6.28.08 :: YSM: Down in the dungeon
I'm settling into my new place at Evergreen in the ERC, or as Ejay loves to call it, the "dungeon". There's a brand new set of rules and ways of doing things to learn, but the staff have been very accommodating. It's intimidating to be referred so confidently by Niluka as an "employment counsellor". I hope with a bit more practice, I can offer employment help to the youth with more confidence.This past week has been slow. I think Pride Week has taken the attention of quite a number of youth, leaving us to twiddle our thumbs at Evergreen. Well, not quite that bad. There are always things to be reorganizing or changing in the ERC, so I'm set for a while.
This week's highlights:
- Our suicidal youth is very much alive! Praise God for that. Pray that he'll get the care he needs.
- Two of our youth, who are sisters, will be journeying back home for a while. I'm going to miss their happy and easygoing presence, but it's good to see them move away from street life in Toronto.
- Attended two housing forums put on by the ERC on behalf of the City of Toronto, which asked the youth what they think about the current housing situation in the city. Some of the youth gave brilliant answers, and I hope the city really pays attention to their input. These kids are our future, right?
- Started reading Tim Huff's Bent Hope as part of an assignment for work - the stories, most of which took place in Toronto, are simply amazing. I highly recommend it!
- Visited Massey Centre - a home for pregnant teenagers - with the Summer Team. I think it's quite a phenomenal place. On another note, the trip there was somewhat eventful (and sweaty). Good times with the girls, though!
- Planned, planned, planned for our upcoming fundraiser. Come on out on July 4th (Friday) at 7pm! You can start arriving at 6:30pm.
That's the week. Next week is a chopped up week due to Canada Day, but hey, I ain't complainin'!
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6.17.08 :: YSM: And that's a week!
Due to YSM being a little bit "retreat crazy" (Brad's words, not mine), I'm done for the week. Evergreen (and all of YSM) is closed from Wednesday to Friday. I think it's great that YSM is so focused on the well-being of the staff. It's so important for those in the human services field.This week marked my transition from the drop in to the Employment Resource Centre (ERC). It felt natural to help the youth work on resumes (the smile on the face of the youth today - and her excitement at her job prospects - made the day better) and fill in paper work (yes, paper work is fine with me!). I also love how we have to ask the names of all the youth - gives me reason to speak to them without pulling teeth. I may help out more with the mentoring program Angie started this year, and Niluka mentioned the need to pretty up the space. Lots to do in the ERC for me!
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Funky find of the moment: Church of Craft is going to be hosting Craftification at City Centre Drive on Canada Day. Crafts are awesome. :o)
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6.13.08 :: YSM: A fight, a mattress, a suicide note and CPI training
Yup, that pretty much sums up this week at YSM. The following quotes were also integral (hah, hah): "It was over chicken and sausages." AND "Who are you to tell me not to take the poison?"Anyway, here's a brief run through of this week...
Tuesday: It was pretty tame in the drop-in, until a fight broke out sometime after 4pm, between two of the most unsuspecting youth who frequent Evergreen. I froze at my position at the foodbar, unsure of what I was supposed to do, mainly observing the situation. Chris and Derek ran right in from the foyer, and Chris expertly yanked off one of the youth from the other. Jane informs me that stopping fights is pretty much the job for the boys, which is fine by me.
Wednesday: Shera and I accompanied a youth to the Sleep Country warehouse to pick up a free mattress and box (fyi: you need a referral from a social worker). Shera expertly drove a 16-passenger van (actually, I'm not sure what the actual capacity is, but it was one huge van!) all the way to Mississauga and back downtown. The neat part was bringing up the mattress and box to the youth's apartment - pretty much how I imagined subsidized housing would be like, though that particular complex had a haunting feel of a bygone 60's luxury. Quite beautiful courtyard, actually, when illuminated by the sun, ignoring the rust stains on the fountain. We drove back to Evergreen by way of Queen St., which I thought was full of character. The full sun streaming into the van and Lil Wayne's "Lollipop" blasting on the radio complemented the drive. I only wish Mississauga was more lively like that.
