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Homeless in Suburbia
Why shelters outside of Vancouver are filling up.
Many fleeing Downtown Eastside.
"I want my girls back in my life," Brian Felstead said. "They live with their mom here in North Van. They keep asking me, 'Dad, where do you live?'"
Felstead looked at his feet.
"It's tough. I can't tell them I'm homeless. I'd like to, but I just don't know how."
Felstead is one of thousands of homeless Canadians living in British Columbia's small cities and towns. They are less likely to be addicted or mentally ill than the typical Downtown Eastsider. In affluent municipalities like North Vancouver, many hold jobs but cannot afford homes.
The parks and forests surrounding the province's sprawling southern suburbs are likely home to the fastest-growing segment of B.C.'s homeless population. The official census of Metro Vancouver suburban homeless grew by 55 per cent between regional homelessness counts in 2002 and 2005, to 766 individuals. Experts estimate that number is now closer to 2,000.
Shelter workers figure there are already 300 to 400 homeless people living on the North Shore alone. Assuming similar growth across the region, the population of suburban homeless may have already surpassed that of the troubled Downtown Eastside.
'Just give me a job'
"It's getting worse," Felstead said.
He became homeless about five years ago. He'd been through a rough divorce, his mother and brother died, he sank into depression, quit his job, and wound up on the streets.
"When I first became homeless, I got to know a lot of the guys," he said. "They had issues -- some were alcoholics, some were drug addicts -- but all were locals, and most were pretty good people."
Not anymore. Felstead now figures that half of the North Shore homeless are refugees from the Downtown Eastside. "They come over to bottle, or to do whatever crimes they do. And they stay."
North Shore apartments start at about $700 a month, and average closer to $900 a month. Felstead said he wasted too much time trying to find somewhere to rent for the frugal $375 a month provided by the province.
"I finally found a room here in North Van for $375. It was in a basement of an old, old house." But Felstead, who is not an addict, soon realized his fellow tenants were crack dealers. "After I had my life threatened, I figured I was safer on the street."
He's slept outside ever since. "I have my own place I go. It's outside, but it's dry and warm. A couple of guys who clean the place, they keep my bedding dry during the day."
Felstead is now focused on finding permanent work instead of housing. He's a certified auto mechanic with 30 years experience.
"There are so many roadblocks," he sighed. "If you are homeless and you want to go look for work, where do you get the clothes? How do you work when you have no place to stay? How do you get up in the morning? How do you wash?"
He's looking for an employer "willing to take a chance" on him. "I don't want social services. Just give me a job. Give me back my damned dignity."
'Homelessness is seductive'
"Roadblocks are in place every step of the way," agreed Dawn Currie. "The system is designed for people to fail, and get sucked further and further into the system."
Currie became homeless in February, after a long illness left her without work. So she started living on the streets at age 59. She's spent most of the past nine months shuffling between area shelters, each of which toss clients out after two weeks.
"The shelter system sends mixed messages," she said. "Income assistance tells you to get a job, and then you will have money to find housing. But the shelter staff says, first find housing, then you will have stability and a home base from which to look for work. Income assistance will withhold funds if you do not look for a job. And the shelter will evict you if you don't look for housing."
Like Felstead, she ruled out the Downtown Eastside as too dangerous.
"Income Assistance allows $375 for rent. It's impossible to find accommodation for that amount on the North Shore. So they callously tell you to go downtown," Currie said. "But the accommodation available for the amount you are allowed would gag a yak."
Currie, who looks and speaks like any other North Shore matron, defies most stereotypes about homelessness.
"You may be walking by homeless people every day, and not recognize them for what they are," Currie said. "Not all homeless people are addicts... Not all homeless people are young... We are sons and daughters, moms and dads of the North Shore."
Against the advice of shelter staff, Currie spent much of the summer in school to update her computer skills.
"Homelessness is seductive," Currie said. "In the shelter system you are systematically stripped of responsibility, and it becomes all too easy to abrogate any and all responsibility for yourself."
Sheltering the working poor
"The North Shore homeless are different," said Richard Turton, who manages the North Shore Shelter. "There are more working poor. And the folks here are higher functioning. It's not like the Downtown Eastside."
Turton said about half of North Shore shelter clients go to work each day. "They have jobs. But the minimal rent on the North Shore is probably $900 bucks a month. If they're making $9 or $10 bucks an hour, it's going to take two months to save for your damage deposit and rent. And we have to limit their stays to two weeks. It's frustrating."
The 45-bed North Shore Shelter is run by Lookout Emergency Aid Society. It's fully occupied, and turns away "about 70" people each month. Turton figures there are between 300 and 400 homeless people living on the North Shore.
As is the case across rural B.C., most of them live in the woods, where they remain hidden from public view.
"We've got a lot of seasonal folks who come to the shelter in the winter, and in the summer they sleep outside." When the temperature dips below thresholds set by BC Housing, Turton can bed another two dozen people on the floor.
"There is no supportive housing on the North Shore. There is no detox. There is no soup kitchen. There is no medical clinic, no free showers, no laundry," Turton said.
"We have to say to people, 'I'm sorry but your stay here has come to an end. And there's very little we can do except refer you to another shelter -- guess where? -- the Downtown Eastside.'"
'We all suffer from depression'
"People in the shelters are often subjected to verbal abuse, or, at the very least, disrespect. Not by other residents; by the staff," Currie said.
"I myself was told that I was silly, stupid and ridiculous for trying to find a job at my age. I was belittled because I was attending classes," Currie said. "They said with a sneer, 'you'd rather go to school than look for a place to live.'"
But Currie stuck with her plan: "I knew I needed upgrading. When you work with computers, and you are out of the game for four years, you might just as well be a dinosaur."
She found a job in August, and is readying to move into her own apartment on Nov. 1.
"The homeless all have some things in common," she said. "We all suffer from depression, displacement anxiety, low self-esteem, stress, and stress-related diseases... If you tell people they are worthless long enough and often enough, they begin to believe it."
Related Tyee stories:
- 2010: More Homeless than Athletes? (Series)
What it will take to provide needed shelter before the Olympics. - Downtown Eastside Seeks Foreign Aid
Vancouver group asks UN to help homeless Canadians. - Seven Solutions to Homelessness
Each is working somewhere else, and will save money and lives here.
![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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- Who Mowed Down the Premier?
- Canada's Economy, Deconstructed (by a 12 year-old)
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- The Ethics of Addiction Studies
- The Gem of Canadian Science that Harper Killed
- Sexism Tinges Criticism of Teachers' Job Action
- Now Is the Time to Talk up Big Ideas
- The Ethics of Addiction Studies
- Bill C-38: the Environmental Destruction Act
- Alberta Fills Pipes with Corrosive Denial
- Bias in BC's Pesticide Decision? Follow the Bouncing Verbs
- How Our Immune Systems Exaggerate Fear
- BC biotech company seeks approval for GM apple
- What's Behind BC's Doors?
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- What's Behind BC's Doors?
- The Gem of Canadian Science that Harper Killed
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- Should You Run from that Medical Test?
- 'The Dictator'
- Death in Remand: Stacked Deck
- 'Moonrise Kingdom'
- From Financial Advisor to Occupier
- Seven Goals to Build the Conservative 'Dream'
35
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ME2
4 years ago
A very distressing topic.
Nobody should be without a warm place to sleep, toilet facilities, and at least two ample meals a day.
If that has to be at taxpayers expense, so be it.
Why that is so cannot be explained to anyone who has to ask, since they really don't care.
BC Mary
4 years ago
Failure: B.C.'s biggest industry
Sincere thanks to Monte Paulsen for an informative article done with sensitivity. The topic scares most of us so badly, we never get close enough to investigate for ourselves. It's not that we don't care, it's that we're not strong enough to absorb the threat ...
Yes, threat. Not from the homeless. From the whole situation and its frightening possibilities.
I've watched the downward spiral of my home province of B.C. and worried that the immorality seems almost deliberate. Cancellation of apprenticeship programs for example. Things like that on the one hand ... as if, like Currie said:
"The system is designed for people to fail, and get sucked further and further into the system."
I've observed the Organized Crime statistics and the casinos growing by leaps and bounds and worried about kids graduating into the job market ... where do they apply? what do they do?
Already I want to stop thinking about this ... but that's what's wrong, too: we're not not talking about, not even admitting the infiltration of Organized Crime into every level of society -- looking away as the invasion continues -- until crime and the black market form the biggest industry in B.C.
And no, I do not mean the homeless are doing the crimes. Their wrecked hopes are the result of Organized Crime. By "Organized" I mean it's no damn accident, and the perpetrators wear Armani suits.
I fear that it's a system designed for its own citizens to fail ... or at best, to lose. Jeez. It doesn't bear thinking about lest we begin screaming right out loud: Make it stop! Make it stop!
Grumpy
4 years ago
The shame of BC
I would wager that the board of Trade and others who trumpet, ad nauseum, that Vancouver is the best city in the world, never mention homelessness.
In a province where wealth is in abundance, do have such destitution of the homeless. Campbell & Co., with their Olympic (TM) dreams and Olympian profits for developers in Whistler after the Olympics, ignore the problem.
A History Teacher I once had, stated when over 35% of a population because disenchanted with the government, revolution happens. I wonder how much of the population is disenchanted how the way things are run in BC?
anarcho
4 years ago
No homeless in past
Other than a few end-of the road alcoholics, I saw no homeless people 30-40 years ago in Vancouver. However, checking through a the want adds in a 1965 Vancouver Sun, I found two full columns of rooms and bed sits for rent. The rents ranged from $30-$40 per month. And I know you could find cheaper, as low as $20. Minimum wage was then $1.00 per hour or $160 per month, so a poor person need not spend more than 25% of a cheque on rent. So the problem of homelessness is purely artificial, created by insane property speculation combined with gentrification and a refusal to build low rent units
snert
4 years ago
That's what elections are for.
To sort this out peacefully.
ov
4 years ago
Financial Collapse
This sounds interesting and starts in an hour. I suspect that it is related to this topic. I agree with Mary, I think there is a hidden agenda, well, not so much hidden as not talked about by the main stream media.
TOPIC: "The Ongoing Global Financial Crisis: Three expert interviews analyzing what's happening, who's behind it, and the hidden agendas to increase elite wealth, power and control."
GUESTS AND HOSTS:
Paul Craig Roberts, interviewed by Diana & Jeff Jewell
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
Rodrigue Tremblay, interviewed by Alfred Webre
Rodrigue Tremblay is a Canadian-born economist, humanist and political figure. He teaches economics at the Université de Montréal. He specializes in macroeconomics, international trade and finance, and public finance. He is a prolific author of books in economics and politics, including The New American Empire. His recent article "A Fed Panic and a Massive Bailout of American Banks paid for by the entire world" is at
http://www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.html
Mike Whitney, interviewed by Don Nordin
Mike is a well-respected freelance writer living in Washington state, interested in politics and economics from a libertarian perspective. His articles appear in such places as http://rense.com
DATE OF PROGRAM: Monday, October 22nd, noon to 230 pm PDT
TUNE IN:
On the Internet at http://coopradio.org/listen/
On your radio dial near Vancouver at 102.7 FM
PHONE IN AT (604) 684-7561:
monty
4 years ago
homelessness and government attitudes
Last week we all saw the damage on Pandora St. when the roof caved in, the building flooded and the folks were given 3 days in a seedy motel. Someone at City hall should be fired for allowing the building to rot in this way.
Then there was the plane crash into the building in Richmond. Everyone had to move out. They were given 3 days in an upscale hotel. Then the Premier announced they could have 6 days. Now they was a place to live and Min. Illich said she'll see what she can do. Do these folks vote Liberal? Is that why they get special treatment? And who is going to help the
Pandora St. people who appear to have lost everything? Something is clearly amiss.
Canis Latrans
4 years ago
On getting worse...
As a previous article in Tyee recently made to me, "Things are getting worse and will continue to get worse until they can get worse no more-, then everything will change."
Which won't occur out of the heavens or of its own volition, of course. It assumes a massive scale intervention by people in motion. But change this will.
Keep it up you neoconazis, dressed up as BC Liberals and federal Conservatives. You are playing a pivotal role here, in helping with the increasingly certain emergence of this social change process. We social reformers and revolutionaries can't do it without you. :-X
audrey laferriere
4 years ago
Homeless
I have been interested in survival homelessness in Vancouver and area. There is a movement to make STORYEUM a shelter. Everyone should support this.
