The Dominion - DTES Power of Women Group

Homelessness and Police Brutality

mccabe.melissa — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:20:41 +0000

A dispatch from the In our Own Voices writing project

VANCOUVER—In the winter of 2000, I was co-managing a four bedroom house in Walley, BC. My co-manager and I became friends, but eventually he wanted to have a relationship. When I refused, he started to become verbally abusive and controlling with me. I took the abuse for a while, until I started to get incredibly stressed. I decided to leave in the spring of 2001. In a state of extreme depression, I left with a couple of bags and took the bus into Vancouver, where I ended up homeless.

During the day I panhandled for food and smokes, and at night I stayed wherever I could find a quiet and safe spot on the streets such as in a park or in a doorway. I felt alone, scared, and lost in the cracks and in the crowd. I could not sleep at night because there was no privacy, only constant harassment—whether it was the police, private security, drunk people leaving the bars, violent men, or somebody trying to rob me. A few guys tried to get me to do sex-work on the street for them, but I refused.

While I was panhandling, people would always hassle me and yell at me to move away from their store. I would often get sworn at or told to get a job. I felt judged by the people walking by and I was so ashamed of myself. I wish I could have made them understand how hard it really was. It was overwhelmingly difficult just to survive and I would never want to be homeless again. There are approximately 11,000 homeless across BC, with 3,000 people homeless across the Lower Mainland.

I had been on the street for a few months when someone told me to go to the Downtown Eastside to access support and services. I found a welfare worker who helped me get into the Bridge Shelter, where I stayed for one month, after which I got into Bridge Housing in June 2001.

I had to start all over again to establish my life. I found the Downtown Eastside Womens’ Centre. When I first walked in the doors, I did not want people to know me or know where I came from. But I met some friends who told me about the different activities available and I joined various programs and groups. Being a part of the DTES Power of Women Group showed me how to stand up for myself and others, which helped me regain my confidence and I began to feel good about myself again.

One of the issues I have continued to raise my voice against is that of police brutality in the Downtown Eastside. This is just one of the many stories that inspired me to take action.

I had been living in a supportive housing building for women for about nine years. As opposed to private single-resident-occupancy (SRO) housing, one of the benefits of supportive housing run by non-profits is that it maintains the confidentiality of the tenants who live there. Unless it is an emergency or a tenant has called 911, the police can only enter with a warrant.

One day the police arrived at my building looking for a tenant. They did not have a warrant and no one had called 911. The building staff refused the police access into the tenant’s room. I was sitting in the lobby of our building and witnessed the whole incident. At first the female officer got agitated and was demanding that they be allowed into the tenant’s room. The staff did not give in, which just made the police officers angrier, stating that they had a right to go inside. I saw one officer go towards the staff member to grab her arm. I ran out to try to inform people about what was taking place and to get some help.

When I returned, the staff was in handcuffs and had been taken outside. I heard them saying that they had arrested her and would charge her with obstruction of justice. By that time a crowd had gathered and staff from next door at the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre had also arrived. Eventually, the arrested staff member was let go.

This whole incident made me very angry. There are so many stories of police arrogance and violence, and most are worse than what happened to this staff member. In this situation they were not even following their own protocol. I was scared that if this could happen to a staff member what could happen to someone like me who has less authority in this neighbourhood? It made me feel very powerless and vulnerable, especially as the incident occurred in my own building.

I have lost faith in the police. I fear that if I ever needed them to help me, they would turn on me instead. They do little to protect against actual violence, like all the murdered and missing women. Instead, they are violent towards us, frequently arresting people for minor things like jaywalking, or harassing people who are just standing on the street. It deeply frustrates and angers me that we let the police use their power and badges in such negative ways, and that society allows them to power-trip and do what they want. I imagine a Downtown Eastside where we are free from the arbitrary beatings and the brutality of the Vancouver Police Department, and so I and others fight to make this possible.

