Georgia spoke with us after a difficult few weeks. She explained why she feels more comfortable sitting in the Inn From the Cold parking lot than at a restaurant. After our conversation, we took a walk and Georgia pointed out the names of different flowers we passed on the street. 

I just actually saved a really good friend’s life yesterday. I’ve had to save my husband twice. But yet, no matter how many times I try to overdose, it doesn’t happen. I don’t know why.

It’s not easy. What we go through, it’s not easy at all. It’s a day to day struggle, not just with our addiction, but with police, with bylaw, with the way we get treated. I don’t even feel comfortable going into a restaurant to have a meal, going out on a date with my husband, because I get looked at like I don’t belong there.

It doesn’t matter how well I dress,
how well I look, because they know
me from the street. I don’t belong.

The discrimination we get on a daily basis is disgusting. And it hurts. It hurts a lot of people. I refuse to go into a restaurant. I will go into a restaurant once a month, and that’s with Sandy. That’s it. I won’t go into a restaurant otherwise.

We’re not just drug addicts because
we choose to, we’re drug addicts due
to things that have happened to us
all throughout our life.

Not just from teenage years and wanting to be rebellious, but from earlier years. And people don’t understand. And they don’t care to understand. They don’t care to know. They just see homeless people and they put us in this bubble, and we don’t fit in their bubble. So we don’t fit, per se in society as a whole. And it’s not fair. It hurts.

That’s the office [at Inn From the Cold]. That’s where we used to camp out, where we all felt safe. So we would camp there, where we felt safe, right. As a group. But everybody had their own little spot, everybody was all clumped together.

We had our own little sections and stuff
but we all felt safe, just knowing that
somebody else that we knew was close by.

Plant hope. I like to colour. It calms me.

That’s me and my hubby devouring a McCain’s Deep and Delicious cake. We’re not married but we’ve been together six years, off and on. We’ve been through a lot. I moved here in 2006 from Victoria, and he moved out here from, he logged all over and stuff, grew up in Ontario and stuff, Vancouver and all over the place. Sandy actually got us that cake.

We used to hang out under the stairs. When it rained we’d put a tarp underneath the stairs so that we’d stay dry and then we’d sit there and do drugs, colour, talk, just hang out.

People drive by, they say rude stuff, they honk, they throw stuff. It’s been getting worse.

We felt comfortable when it rained.
We felt comfortable just kind of
hanging in there.

Sleeping quarters at the Inn. That’s where the men slept. There’s way more men’s beds than there is women’s. There are only eight women’s beds. Because there’s [Alexander Gardner] for women as well.

There’s lots of feelings and auras being
in the place. Not just from it being
a shelter, I pick up a lot of other stuff.

I don’t know if it was a school building at one time, but something about it…

All my crap. A bunch of bottles, backpack, rolled up mat, shoes.

That’s us collecting bottles at the bottle depot. They’re making that a red zone area now. They’re trying to stop people from doing that, because apparently we’re putting stuff on the highway, but yet we’re not on the road. We’re off the side of the road. But because people are stopping and dropping stuff off to us we are obstructing traffic. And that’s how some of us make money to take care of our habits or whatever, to eat, clothing, whatever, you know.

You cannot even collect donations at the bottle depot down here, and they will ban you. The one on Kirschner, it’s been going on for a while, and now they’re trying to red zone it.

So if you’ve been asked to leave
a few too many times, they’ll actually
red zone you from that whole block, like
you won’t even be able to go to that
bottle depot, let alone go down that road.

So who decides that?

The police and bylaw. It’s not a law written anywhere, but police and bylaw are coming up with this. Because there’s all sorts of different spots down Kirschner where people will sit. There’s four or five spots down Kirschner. You’ve got all the Yuppies.

Some jerk was shitting on the bottle depot steps, some people broke into the bottle depot, crapping on the businesses’ door steps around there. We know who was doing it. The same person did it at the Inn as well.

That’s my tent. That’s where I sleep. That’s my bike. It got stolen.

That was me looking up at the trees, lying down. I was taking pictures of the sun coming through the branches. Looking up.

Another one of our bottle depot spots.

