Gerald Laroque is on his third tent since May. The 57-year-old is homeless and prefers to sleep in parks rather than busy shelters.
“In a few weeks it will be too cold,” he said, holding a cup of coffee on the corner of Yates and Quadra streets before dawn Tuesday. He’s on a waiting list for housing and hopes this will be his lucky year.
Laroque and about a dozen others came to meet Rev. Al Tysick from the Dandelion Society, who is on Victoria’s streets every morning at 5 a.m. with two big carafes of coffee, boxes of doughnuts and as many sleeping bags, socks, tents and clothes as he can stuff into his minivan.
As Homelessness Action Week events gear up around the city, Tysick’s morning rounds are a snapshot of how the most vulnerable are faring.
“I’ve been doing this 20 years. It’s the only real way to keep contact with what’s happening on the streets,” said Tysick, the former executive director of Our Place Society before starting his own non-profit. “It hasn’t changed much. As this city grows it gets more expensive, and there are more people on the streets.”
He said he’s consistently seen an average of two homeless deaths a week, from various causes. He also said the drug of choice has shifted from booze to harder things such as crystal meth and crack.
Around the corner from the Rock Bay shelter, people hustled over to Tysick’s parked van from all directions. A 30-something woman Tysick met when she was a toddler grabbing meals at Our Place with her mother warmed up in the front seat.
“When you’re born into the street life it’s hard to get out,” he said.
A tall transgender woman walked up with a portable stereo blaring Nirvana and grabbed a coffee, unfazed by the wet cold in a short skirt and heels.
Tysick said she gets picked on and beat up. After a hospital stay, he and his partner let her rest for a week at their home.
“She’s a very sweet girl,” he said.
The coffee talk around the van turned to the holiday weekend.
“It was nuts at the shelter,” said one man. “I mean, Rock Bay was so packed. People were doing crack in the bathrooms. You couldn’t even go in there.”
Another man piped in: “It’s not safe for the staff. They don’t need that.”
David W. (he didn’t want his last name used) said he slept at the shelter on a mat over the weekend.
“It was my only viable option at the time,” he said. The 43-year-old had a desk job up until a few years ago when bad luck and family strife left him homeless.
“Now, I’m looking for a situation I can afford on assistance and tolerate,” he said.
Gerry Kitsul said he’s fortunate to have a place in View Towers, which he was able to rent through a Streets to Homes grant. Kitsul, 55, was homeless for years and struggled with a lifetime of health issues.
“I shouldn’t be alive, but thanks to God I’m starting again,” said Kitsul, who still struggles to get by and considers himself part of the street family. Since his health issues were addressed and he found a home, he’s thrived. He recently ran into a doctor who overlooked his issues years ago and set him straight.
“I said, ‘You judged me and missed what was going on,’ ” he said, adding it felt good.
A young man named Terry lumbered into the front seat of Tysick’s van and passed out.
“He’ll sleep there all day,” Tysick said. “He’s home, as strange as that might sound. He knows he’s safe here to rest.”
The van stopped for groups outside churches on Pandora Avenue, for a young couple nestled into a storefront, another in front of a community centre and few young guys on Fort Street.
“Although I’m an advocate of housing first, I really think more shelter spaces have to be created while we’re waiting on that. Everything is full,” said Tysick.
Mid-morning at Cool-Aid Society's Rock Bay Landing shelter there are still people sleeping in the lobby — hunched over chairs and curled up on the bare floor.
“We run at over 100 per cent occupancy. Every night it’s full,” said Emma Cochrane, co-ordinator of client services. “You notice how much the weather changes things, how much more crowded it is with the rain and how people function without a good sleep.”
She said in the past year she’s noticed, along with other service providers, a number of homeless youth staying in shelters, but not engaging with staff or services.
“We’re worried there’s this whole group of young people we’re not reaching,” she said, adding at the other end of the spectrum is a growing aging homeless population with complex health issues.
Cochrane said she hopes Homelessness Action Week encourages neighbours and volunteers to come see what they do.
“If they were critical or curious, they can see first hand and make a personal connection,” she said.
They might meet someone like Aaron McKenzie, 43, a cancer survivor with health issues who is desperately looking for a place to rent. Or Ray S., 54, a labourer who lost everything after injuring his shoulder and waiting months for surgery before he can work again.
Then there’s Don W., 62, a musician and teacher who said living in a transitional housing unit at Rock Bay for the last year has been one of the best things to happen to him since he got seriously ill working in China and returned to Canada with nothing.
“This place has been really good to me. I feel like I’m starting again,” he said, noting he recently started teaching drums again.
SNAPSHOT OF HOMELESSNESS IN GREATER VICTORIA
In the past four years, about 3,600 people have experienced homelessness in Greater Victoria.
• In 2014, shelter occupancy has been 12 per cent over capacity
• In a facility count on Feb. 5, 2014, 1,167 people sought shelter for the night
• 116 of that total number were children; 78 were turned away; 39 of those turned away were women
• There are 87 shelters in Greater Victoria; in 2012, there were 73
• There are 47 transitional housing shelters in Greater Victoria
• There are 998 shelter beds available in Greater Victoria, when all facilities (including seasonal) are operating
• 70 families, with a total of 105 children, have been sheltered in 2014
Source: Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness
Homelessness Action Week event
Public talk: Is there a role for transitional shelters in Victoria’s housing-first response to homelessness?
When: 3 p.m. today
Where: Central Library meeting room, 735 Broughton St.
What: UVic researchers Bernie Pauly and Bruce Wallace discuss housing first, harm reduction and transitional programsa