Karen Lahey is proud to be a survivor. She has been living in the Downtown Eastside for the past 11 years. Because of the DTES Power of Women Group, she can now publicly speak in front of a crowd and in front of cameras. She likes to help other women find their voice.

This story was originally published on the Vancouver Media Co-op as part of the Downtown Eastside Power of Women “In Our Own Voices” writing project. For more information and to read more stories, please visit http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group

Karen Lahey

The Kingdom of Hastings and Main

mccabe.melissa — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 10:05:42 +0000

A dispatch from the In our Own Voices writing project

VANCOUVER—In the fall of 2008, I lost my sister to brain cancer. Only one month later, I lost one of my lifetime friends to a heart attack. A few months after that, I lost another close friend to lung cancer. All these deaths happened in a five-month period. In March 2009, the mother of a good friend of mine passed away. Together these losses led me to decide to retire on my 60th birthday.

Because I have many health issues, I decided to try to do things that I wanted to instead of working and getting older and sicker. In April 2009, I told my boss that I would work until April 29th, my 60th birthday. I transferred my co-op shares to my daughter and grandchildren, who had recently moved back to Canada from Turkey, and they moved into my townhouse. I sold my car, paid off my debts, and made my will.

In June, I made the decision to move to a small apartment in Vancouver and apply for early CPP benefits. I also applied for BC Housing and with the help of a friend and an outreach worker at Saint James Society, I sent out about 40 to 50 housing applications to all available social housing in Vancouver. On June 20, 2009, I was called by the Neighbourhood Housing Society and interviewed for the Oasis, located at 40 East Hastings, where I moved into on July 4, 2010.

I had moved into the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood.

I explored the new area. I found a new doctor, who helped treat the depression that I had succumbed to. In the spring of 2009 I came to the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre where I found new friends and the resources to help me apply for social assistance as a "Person With Disability." I was lucky because, since changes to provincial regulations in June 2002, approximately 16,000 women had been removed from social assistance in BC. With the help of an advocate, I was able to get coverage for a medical top-off on my CPP after it had initially been turned down. We contested the decision, and after submitting all the paperwork and a doctor’s note, I was accepted.

I joined the DTES Power of Women Group and through the group and my own experiences, I have made a number of observations about the neighborhood in which I now live.

Here in the Kingdom of Hastings and Main, unlike other neighborhoods in Vancouver, I have found that there is a very defined hierarchy in place. We have many factions and groups that compete for wealth and control of this land. It starts with “Castle City Hall” which is led by King Gregor Robertson and his cronies. King Gregor has many lords and serfs. He also has many advisors to help control and tax his subjects.

The King’s land covers many areas and territories. He carefully takes good care of the lords that live in rich areas like Point Grey, Kerrisdale, and Shaugnessey. With the help of his lords—many of whom are lawyers, real estate industrialists, and property developers—the King plans his ways to control poorer areas like our Kingdom of Hastings and Main. The King has a large army to quash any uprising or protests from us serfs. They are called the Vancouver Police Department (VPD). The King arbitrarily changes any laws that he feels are required for his army to do his bidding.

The King uses his lords and advisers to plan his strategies to increase property values to enable more taxes and larger numbers of subjects to fill coffers. He is a wise King so his lords develop and profit by these actions, and thus stay loyal to him. His lords know that the poor serfs like myself are starting to rebel because of this, so to quell our anger they have used gentrification to push out us serfs and take over our neighborhood with condominium development outpacing social housing by a rate of three-to-one.

It is bad enough that we serfs have to combat this erosion of affordable housing and services, but there are other groups that feed upon us. One such group is the money-hungry drug dealers that control our Kingdom’s pathways. This group conspires to bring further hardships upon us serfs. They get many people hooked on the poisonous goods that they offer. I have noticed that every cheque day the drug dealers are placed in front of the cashing stores and banks where the serfs cash our cheques. This group collects their pounds of flesh from the many poor that have succumbed to the lifestyle of drugs in order to overcome the hopelessness of living in poverty.

