Battling for the Homeless!

arose from my "occupation" of the space under the Christmas tree in Centennial square in Victoria---for refusing to obey the City of Victoria's "bylaw enforcement policy" that stipulates that homeless people can only erect shelters between 7p.m. and 7 a.m. 

David Johnston and Tavis Dodds had the same charges brought against them by the city, for occupying the same (now infamous Christmas tree) a couple of weeks earlier. The Court decided to hear all three of our cases together. After hearing evidence from both sides, the judge (McKenzie) decided to reserve his ruling. He wanted time to weigh the evidence. Fair enough.  He seemed like a good hearted, reasonable man, and I trust his judgment. Indeed, I think it very likely that he will rule in our favour. 

He has two basic questions before him. First, does the City of Victoria's bylaw enforcement policy (which prohibits homeless people from erecting shelters after 7 a.m. and before 7 p.m.) have any legal authority in light of Justice Ross's October 14th B.C. Supreme Court Ruling which struck down the sections of the City of Victoria's Parks Regulations Bylaw that prevent prevent homeless people from erecting temporary shelter on public land? Second, are Tavis, David, and I really homeless people? 

The City's lawyer argued that City Council is within its right to put in place a policy that limits camping activities in its parks. Our lawyers agreed that City Council has a right to limit camping activities in parks, but that if they are to do so, they must do so by amending their bylaw, a process that would involve public hearings--and then, after the bylaw is amended, it would remain to be seen if the resultant amended bylaw was constitutional. As it stands, the city has not amended its bylaw, and instead has simply drafted an "enforcement policy" in private, without public consultation--and, our lawyers argued, it is an enforcement policy that refers to the sections of the bylaw that the Supreme Court explicitly struck down. 

 The City's lawyer further argued that neither me, nor Tavis nor David were "legitimately homeless," and hence that we had no legal right to sleep on public land. Justice Ross's ruling in no way makes it legal for just anyone to take a tent down to the local park and set up camp. It refers only to homeless people. Our lawyers made it clear to the court that me, Tavis, and David were homeless according to the definitions of "homeless" that are used in other legal contexts--i.e. "persons with no fixed address and with no home to go to." The City's lawyer agreed that we were homeless under this definition, but argued that we were "homeless by choice" and hence not entitled to the rights of homeless people. 

We have been perceived, by the City and much of the media, as "urban camping activists" who are "not really homeless" because we have "chosen" our circumstances---a bunch of idealistic hippy-types who could get jobs but instead want to be able to lay about all day in a tent in the park for free. This portrait doesn't characterize me. I am not a hippy (whatever that is) and I didn't engage in all this "activity" so that me and my friends could have the legal right to be lazy at the public's expense. 

I occupied the square as a homeless person who believed that the city's bylaw enforcement policy subjects homeless people to cruel and unusual punishment by telling them they can't rest in the daytime. There are no shelter beds open in the daytime in Victoria, and homeless people, like everyone else, occasionally need daytime bed rest to allow them to maintain health and sanity. Not only that, it seemed to me that the city was breaking the law and that this was something that should be pointed out----the oft-mentioned bylaw enforcement policy, as near as I could tell from a careful perusal of all the relevant legal documents, seemed, very clearly, to violate Justice Ross's ruling.

To be sure, I am not your "typical homeless person." After several years of simple living on Salt Spring Island---staying in rudimentary cabins, in vans, and occasionally housesitting, I became "officially homeless" on June 16th, 2008---the first day of the 4-day long Constitutional Challenge in the B.C. Supreme Court that resulted in Justice Ross's ruling. I dispensed with all of my possessions, including all my money, and moved to Victoria to live outside, with no means of income. 

I adopted the homeless lifestyle for a number of reasons, not least of all because I wanted to better understand the existential circumstances of the "homeless people" whose rights I was seeing defended in court. The average "homeless person" is too tired and too beaten-down to speak about the injustices they suffer. I suppose I wanted to bear witness to their struggles, perhaps with some notion of being able to "speak for them." Because life hasn't beaten me down too badly, and because I got to know at least a little bit about what "the homeless" were going through from personal experience living outside in Victoria, I actually was able to speak about some of their concerns on a few occasions these past few months---e.g. when I ran for mayor during the fall municipal election, and afterwards when I attracted media attention for camping out in Centennial square. I am not sure, now, that I was able to speak for anyone but myself, but there it is. 

I have every confidence that Justice McKenzie will see the truth of this matter and that, very soon, he will acquit us of our charges, order the City to address their constitution-violating legislation in the manner in which the B.C. Supreme Court asked them to, and that homeless people in Victoria (and across Canada) will very soon be able to set up tents whenever they need to rest---not in the middle of public squares, but in out of the way places on public land. And I don't think it will be a big deal; most of the neighbors won't notice the difference, except maybe to see a few less bodies huddled in the doorways at night time.

