Some kids came to sleep with us last night.  There are 7 of us sleeping outside this year for Operation Come Home.  Myself, Shaun Vardon of CTV and the Ottawa Senators, and 5 college kids from Algonquin and Ottawa U who work with the OCH kids regularly.  Soliciting donations at the William Street mall downtown (near the Scotiabank on Rideau).

     Last night, I took a tour around the market with an older homeless man named Dennis who, among other things, is a fantastic guitar player.  He pointed out the hangout areas to me.  Dennis has been homeless, off and on, since the age of 14.  he knows the streets.  He showed me the prostitutes and told me exactly when they turned to prostitution.  That one, a month ago.  That other one, a year ago.  Her, two weeks.  He made a good point.  When kids go to the streets to escape abusive homes, that’s one thing.  When it’s a rebellion, that’s another.  Initially it’s a rebellion that says “I’ll do what I want to do and screw you”.  And if you were to ask the prostitutes, they would say the same thing – “I do what I want, when I want”.  Of course, this isn’t quite true.  No one WANTS to be a prostitute.  But they have now confused their initial “I do what I want” rebellion with “I won’t do what you want me to do”.  It becomes a situation where NOT doing what most people do is the end in itself.  And often, at that point, it’s too late.

     A wise man, that Dennis.  Wise and homeless and too old for OCH.  That’s all we’re trying to do is prevent the young ones from becoming homeless for life.

     The Exorcist is obviously the greatest horror movie ever made.  And it will be in theatres, one night only, on Hallowe’en, to raise funds for Operation Come Home.  OCH gets the money only if you buy the tickets in advance, so please do!  October 31st, Bytowne theatre downtown, 10 bucks in advance.  The deadline is October 27th to buy advance tickets, just call Karine at 613-230-4663 or email karine@operationcomehome.ca

     Thanks!

     While I was in Vancouver, I stopped into a local burger bar for a few drinks and burgers while we watched the Oscars – nice, by the way, to be in a city where the Oscars started at 5:00, and therefore ended at a reasonable hour!  At about 6:30, there was a weird disturbance outside, and a parade showed up.  Police escort and the whole bit, and a bunch of kids in cow costumes stopped for a moment at the corner to do an interpretive dance about the birthing of a calf.  They had placards that said all kinds of things, and they asked me to write on one to protest…whatever.  Then they moved on.

     While I was outside watching this weirdness, a homeless man came up to us and asked for some money for a burger.  I gave enough for a burger, and he said that he wanted to give me something for the effort.  He asked me what animal I liked.  Of course, the first one that popped into my head was a badger.  I don’t know why.  So he drew me a badger on the back of a cut-up box of Reese Puffs cereal featuring a picture on the front of Alexandre Bilodeau, who just a couple of weeks earlier had won Canada’s first ever gold medal on home soil just a few kilometres away from where we were standing.

     I was impressed by the drawing and how effortless it was for this man, and he told me a tale of woe that I half-heard while watching the bizarro parade continue around the corner.  Only later did I wonder how much of that tale was true.  So I googled his name, John Walkus Green.  He had signed the picture, which made it easier to remember.  Here’s what I found:

     John Walkus Green was the subject of a documentary called To Return: The John Walkus Story.  A synopsis of the film I found online reads as follows: 

     “This powerful one – hour documentary witnesses and celebrates young Kwakwaka’wakw artist John Walkus Green’s journey home to the village he was forcefully adopted out of as a child. This story is also an investigation into the BC Provincial Government’s Adoption policies which had tragic consequences for the children it was meant to protect.

John Walkus was raised in and around Tsulquate, a native Village near Port Hardy. As a young child he was “adopted out” to a non-native family. The traumatic experience of being stripped of his culture and cut off from his birth family emotionally scarred John. He passed through six long years of delinquency before starting out on the difficult journey home. John finally went back to his village but he was rejected for being “white” and had to face the bitter truth: it is difficult for ‘adoptees’ to return to the world they were taken away from. With the loss of family, heritage, language and ceremony, many adoptees grow up feeling different. Torn between two cultures yet discriminated against by both, they often struggle between two worlds. While many non-native foster and adoptive parents did their best to nurture, heal and raise the First Nations children entrusted to their care, the consequences were often disastrous.”