Little hut. That was outside Chandler after they’d been shut down and

we weren’t supposed to be there anymore.
But you know, we felt safe, obviously
we felt safe so we didn’t want to leave.

Copyright for all photographs, audio recordings, and transcribed written materials,
resides jointly with the author, Kelowna Museums Society, and Metro Community.

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.

Copyright for all photographs, audio recordings, and transcribed written materials,
resides jointly with the author, Kelowna Museums Society, and Metro Community.

Diane Larsback is a proud First Nations artist, poet and storyteller, of Cree and Iroquois heritage. In Raven’s Heart, her book of poetry available for sale HERE and in the Kelowna Heritage Museum gift shop, Diane weaves memoir and poetry to chronicle her powerful life-journey into healing and wholeness.

Diane shared her wisdom with us over lunch near the apartment she recently moved into. She described what certain places in the city mean to her and warns against making judgments without understanding.

That’s the bridge where I spent Christmas eve six and a half years ago. This is the side view where I’m standing on the bridge, and it was very cold and I didn’t have a jacket. All I had was a sweater and a pair of pants. I was all huddled under there all night, trying to detox on my own, waiting for morning so I could go to the hospital. I made it to the hospital the next morning at sun up and they kicked me out, so I ended up having to get drunk again to avoid the shakes, and just carrying on. I was still drunk [the evening before] so I knew I had to sleep it off as best I could, and then hopefully they would admit me.

Under there too, that night, I remember my liver was at that point where it was very very serious, because you get a big lump just under your ribs and it hurts to touch that side. So I remember I fell asleep at one point, but it’s not really falling asleep because it’s all ugly, but I got poked by something. It was like somebody poked me and woke me up. I remember getting poked and I remember thinking “Oh thank you, whoever that was” because I knew if I had fallen asleep I wouldn’t have woken up. So I know it was probably my family trying to help me not to die. Lots of odd things like that happen. They would probably scare a lot of people, but I know the spirits are there.

The big tree. That’s the one right on Richter and Wardlaw, right across from the dog park. They left that tree, thank gosh. That’s why I wanted to take that picture – to honour it. Because people just take trees down and they don’t know how long that tree has been there, how many people it’s sheltered, how much air it’s cleansed over the years, and they make a decision in a meeting within an hour or two to tear down a tree that’s been there for a century. How egotistical we humans are to do such a thing. A lot of times in the summer, people take refuge under that tree, or in the tree. They climb up so nobody will bug them. And a lot of people have went up in there in the bushes, because cops can’t see you when it’s in full bloom.

Just to rest. To stop for a moment, rest your feet, your street feet.

You can never rest. It’s judgment –
Oh, you look like a bum, so I’m going
to ask you to move along, or you look
like a member of society, so you have
a right to sit there. I don’t understand
that. You’re sitting, you can sit.
Everybody’s part of the city. 

Everybody gets street feet at some point. When you go back to [Alexander Gardner] the best part is when you can take off your shoes and socks and soak them and then put on fresh socks, and usually the staff there have knowledge of what happens to your feet. So they have all of the little salves and band-aids and stuff. But a fresh pair of socks is the ultimate. But how many years has that tree been alive, from a sprout to that, what it has seen. And then the other ones, they had other ones there, but they just got ripped apart. Tore down. They decided that tree was the lucky tree.

This is my home. My home after many many years. I think the last home I really had was when Raven left, when my son left twelve years ago. So this is my first home in twelve years on my own. So when I’m riding my bike there or whatever, I just think, I have a place! It’s awesome, I have a place to go and nobody’s going to do room checks and nobody’s going to be disrespecting my space. Because in recovery homes, there’s no sense of trust, because you’re a junkie, how can we trust you, anything you say, so people do room checks, even though they do urine tests, there’s still no trust. So it’s very sad.

And how long have you been there for?

Four months. Now I have a keyboard, because I’m learning how to play the piano. That’s always what I’ve wanted to do, is learn. Toby’s helping me, so I go up to her house and she gives me a new lesson and then I come home and practice.

