Chris spoke with us shortly before his birthday. Here, he talks about what makes a good spot to rest when you have nowhere else to go, how land could be better used and developed, and using sports as an outlet when he’s feeling overwhelmed.
Hopes and Dreams Street. That’s how empty that street can be sometimes. Some people go into City Park and go sit and sleep and do whatever they do in City Park, or they just walk around or they’re at the library or something. There’s a lot of people down there that aren’t down there because they want to be, that’s for sure. Some of them are there because of past problems and present problems.
Sometimes there’s nowhere for people to go without getting hassled by bylaw and the cops and shit. And not only that, from all the tourists and the locals that don’t like us and judge us.
So where else do we have to go?
Either City Park or any park, or the Mission. The only way you can be off that street is if you’ve been born in this town or if you’ve got lots of money, or if you’re just an ignorant person that’s too stuck up and judges and shit like that.
City Park, we always get bothered. We get fines there all the time. You see all these other people that are like tourists and shit like that, and they’ll be on towels or blankets and have those tent canopies, but yet you never see them getting fines or anything.
But if we have shopping carts or
our belongings or if we’re sleeping
or laying or sitting on our blanket,
it’s we’re camping, or doing this
or doing that. We always get bugged
down there, no matter what.
That’s why I got red zoned last year, because of bylaw. Too many fines. So they brought me and Destiny to court, and gave us red zone, and for us to accept the red zone they would clean all our fines and have a clean slate. But yet I got fines again this year, but I got them given to me by a cop. The cop gave me two possession charges I just went to court for. I’ve still got to go to court for it four days after my birthday.
There she is. That’s my girl. That’s where we were camping out. We were camping out right beside that, and I thought it was a good moment.
I just decided to take a picture of her,
because I love her. And it just shows
that, I don’t know, anybody can do it.
Me and her have been through a lot and we’ve got our daughter, Able, and we’re working on getting a place, that’s for sure. But I mean, we’ve made it this far.
Ah, just another beautiful girl on a beautiful sunny day, with our beautiful cart. I think she was writing something. Some days we just plop our butts and we don’t know what to do, we don’t know where to go.
We get frustrated because we’re doing
as much as me and her can to get off
the streets and get sober, because we want
to have our baby and be a family and stuff
like that, but yet we still have our struggles.
Hence, here we are sitting with our cart on the side of the road where we camp, that we’re not allowed to be in anymore.
It’s just basically a day where we’re just kind of like, what do we do, how do we get this, how do we go there. We’re always trying to figure out how to get our drugs, our medicine, we basically call our speed our medicine, if we don’t have that then we’ve got to try and find weed, because weed helps us mentally and physically, and it levels us out when we don’t have our side. Makes us eat, makes us sleep. That’s just one of those days I guess.
That’s an empty lot. This was an empty lot beside the Econo Lodge, and right across the street from the Capri Mall. It’s not fenced, there was nothing going on in there. You never see anything happening. But they’re putting construction, right beside it they’re building a business building, but yet we camped out there, a couple people camped out there off and on. These people, this lady came and kicked us all out a couple of weeks ago. If they don’t want people like us that live on the street to camp out in places like this, do something.
See those fences right there? They’re rent a fences. Get little rent a fences and fence it off so you don’t have people like us staying there. Or put little signs on there saying private property, no trespassing. Her excuse was “Someone stole our signs.” Then get fucking fences. Places like this, of course people like us are going to go “Let’s go camp out there.” There’s bushes, there’s trees, no one will bother you. It’s such an easy, easy thing to fix, to stop what they want us to do. But yet, they still keep it like that. It’s just sitting there, it’s empty. Exactly what it looks like is what it looks like. Except for the construction that’s happening right beside it on the corner, right across the street from A&W and Capri Mall and shit.
Basically what this is showing is, if they don’t want us to go in places like this, get fences like that, put them in front, put signs up, boom, call it a day. We won’t go in there. Yet, an empty lot like this, not even touched but yet, on the corner, right beside the new building where they have the new Pharmasave, they’re putting a new building just like it right beside it.
But they could take something like this
and put in affordable housing, just like
how there is across the street, what
they did with the Econo Lodge. That’s
what I mean. That’s my point of view.
It’s just common sense. I’m
simple but I’m not that simple.
For all I know, they could have put another parkade there. And there are parkades, right beside the Chandler House at Inn From the Cold, they tore down a freaking Chinese restaurant and put nothing but a freaking parking lot. Like so much property, it’s just stupid. There’s so much wasted land.
That’s just everybody chilling before they register at the Inn From the Cold shelter. Usually around 6:00 is when everybody starts showing up at Inn From the Cold, because they open up at 7 and you’ve got to be there before 7 so you can keep your bed, or even if you need to register to get a bed. But it’s just everybody chilling, relaxing, what more could I say about it.
