagers to go to hell. If you want to connect with young teenage boys and drag them into church, free alcohol and pornographic movies would do it. My own take is that we can do much better than that.”
So….lure the kids into the church, let them play a violent video game and then tell them that doing so is wrong? It’s the kind of blatant hypocrisy James knows well. Once the “sin” of being homelessness is forgiven, then all is good. Then people can help. But until the homeless beg for forgiveness, they’re ears, eyes and mouth are closed.
The pastor at the Halo Church said that God wants ministers to be “fishers of men.” Elaborating further (and using a more disturbing tone), he said, “Teens are our fish. So we’ve become creative in baiting our hooks.”
Evidently, it’s not just the teens that are the fish, but the homeless as well. And until they start tugging on the bait, well, they’re just going to have to get used to sleeping outside, or as it is in James’ case, in their cars.
But James isn’t angry about that and instead makes a joke about it. I don’t understand how this man is able to turn so many negatives into such positives, but he does. For him, being a fish is an alright life, not one that he necessarily wanted or chose, but then why be depressed about it? Whether he’s angry or sad, he’s still going to be homeless, so I guess in his mind, he’s better off thinking about disappearing socks. I mean, if no one else seems to have any emotion on the subject, why should he?
Fred Johns
Like most people with a functioning brain, I too have wondered about the mystery of the disappearing sock. You know, the one you put in the dryer with a bunch of other socks and yet, without exception or explanation, it always goes missing. No matter where you look or what you do, the sock goes missing. Every time. Some of the greatest minds of our generation have been unable to explain the enigma of the disappearing sock.
Except, it would seem, for one James Breckenridge. Breckenridge, the subject of this week’s mini-documentary Changing Lanes, had the opportunity to espouse his wisdom to me at a Starbuck’s in Abbotsford where he had been invited to partake in a coffee with his good friend Vince Dimanno. It was within the confines of this little establishment that he explained his theory to me, also an invited guest.
“In order to understand where these socks go,” he said, “we need to conduct a study, raise some funds so we can get a bunch of dryers which we can then experiment with. Once that process is complete, we need another set of dryers to try and replicate our results. After that, we need to invest in acquiring some experts to analyze those results. And then…”
It went on like this for a little while until the search for the missing sock was costing something like three billion dollars. It was a parable of course, a metaphor for the way government works. Rather than simply solve a problem, the wisdom of our modern day politicians seems to be to first study the problem, hold a never-ending series of conferences, write a number of reports and assessments and then start all over again, costing the taxpayers innumerate sums of money yet getting no closer to an actual solution to whatever the original problem was.
Now, two things struck me as I listened to James speak on this weighty subject. Firstly, how right he was. And secondly, how he was even able to tell this story given his current situation. For those not in the know, James is homeless and has been living in his car for the past few weeks. He was laughing and making wisecracks as he spoke, and I recall wondering how a man reduced to sleeping in the front seat of his car could find anything funny. Yet there he sat, chuckling at his own joke.
See, if I were James Breckenridge I’d be a very angry, angry man. This is a guy who has championed the homeless and worked tirelessly for them during his time at the Salvation Army Shelter where he works. And when not working, he has written extensively on his blog and to local newspapers, doing everything he can to raise awareness on the issue. Even now, homeless and alone, he is working on a way to get to Kamloops to attend a housing conference there or some such thing. He’s going to class to learn how to better help other people even as he himself needs help. Who is this guy?
And what result has James garnered for all this virtuous work? A giant goosegg, that’s what. He wrote a letter to local newspapers – a letter that was actually published – but not one of his friends/acquaintances stepped forward to offer him a place to live. These are the same people James tries to help when he can and defends when someone speaks ill of them. Even though some of them have a couch or a spare room they could lend, they remain silent and allow James to sleep in his 1987 Plymouth Duster.
The media hasn’t been any more accommodating. How do they repay him for all his insightful writing that he does for free? They also ignore his plight. The newspapers know he is homeless and living in his car – they published the letter that he wrote telling them so. Did they dispatch a single reporter to cover this development? Did they try and raise awareness about what he was going through? No – instead they remained silent, leaving it to SomethingCool News to tell the story.