And that was One Cup, on St. Paul. And that was the first kind of straight job endeavour that I tried to do after Raven left as well. And they really helped. They help no matter what your work history is like, they’re actually geared towards helping people who have gaps or they have varying disabilities, or they have no sense of pride anymore. So they do classes for the first month and then they train you to be a barista. And it’s not like you have to be a barista, but it’s just to get some sense of satisfaction, right, that you can do something.

So that’s where it all begins.I ended up starting the store just because of my experience with One Cup. I would tell anybody, go there. Go to that program if you want a first step towards getting work or school or just to know who you are and what you can accomplish. 

And this fella, I call him the Happy Bear when I think of him.

I seen them the day before, and they’re newbies downtown. I think they’re just travelling, him and his girlfriend. So I’d seen them the day before in the back alley where my little shop is, and they were very, very drunk, but he said “Oh, I like your earrings.” So I said yeah I got this little place here, when you guys are sober come in and check it out. And he goes, “You know what, I know how to make those. I was in jail and I know how to make them.” And I believe it, because most brothers who know how to bead, they learn it while they’re inside. So if you meet anybody who knows how to bead, they’ve most likely learned it while they’ve got some quiet time in jail.

 So who teaches them?

Usually there’s an elder, in the female side they call it the Eagle Hut, and that’s for First Nations women, and they always have one in every jail for First Nations people to pray or to learn or to do anything, so they show you everything you need to know and they usually have an elder that comes every day. So a lot of the guys learn how to do carving, they learn how to bead, and that’s where they start. 

So he was just laying there the next day, and I asked if I could take his picture, and his girlfriend was sitting with my other little buddy, so that’s why she’s in the other picture. But he was just laying in the sun and happy and already starting a new drunken day. But he was happy, so that made me happy. He was very at peace, he was very happy. 

That’s what I remember sometimes about being in that world, I miss the freedom from responsibility.

The freedom to not do anything, to just be.
You don’t have to go anywhere, you don’t
have an appointment, you don’t have to
pay anybody, you don’t have to do all these
things that I do now. You can just be happy,
you can be mad, you can be angry,
you can be… there’s no expectation.

Nobody has any expectations of you. It’s a very different life. When I see this again I remember that feeling.

That’s where everybody meets, the tower. “The Clocks,” they call it, “I’ll meet you at the Clocks.” Everybody knows the Clocks. And that’s where you go if you’re getting out of the drunk tank, you go there and you can usually find someone that’s drinking and then you help each other get rid of the shakes. So when you sober up, there’s nobody to help you sober up, but if you want to drink, there’s always somebody to help you get drunk.

If you’re hardcore, when you get to that point
where you do get the shakes, by then you’re
only drinking to feel normal. You don’t get
drunk anymore, you can just function.

So you don’t get drunk anymore, it’s way past the point where it’s a party. And you know you’re in trouble then.

And that’s Candace. This woman is, to me, halfway to being a genius. She can do anything on the computer. Right now she is dealing with getting her five children back. And this woman is sober, she has a home, but because of I don’t know what, just maybe because she’s Native, maybe because they say it’s her history, her traumatic history, all these things where they think she can’t mother her children, but she still remains sober. She still remains sober even though she cries, because she misses them.

I have nothing but respect for her. That’s a strong, strong girl there. I just think she’s a miracle. I’m really glad Creator put us together. Because I think she has to do with the vision I was given. She’s one of the people that’s going to help. I call her my spirit sister. Real quiet nature, too. She is very gentle, very quiet, low, quiet voice. But she did my taxes and everything, she did all these computer things for me that I didn’t know how to do. 

And this is Noel. He’s the janitor at the Friendship Center. But he also, in the opening ceremonies, holds the eagle staff when all the participants first come in. He’s had a very similar life to mine, I won’t go into detail, but incredibly similar upbringing, and then you know, now to be walking the red road, it’s a miracle. So we’re pretty good friends now. He’s a nice, quiet guy, and once you get to know him, he’s funny. So he was really down with that idea of superimposing regalia, not a before and after, but maybe a now and then kind of picture.

Everybody has judgments, and it’s like,
unless you’ve walked beside everybody
from the time they were born until now,
then you can make a judgment. But until
then, nobody can. We’re human beings,
we all have wishes and hopes and what
we want to be. Nobody said, “I want to be
found in a dumpster drunk” or go in
and out of hospitals to get sober, or
have to drink to get sober. 

