Last month I wrote about some of the issues facing GLBTQ youth, youth at risk, and street youth. The timing of the column being published was ironic, to say the least.
Through a series of misjudgments, circumstances, and whatever else – which I won’t go into here – my partner and I, along with our much beloved ‘fur child,’ became homeless. The experience was upsetting, scary, an all-out assault on our sense of self-worth, and a severe blow to our self-perception. It was, and is, horrible.
As I write this, the nightmare is very gradually improving, but it is not over. We are staying with friends who live in a far-flung suburb of the city, far from our comfortable haunts of the inner city. Their place is small and already occupied by two excitable dogs and four cats. It is their place, not ours. I feel off centre, unfocussed, hurting, fearful bordering on terrified, depressed, and unsure of my own worth. How could this have happened to us?
Like any household, we have a ton of stuff - and I sincerely hope that the present tense is the correct tense, and that the horrible thought of it being past tense does not come to pass; furniture, books, artwork, utensils, clothes, knick-knacks and papers that filled a 3-bedroom bi-level apartment. It was a comfortable and comforting home for us, despite the lousy drug-ridden neighbourhood. Now we’ve lost our home because the rental company we rented from for five years won a judgment against us to evict. We knew the bailiff was due any moment and started madly packing in a desperate attempt to save the stuff that made it our home.
A couple of days later, the bailiff did appear, the locks were changed, and we had to leave that night for the wilds of suburbia in a home environment very different from our own. Everything we owned - 20, 25, 30 years of accumulation - sat in boxes and propped against the walls of an apartment we could no longer access without the landlord’s express permission, otherwise we would be charged with criminal trespass. That I would lose everything was - and still remains - a terrifying prospect. I haven’t cried this much or this often since I don’t know when.
Writing this is difficult. While I believe I “know myself” very well, I have never been very good at gauging how others feel about me. To reveal this shame, this terror, this crummy, lowlife experience, is difficult. I am not even sure why I chose to write this. I think I wrote it because I needed to express the minute-by-minute dread and overwhelming hopelessness such a situation places an individual. Perhaps publishing it will bring such concepts as “homeless” and “street people” into some sort of reality for readers. So many of us don’t know a homeless person. Well, now you do….
I struggled with what I believe to be my reputation in the community, and the work I have done with and for it for so many years, and what impact revealing this deeply personal aspect of my life might have on that reputation.
I don’t know what impact it will have. Perhaps negative (Loser! Loser! Loser!), perhaps neutral, perhaps positive and supportive. I don’t know. That is up to others.
I do know I harbour a fear others will think less of my partner and me, criticize us, and perhaps even condemn us for having fallen on such hard times. I don’t know what I can do about that, either. This is a particularly unforgiving city when it comes to homelessness and those who are down and out. We tend to blame them for their own misfortune. But sometimes shit happens.
What I hope writing this will do, at least in part, is bring home the very grim reality of not having a place to call home, of not feeling safe and secure and comfortable and having absolutely no idea – no idea whatsoever – what the next day will bring. Believe me, nobody would choose to go through what we have.
I never thought I would ever be in this position. I am intelligent, I’ve had money, I have helped people, I’ve fought for the rights of my community. I’ve done good in my life. For the last thirteen years, in agreement with a supportive partner, I have donated my experience, my skills, and my understanding to what I hope is the betterment of my community. I don’t regret doing that, but there have been few tangible results from having done so. I was always pretty much okay with that. Acquiring money was never a priority for me and I was always pretty much okay with that, too. Now, I am not so sure. I never sought gain from the work I do. Perhaps that was naïve of me. I guess now, at the age of 52, I am truly reaping what I didn’t sow, if you will pardon the butchered metaphor. It is a difficult lesson to learn.
I have friends who know what has happened, and have done what they could to help, for which we are infinitely grateful. Others do not know and will learn of this only upon reading or hearing about this column. I hope they understand why we couldn’t come to them with this, why we were unable to reach out and seek help. What kind of help could we seek? Have our friends lend us rent money? We did that and it only extended the inevitable. Additional loans would only add to our debt load. We were embarrassed by what was happening. Asking friends for rent money was a humiliating experience.
If a situation like this is difficult for someone with the resources I have, I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like for a young person tossed out of their home and onto the streets. I know the feelings this whole situation has instilled in me. I don’t know, as of this writing, if I will ever feel secure, safe, or “okay” again. I probably will but, right now I don’t know that. Not at all. What must a scared and naïve teenager feel without any support system or connections in this world?
Homelessness is real. I long heard the saying “most people are one pay cheque away from the streets.” If this can happen to my partner and me, it can happen to anyone. If you are lucky enough to have a home, some capital behind you, a job, and some security try to remember those in our community, both the GLBTQ community as well as the larger Calgary community, who are not as fortunate. None of us knows what tomorrow can bring. Not having ones own bed to sleep in, ones own ‘things’ around, and living off the charity of others is not a life. It is despair.
Stephen Lock is a long-time glbtq activist, Vice-President and Regional Co-Director for Egale Canada and also the producer and host of a semi-monthly glbtq radio show, Speak Sebastian, airing at 9pm on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month on CJSW FM 90.9 (www.cjsw.com).