Thursday: One of our youth was in imminent danger of suicide, but got away before any of the staff could intervene. It reminds me of the volatility of life at Evergreen, and Dwight commented that in our line of work, you will witness tragedies like that. In fact, he was wearing a shirt commemorating one of the youth who was shot to death just a month ago when he said it. He reminded us that in such helpless situations like these, we realize our frailty and our need to rely on God as we reach out to others. As of Friday night, there is still no word on what happened to that youth.
Friday: The Summer Team finished off the two-day CPI training on non-violent crisis intervention today, and we practiced all sorts of awesome moves if a person ever acts out, like getting out of a hair grab, wrist grab, and strangulation. Pretty darn practical, I say! The afternoon drop-in time was pretty lazy, with most people ambling around calmly. I learned some Hebrew from a youth, which I hope will be useful when I go to Israel next year.
You learn something new everyday in the drop-in.
I will most likely be switching over to the Employment Resource Centre full time, starting next Monday. Two of the youth placements will be done their positions in two weeks, leaving the ERC short-staffed. It means learning another full set of procedures and policies, which will be a challenge. But I think the fit will be better for me at the ERC. We'll see how it goes.
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Final Fantasy is doing a show on August 27th, with a dude named Nico Muhly. I'm excited to go! If you want to come with, let me know.
I'm sad that I'll be missing the Jimmy Eat World show on July 4th because I'll be performing at my own little shindig on the same night with the Summer Team. This Is How We Do It is the name, and it's slowly taking shape. I can't wait to hear Leah's band!
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6.9.08 :: YSM: Experiment in homelessness (aka Street Walk)
We - Imogen, Leah, Mingyu, Steve and myself from the Evergreen Summer Team, Angie, Jane, Niluka, and Shannon from Evergreen staff, and Jake, Jason, Jennifer, Jemica, Jessica, the 5 Js of CSM - made it back alive!Hard to know where to start, since it's been a mish-mashed sort of weekend. I certainly came away with a better appreciation of the resourcefulness and intelligence of street people. I kept thinking, especially in the first few hours, how I could not make it on the streets. I felt so na�ve and displaced. But then again, I think all street people start out that way.
For lack of a better way to share this, let me highlight some things from each of the "shifts" we had (yes, we were the most organized and quiet bunch of street youth you'll ever encounter) - this is extremely long!:
Friday, 6pm to 12am: I was paired with Shannon, and I pretty much followed her without paying much attention to the street signs. I also felt the most daring during the first shift, though that being said, I had much trepidation, especially anticipating the panhandling. A few points of what happened to us:
- Shannon knew of a bread dumpster within the vicinity, which she did some fruitless diving in (the bread was just inches from her fingers). Me, being 5'4", stood closeby, helpless and paranoid at passing people thinking we were stealing. What a way to start off the street walk!
- After the failed attempt, we randomly found 5 bagels lying on the ground on King St. near Royal Alexandra Theatre, and when Shannon began to pick them up, I though, "well, this is it! I'm homeless!"
- We picked spots across from the theatre (did you know that 2+ people panning together is illegal? we had to separate), and I uttered "spare some change?" to passing theatregoers - I made nothing in 20 minutes, and that was the end of my panhandling. Granted, I think many of them were foreigners, but I still never wanted to do it again.
- Shannon panned a little more outside Queen's Park, making roughly $7. I mainly kept watch on her from a distance.
- Jason, Jennifer and Steve find us, and share that Jennifer had already gotten $100 from a fellow who told her that street life will wreck her. We tried to break the bill twice at two different Starbucks, with both saying that they couldn't, but still offering us the drinks. Sweet deal!
- Settled at a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown for a sit-down meal, to which one person in our group exclaimed: "this is 5-star homelessness!"