It’s just everybody trying to be a family,
I guess. But everybody’s got lies and
deceit in families, no matter what.
This is the first time these guys have ever stayed open during the summer. They’ve always stayed open during the winter time. But this is an area where it’s residential and business, and it’s not very far from where that empty lot is, but anyways, they’re going to tear this building down and this parking lot, and the building beside it on this side, they’re going to tear it all down. I heard the old guy that owns the place. They’re going to tear it all down and they’re going to put a seniors home that’s affordable for seniors. They’re putting it there. So they’re kicking us out of here, tearing it down because they don’t like us, and they can’t stand us, to put a seniors home that’s affordable for seniors in that area.
There’s a house that’s right at the end over here, there’s a house right here, and they call every night to harass and say that they’re going to call the cops because we’re being too loud, or this that, whatever, fucking excuses, and we’re always getting bugged by the cops. And some of us, we stay there and sleep there on the property, but yet, it’s just stupid, like wouldn’t they rather have us sitting and sleeping in one spot like this than all over the place? But yet, we always have security guards kicking us out.
The other day, me and Destiny, we were just chilling, me and her, with all of our stuff on Sutherland over at the Salvation Army church area park, there’s a little grass area by the bridge there, and there’s a porta potty. Me and her, we sat there all day chilling, barely even did anything, I got Dollar Store munchies, whatever, we were just chilling, minding our business. All day, not a problem. And then evening time, like supper or something, 5 or 6, a [] security guard shows up, stops in front of the hub, waves for some stupid reason, and then pulls into the parking lot and gets out and starts yelling and demanding me and her to leave, giving us attitude.
And so of course, I started giving him attitude. And he kept on saying these names, this and that, but yet I’m sitting there yelling, I’m saying dude, you guys, now, your boss is sending you here to tell us to leave, when we’ve been sitting here doing our thing all flipping day and not one of you guys showed up, not your boss, no one from the Sally Ann has said anything, and you’re giving me flipping attitude. I have common sense. I actually got pictures of the guy on my phone, and I took a picture of his license plate, and a picture of him from his car, sitting. That’s good old Kelowna’s [security]. Giving me the finger. From sitting in his car. This is after the argument.
You pretty much have to put your tail between your legs sometimes and actually listen to them, because in all and all reality, they’re getting paid to secure and watch the property.
But yet, they have to have, there has to be a sign saying [] Security or “This is being watched” by whatever. It’s just, I don’t know how these people get these jobs being security guards, when they have the attitude and mentality that they do. And then when people like us, who were taught common sense, and pretty much make them kind of like “Huh?” it scares them. They cower, because they’re not expecting somebody like that, they’re expecting you to be like..
They’re not expecting somebody to stand up for themselves?
Exactly. That’s why me and bylaw got to know each other real well. Now it’s just kind of “Hi Chris, hi Destiny.” Yeah, they just leave me alone now.
That’s me just trying to get away from it all.
I don’t know, lately I’ve been just like, I got hockey sticks, I got golf clubs, I got basketball, football, it’s just, sometimes if I’m frustrated or if I’m angry or something, I just tend to pick up a hockey stick or something and just kind of like shoot the ball around or just get my mind off of stuff and get my mind on something else, and just kind of like blocking all that surrounding area around me, I’m trying to block out. Because I’ve had, too much is going on around me, or I just can’t take it anymore or something like that.
It’s kind of like what I do with my BMXs, how I paint my bikes and stuff like that. It’s just something where I can just pick up a hockey stick and say I feel like hitting a ball around, or I feel like hitting a golf ball or something right. Plus I think it helps with anger management too because I can hit the motherfuckers as hard as I can and I can’t go to jail. What else can I do right? It’s either that or pick up a pipe and stand there and start smoking dope, or pick up a gun and say I’m going to shoot you all.
Why not just stand there with
a hockey stick and shoot a
hockey ball or something?
I used to play hockey, football, street basketball, lacrosse. That’s pretty much about it. I haven’t really done sports in a long time until I met my friend Harold. I met my friend Harold and he’s a good friend of mine. He’s a Native brother of mine. He plays soccer and he played in Amsterdam for like ten days for this homeless tournament. Anyways my friend Harold plays for the team for Kelowna, and he just, yeah he brings down a soccer ball or his hackey sack or a football or whatever, and he’s sober, he drinks once in a while and stuff, but he’s like pretty much probably my normalest normal of the normal friends I have. I miss him, actually. I haven’t seen him for a while.
Anyways, ever since he got me starting to kick the soccer ball around with him, I just started to pick up sports again and I just kind of like, every time I see a sports thing I just kind of grab it and put it in my storage shed at the Mission and go maybe one day I’ll kick the ball around or maybe I’ll hit the baseball.
That’s what I’m missing now, a baseball glove.