IN THE WINTER of 1974, I lived for a month in a nativity scene. It was outside a church, set back from the sidewalk about nine metres. There was straw in there for extra bedding; the floodlights gave off warmth, and two plywood walls helped cut the wind. For me, it was salvation. I was broke and hungry, and everything I owned I carted about on my back. I was trying to avoid shelters, since it was easier to get robbed or beaten there than on the street. No one ever bothered me in the nativity scene. From the street, I must have looked like a lump of straw. I crept out every morning long before anyone else was around.
I felt a measure of comfort there surrounded by the wise men, the baby Jesus, his parents, the animals and the huge glittering star at the apex of the roof. Even though the biblical story meant little to me, lying in the midst of such a great promise to the world allowed me to believe that things would change. I prayed for that to happen, actually. Shivering in the cold, sleeping fitfully, I vowed to do whatever it took to get out of those circumstances.
I hit the streets every day, scanned the classifieds, joined a job bank, but it still took forever to find a job. It was tough to do so with no education and no appreciable skills. Finally, I landed a minimum wage job in a hide-tanning factory. I had to clean the hides when they arrived, which meant scraping flesh and removing hair and stretching the hides out to dry. It was stinky, foul, nasty work. Minimum wage in Ontario then was $2 an hour. It took me twelve weeks to save enough for rent and a damage deposit.
The only room I could afford was one of twelve in a three-storey rooming house. It was about the size of a jail cell, with a small window looking out over an alley. The floor buckled in the middle, and the only furnishings were a wooden chair, a bed, a lamp and a busted-up armchair. There was a one-burner hot plate and a small sink stained red with rust. The radiators clanked and groaned all night long. In the dark I would often hear something skittering across the floor. Still, it was a home, and I was grateful.
I spent many nights tossing and turning in that room, listening to drunken shouts and radios blaring tinny country music. I can still smell the urine, spilled wine and old cigarette smoke that permeated the halls. I lived on tuna, Kraft Dinner and day-old bread and pastries from the Salvation Army. I washed my few clothes in that rusty sink and spread them on the radiators to dry. Life was hard, but I had a roof over my head, and I had hope.
I thought about all of this recently, when I was asked to give the keynote address at a national conference on homelessness in Calgary. Of the more than six hundred delegates, the majority were academics: researchers, report writers, study instigators and journal editors. The only homeless people there were the street artists selling their work in the lobby. I was the only presenter who had ever lived on the street, which I found odd and unsettling. Instead of delegates hearing the genuine voices of the homeless, they attended workshops and seminars led by people who earned their livings courtesy of other people’s misfortune.
I’m guessing none of those so-called experts knew how concrete smells when you’re lying on it, or how it feels against your spine. Probably not one of them had ever experienced the sting of a morning frost on their faces or the incredible stiffness that seizes your joints when a winter wind blows over you all night long. Dozens of them were there all-expenses paid, with cash per diems in their pockets.
Every person deserves somewhere safe and comfortable to live. It struck me that homeless people and Native people have a lot in common—we’ve both had industries built up around us. Government departments, social agencies, social workers, police divisions, university departments, hospitals, media and the odd film crew all depend on us. If Native people or homeless people were to disappear, thousands of people would be out of work. But participants deemed the conference a success, and plans were begun for another.
Having been around Native issues for thirty years now, I’ve seen how often we’ve been researched, studied and Royal Commissioned. The end result of all that paperwork has been more paperwork. Only fairly recently, when Native people have begun speaking for ourselves have we gained any ground. It’s a similar situation with the homeless. Folks are so busy concentrating on the issue that they forget about the people. Homeless people should have a voice in any developments that affect them. It’s not enough to study, analyze, survey or count them. Homeless people need to tell their stories, and we need to listen to them. It isn’t sufficient to treat the symptoms. We have to treat the disease, and we can only do that if we get to the bottom of what causes it.
During the month I slept in that nativity scene, I didn’t hanker for a professorial voice to speak for me. I would have liked someone to hear me. I wanted someone to know how it felt to have only a burrow in the straw to call home. I needed someone to know what a desperate situation that was, how scary sometimes. To understand how hunger at 3:00 a.m. is different from hunger at noon. How it feels to wear the same clothes for weeks or to have to wear everything you own on your body at all times so no one will steal it from you. I wanted someone to know all that because I knew from my associations at the hostels, missions and soup kitchens that I wasn’t the only one who suffered that way. The spiritual comfort of that nativity scene was memorable because it was so rare, so elusive, so fleeting.
Part of our strategy should be employing homeless people to help end homelessness. They’re the real experts after all. They’re the ones who know how it feels, and that experience is worth more than all the conjecture, supposition and research dollars in the world.