Posted on January 1, 2012 by Steve
On the damp concrete sidewalk just beyond the steps of the First United Church, a native man is splayed over a soggy piece of cardboard next to a bus stop. The glass walls of the bus shelter are long gone, having been shattered months ago and never replaced.
So much for fixing Broken Windows.
I’m on my way to the Hazelwood Hotel, just up the street, because I’ve heard a man with a warrant — a chronic offender — may be hiding out there. The arrest will have to wait.
I stop at the bus shelter to survey the scene. I can see the man’s belly rising and falling, so I know he’s breathing. The contents of his pockets are strewn around him on the sidewalk, including his ID and some loose change. The optimist in me finds comfort that nobody’s swooped in to steal the money off the ground. The realist knows the money was likely left behind by the person — or people — who already pilfered his pockets. Sadly, such crimes of opportunity seem to be tolerated around here.
There are a half dozen people waiting for the Hastings bus. None of them appear concerned or interested in the welfare of this poor fellow. I wonder if they’d be as indfferent if this were a bus stop on the west side of town.
I step closer and tap the man’s sneakers with my duty boots, trying to wake him. Nothing.
I lean in and catch a waft of Listerine. Mouthwash is the drink of choice for many skid row alcoholics due to its potent alcohol content and the ease in which it can be stuffed down a jacket sleeve and shoplifted. It smells like mouthwash is leaching from his pores.
I grab his collar and give him a shake.
“Helloooo. It’s the police,” I say. “Wake up.”
A young man appears from the church door at the top of the stairs and shouts down to me.
“I asked him if he wanted to come in, but he said no,” the young man reasons, then disappears back into the church.
It’s not quite dusk, but there’s already a chill in the air. The sky is clear, which means the temperature is likely to drop to freezing. I’m reminded of Frank Paul, the aboriginal man who died in a lane in 1998 after police failed to recognize how drunk and hypothermic he already was.
I unzip his jacket, make a fist, then rake my knuckles across his sternum to wake him up. The pain jolts the man from his stupor. Confused, he swats my arm then wraps his hand tightly around my wrist and yanks me in close. Experience tells me that drunk guys like to fight when they wake up, and for a moment I’m pretty sure the fight’s on.
After a few seconds he loosens his grip and drifts back into placid drunkenness.
I call for a paddy wagon to take this guy to the drunk tank, but before it can arrive the young man from the church reappears at my side.
“Here,” he says, grabbing the left arm and hoisting the man to his feet. “I’ll take him inside.”
Grabbing hold of the right arm, I prop the drunk man up and slowly walk him to the top of the stairs. The church door swings open and the overpowering stench of dirty, wet socks slaps me in the face. The young man and the drunk man disappear into the sanctuary, the door slamming shut behind them.
Located at the corner of Hastings Street and Gore Avenue, the First United Church has been a fixture in the Downtown Eastside for more than a century, providing social services and often giving people a place to stay when they had nowhere else to go.
The church was converted into a full-time shelter in 2008, and was given government funding to stay open year-round. It was meant to be a stop-gap, until more permanent housing was created.
The pews were converted into beds, with people sleeping head to toe on the benches. Bunk beds, showers and meals were later added. In that first winter, the church took in 240 people a night, on average. Some nights, there were as many as 350 people. Nobody was turned away.
Now, three years later, the shelter is being phased out. Funding, which was supposed to stretch into 2013, is now expected to be cut off this spring. We’re told the closure will coincide with a raft of new shelter beds and government housing that’s about to be completed.
Late last month — just a few days before Christmas, in fact — First United minister Rev. Ric Matthews quit. His reluctance to adhere to occupancy limits was one of the reasons for his departure.
I’ve never met Rev. Matthews, but I’m sure he’s a good man. He’s devoted his life to service and to helping those who are often beyond help — picking them up, dusting them off, and giving them a warm place to stay. You can’t fault him for that.
Unfortunately, it appears that Rev. Matthews’ mission to help people was his own undoing. The open-door policy at the First United Church turned the place into a free-for-all, with drunken fights on the street, booze and drugs in the lobby, and whispers of sex assaults in the sanctuary.
For the front-line police officers, this so-called ghetto mansion has been a nightmare.
Unlike most shelters on the Downtown Eastside, the doors to the First United remain open all night. People come and go as they please. Nobody has to register, and typically only first names are recorded, if any at all.
Soon after it opened, that bus-stop out on Hastings Street became into a mosh-pit of drunkenness. People who already had homes came by to party on the street, and occasionally to sleep in the shelter.
Drunks would wander into traffic, kicking at cars that lollied along at the new 30 kilometre per hour speed limit — lowered from 50 kph due, ironically, to the number of people who were blindly stepping out into traffic and getting hit.
Staff members forbade beat officers from entering the church to conduct walk-throughs, and bad guys began hiding out in there. Several police officers, including myself, were assaulted and obstructed while trying to break up fights and enforce the law in and around the church. Criminals quickly realized that if the police were on their heels they could run into the church and hide out. Even when in hot pursuit, we were often blocked at the door by staff.
To their credit, staff at the First United Church have done yeoman’s work for the past three years. Many of them are recovering addicts themselves, and others have overcome significant hurdles just to get where they are.
Nobody questions their commitment to helping some of the most difficult people in the Downtown Eastside. Many of the people who use the homeless shelter are on the streets because nobody else wants anything to do with them. They are often among the most severely addicted and mentally ill, with extreme social and behavioural disorders to boot.
The staff at the First United take them in, no questions asked. And for that they deserve praise. Like the police, staff members have also been subjected to verbal abuse and assaults, and while our relationship has been a tricky one at times, there’s little doubt they have nothing but the best intentions.
As we often say to each other around the Beat Enforcement Team office, you can either be part of the problem, or you can be part of the solution.
The folks at the First United Church have tried to be part of the solution, and to some degree they have succeeded. They’ve done their best to help people who have been pushed to the extreme margins of society and have repeatedly fallen through the cracks.
But they’ve tried to seal those cracks with a Band-aid, and it’s clear that just isn’t working.
So, while many will be sad to see the First United Church close its shelter doors this spring, I, for one, won’t be among those shedding a tear.
Share
This entry was posted in Front Line Views. Bookmark the permalink.