Which, of course, we were more than happy to do. The point of it all is that we really shouldn’t have to, just as James really shouldn’t have to call a Rest Area along the freeway home. In a community that bills itself as caring and “Christian”, this kind of thing really should not be allowed.
It’s a point James understands well. “You know that thing that really pisses me off?” James said to me, taking a sip of his coveted coffee. “If I went into a local church, raised my hands and said, ‘Hallelujah, Praise the Lord!’, all of sudden everyone would come forward to help me. But because I don’t do that, I end up sleeping in my car. How’s that for a caring community?”
It reminds me something I read recently – a story in the newspaper about a church that was luring kids into church by allowing them to play the ultra-violent video game Halo 3. In justifying this, one of the pastors said, “We want to make it hard for teenagers to go to hell. If you want to connect with young teenage boys and drag them into church, free alcohol and pornographic movies would do it. My own take is that we can do much better than that.”
So….lure the kids into the church, let them play a violent video game and then tell them that doing so is wrong? It’s the kind of blatant hypocrisy James knows well. Once the “sin” of being homelessness is forgiven, then all is good. Then people can help. But until the homeless beg for forgiveness, they’re ears, eyes and mouth are closed.
The pastor at the Halo Church said that God wants ministers to be “fishers of men.” Elaborating further (and using a more disturbing tone), he said, “Teens are our fish. So we’ve become creative in baiting our hooks.”
Evidently, it’s not just the teens that are the fish, but the homeless as well. And until they start tugging on the bait, well, they’re just going to have to get used to sleeping outside, or as it is in James’ case, in their cars.
But James isn’t angry about that and instead makes a joke about it. I don’t understand how this man is able to turn so many negatives into such positives, but he does. For him, being a fish is an alright life, not one that he necessarily wanted or chose, but then why be depressed about it? Whether he’s angry or sad, he’s still going to be homeless, so I guess in his mind, he’s better off thinking about disappearing socks. I mean, if no one else seems to have any emotion on the subject, why should he?
Fred Johns
Nice to read someone was paying attention.
I was sent the link http://www.james-strocel.com/2007/10/21/homeless-in-abbotsford/
As you can tell I liked the comments - it was very nice to see someone was paying attention as they read.
It’s been said that in many ways Abbotsford is a big city that thinks it’s a small town. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the way that it deals with its big city problems. Ironically, it may be a sense of civic pride that keeps us from addressing these issues properly. Homelessness? Prostitution? Drug problems? Not in our fair city. Such problems become even harder to talk about when you’re caught between two extremes of rhetoric on the problem. Either you’re a heartless monster for not wanting to support poor decision making, or you’re a bleeding heart communist for displaying common compassion.
Somewhere in between is James Breckenridge, the writer and maintainer of Homeless in Abbotsford. If there is a face to the homeless problem in Abbotsford, or anywhere else in North America, this man is it. He has to deal directly with the problem of expensive housing, mental illness, and an intractable city hall. He offers us not only rhetoric against homelessness, but innovative hands-on solutions to a complex problem. The post titled “Who is/Who are the homeless” outlines exactly how complex and intractable homelessness can be. I was particularly fond of his proposals to allow the homeless free access to showers and bathrooms at our public recreation centers. It seems to be cost effective, and the ID card system would provide access to services that would help get people off the streets for good. These and other posts outline how magic bullets are impossible, but small scale solutions can do so much.
As I read Mr. Breckenridge’s posts, I wondered how many people knew about the solutions he was writing about. It turns out, many of his ideas come from successful programs in other municipalities. I believe that the reason people hold back on doing more for the homeless is that they are afraid that their time and money will be wasted on short-term solutions. If there is more information and more options for people to direct their funds and their compassion, maybe we can provide an environment where advocates for the homeless can have less frustration and more success.
As you can tell I liked the comments - it was very nice to see someone was paying attention as they read.
It’s been said that in many ways Abbotsford is a big city that thinks it’s a small town. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the way that it deals with its big city problems. Ironically, it may be a sense of civic pride that keeps us from addressing these issues properly. Homelessness? Prostitution? Drug problems? Not in our fair city. Such problems become even harder to talk about when you’re caught between two extremes of rhetoric on the problem. Either you’re a heartless monster for not wanting to support poor decision making, or you’re a bleeding heart communist for displaying common compassion.
