Todayy

I've realized that if I don't update this obnoxiously often I will miss telling heaps of stories of what is going on on the streets. I'll try to retell the most touching stories of the last weeks as I go.
Today I helped move a guy from one room in his building to another. He's an inuit man who grew up wayyyy up north. When he gets really drunk he cracks out the native throat-singing he learned from his grandparents as a kid... its hauntingly beautiful, though always a little strange because of his timing when he is drunk. Months ago he spent the better part of a Thursday night drop-in sitting at a table whooting humming and howling songs he'd learned way back when in his native tongue. Last thursday he had been drinking and i went over to say hey and he started crying and crying and let me glimpse into some of the pain hes suffered in his life... including two ex-wives, one who was murdered and one who died of breast cancer a little over a year ago. Its moments like that that are so difficult, because as much as it has become a sort of cliche catch phrase among street outreach workers, all that you can really offer in that moment is your prescence.. to "just be" with someone. So I looked into his eyes longingly, knowing that anything I tried to do or say to offer comfort would be completely insufficient, and to think otherwise would be to not affirm his overwhelming pain. So i just looked into his wet eyes and couldnt help but shed a few tears myself... my mind trying to figure out how it was that I am the person he can confide in...and then he began to hum deep in his throat and started slowly to murmur and asked me to sing along with him... i was unbelievably embarassed because i knew people could see and were listening... but I as well as i could tried to copy his whoots and deep murmurs.... it was all that I had to offer in that moment and for some reason it was exactly what I knew he wanted from me... just someone to mourn with him... to sing a dirge of sorts... this man can make incredibly artwork. He's been working at the shop recently making figures out of soap stone... he's a rare talent.. the stuff he is producing is magnificent.
Anyways, he often has G. at his place, and apparently the building has gotten alot of complains about them so they made him move out of his room down two floors to the basement. So today we went and moved him, it was fun... though I'm constantly reminded of how housing is not the answer to the "problem of homelessness". Homes are the answer... and the shitholes that people who can't make it the way society says they should are put in... they arent close to homes. I can't imagine what living in one of those buildings would do to my psyche or self-esteem... I wonder how much my creativity and drive would be stifled, and if I would grow to believe that I was the type of person who deserved to be living in filth. I looked out the window in his new room, and the window hits street level of an alleyway... and it was littered with garbage, needles, glass, a used tampon applicator, condoms, etc. Imagine looking out your window everyday to that... what that would do to your view of your own worth.

After moving S. Doug and I did outreach for a few hours... did groceries for a man in a wheelchair who can't make it to the store. We tried to help a frantic lost, disheveled looking woman find her husband...though we never did... she just sort of lost hope and wandered away after a while. We ran into a few old friends along the streets, but the majority of todays and tonights outreach was uneventful. When we got back to the church there were some people chilling int he park who told us that G, the man from friday night, and numerous other things I've posted about on here, was arrested for threatening someone with an exacto knife. We knew it might happen soon, since his drunken rages ave become more and more aggressive. However, at the end of the night as I was walking towards the subway I saw him panning outside the McDonalds... he was pretty pissed off but we had a good conversations.. he told me I was his little sister, and that sometimes he just wanted to be held when he was hurting... among other things. Don't we all...