I’ve always wanted to take photos, because my beauty is different from other people’s. We all see differently. Sometimes I wish that I had learned how to take photos. Maybe I still will. Darkrooms and all that stuff, I like that. Cause I think my eye is good.

We spoke to Rob a couple of weeks after his move from the street into housing. Here, he describes how different life is with housing and the meaning behind his passion for fixing bikes.  

This is to give you some idea of the delicate ballet of chaotic balance that is my life. It’s all packed in the closet there, quite conspicuously as you can see, and my battered guitar case, and my hooks that are still waiting for something to hang on them. I’m prepared for it, I’m just not always right there for it.

It looks like a bunch of nothingness but I don’t keep it unless it’s essential. I’m really like a Zen buddhist minimalist. I look like a hoarder, but the things I keep, I keep because I know I can see a purpose for it.

This is the top of my fridge. This is a clock with no gears inside of it, so it’s whatever time we want it to be in Margaritaville. And my radio there flashes noon all the time and it can’t be changed. And we’ve got an air horn there in case there’s an emergency.

And there’s my guitar. And she is laying on my bed, laying beside my bed. That’s where I lay quite often. I sit with my bum on the floor and my back against the bed and I can arch my neck back against the edge of the bed. It’s quite a comfortable spot. And my guitar is waiting for me.

That’s a tent set up in my room there. Just to keep it familiar. 

So this is a wagon full of bare bones again. Except it has a metal deer head there, which is kind of interesting. That’s what that is. The antlers, that’s a spooky looking deer head really. I just thought it was a fun picture. So this again is one of those beginning shots, just, in the middle of nowhere, you’ve got a shot of the cranks and that’s what makes the thing go round, but it’s not cranks, you’ve got sunglasses for one of the pedals there and I just thought it was a bit abstract. And it’s not even connected, it’s in the right spot so that it looks like it’s connected, and I think that’s kind of cool.

This gets a nifty effect here as well. Is that a saw blade or is that a tree? What is it supposed to be? It’s kind of my abstract Christmas tree there. Every day is a new day for Christ to be born in my life. 

When you have a place to live and you want to make the very best of it, I don’t want to go anywhere. I love being at home, I really do. I love to think about things I can cook and cook them. I like my friends coming over. I like being alone. It’s great to have a place.

This is a picture of chaos again. And so this again is kind of a just before the explosion. You got some components of a bike here, you got the handlebars and the wheel, which are kind of major, you know. They’re both relative to the steering and the driving and whatnot, and the seat is there as well. And it just looks like it’s ready to burst forth. And the deer head in there again, just to show some sort of idea that there is life in there. There’s something in there that it’s going to become.

This is my personal bike. It’s an Eastern Growler, which is really cool. It’s light and it’s long and low and was painted black and blue. And so when I’m riding my bike, I miss my guitar. When I’m playing my guitar, I want to ride my bike. They really go hand in hand together.

I used to build mechanisms on the back wheel, like a saddle bag, and I would devise various different methods of strapping my guitar to my bike so I could have them together. And it’s not easy, and if you wipe out, it’s detrimental to Lucille’s cousin here. That’s what B.B. King calls his guitar, Lucille. This is my guitar, I really like it a lot. It’s a great guitar.

They just need to be together because it’s almost like kids, if I show one more favour than the other then the other one’s going to be mad at me. To me, they’re very similar, just with the shapes and what have you, the chain and the strings and the wheels and the body and the frame and the neck, the tune pegs and all the hardware, there’s a connection there between the two. I know they’re very different, but there’s something that connects them in my life anyways.

Like when I’m out riding, I’m thinking about music and I have a cadence, a timing to my way of pedalling and my way of riding. And I have a soundtrack that plays inside my head always. When I’m playing my guitar, it makes music for me, and when I’m riding my bike I’m thinking about my guitar and music playing inside my head, and when I’m playing my guitar I’m thinking about cruising on my bike.

It’s very romantic, because
my bike in my imagination
is smooth and fast and I
can fly. I can do anything.