As for myself, I find it unlikely that I will be living "on the street" again anytime soon. It is hard to live on the street, and even harder to stay sane and healthy while living on the street. During my tenure as a streetperson in Victoria, I had it very easy compared to most people living outside---I was never far from good friends and nothing really bad happened to me, other than being a bit cold and hungry and tired now and then---and still it was very hard. I aged a lot in the last 6 months and am still in recovery. I will never be the same. 

A lot of people think it is easy to make it in Canada, and that any one who doesn't must be either really lazy or really dumb or really bad, or really addicted to drugs, or really crazy or something. It is true that it is pretty easy for someone like me to make it in Canada. I was born into incredible privilege to parents who loved me very much. I am blessed with a sound mind and strong body. I am attractive and articulate and because of that people seem to listen to me. I have an incredible support network of friends and family who believe in me. Even without money or a home, I have a lot of power. 

Not everyone is like me, and I am not always like me. I know that a moment can change everything. A freak accident or sickness or some other sudden tragedy can change everything in an instant. Life is very fragile and those who are strong and powerful one minute may well become weak and powerless the next. Any way you cut it, whether you are on the street or in a comfortable home, life can be hard, with lots of pain. People adapt to pain with varying degrees of success. Some can numb the pain enough to be functioning members of society; some can't. 

Some people actually succeed in facing and feeling and witnessing the pain of life to such a degree that they are no longer bound by pain. To be sure, they still feel the passing sorrows that are as natural to life as rain is, but they are not the slaves to this nebulous thing called "pain."; they deal sanely and bravely and compassionately with life as it comes.  These people are the saints, and whenever we meet them we should honour them as such and listen to everything they say. These people are rare, but they don't necessarily dress like saints; they may well look like sheriffs or corporate executives or scientists or hair dressers or streetpeople or children...God appoints its angels to all stations of life.

Anyway, I love saints most of all, and prefer their company if I can get it---certainly I aspire to be like them. But I do have a soft spot for people whose failure to adapt to pain is obvious---for drug addicts, for lunatics, for criminals, for the sick and the ugly. Maybe it is because I also have difficulties adapting to pain. Even though I am hugely blessed, there are times when the pain of being makes me feel crazy--makes me feel homeless, outcast, and unwelcome no matter where I go. And so, really, all of my "advocacy on behalf of the homeless" is, in many ways, a declaration of my own inability to adapt to life as it is; a confession of a deep sense of homelessness that predated my time living on the street. Oddly, my time "on the street" went a long way towards dissolving this sense of homelessness. ("Homelessness as therapy" promises to be the new-age rage next season, if it isn't already...)

Well, so be it. As it stands, people have the right, tonight, to set up shelters for themselves if they are homeless. It wasn't like that three months ago. Regardless of what the future holds, that is something. We ought to celebrate and give thanks. I am glad to have been part of the struggle, and gladder still to be part of what in the Courtroom yesterday started to feel like the miracle of peace. In the New Year I imagine I will be dancing more and engaging in politics less, but who knows? What will be will be.

Thank you,

Kristen Woodruff.

P.S. I was told yesterday that the City has sent out the white coats (the representatives from the mental hospital) to arrest a number of homeless women who wouldn't or couldn't use the shelters---suggesting that if the city can't get away with calling anyone who sleeps outside a criminal, then they will resort to calling anyone who sleeps outside "crazy." Either way, the City continues to subject the most destitute of its citizens to what amounts to torture, frankly. I know that the insane can be at least as menacing to society as criminals, and that mentally unstable streetpeople are quite frequently a public nuisance--and for all my verbiage, I don't know how to perfect society, nor do I want to. Still I don't like the idea of people being thrown into vehicles and hauled off to the mental hospital in the middle of the night. At least when it comes to the prison system, people have recourse to certain legal rights (at least in theory)--but when it comes to being confined to a mental hospital, a person has very few rights at all. 

Here are two videos about the "Magdalene Laundries;" Church-run institutions in Ireland which, until they closed in 1972, were places where "deviant women" were detained and made to do hard labour, sometimes for life--for such crimes as being pregnant out of wedlock, or for attracting the wrong kind of male attention. Victoria's mental hospital white coat squads seem to be following a similar inspiration, treating our city's homeless women as pests whose basic rights can be violated at any time, just because they can't or won't fit into our society's idea of how a normal woman should act.

I think these two videos speak to the plight of the wounded, outcast woman well: