All Thanks to Brian Brinsmeade
For the past 8 months, Rosemary and I have been spending one afternoon a week at the Learning Exchange at 121 Main Street. We started off just spending time with the drop-in patrons, and eventually gave a workshop on cross-cultural communication. For the past few months, we've redirected our energies into developing a poverty awareness workshop to be given to UBC students, which we would co-facilitate with the patrons (most of whom live in the Downtown Eastside in various housing situations).
Brian was the first patron I had the guts to talk to - and while he may disagree, I'd like to think that he's both my greatest cheerleader and greatest critiquer at the LE.
Yesterday, in between grilling me about law school and debating the existence of natural rights, Brian asked me why I was working on the poverty awareness workshop at all, given the overwhelming spate of problems troubling the DTES.
Firstly, I've had to overcome my belief that there aren't any problems on the DTES. In my blissfully-postmodernist-relativistic state, it would be too easy to assume that folks in the DTES *want* to be there. But, drug addiction sucks. Mental illness without a proper support structure sucks. Being cold, hungry, and homeless in the winter sucks, if that's not where you want to be in the first place.
That's not to say that the DTES sucks. In fact, far from it. Despite one colleague's description of the DTES as "a warzone", I still can't see it that way. It's a community - it's a collection of homes and dreams and (extra)ordinary citizens who may not have the white picket fences, but have a heck of a lot of tenacity.
Secondly, I've come to the realization that on my own, I may never end drug addiction. I may never cure mental illness. I may never come up with enough money or resources to feed, clothe and shelter all the homeless folks in the DTES.
So where does that leave me?
Perhaps the greatest strength I bring to the Learning Exchange is my connection with UBC. That is, my connection with UBC and other university-age students. I may not be able to solve all the problems in the DTES, but I can open up the minds of my fellow students so that maybe one day, they will solve the problems.
Now I just have to figure out how to convince them.
Brian was the first patron I had the guts to talk to - and while he may disagree, I'd like to think that he's both my greatest cheerleader and greatest critiquer at the LE.
Yesterday, in between grilling me about law school and debating the existence of natural rights, Brian asked me why I was working on the poverty awareness workshop at all, given the overwhelming spate of problems troubling the DTES.
Firstly, I've had to overcome my belief that there aren't any problems on the DTES. In my blissfully-postmodernist-relativistic state, it would be too easy to assume that folks in the DTES *want* to be there. But, drug addiction sucks. Mental illness without a proper support structure sucks. Being cold, hungry, and homeless in the winter sucks, if that's not where you want to be in the first place.
That's not to say that the DTES sucks. In fact, far from it. Despite one colleague's description of the DTES as "a warzone", I still can't see it that way. It's a community - it's a collection of homes and dreams and (extra)ordinary citizens who may not have the white picket fences, but have a heck of a lot of tenacity.
Secondly, I've come to the realization that on my own, I may never end drug addiction. I may never cure mental illness. I may never come up with enough money or resources to feed, clothe and shelter all the homeless folks in the DTES.
So where does that leave me?
Perhaps the greatest strength I bring to the Learning Exchange is my connection with UBC. That is, my connection with UBC and other university-age students. I may not be able to solve all the problems in the DTES, but I can open up the minds of my fellow students so that maybe one day, they will solve the problems.
Now I just have to figure out how to convince them.
posted by drunken monkey at 8:11 AM
1 Comments:
I find that the DTES is more of an actual neighbourhood, more of a community than anywhere else in the Lower Mainland. There just seems to be so much more of a sense of community, that people actually know each other and help each other out.
I've seen first hand the results of drug addiction, and I see people suffering from various forms of mental illness every day (actually, most of them are the people I see in suits!) I had the theory when I was doing LSLAP that, living in such poverty, being shoved away in this corner of town where almost everyone would prefer to forget and pretend doesn't exist, if you live on the streets long enough, with poverty comes lower education (we'll leave the chicken-and-the-egg argument for another time), and lower education relates to a lower chance at a steady job, which relates to not having steady housing, which leads to living on the street, which might increase the chances of health problems such as hepatitis and tubercolosis, as well as increasing the chances of getting into using drugs ... all of those factors combined, if you live on the streets long enough, you probably will develop some form of mental illness. Just a theory I had.
It is very disturbing that we don't have an appropriate support structure for people who suffers from mental illness, and society's solution for these people when they break the law is to throw them in the psych ward or throw them in jail and stuff them full of meds and throw away the key. I think we can do better.
I think a society is measured by how we treat our weakest and neediest. From what I can see, we're doing a pretty shitty job.
I have come to the conclusion a few years ago that I can't save the world, I can't solve the problems of the DTES. However, what I can do is to try. Try a bit every day. Try to solve the problems, one person at a time. Encourage a client to go into rehab, or help them set up a bed at a recovery house, or suggest counselling. Encourage someone to work on getting back to school, finding a job, getting a place to live, making a connection with their family again. Helping someone see that life isn't as bleak as it seems and to just hang in there, a day at a time, a week at a time. Do they listen? Well, sometimes. Does it work? I'm trying ... working on it. It never ends. But that's why I'm doing what I do.
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