- We broke back into our smaller groups and strolled around Boystown. We were too early - only saw 1 or 2 guys working.
I felt completely out-of-place on the streets. There are so few homeless Chinese people on the streets, and we were all way too fresh-faced, especially given our age. Most people start at the beginning of adolescence. Steve even had one guy ask him whether he was a cop or a reporter when he was panning. I figure most people thought "what the hell are you doin' on the streets?" when I asked them for change. It was easy to retreat back to a "vacation" type mode, where I can observe and remember I'd be gone in a little while, rather than immerse myself in street life. How could I be immersed, anyway?
Saturday, 12am to 6am: Grouped with Shannon, Steve, Imogen, Jemica, Jessica, and Niluka, we bid the other half of us goodnight at our rendez-vous point at Evergreen and headed to a park just east of Queen's Park, at Grosvenor St, to bed down for the night. I suppose I can take this off my 100 things list:
26. Sleep under the stars. Thank you to whoever suggested bringing layers! It was a warm night, but spending hours on the ground in a growing cool breeze and damp ground begged for a hoodie to crawl into instead of sleeping on. Imogen also wanted to spoon, but I told her to get away from me (in good humour, of course... we ended up cuddling the next night anyway!). We successfully scared a few people away from the park when they saw 7 of us sprawled on the ground, semi-asleep. I thought we looked a little like Jonestown. We all dozed on and off until 5am or so, when the birds start going nuts to the rising sun. Then we trudged off tiredly to College Park to wash up for the day.Saturday 6am to 12pm: Doors to College Park washrooms don't open until 6am, but thankfully, we found our other half sitting in the food court, munching on apples they bought sometime in the night. Highlights:
- When Niluka and Shannon put their heads down to rest, a security guard shouted for them not to put their heads down. Then we saw them lead away a man in cuffs (!) for napping on the premises. Tired homeless people are treated so poorly.
- I was paired with Jennifer for the morning, and so while the rest of the people trekked to a church breakfast program, we bought small coffees and baked goods and sat in the median on Yonge outside College Park to get to know each other and watch traffic go by.
- On Melissa's suggestion, we stopped by the Stag Shop to see just what people are exposed to these days (the Stag Shop is located just south of Evergreen, so no doubt our youth go there). A wall of colourful penises of different sizes and shapes was all we can take, and we left in a hurry. The way the body is prostituted is completely depressing.
- Most of our morning was spent at Nathan Philips Square, checking out the moving photos from PhotoSensitive's Cancer Connections, and napping under trees to kill time.
The rest of our Street Walk was spent in the pursuit of killing time and/or napping. Perhaps that is what homeless people are most concerned with, especially if they have no resources to help them get out of a rather mundane schedule.
Saturday, 12pm to 6pm: We could not locate Leah and Steve during our rendez-vous, so after a check in, we all headed to Allan Gardens for a free BBQ Mingyu had caught wind of in the morning. Mingyu also happened to be my partner for the period. Some highlights:
- Two girls from Evergreen sat with us while we waited for Leah and Steve, and one even ran across the street someplace to refill her 1 L water bottle to share, with cups and a giant roll of paper towel in tow. I think they were happy to share their experience with us.
- The free BBQ was put on by a Christian organization (Street Connections? Street Reach? I forget), and they gave us all a burger AND a hot dog! That must've been a tonne of food they barbecued!
- Me and Mingyu hid out at the public library at Gerrard and Parliament for most of the afternoon to get out of the sun and be cooled down with A/C - I read some Yeats and Neruda poetry, and devoured a stack of cooking magazines. Typical street youth behaviour...?!?
- Library closed at 5pm, so we headed to the dollar store to get one Fanta each, and strolled around the Bargain Shop to kill time. Not much you can buy with a dollar and change, I must say.
