24 Hours that changed my life

Hello,

I posted on here looking for support for Mission Community Service Society's 24Hrs Homeless fundraiser.

https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/rocky-blondin-8bb32856_the-24-hr-homeless-fundraiser-program-activity-7092576782519820288-0Rn0

And I gotta say - I was blown away with the support from my community. They/we achieved our fundraising goals and the MCSS Mobile Medical Unit is up, running and providing support to those that need it.

However, what happened that I didn't expect - a lesson in walking in the shoes of others that has completely shifted my own perspective. And further to that, everyone I tell the story to - it shifts theirs too. Sometimes a little. Sometimes a lot. I'll give as brief of a synopsis as possible, but if I try to summarize my experience into one sentence for those with short attention spans:

When you fall into "the system" you now have a job to do, that comes with no training, and is a series of challenges that generally result in rejection, landing you in a place where you are relatively hopeless.

I don't want to sound dramatic. And I want to make it clear - we spent 24 hours pretending to be "homeless". But, for me I extrapolated the experience, and was faced with many people in the midst of "the system". Then the piece that brought me to crash and cry - a family that was at the doorway of "the system" due to losing their house in a fire. I was complaining about playing pretend to a friend at a local shop, and someone working there replied with "yeah, I hear you - we just lost our house last week and are trying to figure out where to go from here". An entire family, at the gates of the rejection machine that is our social support system for homelessness, through no fault of their own. That took me down.

The longer version:

We (the group that signed up for the fundraiser) came to the shelter - without any worldly items - the keys/wallet/phone checklist we all do when we leave the house, were banned items for our experience. Show up clothed, and then you go from there. This is how many people enter the system. So this is where we started from. We were signed in, and then given some info and training (Naloxone for overdose response, and other social experience talks) and at 8pm or so, were left to our own devices. We were staying in the shelter, with open drug use outside, and the entire cast of characters you'd expect.

My summary of staying in the shelter: wonderful. Was it a tough place - yes. Is open drug use sometimes scary to see - sure. The prospect of anyone overdosing at any time, and you maybe having to save a life with a jab of narcan is heavy. The food was three squares, the bed was hard, the pillow didn't exist. But, we had a roof over our head, and the staff in the shelter were amazing. And the other "customers" - mostly good people, just trying to get by.

I've worked really hard for quite some time to see everyone as a human first. Our society coaches us to put labels on everyone, and for people that are experiencing homelessness - they get all kinds of labels. But homelessness is an experience, not a label. And it does have a lot of crossover with drug use. But it is not one and the same. And we met a host of recovered addicts, that were involved with the shelter and MCSS in varying capacities. And in hearing their stories, I distilled a common theme: it was generally one serious trauma in life (sudden death of a family member was the most common) that then shot someone that was living a "normal life" into a road of mental health challenges that they came to address with a drug of choice. As a recovered alcoholic myself, I get this better than most. Drugs like opiates, alcohol, and others are medicine for pain.

So - the shelter 'customers', were great for the most part. I was really grateful to get to know the ones I met.

After sleeping in the shelter, the next morning we were given our "case plan". This was MCSS's mock-up of what working through the hurdles of "the system" would be like. Spoiler alert - it was brutal.

We started with filling out all the forms. Forms are fine, but there were dozens of them. And they all had some fields that we weren't able to fill out. Can you recite your Personal Health Number? I can't, and without it I couldn't complete the addiction services form. Want to try and find a job at WorkBC? Need your Social Insurance Number. So - I personally bounced around in the forms, to find out I need to go to ServiceBC in Abbotsford to try and recover my personal information, starting with a birth certificate and building up from there. And with no fixed address, that is really hard to do.

The one place I was able to fill out all the info for - BC Housing. I was accepted into the program for supportive housing. A win! I was also informed by my case worker that I was now on the waitlist - currently about 6-7 years. And I had to check-in on my application every 6 months or else they'd consider me housed and would take me off the waitlist. My case worker just found housing for a real client - 13 years later.

Another piece of our case-work/day plan: find housing for the government issued shelter rate amount: $500/month. I searched the paper, online, and anywhere I could think of - and found one space, in Abbotsford, that was shared accommodation and had "exchange of services for rent" required on top of the $500/mo. The BC Government just raised this amount in 2023 - it was $375 before that. So - you are expected today, for $500/mo to find shelter...

I was rejected from all other programs due to a lack of ID/paperwork.

I did get randomly assigned for my case plan to go to an AA meeting at noon. And that was wonderful. As mentioned, I am a recovered alcoholic, and this was my first AA meeting. My path to sobriety didn't require the 12-step, but for many others, this is their main means to staying sober. I gotta say, I had fun with it as they really reached out to the "new guy" (me) and were so supportive and generous with avenues of support and help for my newfound sobriety (as far as they knew). Then - I took my turn to speak and let the group know, "Hi, I'm Rocky, and I'm an alcoholic. And I've been sober for over 4 years.". They had a good chuckle as they figured I looked in pretty good shape for someone that just hit rock bottom. I'll take the compliment :)

I then worked on the rest of my case plan, working my way around town on my bike (I rode to the shelter as many people in the system also get around primarily by bike) and got more rejection looking for a place to sleep outside that night, trying to get a shower at the rec centre, and...I can't recall the other points of rejection, but I can tell you with certainty - I got to hear "no" far more than "yes".

The last piece I'd like to relay - you don't realize how much it costs to just exist, until you don't have any money. We were given a cheque for $10 for 'comfort funds'. This was to emulate the government cheques you get when you are on various supports. But I didn't have any form of ID - how do you cash a cheque? You can go to the cheque cashing places and lose 20-30 cents on the dollar. So your $500 govt cheque turns into $350 ; my $10 would become $7.

I went to my bank and because I had an account, and could remember my PIN number, I only had to fill out 3 forms and they were able to cash my $10 cheque. If I didn't remember my PIN, it would have been a tall order. So I had $10 to my name, for the whole day. When that's all you have, you don't get to just go to a coffee shop to kill a few hours. That costs at least $3.

The public library was an oasis of acceptance in a sea of rejection. The rec centre, the coffee shop, basically anywhere you can think of that requires purchase or a fee in order to be - you are not welcome when you can't pay. Our society costs a lot just to exist. That really hit home for me and makes me reconcile my privilege in this dept.

We met up with our spouses 24hrs after leaving them, and got to share our experiences. I shed a lot of emotion as I felt the real challenges that the system dishes out. I got to ride my bike home with my wife, have a hot shower, and get into clean clothes. Someone that is standing at the doorway of "the system" with only their clothes on their back - gets another day/week/month/6 years of "the system" unless they can find their own way out of it. And that is a tall order for someone that just had some serious trauma, and now (over)uses drugs to deal with that pain.

"The system"...is not something I want anyone to experience. And yet, I want almost everyone to have the same 24 hours I, and the other volunteers for the fundraiser did, to see the world through a different lens, and find some compassion for those that could use it. We as a society can do so much better. And there are people far more versed in these matters than I. We need to listen to those advocates and do better. There are humans that we are failing in their time of most need. I'm trying to do better every day, and I hope that if you read this, you can find something informative that shifts your perspective.