     I also found a story about homelessness, leading up to the Olympics, in the Vancouver 24 Hours newspaper, which said this:

     “It is…behind the Washington Hotel on Hastings Street, amongst the discarded needles and broken crack pipes that Sun Media finds John Walkus Green. A 33-year-old native artist, father of two and junkie, who now lives on the streets.

  When he’s not drawing pictures for cash outside of bars in Gastown, he hunts through the gutters looking for used needles. Lifting a sewer cover he explains how he recently pulled 240 needles out of the hole and traded the stash for clean “rigs” at the Washington Needle Depot.

  Green has been abusing substances since Grade 7. Now that he’s six years into life on the street, he’s a heavy drug user. His arms, neck and chest are littered with scars from needle use. But he wasn’t always this lost to his vices.

  Born on a First Nations reserve near Port Hardy, Vancouver Island, Green was one of five children of a mother who, according to Green’s family, was a heavy alcoholic.

  Green’s sister Myrna died last year from an infection she got living on the streets. His sister Brenda is in jail. Doreen, a one-time fixture of the streets, is in a mental health facility and his youngest sister, Bonnie, has quit drugs and begun a new life.

  The mother of Green’s children, Charmaine Lakey, a non-native and his childhood sweetheart, now lives in Kelowna. Reached at her home, she appears to bear no ill will towards a man the RCMP had to force from her home after repeated drunken rages.

  “He’s a great man and an amazing artist. He’s just sick. No one would be where he is if they weren’t sick,” says Charmaine, now a mental health outreach worker. “But he’s totally in the hands of his demons.”

  Charmaine says Green’s native mother and Irish father abandoned him and his sister Doreen in a trailer when he was just four. Social workers found them two weeks later surviving on dirty water and raw potatoes.

  His family insists he suffers from a version of fetal alcohol syndrome. Far from a monster, Green appears simply as a tragic figure whose abuse began in the womb and continues, by his own hand, today on the streets of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

  But that complex history and humanity is somehow lost in the statistic he has since become.

  What should society call John Walkus Green? Addict? Vagrant? Monster? Criminal? Victim? Social ill? Blemish on the face of the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games?

  Green says he wants only to be called one thing: “Human”

  Therein lies the challenge.”

     A couple of things I’m doing right now to help support Operation Come Home – every Monday at the Rideau Carleton Raceway Slots, Operation Come Home is doing a Bingo day.  There are three games – 11:00, noon and 1:00, and a few Mondays a month I will be volunteering there, selling bingo cards and so forth.  The bingo runs seven days a week, it’s a new thing Rideau Carleton is doing, and no matter what day you go, some of the proceeds will benefit Operation Come Home.  So, there’s that.

     Also, there is a party coming up Thursday night at 7:00 at the Foundation restaurant in the market to celebrate the month-long Operation Come Home “reality campaign”, which kicked off with the 24 Hours Of Homelessness event in early February.  Tickets are $35 at the door, and that includes drinks and appetizers.  Come hang out with us, and celebrate a successful fundraising drive!  Here are some more pictures of the 24 Hours event:

     Thanks to everyone who stopped by the William Street mall to say hi or drop off a bit of money for Operation Come Home on Thursday and Friday.  We raised a lot of money, and the reality campaign has kicked off extremely well.  We will be holding a wrap-up party at the Foundation restaurant in the market on March 4th, once the month-long campaign is over, and all are invited!  Tickets are $35 each, which includes drinks and hors-d’oeuvres.  Tickets available in advance only.  For tickets, call Karine at 613-230-4663.  Hope to see you there!