A sudden cold snap…they said. Minus twenty in early November. It has been that cold before around here but on these dates? Not since the 1980’s. There’s a lot of discussion about climate change these days and I follow it with interest. I have time on my hands. I suppose that if I had less time on my hands I might be less likely to follow it at all. Like almost everything else the discussion is hedged about with polarized perspectives and not a lot of constructive options. People look at the flooding, fires, fierce storms, droughts, flash freezes and all of their consequences…then depending upon ones point of view it’s either climate change caused largely by humans…or natural phenomena that occur cyclically. There are scientists that support both positions with a growing number favouring the former. But this is not my point today…the arguments and division will continue and disaster will follow disaster while governments will dither and rationalize. No…my point today comes from driving through my neighbourhood on this deep frozen day. I live three blocks from a shelter and a safe injection site. If you don’t know what those are stop reading now and go back to sleep.
There are ten thousand homeless people in Ottawa according to some sources. I don’t know how they know because I’m pretty sure nobody is counting. Could be a lot more. The shelter space is a fraction of that number and they’re dangerous places. Young people, new to the streets learn quickly to avoid them. It’s deep poverty coupled with drugs and the dehumanizing despair of living on the furious streets…so you can be beaten, robbed, raped, killed in those places. The street does not tolerate “stupid” because stupid people or gestures put others at risk…I have lived on the street in much kinder times. I know that there are rules. In these much harder and meaner times I don’t even want to know what the rules are. They’re brutal.
Most of us have an automatic set of blinders that enable us to move through the city without looking to closely or seeing too clearly. “Those People” are almost invisible and it isn’t because they’re not there. If I wanted to be surreal about it I might say that it is us that aren’t there…while they are are very much there. They are not passing through our territory…we’re passing through theirs. They occupy doorways and alleys, side streets and the corners of garages, sleep on cardboard under filthy blankets wrapped in tarps . They wander all night and beg on corners. They see us in ways that we are unable to see them.
I don’t know what to do about it. That bothers me. I try to take care of myself and my friends and that is sometimes hard enough. All I want to say is that maybe we can make a start and figuring out something to do…by seeing what we’ve been deliberately ignoring. By seeing them. And not…falling into that old trap of saying “there but for the grace of god…” god has nothing to do with it.
It’s cold out there.
Don’t forget your gloves.
Chagal4's Blog 