I really liked to concept of the community BBQ at Allan Gardens. It wasn't just for the poor, but for anyone in the neighbourhood who chanced to find out about it. It'd be neat to hold one in my own suburban park. I wonder what turn out would be like?
Saturday, 6pm to 12am: Much to my relief, Leah and Steve were not arrested or hit by a car, but were sidetracked by something else (poor Steve had blistered feet and bloodied socks for pretty much the entire time - reminds me of London and those hard Spring shoes I had!). We threw aside the groupings sheet, and the hungry half went to Cornerstone Community Church for dinner while I went with the other half to check out some funk at Nathan Philips Square. After a while, the halves found each other at Yonge-Dundas Square, and we enjoyed some Ashley MacIsaac/celtic music and napped on concrete blocks until nearly midnight. We even split two small pizzas. We certainly lucked out with LuminaTO, which kept us entertained!
I think what struck me was how lucky we were to have an instant community to stick to while we roughed it on the streets. Realistically, folks start off alone on the streets. I realized that Evergreen creates a place for the youth to find a healthy community to belong to, which will hopefully drive them away from the poor substitutes of gangs and drugs and prostitution.
Sunday, 12am to 6am: After a pee break at the Delta Chelsea bathrooms (with a placard that read "For guests and patrons only"), the entire group trekked to the same park I was at the night before for what was more like urban camping to me. We slept in a row of 12 (which must've looked absolutely horrifying or hilarious), and pretty much passed out, with tossing and turning to get away from the damp ground and cold wind, until 5:30am. Jake reports that some random guy slept with us, beside Jason, sometime in the night. We laughed and laughed and laughed at that. I guess our mob looked friendly enough.
We were most thankful that it didn't rain, as the weather report had promised the day before. And it certainly felt more like camping, in the company of friends, rather than roughing it. I might even do it again - if I had a tent and sleeping bag to crawl into in the middle of the night. I can't believe I slept outdoors without a sleeping bag!
Sunday, 6am to 9am: The home stretch was spent on a fruitless search for a Tim Horton's open for service, then 2 lovely, lazy hours in a McDonalds, where we shared 3 cups of medium coffee and a box of cinnamon bites between the 12 of us. I found some free Toronto Star papers which we all poured over, reading every article, hoping that 9am would come sooner. The older men who sat around us must've been puzzled by a bunch of literate, quiet "street youth!" Receipts and papers turned later into origami balls and a paper airplane, which kept us entertained some more. Thankfully, we weren't kicked out for napping. Thank you McDonalds for being so welcoming!
And, at last, we headed back to Evergreen, where we wordlessly waited for our feast, much to a surprise of the staff, who thought we'd talk their heads off about what we experienced. I still find it shocking that we all prefer introversion. Honestly, what's up with that?
With our bellies full of scrambled eggs, bacon, pancakes, fruit salad, and Tropicana, we bid each other farewell and took the subway home for a hot shower and a loooooong nap. I'm going to miss those CSM people - all of them were so sweet.
I'm not sure what else I can say about the street walk at this point. Sorry that it's been a dry recounting of the experience, but I'm still processing it at the moment. I'm sure you can use the break from reading too, if you've kept up all the way. Let me reflect on this a little longer...
Thanks for your prayers and thoughts! I only wish that our prayers and thoughts can go out more often to the truly homeless people who live on our streets.
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6.5.08 :: YSM: This is the weekend...
...but before I get there, this past week has been good. I'm feeling more settled into life at Evergreen, getting to know some of the youth a little more, witnessing the drama that goes on within its walls. It's a challenging place for me to be at, and I have a feeling it'll reveal a little more about the direction I should head into as I "seek the peace and prosperity of the city" (Jer. 29:7).The street walk starts tomorrow night, and we're all very nervous for it. I've picked out a horrendous outfit for myself that I hope won't steam me to death - it's odd to be able to pick a crappy outfit to be "thrown out from home" in. There's a lot of meticulous details the team is fussing over (pads? water? outfits? health card? sunscreen? food? boredom? familiar faces? panhandling? shelters? youth we know? former employers? sleep? locales? activities? drugs? sweat? reactions? sex shops? back story? harassment?), but in the end, Mingyu's "I'm not going to think about it until I hit panic mode during the walk" attitude is probably the most fitting. It's not until you have to live on the streets (even if for a whisp of a time) do you realize the severe challenges of street life.