So there’s certainly opportunity there for lyrics and rhythms and stuff that just kind of comes naturally.

I’m very proud of my bike.
I build good bikes. They run
good, there’s no loose spots.
You can pick my bike up to
your chest and drop it and it
sounds like a basketball when
it bounces. There’s no rattle
or shake, nothing like that.

Do you have any idea how many bikes you’ve made?

More than 100. And I’ve lost more than 50 guitars. I generally make them to replace the one that has just been stolen. I generally have an assembly line of bicycles behind me, so that when this one is missing I need a couple more pieces and put the next one on the road. If I’m fortunate enough to have both of them running at the same time I have a guest bike, but that’s hard to keep track of as well.

But generally I have an assembly line of them coming towards me, so that I always have one to ride. Because I don’t like to walk.

It hurts to walk. My feet hurt, my
knees hurt, my hips hurt. I’ve had
a lot of trauma to my body and
I prefer the effortless glide of a bike.

This is the natural habitat, okay. I like all my things right there on my bed and I would lay right on top of that just as if I was laying outdoors somewhere. And that’s for security. A sense of security. Like a lioness. And also security in terms of keeping ahold of my things. It’s just a habit.

That’s the way I’m used to it now. I sleep with a sleeping bag. I’m not really comfortable until I’m zipped inside my sleeping bag. Some people brush their teeth and put on their pajamas and they’re ready for bed. I’m ready as soon as I zip that zipper up and I’m inside my sleeping bag.

This is Rob’s favourite photo off his roll. You can find this on a postcard in the SEE:kelowna exhibit at the Okanagan Heritage Museum.

What I hoped to get was kind of the industrial nature. What I like to point out here also is a steam engine is very much like this I would say, except, pound for pound, I would say that the BMX puts out more torque than a steam engine.

Because a steam engine has no transmission, same as this, there’s no changing gears. There’s one gear. And a steam engine will go all the way up to 60 miles an hour and achieve its top speed relatively quickly for one gear. There’s a lot of power there, a lot of torque.

Now the difference with the BMX is the chain is kept tight, so there’s no opportunity for it to slip off its cogs. It’s placed so that you’re not going to injure yourself, it remains in place. 25 and 9, you’ve got 25 teeth here and 9 here, so you’ve got a ratio of roughly 2.78, 2.8. So now you’re pedalling, and you’ve got the handlebars here so you’re pulling down, so you’re pushing your body weight into it again, you’re pumping up and down with it so you’ve got your body weight throbbing, you’ve got your backpack on your back, now the torque that’s being applied to your back wheel now is exponential.

And at 5 pedals you can achieve full speed. So you can be right up to full speed in 5 pumps.

I can keep up with traffic around town.
I can achieve 40km an hour. I wouldn’t
say maintain that, but certainly in spurts
I can hit 40km an hour easily.

And sadly, much like ourselves, as soon as we’re born we begin to die. A bicycle of mine, as soon as it’s ready, runs a pretty solid risk of getting stolen. Somebody’s waiting for that bike. It’s a thing of beauty and people know how well I put them together. It’s not going to let them down. There’s somebody who’s got their eye on it right now I’m sure. So I’m prepared for that in some way emotionally. So here’s a photo that kind of says so. This one’s heading back to the beginning so we can start the assembly line process again.

In our homelessness, we have a sense of forsakenness. Even Christ himself in his last moments said “Why have you forsaken me Father?” He feels the same sense of abandonment. And in that forsakenness is your freedom. You can grow in your sense of freedom. As you do, you’re going to be made aware of your sense of forsakenness when somebody doesn’t bring you a meal at mealtime, or somebody doesn’t give you a coffee at coffee break.

And then when you move into housing, you come on board with this program and workers and whatnot, and then all of the sudden, it’s not a sense of forsakenness anymore. And freedom, it’s quite the opposite. You’re marching to the whimsical rules of that particular institution, and sometimes they seem a bit arbitrary. Rules for the sake of rules. Rules to enforce other rules. Rules set up to add structure and strength to the other rules. It’s a small step from that freedom/forsakenness to the restriction and forced adherence to the rules. It’s a very small step between one and the other, and yet it’s a very big difference. It’s night and day to us. Night and day to me.  