Somewhere in between is James Breckenridge, the writer and maintainer of Homeless in Abbotsford. If there is a face to the homeless problem in Abbotsford, or anywhere else in North America, this man is it. He has to deal directly with the problem of expensive housing, mental illness, and an intractable city hall. He offers us not only rhetoric against homelessness, but innovative hands-on solutions to a complex problem. The post titled “Who is/Who are the homeless” outlines exactly how complex and intractable homelessness can be. I was particularly fond of his proposals to allow the homeless free access to showers and bathrooms at our public recreation centers. It seems to be cost effective, and the ID card system would provide access to services that would help get people off the streets for good. These and other posts outline how magic bullets are impossible, but small scale solutions can do so much.
As I read Mr. Breckenridge’s posts, I wondered how many people knew about the solutions he was writing about. It turns out, many of his ideas come from successful programs in other municipalities. I believe that the reason people hold back on doing more for the homeless is that they are afraid that their time and money will be wasted on short-term solutions. If there is more information and more options for people to direct their funds and their compassion, maybe we can provide an environment where advocates for the homeless can have less frustration and more success.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Maxine Wilson, Mayor of Coquitlam
At first, he’s just another man sitting in the trash. His face is layered in dirt, his clothes are in even worse shape and judging by his choice of associates, he is a man who has truly hit rock bottom. Sitting on a log near Coquitlam River, he is sandwiched between a woman who seems to be constantly twitching and another man who is clearly drunk. And yet something separates this man from his company – his eyes seem slightly more vibrant and for a moment, it seems almost like he doesn’t belong here.
That’s because he doesn’t. (Indeed, does anyone?) This man has a home, an apartment somewhere – or so he says. He admits he used to call this forest home, but those days are behind him. He boasts that he is one of the lucky ones that escaped this life of despair, but has ties here still which brings him back to his former stomping grounds from time to time. But the real surprise comes when he is asked how he got his house. He smiles and then says proudly, “The Mayor got it for me.”
As this conversation is taking place in Port Coquitlam, one naturally assumes it is the Mayor of PoCo that is responsible for helping this man, but that assumption would be wrong. The man explains that it wasn’t Scott Young that helped him out, but the Mayor of a neighbouring city that helped out. “Maxine Wilson helped me,” he says, referring to the Mayor of Coquitlam. Then he adds, scathingly, “She actually cares about people.”
Does she now? I think to myself. It's rare to hear someone who used to be homeless say something nice about politicians, so this indeed something unique. The man seems to suggest that Mayor Wilson is different than other mayors, as evidenced by what she did for him. But I have only this man's word to go on - I've never spoken to the Mayor of Coquitlam. I have a feeling that is about to change.
***
The walls on her office seem to suggest a connection to people. On all sides of the giant desk that Mrs. Wilson sits behind whenever she is actually in her office, are pictures of her surrounded by giant clumps of humanity. In one picture, she is seen smiling with a group of Asians, in other she is seen grinning with her City Council. But perhaps the most telling portrait of Maxine Wilson is the one of her and her daughter as the watched the last election results come in. Her daughter is clasping her hand over her mouth and Maxine is looking on expectantly. It’s a picture a newspaper photographer captured and sent to Maxine who proudly posted it on her wall.
“How old do you think my daughter is?” she asks me as I study the picture closely. She’s a very young-looking girl, with a youthful face that could easily fit into any high school hallway. I venture a guess of sixteen. She laughs. Turns out the young woman is actually in her thirties. “Everyone gets that wrong,” she says.
She sits down in one of the seats that surrounds a small table in the other end of her office. I sit down next to her and begin explaining why I wanted to interview her, which means telling her about the man in the forest. When I had called her the day previous, I had left a message with her secretary that I wanted to discuss “homelessness” and that she could return my call whenever it was convenient. Less than an hour later, my phone rang and it was her.
Right away, she expressed her interest in the interview. “How does tomorrow sound?” she asked me. I was caught off guard, but maybe that’s because I am permanently scarred from my Mary Reeves ordeal. I said that it was fine. “How does 1:30 work for you?” I politely asked if I could bump that up to 2:00. “Sure, that’s fine. Whatever works best for you.”
I couldn’t conceal my surprise and quickly agreed to the interview. A phone call made to Scott Young last week was still not returned (but would be an hour later) and already I had an interview set up with the Mayor of Coquitlam for the next day. And remember, Mrs. Wilson and I had never met, and she had probably never even heard of SomethingCool News. Colour me impressed.
I mentioned Scott Young’s name at the start of the interview, explaining that I had spoken to him many times regarding the homeless problem in PoCo and expressed my view that until any sort of conviction appeared, he deserved the benefit of the doubt. She seemed to agree.
“People are products of their environment,” Wilson said calmly. “Scott’s had a difficult life. He’s a very easy Mayor to work with and remember, I am a woman saying that. He’s got some issues and he has to deal with them.”
What she didn’t agree with so much was PoCo’s policy of dealing with the homeless – i.e., tearing down their camps 85 times so far this year. “What PoCo is facing – and what we face – are residents who are afraid for their safety and are worried that they will be robbed so they phone the City and want something done,” she said. “But the only thing that will ever change it is to change the societal attitudes from being ones that are fear-based to realizing that we all have needs and we all need to support each other.”
Indeed, one resident of PoCo who watched the SCN mini-documentary The Displaced, wrote, “I live in this area and if your going to do a story about this then get all facts straight. The majority of these people are also drug addicts and we as residents are being affected greatly because they break into our homes, vehicles and steal and or vandalize our belongings. Drug deals are made in front of our children and homes. So tell the down side we as residents have to endure in the area; this is a huge problem and they create it!”
Those must the societal attitudes Mrs. Wilson is talking about. PoCo’s solution has been to destroy the camps only to watch them spring up on the other side of the trail. Maxine suggests a different solution: “The way I see we attack this is person by person and find the champions who will spread the word and mobilize so gradually people in the community help each other to be supportive.”
Okay, so I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking this all sounds like another episode of Sesame Street. It’s just another Mayor spouting off a feel-good message about humanity coming together and facing all challenges and blah blah blah. It’s the stuff someone who has never experienced the problem says from their comfy office armchair. I thought that too, but then I remembered that guy in the forest.
“Sure, I know a few people I have helped,” Mrs. Wilson replied when I inquired about this man. “I give suggestions all the time as to who people should connect up with. You know I never intended to get involved with politics, but through my years I have come to know a lot of people form a lot of different agencies.” She chuckles. “My staff always jokes that I am a walking encyclopedia because I know who to connect to what.”
She decides to give me an example. “We just had a family traumatized because their son is a cocaine addict who is facing trial. The mother has two other kids and she wasn’t able to manage her own life or the rest of the family’s and she didn’t know what to do. I know Diane Sowden from the Children of the Streets Society. I gave her Diane’s number and told her to call her and to tell her that she needed help. And she did. The next time I saw her she was beaming and her son was there too. So they are going to help their son and get past all that.”
I ask her if she feels gratified and fulfilled having partaken in such a success story. She doesn’t smile or nod – she just shrugs. “That’s my job,” is all she says and patiently waits for me to ask my next question.
There’s a lot going on in Coquitlam – the problem of homelessness may not be as bad as PoCo’s but it could one day be. It’s for that reason, that Coquitlam is working on getting some churches together to help provide shelter for some of them over the winter months and has a long term plan to lease land from the City to help house women and children who are living on the streets. It’s a place she hopes those who want help will finally be able to get it.
“My idea is not to trap anyone in a cycle of dependency,” she elaborates. “We want to help every person that wants it. We are all co-dependent, symbiotic. We all need each other. Each person should be given the chance to be as resilient and independent as they can manage.”
I tell her about the disturbing information I came across when filming the mini-documentary – that there may be a pregnant woman living in the forest. She counters that she has heard there may as many as forty women living in the woods. About the pregnant woman, she asks, “Who can she learn to trust again and how can she learn to stay together with her family? It doesn’t do us any good to blame anyone – each of us must step up to the plate and take personal responsibility. These people are not numbers. Each has a different story and needs to be supported.”
Like the man in the forest? “That’s right,” she says, again refusing to congratulate herself. So I ask again how it makes her feel to know there is one man who feels he owes Mayor Maxine Wilson something. “It means that one person ahs been able to progress in life,” she responds passively. “But there are many more we need to support. I’m not great. I’m just another ordinary person. There are so many other people out there who are doing good things, much greater than what I am doing. I’m just an average person who as an accident of circumstances ended up being Mayor.”
She paints herself – like the pictures on her wall do – as a woman who is just part of something much larger. “We all need to pull it together,” she continues. “We all need to make sure that everyone is included in our society. Put simply, if you see there needs to be change, change it.” I notice for the first time she looks nothing like a Mayor is supposed to. And then she says, “That’s all of our jobs.”
That’s because he doesn’t. (Indeed, does anyone?) This man has a home, an apartment somewhere – or so he says. He admits he used to call this forest home, but those days are behind him. He boasts that he is one of the lucky ones that escaped this life of despair, but has ties here still which brings him back to his former stomping grounds from time to time. But the real surprise comes when he is asked how he got his house. He smiles and then says proudly, “The Mayor got it for me.”
As this conversation is taking place in Port Coquitlam, one naturally assumes it is the Mayor of PoCo that is responsible for helping this man, but that assumption would be wrong. The man explains that it wasn’t Scott Young that helped him out, but the Mayor of a neighbouring city that helped out. “Maxine Wilson helped me,” he says, referring to the Mayor of Coquitlam. Then he adds, scathingly, “She actually cares about people.”
Does she now? I think to myself. It's rare to hear someone who used to be homeless say something nice about politicians, so this indeed something unique. The man seems to suggest that Mayor Wilson is different than other mayors, as evidenced by what she did for him. But I have only this man's word to go on - I've never spoken to the Mayor of Coquitlam. I have a feeling that is about to change.
***
The walls on her office seem to suggest a connection to people. On all sides of the giant desk that Mrs. Wilson sits behind whenever she is actually in her office, are pictures of her surrounded by giant clumps of humanity. In one picture, she is seen smiling with a group of Asians, in other she is seen grinning with her City Council. But perhaps the most telling portrait of Maxine Wilson is the one of her and her daughter as the watched the last election results come in. Her daughter is clasping her hand over her mouth and Maxine is looking on expectantly. It’s a picture a newspaper photographer captured and sent to Maxine who proudly posted it on her wall.
“How old do you think my daughter is?” she asks me as I study the picture closely. She’s a very young-looking girl, with a youthful face that could easily fit into any high school hallway. I venture a guess of sixteen. She laughs. Turns out the young woman is actually in her thirties. “Everyone gets that wrong,” she says.
She sits down in one of the seats that surrounds a small table in the other end of her office. I sit down next to her and begin explaining why I wanted to interview her, which means telling her about the man in the forest. When I had called her the day previous, I had left a message with her secretary that I wanted to discuss “homelessness” and that she could return my call whenever it was convenient. Less than an hour later, my phone rang and it was her.
Right away, she expressed her interest in the interview. “How does tomorrow sound?” she asked me. I was caught off guard, but maybe that’s because I am permanently scarred from my Mary Reeves ordeal. I said that it was fine. “How does 1:30 work for you?” I politely asked if I could bump that up to 2:00. “Sure, that’s fine. Whatever works best for you.”
I couldn’t conceal my surprise and quickly agreed to the interview. A phone call made to Scott Young last week was still not returned (but would be an hour later) and already I had an interview set up with the Mayor of Coquitlam for the next day. And remember, Mrs. Wilson and I had never met, and she had probably never even heard of SomethingCool News. Colour me impressed.
I mentioned Scott Young’s name at the start of the interview, explaining that I had spoken to him many times regarding the homeless problem in PoCo and expressed my view that until any sort of conviction appeared, he deserved the benefit of the doubt. She seemed to agree.
“People are products of their environment,” Wilson said calmly. “Scott’s had a difficult life. He’s a very easy Mayor to work with and remember, I am a woman saying that. He’s got some issues and he has to deal with them.”
What she didn’t agree with so much was PoCo’s policy of dealing with the homeless – i.e., tearing down their camps 85 times so far this year. “What PoCo is facing – and what we face – are residents who are afraid for their safety and are worried that they will be robbed so they phone the City and want something done,” she said. “But the only thing that will ever change it is to change the societal attitudes from being ones that are fear-based to realizing that we all have needs and we all need to support each other.”
Indeed, one resident of PoCo who watched the SCN mini-documentary The Displaced, wrote, “I live in this area and if your going to do a story about this then get all facts straight. The majority of these people are also drug addicts and we as residents are being affected greatly because they break into our homes, vehicles and steal and or vandalize our belongings. Drug deals are made in front of our children and homes. So tell the down side we as residents have to endure in the area; this is a huge problem and they create it!”
Those must the societal attitudes Mrs. Wilson is talking about. PoCo’s solution has been to destroy the camps only to watch them spring up on the other side of the trail. Maxine suggests a different solution: “The way I see we attack this is person by person and find the champions who will spread the word and mobilize so gradually people in the community help each other to be supportive.”
Okay, so I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking this all sounds like another episode of Sesame Street. It’s just another Mayor spouting off a feel-good message about humanity coming together and facing all challenges and blah blah blah. It’s the stuff someone who has never experienced the problem says from their comfy office armchair. I thought that too, but then I remembered that guy in the forest.
“Sure, I know a few people I have helped,” Mrs. Wilson replied when I inquired about this man. “I give suggestions all the time as to who people should connect up with. You know I never intended to get involved with politics, but through my years I have come to know a lot of people form a lot of different agencies.” She chuckles. “My staff always jokes that I am a walking encyclopedia because I know who to connect to what.”
She decides to give me an example. “We just had a family traumatized because their son is a cocaine addict who is facing trial. The mother has two other kids and she wasn’t able to manage her own life or the rest of the family’s and she didn’t know what to do. I know Diane Sowden from the Children of the Streets Society. I gave her Diane’s number and told her to call her and to tell her that she needed help. And she did. The next time I saw her she was beaming and her son was there too. So they are going to help their son and get past all that.”
I ask her if she feels gratified and fulfilled having partaken in such a success story. She doesn’t smile or nod – she just shrugs. “That’s my job,” is all she says and patiently waits for me to ask my next question.
There’s a lot going on in Coquitlam – the problem of homelessness may not be as bad as PoCo’s but it could one day be. It’s for that reason, that Coquitlam is working on getting some churches together to help provide shelter for some of them over the winter months and has a long term plan to lease land from the City to help house women and children who are living on the streets. It’s a place she hopes those who want help will finally be able to get it.
“My idea is not to trap anyone in a cycle of dependency,” she elaborates. “We want to help every person that wants it. We are all co-dependent, symbiotic. We all need each other. Each person should be given the chance to be as resilient and independent as they can manage.”
I tell her about the disturbing information I came across when filming the mini-documentary – that there may be a pregnant woman living in the forest. She counters that she has heard there may as many as forty women living in the woods. About the pregnant woman, she asks, “Who can she learn to trust again and how can she learn to stay together with her family? It doesn’t do us any good to blame anyone – each of us must step up to the plate and take personal responsibility. These people are not numbers. Each has a different story and needs to be supported.”
Like the man in the forest? “That’s right,” she says, again refusing to congratulate herself. So I ask again how it makes her feel to know there is one man who feels he owes Mayor Maxine Wilson something. “It means that one person ahs been able to progress in life,” she responds passively. “But there are many more we need to support. I’m not great. I’m just another ordinary person. There are so many other people out there who are doing good things, much greater than what I am doing. I’m just an average person who as an accident of circumstances ended up being Mayor.”
She paints herself – like the pictures on her wall do – as a woman who is just part of something much larger. “We all need to pull it together,” she continues. “We all need to make sure that everyone is included in our society. Put simply, if you see there needs to be change, change it.” I notice for the first time she looks nothing like a Mayor is supposed to. And then she says, “That’s all of our jobs.”
