Out of Addiction, into the World Cup

Reality didn't start to set in for 20-year-old Erin Backer until yesterday, she said. By this morning, she'll be on a plane to Paris, representing Canada in the Homeless World Cup.

She'll be joining five men and eight women from B.C. to compete with 64 other national teams vying in the annual soccer tournament.

Everyone who plays in the competition have experienced homelessness in the last two years, are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

A year and a half ago, Backer was living on the streets. Drugs had put her there. Drugs and, as she put it, "a kerfuffle of different stuff." Kerfuffle, Backer said with a wry smile, is one of her favourite words.

"The last time I used my drug of choice was May 3, 2010." Six days later, Backer turned to Covenant House in Vancouver to help her fight her addiction. "I haven't used since," she said.

Backer's team, Portland Phoenix, is one of a number of teams that plays in the Lower Mainland and across the country in the Street Soccer Canada league.

A lot of soccer players in Vancouver come from shelters managed by the Portland Hotel Society -- the society is also the biggest sponsor and supporter, said Kurt Heinrich, Portland FC's communications manager. Along with other fundraising events, including the popular Rocker for Street Soccer, which raised over $10,000 for the team this year, the non-profit Portland Hotel Society provides most of the money for players to go to the world cup.

The sporting life

Backer said she's always been athletic and used to play soccer growing up. "I quit because other things took priority and I didn't have time for this stuff," referring to soccer and other sports.

As a student in the Kitsilano neighbourhood, she played soccer from a young age, but her passion gave way to hockey as she got older, she said, because of the skates. She graduated from a high school that focused on getting students outdoors.

"I forgot how much I liked to be active," she said, "and how much I need it in my life."

Participating in the homeless soccer league has given her something to look forward to every week.

The Portland soccer team has been a part of Vancouver's Street Soccer League for only a few years, but Canada is well represented by players from western Canada at the Homeless World Cup every year, Heinrich said.

This will be the first year Canada has sent a women's team to compete at the international tournament. Last year, Canada's men's team took home the tournament's Fair Play Award in Rio de Janeiro.

Backer started playing soccer again six months ago. She's one of the team's most visible cheerleaders. She put together a team tribute video for Portland FC and says she'll often stop and talk with panhandlers or homeless youth around Vancouver and tell them to come to soccer practice on Thursdays at Andy Livingstone Park near the Downtown Eastside.

"There are so many support groups and shit out there, but soccer is something different. You go to kick a ball around, you don't go to talk about your problems," she said.

"But then you get the support of the Portland staff around you and other volunteers. I've made so many amazing friends, and some of the volunteers are eight years clean in AA and take me to meetings when I feel like shit," she said.

Thinking about the trip to Paris and a chance to compete internationally, Backer said she was more excited about the chance to see the Eiffel Tower and connect with homeless youth in Paris than win the tournament.

The team will have three days to relax before the tournament starts and then a week of play Aug. 21 through Aug. 28.

Transitional living, making connections

Backer showed me her room on the third floor of the Covenant House where she's living in transitional housing, a shelter for homeless youth off Pender and Hamilton in downtown Vancouver. She's lived on-and-off between the two downtown Covenant House shelters for the last year and a half.

On a wall hangs a painting with "Un-fuck the world" scrawled in red paint on a supposed-to-be crooked canvas.

She searched for her soccer jersey in a garbage bag full of clothes on the floor while telling me that she got the scabs on her legs from sliding on the soccer field.

When she gets back, she said, she'll be starting psychology courses at Langara College so that she can work with youth someday.

Backer recently started working at an after-school program with the Boys and Girls Club helping troubled youth. "Some of them really need a positive place to go in their lives. And it's cool to give back."