So when it comes down to rules and whatnot, you can see why that rule is in place, because there are those who, like no smoking, I get that, some would maybe fall asleep with a cigarette in their hands. And so on one hand, I can appreciate that no smoking rule. It might save my life. And on the other hand, I am far too frugal with my cigarettes to smoke one at nighttime when I’m so sleepy that I don’t know if I’m smoking or not. You drop your cigarette because you don’t even know what you’re doing.

When I’m smoking a cigarette,
I know what I’m doing. It’s very
intentional. It’s medicinal to me.

It really is. It’s not only medicinal, it’s also cathartic. It’s the same kind of drug that a doctor might prescribe to calm me in some sort of social atmosphere where I’m agitated or anxious or what have you.

There are rules that are in place that make sense, and I for one, need to be very clear on the sensibility of that law and the purpose of it and why is it in place. Often times, they’re just in place for the sake of being there, and it’s a matter of power and control again.

We are created. God loves me just as much as he loves him. And God loves me just as much as he loves you. And he made me this way. He’s not surprised at what I do. He also knows that as soon as you put up a sign that says “Don’t walk on the grass,” most of us want to kick off our socks and shoes and go walking on the grass.

Out here, it’s a lot of the same thing. You get people blaming this and blaming that, all the way down the line. We get to take responsibility for ourselves and step up to these rules and want to change. In order for that to all make sense, and for myself, for me to want to become a part of what you guys are doing,

if I want to become a part of
the moral majority, so to speak,
then it’s got to make sense to me.
If I think you guys are all
marching to the meat grinder,
well, maybe I don’t want to go.

If you guys are doing the marmot off the edge of the cliff, then maybe I don’t want to go.

But if this is going to glory, if this is going somewhere, and I’m going to be able to face my God with a fucking clear, pure heart, then I’m all in. And if the rules make sense, I’m all in. Otherwise it just seems like we’re being pushed around, it just seems like a power and control issue.  

The other thing that’s interesting about this whole thing is that the best way to keep control of the group is to keep them uncomfortable. You let them get comfortable and you’re going to have a problem, because they’ll take over. This is a standard rule, if you want people to be manageable, you make sure that they’re not settled and make sure that they’re uncomfortable and nervous. That agitated state is much easier to manipulate than the sedate, feet up on the desk. You want someone who when you ask them to do something they’ll pop right up and move on. Sometimes it’s a divide and conquer thing too.

People oftentimes, not so much lately with my teeth all breaking off – and excuse the profanity, but again, this is a vernacular. I’m emoting this stuff as much as I’m speaking it. It’s an overflow of my feelings on this stuff. And so last night, C. and I were talking, and it’s a very serious matter, man, and it’s interesting to have a conversation of that caliber with a fellow drug addict in a place like this.

We’re basically part of the rat park experiment. And I was telling him about that, they created this apparatus where the rats could nudge this thing and actually inject a shot of cocaine, which is a bell ringing buzz on, I’ve done it a million times, I know how it feels and I know why that rat would go back and do it again, because it’s wild. So I explained to him the rat with no stimulus would keep on injecting himself again and again and again, until he finally blows his heart up and he dies. And he can make his dosage bigger and bigger and whatnot.

And the rats that have stimulus
and the wheels to run on and the
treadmills and rat pool with the rat
umbrella and suntan bed, little rat
bikini friends and stuff like that, he’s
not interested, he’s not thinking about
going to inject with cocaine because
he doesn’t need to.

But you take the same rats, you put them into a lack of stimulus situation with the ability to inject, it’s inevitable that they’re going to bring themselves to death on it.

Photo credit: Lesley-Anne Evans

And so we were talking about that, we were talking about how people oftentimes look at us and say, “You’re how old? How old are you? No fucking way.” People still sometimes, not so much lately with my teeth, but it wasn’t that long ago when, I’m creeping on 50 and people would think I’m in my 20s or 30s. That’s pretty flattering. So why is that?