http://storyeum.googlepages.com
audrey laferriere
4 years ago
homelessness
STORYEUM is owned by the City and is big enough for all the street homeless in Metro Vancouver. I was told by the street homeless that if STORYEUM was a survival shelter, they would bring their own sleeping blankets and sleep on the floor. About warehousing the poor, most of the homeless look at other homeless as friends sharing the same circumstances and are willing to be warehoused as long as they are out of the elements. Please sign the epetition at http://storyeum.googlepages.com
A. Laferriere
Peter Evanchuck
4 years ago
homeless/employment/illness
I read with interest the plight of Mr. Felstead, a homeless mechanic with 30years experience, then illness set in and thus on the streets. For six years I volunteered at Evangel Hall, a QUeenWest storefront mission, helping/hosting at their community dinners and met many who had similiar stories. I initiated a small program where the skills of those still able to work were advertised on Craig'sList and Kijiji occasionally resulting in temporary employment sometimes in more. One man, Hank, in particular, like Mr Felstead, had many years of mechanic's experience but illness took away much of his life, but he wanted to work when he was well enough to do so. His first customer wanted someone to look at and diagnos his car before he took it in for a safety and was willing to pay $50. Hank showed up did the job and since then has continued to advertise and find enough work to regain his 'self' and turn his life back to 'near normal' - Perhaps if he's able enough, Mr. Felstead might advertise his skills free on line and find meaningful work again. I hope so....
RickW
4 years ago
Monty
There is definitely not enough of this happening..............
Working Memory
4 years ago
Don't just talk among yourselves
Talking among ourselves here in The Tyee is great, but if you want real impact, expand your circle and tell the world what you see happening in Vancouver.
Sam Sullivan, John Furlong & Jacques Rogge will have strokes when they start seeing information like this show up in international publications.
Email links to this article to publications around the world, especially those contemplating hosting their own Olympics.
The knife cuts both ways.
Leverage Olympic momentum.
Take back your community.
G West
4 years ago
snert
Elections sort things out?
Really!
Details please.
snert
4 years ago
G West
They do but you may not like the results. Can't help that.
Are you advocating revolution?
G West
4 years ago
Yes
Democratic revolution - that is, people waking up to what's actually going on before it's too late. Unfortunately it probably already is - too late that is.
Elections certainly haven't sorted anything out - and, judging by the results, the other half of your premise is faulty too.
Real peace can only come about as a result of substantial equity. Otherwise it's just a question of further rewarding the already overfull.
snert
4 years ago
No system is perfect.
You ought to know that. You surmise that change will make things better. When are you planning on brainwashing everyone to follow what you believe to be the correct path.
Real peace exists only in death or mindlessness Take your pick.
G West
4 years ago
Then why did you write this?
Quote:
A History Teacher I once had, stated when over 35% of a population because disenchanted with the government, revolution happens. I wonder how much of the population is disenchanted how the way things are run in BC?
To sort this out peacefully.
When you didn't actually believe it.
The writer's premise - with which many would concur - didn't necessarily pre-suppose or assume any violence. That, as is your wont, was your own decidedly prejudicial addition to the debate.
Now we find out that your interjection - like most of what you offer - wasn't accurate and certainly lacked sincerity because you yourself recognize that elections have nothing to do with peace.
I'm not in the least interested in brainwashing anyone. However, I am aware of the effects the process appears to have on some individuals.
snert
4 years ago
Which interjection?
Do you presume to speak for others often? The writer is perfectly capable of defending his own premise if he so feels. Don't you trust him to do a good job?
FWIW A peaceful solution does not necessarily follow physical violence. Can there not be a peaceful solution to a heated discussion? Or do you always think in linear terms?
It seems you have difficulty accepting a comment at face value. You would much rather attack a commenter than allow their argument to stand.
G West
4 years ago
Not at all snert
You were the one doing the attacking. I have no idea what anyone thinks (or if they think at all) - apart from the words displayed on the screen. Everything must, in the end, be reduced to that.
You're the one who made the comment I thought was nonsensical and I responded - it's called dialogue.
As Frank demonstrated several days ago, you're not really interested in actually sustaining one. You prefer, on the evidence, to do nothing more than snipe from the sidelines.
In fact, you never did return to that little exchange, did you?
snert
4 years ago
And your opinion is the only one that counts.
You try to do someone a favour and give them the last word and you get burned anyhow. Besides, the thread closed for comments but if you revisit it you should find that it puts a lie to your own words.
It's really difficult to carry on a meaningful dialogue with one who can't stick to the topic. Frank likes to pretend he is psychic and can read peoples minds. He shouldn't give up his day job.
I guess what you really mean is that elections don't sort things out the way you figure they should. Oh sorry, I'm assuming. Go ahead and explain what you really mean. You are entitled to that view, however.
One last thing.
Both in the same comment. Hmmm?
G West
4 years ago
Thoughts,
are unknowable, literary expression, is a form of art - they are such different things that even you should understand the distinction.
When I say that elections don't "sort" anything out - I mean they merely put in place the representatives who, in their usual fashion, will not represent the views of the people who elect them.
If you knew anything about the operation of the beast you wouldn't have ventured such an idea. Until there is an electoral system, which actually produces governments that reflect the voting preferences of the people - this will not change, in my view. Moreover, even when that happens - and it eventually will - it will not ensure anything like 'peace'; it may enable a little more equity. WHich is about the best one could hope for.
And you're wrong about Frank - I sense he has you pegged to a T. Which is why you reacted so vehemently when he did put you under the microscope. Again, in my view.
By the way, I do tend to agree with your assessment of Vancouver as home base for a lot of narcissists.
zalm
4 years ago
Audrey Laferriere
Interesting idea on the Storyeum....but has it been thought through by someone who knows?
I'm no expert, but I have a buddy in the DTES - dual diagnosis, and one of the 200 hardest-to-house in the city, currently at the Portland - who prefers to spend his time homeless rather than housed. He'll come in out of the cold when it's wet enough, but he hates all the residences he's been in because of the noise, the other crazy people (just like him) the feeling that he's always at war with everyone and everything in his environment. He's learned to run away, not get along. So have the other 200 hardest-to-house.
These are the ones who end up on the street (when they're not in jail or hospital) over and over and over again. They're not likely to stay in any shelter because it merely replcates the conditions they're already running away from.
Worse yet, using Storyeum as a people warehouse without any kind of oversight (and in SPADES; I mean at least 1 worker for every 15 homeless 24/7 and not less than 3 on shift at any one time, like the Portland) is a recipe for assault, theft, rape, victimization and murder. These people actually feel they are safer on the streets.
And they may well be right. Who are you or I to say different? Some of them start fires just to make themselves feel better. Fires, right in the middle of all their possessions. In an enclosed space, with other homeless around. Can you say 'disaster'? Can you say Praise International Church at 10th and Quebec (2005)?
I hope someone has thought this proposal over very carefully.
snert
4 years ago
That wasn't my point
It was, quite simply, that elections are a means to sort out differences of popular opinion peacefully, no need for revolution of any form.
You may not like the results of any given election but that is your privilege.
Now as to the system one uses to run this democratic process it is neither here nor there as to which does what. The sorting out process still takes place.
You have a penchant for over thinking ideas and I think you thunk this one right into the ground. Mountains out of molehills and such.
FWIW I think the wrong end of the "microscope" was being used which explains a lot. It's pretty hard to carry on a discussion with anyone who presumes to tell you what you are thinking. I think you agree with that.
G West
4 years ago
Your suggestion was nonsense
Plain and simple. It required absolute no thought to refute.
Elections don't sort out differences and certainly don't insure anything like 'peace' - especially the way they currently work. There have been several provincial governments (produced by elections) that have achieved nothing but acrimony and recrimination.
Hitler's governments were always popularly elected and his plebiscites habitually received positive responses in the range of +90%.
I can provide the details if you're interested. Not being able to tell what someone is ‘thinking’ from their written work is a given…understanding quite clearly that they haven’t ‘thought things out’ to a logical conclusion is something entirely doable.
ME2
4 years ago
Voting i a bad joke tese days.
Sorry Snert, but our present system, plus our complacency re the elected not living up to pre-election promises - and worse, doing exactly the opposite, a la Campbell, makes a mockery of Representative Democracy.
You are correct in saying a Revolution would be worse, but that is NOT a viable escape clause out of our dilemma.
G West
4 years ago
You're right ME2
In fact, the current system actually 'creates' anger, acrimony and division because it empowers a group that, while getting more votes than any other group, does not come even close to representing the interests, responding to the needs and addressing the problems of the majority of its citizens.
Linda Reid's little baby booster bonanza run through the offices of Campbell's MLAs is an excellent example of this – managing even to blacken the reputation of BCAA in the process. All the current system does is accentuate political gamesmanship and posturing. In fact, far from injecting any 'peace' into the province it manages to foster anger, resentment and acrimony - almost to the point of revolution.
snert
4 years ago
Where did I say....
that elections sorted out everything? Read again what I said.
You have proof of a system that works otherwise? Human nature dictates that you are not going to eliminate feelings of "anger, acrimony and division" with any system.
I think one of the things that never gets factored into electoral majorities is the percentage of registered people who abstain from voting.
There is a tendency to write this off as voter apathy. However, if you look at it as a vote for the status quo then what may have been a close race could be declared a resounding victory for whomever took the lead. Of course this would depend on the percentage of registered voters who actually didn't participate.
In a sense Grumpy's History teacher was right. You just have to know where to look for that 35%. If it is found in the riled up non voting electorate things will change the next time the writ is dropped.
You are making a bold assumption that any new system of voting will resolve the issues that you deem important and further that this system will lead to better decisions. One of the problem with consensus rule is that the consensus can be wrong (I'm pretty certain there was some electoral consensus in Nazi Germany, to use your example). Also, reaching a consensus can be near impossible without generating some animosities.
No matter what the system as long as elections are held things can usually be sorted out peacefully. That doesn't mean that a nation won't go to war, just that it won't be the ultimate oxymoron, a civil war.
G West
4 years ago
THis, for the second or third time
Is what you wrote snert:
That's what elections are for.
Commentor
snert
1 day ago
Quote:
A History Teacher I once had, stated when over 35% of a population because disenchanted with the government, revolution happens. I wonder how much of the population is disenchanted how the way things are run in BC?
To sort this out peacefully.
I've bolded your contribution - the rest of your post was cribbed from someone else, remember?
This started out as a resonse to something I thought was demonstrably untrue. Something expressed by someone who signs him or herself snert.
I'm really not interested in indulging you any longer. Elections sort nothing out - in many cases they simply make things worse because whatever party wins its members make the assuption that they're 'winners' and everybody else is the opposite.
snert
4 years ago
Just to be clear
You decided to run with your own agenda. After any given reply you have the option of vanishing into what ever electronic nether region you crawl out from.
I will repeat my own words.
"That's what elections are for. To sort this out peacefully."
Note: I used the word "for" not 'do'.
What other purpose would elections have? They are supposed to be a non violent part of the system we use to establish a certain order within our society. Whether they do or not is a completely different matter.
Elections can sort out the winners from the losers, the alphas from the wannabes, the popular opinion from not so popular and they can be used to sort out ideas to build a consensus.
Sir, you haven't indulged me. You've only indulged yourself. Over indulged for that matter and it shows. The cranial obesity must be distressing. I don't know how you manage the agony
G West
4 years ago
You are completely wrong
Elections are the way we govern ourselves and they don't sort out anything the way they currently work.
Consensus governance is practiced in only one jurisdiction in this country - the Northwest Territories. Where it works very nicely. If you think it works in any of the provinces or at the Federal level you’re not living in Canada or you have disconnected yourself from every form of news and information.
You are still attempting to salvage something by resorting to exactly this sort of ad hominem foolishness, which, as Frank noted earlier, is your modus operandi.
Why that and most everything else you posted above here doesn't qualify for offensive redaction is really the only question left.
ME2
4 years ago
Who cares anyway?
What iritates, Snert, is that you are implying (perhaps without meaning to?) that the present system cannot be improved.
As noted in my post, the problem lies with the complacency of the voter. In my opinion, the blame for that complacency lies with the MSM, in whose interest it is to deliver biased information for misinforming the public.
Well, I guess it then becomes a whole different argument, which boils down to you being right - the system is working as designed.
Yup, the system is now designed by and tailored for the politician who has eliminated accountability from the mix.
So, I suppose we should be thankful we at least have the choice of who to vote for, right?
snert
4 years ago
No I'm not....
and nether are you. It seems we are just talking around each other. It's not my wish but shit happens.
FWIW I never fire the first shot.
ad hominem
G West
4 years ago
Not true
in my opinion - if you don't see why your penultimate post was offensive I can't help you.
yourleader
4 years ago
mabe this sounds too easy, but...?
If Brian Felstead has befriended other hard-working homeless men in North Van then wouldn't pooling his money together with a couple of them work out the $900 rent they need?? I know $375 isn't much for one person, and three people in a one-bedroom apartment might be a bit much, but it could help all of them find and keep jobs easier.