Full report - as much as a tired brain can remember, anyway - will be on your desk shortly after coming home to my paradise.
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6.2.08 :: YSM: L'Arche Daybreak
This morning, Chris drove Ejay, Imogen, Lean and me in the company car (hah) to L'Arche Daybreak in Richmond Hill for a half day staff retreat. We met up with the others there (unfortunately, Mingyu's bus broke down and Melissa was sick, so they couldn't come).Daybreak is where Henri Nouwen spent the last years of his life, and where we spent the first half hour or so basking in the sun on the deck, watching fish scrounge for our donut crumbs in the pond. We had the shortest of Lectio Divinas, and then I took a brisk walk around the small pond trail before we headed back to Evergreen. Definitely the shortest retreat I've ever been on! Didn't get to enjoy the facilities as much as I would've liked to, and had no time to check out Nouwen's personal library. But still, it was good to spend time reflecting on God's word and on our work at Evergreen together. The link between the two gets lost sometimes.
But can you imagine seeing and reflecting at greater length on the very inspirations that gave rise to Nouwen's latter writings? I will have to make it a point to revisit sometime in the next few years.
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I'm mulling over the idea of switching my blog(s) to wordpress. I think people (possibly especially TL) will enjoy the RSS feedability. If you have thoughts about this, please let me know.
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6.1.08 :: YSM: Between rest, work, and finding my footing
Had a great first one-on-one debrief with Melissa on Thursday. I told her about my challenges in adjusting to Evergreen life and about my preferences in a work environment. And for the first time I remember, I was affirmed in my life preferences by a real person who was hearing me out. "If we're all made the same and preferred the same things, then nothing would get done!" So true. Melissa made me feel more at home with myself, which is always a great start when involved in a human service environment. It'll be nice to get my footing at Evergreen in the coming weeks.I also chatted with Leah about considering academia as a career on the way back from hearing the Big Boss (i.e. Rick Tobias) chat about urban minstry and YSM at 310 (might I say that I am so looking forward to taking courses with him!). Doing a role like Rick's as a vocation could be a perfect fit. I like reading. I like researching about topics of interest. I've even come up with a rough idea for a thesis. I do enjoy geeking it up. The idea of academia will have to brew for a while more.
On a more immediate note, I get so tired from work. I haven't been quite able to sleep right at 10pm, and I certainly need my 8 hours for optimal functioning. Interacting with people all day long is interesting, but I need to charge up with some solitary activities. Yeah, habits of the introvert. I keep thinking about how you need to take care of yourself in order to take care of others. I really need to work on that this summer.
Then there's the looming street walk next weekend. My parents are getting more antsy about it, as am I. Actually, most people that hear about the street walk are quite worried, which I'm kind of surprised about. At work, we keep talking about how artificial it seems to pretend we're street kids when, really, we know we have warm beds, hearty meals, hot showers, and loving families and friends to look forward to at the end of it. Then there are the plans of what we'll do - "let's stay up all night, and sleep in parks during the day" or "let's hang out at Allan Gardens." There's also worries of problems while we're on the streets - What do we do when we see someone we know? Can we panhandle without being arrested? Are we going to eat, or fast? Should we accept help that comes our way?
It's such a luxury to be able to anticipate this much for the street walk. I doubt runaways plan quite like this. I just hope I can understand their position a bit better afterwards.
Lots to think on and lots to be done this summer. Including brushing up on my drug and STD/STI knowledge. Still, I am so glad that God has brought me to Evergreen this summer. What a crazy awesome opportunity!