Well we, as creatures, have a gift – to heal. We get broken or cut open or bleeding, it heals itself. We heal ourselves. And it just happens automatically. Whereas everything else that we build and make, everything else on the planet is disintegrating, breaking down, it’s dilapidating.

So now, when you’re indoors, this trip from standing to sitting on your couch or chair or bed, it’s a short trip.

But when you don’t have a couch
or a chair and you’re outside,
you’ve got to get all the way down,
and you’ve got to get all the way up.
So it takes extra strength, it takes
extra exercise, extra calories, extra
exertion, more exercise to do it.

You’ve got to be in shape… Your body is getting bigger and stronger in advance of the next encounter, so just in case it’s heavier this time, we’re better prepared.

That’s amazing. That means that every cell in your body, every DNA in your body is looking forward. That’s amazing. We, as a person, we don’t look back. “High school was the best years of my life,” people say. Chances are you haven’t seen the best years of your life, so shut up.

So you’ve got this exercise, getting up, you’ve got all your belongings on your back, so you’re carrying that. You’re super human in terms of physical strength.

Now, instead of being out there with the task at hand making you stronger and your body and mind preparing you for what’s going to come next, now, you’re singled, and you’re put into an extra large coffin. Your house is your representation of yourself. So you are a part of your house now, and your house is part of you. And so now, your mind and body knows that it’s dated, it’s got an expiration date, and well, you’re part of it. So there’s almost kind of a magic attachment there, that is also degrading, breaking down, dilapidating. It’s dying, so to speak.

Whereas when you’re out there roaming, you were the opposite of that.

And so now you’re part of the
rat park experiment, because that
stimulus is gone. And now you’re
looking to a bottle of wine, and then
a bottle of wine turns into a bottle
of whisky, you know what I mean?

It’s almost a sense of accomplishment, when you get it done sometimes. They had a grocery cart pushing contest, remember? Because they see the challenge of negotiating a fucking grocery cart over curbs and what not, it’s not an easy deal, especially when it’s loaded with all of your wet belongings. That makes it exponentially heavier. 

You come and sit down, all your belongings, you don’t have to hold them and push them around because you’ve got a door and a lock, nobody’s going to take them, you’re not in conflict with any bylaw private property stuff, and you can leave your stuff at home, and that’s where you stay. Home is where the heart is. Home is where my hat is. Home is where my fridge is.

And once you’ve been so long without a home and you know that they want you to get a home, you want to, it’s not even a matter of want to, you find yourself obsessed with the idea of being there. Now all of the sudden you’re agoraphobic because…

You know, most of us are not going out of our way to disobey the establishment by being homeless.

I first thought I was homeless by choice
and then I realized that I wasn’t
being homeless by choice, because
I couldn’t get a place to live.

It’s not my choice anymore, and now all of the sudden I’m fucked. And then it takes an agency to step in and advocate for me and set something up. And you start right here at skid row, bottom of the barrel.

And you know that you’re not allowed to sit on the sidewalk, you know you’re not allowed to stand on the sidewalk, and even though your first habit, you get a place and your first habit is to go down there and associate with your friends, you go down and hang out with your friends, and what happens? The cop comes around and says “What are you doing down here? Didn’t we get you a house? Everything okay?” And you feel stupid about not being at home. It soon becomes clear that the expectation is you’re not going to be hanging around downtown on the sidewalk, it’s against the law. “We got you a house, man! Go hang around your house!”

So you go hang around your house,
by yourself, and all of the sudden you’ve
got an extension of the penal system.

The shirts are hanging in the closet, the socks are folded in a bundle in the drawer, shoes are on the rack, the food is in the fridge and in the pantry, and people are not on the street. And that is a problem, man, it is a problem in every demographic I would think. Whereas it could be done differently, it could be more festive. The other part of this is that exclusionary thing, what’s the opposite of inclusive? Inclusive is good. We’re not so different, but we’re kept apart. And we’re convinced that we’re different, but we’re not, we’re the same. The Bible tells us we’re all one. And we are for some reason, and I have to think that it comes back to power and control,

we are for some reason kept apart
and kept in the neat little place,
and convinced that that is proper.

