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Hope In Shadows Vendor Steps into the Light

Six-time contest winner Peter Thompson talks life, art and the meaning of home.

Jesse Donaldson 27 Oct 2014TheTyee.ca

Jesse Donaldson is an author, journalist, photographer and one of the founding members of The Dependent Magazine. His first book, This Day in Vancouver, was recently shortlisted for a B.C. Book Prize. Find his previous articles published in The Tyee here.

Home is
Like a little nest
A place where friends and family
Find peace and rest

Home is
Full of joy, happiness and life
Push past the sad ugliness and strife

Home is
A place of love, laughter and song
Where everything is right
And you wish no wrong

Home is
A magnitude of ups and downs
Where you find seriousness and some clowns

Home is
A treasure of abundance of food
Where you eat when in the mood

Home is
Like heaven, this I pray
Where I will go one day

"That was the first poem I ever wrote," Peter Thompson muses, grinning. "I usually write stories. This one was only a few months ago. I took a class with six other people. It was supposed to be about home, and what home meant to us."

On the subject of home, Thompson has a wide range of experience. The soft-spoken 55-year-old has lived everywhere from rustic country houses, to basement suites, to various single-room occupancy hotels in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. A former carpenter, he built homes with his own hands during the flurry of suburban development in the 1980s. He also spent more than a year on the street, battling alcohol addiction.

Now, he sells the Hope in Shadows calendar at the corner of Robson and Howe streets. In his estimation, selling the calendar, which features photos taken by the city's low-income residents, has been a crucial part of his recovery, providing not only extra income but also a sense of purpose.

Thompson also sells Megaphone, Vancouver's street newspaper, published every month.

"I had to get back on track and do what I could to fix myself up," he says. "Part of that was selling Megaphone and Hope in Shadows. They helped me get myself together again."

Now in its 12th year, the Hope in Shadows calendar is co-ordinated by Pivot Legal Society, which uses some of the proceeds to support legal resources for marginalized communities. It's a multi-stage project, starting with a photo contest in June where cameras are handed out to low-income local residents, many of whom live in the Downtown Eastside.

The winning photos are then compiled into the calendar, launched each October and sold through a vendor program which creates employment opportunities for people impacted by poverty. Vendors buy each calendar for $10 and sell it for $20.

"The people that are out here doing this, they want to work for their money, and they want people from outside the neighbourhood to know who the people of the Downtown Eastside are and what they are about," Thompson says. "It gives them back some dignity in their life."

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Thompson sells the Hope in Shadows calendar and Megaphone magazine at the corner of Robson and Howe in Vancouver. Photo by Matthew Chen.

Fire for the mind

A member of the Nlaka'pamux Nation, Thompson was born and raised in Boston Bar, B.C., in a house without electricity or indoor plumbing, alongside 18 brothers and sisters. The closest high school was in Hope, necessitating a nearly three-hour bus journey each day ("a long trip," he chuckles).

After graduation and a few seasons as a logger, he moved to Kamloops to attend Cariboo College. From there, a move to Vancouver brought lucrative work as a carpenter -- first building apartments, and then single-family homes in the region's developing suburbs. Business was good for two decades, until a workplace accident left him with a leg broken in five places and a disability cheque which could barely cover the essentials.

Suddenly, a man who spent 25 years building homes for others was facing the very real possibility of losing his own.

"I had pins up and down my leg," he recalls. "Five in my ankle and a bolt in my knee. I couldn't work. I couldn't do logging or carpentry. So I started on disability, which isn't much money. And it just brought me down farther and farther. My rent, I couldn't pay that anymore. I had to find the cheapest place I could."

For a time, that place was the street, and then a series of SROs in the Downtown Eastside. Owing to his accident and several family tragedies, Thompson turned to alcohol in increasing amounts. Although he found his way to SROs like the West and later the Arco after more than a year of homelessness, his drinking worsened as he attempted to cope with the sudden shift in his life.

"It was a sudden, weird turnaround. You've got a big truck, you've got everything, and then everything is swept out from under you," he says.

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Selling the calendar, which includes some of his own photos, helped Thompson turn his life around. Photo by Jesse Donaldson.

"You're used to a good home where things are stable, and now you're stuck in a small cubicle, and you have to share the washroom, share the shower. It's dirty. You don't have privacy. You're up every night. There are people coming in and out all the time. The people who collect cans are banging them against the walls. It's a big change."

The treasure chest of living

Today, Thompson still walks with a cane. During long periods selling the Hope in Shadows calendar, he brings a folding stool to rest his legs. But that doesn't mean he's not active in his community.

In addition to being a poet, Hope in Shadows vendor, and regular contributor to Megaphone, Thompson is also an accomplished photographer. Since 2008, he has contributed six winning pictures to the calendar contest. One of his images was selected for the cover of the 2011 collection, and two of his photos -- "Bud's Wall" and "Reflections" -- are featured in the 2015 edition.

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Thompson's photo 'Reflections' appears in the 2015 Hope in Shadows calendar.

An honourable mention prize in his first year soon led to a job selling both Megaphone and Hope in Shadows, and after years of struggling with alcohol, Thompson got sober. He's now into his eighth year as a vendor, and in part because of the extra income from sales, he's moved into a basement suite on Victoria Drive.

He recently participated in Megaphone's Voices of the Street literary issue and spoke at the magazine's annual reading event. He also took part in a community writing workshop, one of a series held at community centres, shelters, social housing buildings and treatment centres across Vancouver.

Though currently solidifying his future plans, he intends to stay involved with the community through his vendor sales, photography and writing, when the inspiration strikes. And while his Victoria Drive suite doesn't quite feel like home yet, he'll concede that it's certainly on its way.

"Home is somewhere you feel protected," he reflects. "Home is where you've got to give your heart to. Not only for yourself, but for other people. It doesn't matter who. You can open your heart to them, even if it's just for a night. Give them a place to stay, a place to sleep. That's what it is. That's what it should be."  [Tyee]

Read more: Rights + Justice, Housing

This article is part of a Tyee Presents initiative. Tyee Presents is the special sponsored content section within The Tyee where we highlight contests, events and other initiatives that are either put on by us or by our select partners. The Tyee does not and cannot vouch for or endorse products advertised on The Tyee. We choose our partners carefully and consciously, to fit with The Tyee’s reputation as B.C.’s Home for News, Culture and Solutions. Learn more about Tyee Presents here.

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