Photo credit: Lesley-Anne Evans

I am a destroyer. I’m a self-destroyer. I don’t have any relationships that work. I don’t have any relationships that last, or I’d be married still. I’m a failure at relationships, because something will happen where I’ll break it off, burn the bridge, and you won’t be able to get across because the bridge is burnt down, and I’m going to keep on going. And do I think about that person? Yes. Do I feel a sense of regret that I hurt that person? I can see it. I can see it.

Johnny Cash sings that song, it’s called “Hurt” – “The needle tears a hole, the old familiar sting, see if I still feel,” and then the chorus is, “I will let you down. I will make you hurt.” Because he knows it. As I do. And it’s much easier to let you down one time and be done with it. I know this is who I am, I know this is my MO man. I’m going to let you down. I’m going to hurt you. And I don’t want to, but I can’t help myself. It’s a painfully beautiful song. And I can relate to that.

But chances are we’re closer to success than we are to failure, like it’s almost there. And so many times we turn around and go back.

I want to be loved. I want to be loved
so much that I can’t help but love back.
That’s what God does.

You have to somehow find a way to trudge on. When you are crying out to God, you envision it a certain way and you micromanage it maybe a certain way. We have our vision of what it is supposed to be, and it is not like that. So there’s God, we’ve tried to package God this way or that way, and when we find out that he’s not that way, it’s a bit of a surprise that God’s not our genie in a bottle. He’s God. And you don’t tell God what to do, God tells you how it is.

So once you accept that it’s not going to be your way, it’s going to be a surprise mystery way, and it may even take a bit of elbow grease and it might even hurt a bit, if you can accept some of that stuff, and adhere to the rules maybe, apply that template to whatever you’re doing, if you can kind of go along with it and fake it til you make it sort of thing, put one foot in front of the other and know that God’s going to walk along with you, he’s not going to keep you from pain and trouble but he’ll be there with you and he certainly has experienced pain and trouble, right down to that feeling of forsakenness on the cross.

And seeing that in full colour,
really is worth taking the time
to try to understand it, and worth
the sacrifice of heart. Instead maybe
your diary’s not going to a be a
dear diary, I cried again today,
maybe it’s going to be a
dear diary I grew today.

I’m a 52 year old six year old. It’s damage done to my unit, death of children, broken marriage, there’s probably a post traumatic stress system that’s attached to all these things that has put our shit out of whack a bit.

Photo credit: Lesley-Anne Evans

We’ve got to stop trying to convince
the world that we’re so hard done by
that we should have that, and rather
convince the world that we are of
the monarchy, and that we deserve that.

I’m a bit different from most bums. We’re very much the same, but I’m a bit different in maybe my ability to see things, and the way I see myself. I don’t see myself as entitled, but I do see myself as given the responsibility of dominion under God. You know what I mean? I do have some control of my environment. I can take charge of it. But I see myself as wealthy, even though I don’t have anything. And whatever I need, not necessarily things that I want, they just seem to come along anyways.

And for those of us who don’t go around hurting people every chance we get, but rather, offer some help, I love people, I like to give my best, my best advice. I might not want to take the best advice myself, but I’ll offer the advice for you to take it.

If I have money, I’ll give you some.
I’ll share my food, everything I have.
I think that’s kindness, and I think that
that sort of paying forward kindness
is reciprocated. It has to be.

I know God loves me. I know God is not against me. Nothing is against me. So no matter what they say or how it seems or what I think it is right now, it may be much better than that, much brighter than that. So I generally function in a, the TD Bank has the “You’re richer than you think you are.” And I kind of operate in that same way of thinking, that I’m better off than I think I am. As bleak as it seems today, as bad as it is, it can always get worse, that’s for sure. And let’s not go there.

Become a creator. What you lose here, it’s in the heavens. You’re seated on the throne of Christ – what does that mean? Well you better find a meaning for yourself and find a way to utilize that privilege that is somehow being extended to you, and try to use that gifting to benefit and to improve the quality of your life so that those around you get the quality.

We live in communities.
If I’m doing better, you’re going to do better.
If I’m happier, you’re going to be happier.

Copyright for all photographs, audio recordings, and transcribed written materials,
resides jointly with the author, Kelowna Museums Society, and Metro Community.