Now the King tells us that we are protected by his army (the VPD), but I believe that his army is corrupt. How else can we explain that month after month, year in and year out, I see the same evil faces continuing to exploit us? Could it be that the Kings’ soldiers are being paid off by the dealers so that they only charge the serf women that hold drugs and money for these dealers?

I often witness the VPD’s harassment of these serfs and can only wonder if the army uses this random targeting to show us their strength so we will not oppose them. I believe we must continue to resist both the actions of the VPD and the control of King Gregor and his cronies.

In closing, although I have found an enjoyable life through volunteering and the POW group that I belong to, I know of the hardship of others. I know of the poverty, drug addiction, and housing conditions, along with the abuse and homelessness that people suffer in the Downtown Eastside. I am working hard to better the conditions down here for all of us.

Charlene is a 62-year-old transgender woman who has found a wonderful retirement, a new life and great friends in the Downtown Eastside.

Charlene

Being an Addict and Working the Streets on Skid Row

mccabe.melissa — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 13:01:44 +0000

A dispatch from the In our Own Voices writing project

VANCOUVER—When I was about 15 years old I ran away from my parent’s home in Burnaby. My parents were alcoholics and there was a lot of abusive behaviour and yelling in our home.

This is common in a lot of Native homes, but I think this is because our parents are mimicking the behaviors of abuse that they learned in residential schools. Residential schools were a terrible nightmare. White people were in charge of the schools and their main purpose was to ‘beat the Indian out of us’. It was a means of controlling Native people and trying to subordinate us to White society. Young Native people were ripped from their homes, beaten when we spoke our own languages, and denied the right to our history, our culture, and the safety and wisdom of our families. My dad used to get beat up badly in the residential school that he was in, and so he behaved the same with us.

One night my sister and I decided we had had enough of our parents’ drinking and fighting. We jumped out of the window and took nothing except the clothes on our back. I remember thinking: “What are we going to do and where are we going to go?” We hitchhiked all the way from Burnaby to Main and Hastings, the heart of the Downtown East Side (DTES).

Once we got to Main and Hastings, we ran into two older guys who allowed us to stay with them and introduced us to pot and alcohol. But of course, we could not stay with them for free. We had to have sex with these two men. They would get us drunk and then force themselves on us. Although they took advantage of us sexually, we stayed with the two men, because we felt it was safer than the alternative of being alone on the streets or back in our parents’ abusive home. As with many other women fleeing parental or partner violence, my sister and I became re-victimized as women without homes and vulnerable in our relationships with men.

The police were often looking for us because we were reported as missing by our family. Until we became legally recognized as adults, the police would track us down and drag us back home, where we would get locked into our rooms. Because the abuse at home did not stop, we kept running away. The police never asked us why we kept running away; they just keep dragging us back to the same situation that we were running from.

At the age of 16, I started hooking (working on the street as a sex worker) in the DTES. I learned how to talk to guys, how to ask for money, and how much to charge. But I did not know much about safety—such as using condoms to protect against STIs and pregnancy. I had four abortions while working on the street. Working the street was also very dangerous because you never knew if you would come back alive. According to a 2001 PACE report, one-third of surveyed women in the survival sex-trade in the DTES said they had survived an attack on their life. A guy could beat you, rape you, or murder you. I feel lucky that I wasn’t one of serial killer Robert Pickton’s victims, though I know that I easily could have been. I remember hearing that he was driving around the area where I was working. I knew three of the women who were murdered on his farm.

One night a guy picked me up in his van. He grabbed me by my hair while I was in the backseat and tried to rape me. I was screaming so loudly that someone walking by knocked at the van door. The guy opened the back door, pushed me out, and drove away. I never reported this incident because I was too scared and believed that the violence committed against me was my own fault. Also, I do not trust the police. They judge those of us who live in the DTES, particularly the working girls. My friend who once tried to report an incident was told by the police: “You are a hooker. What do you expect?” Just like many other people in our society, the police stigmatize women in the sex trade, which is exactly why men prey on street-level sex workers as targets for violence and know that their crimes will either not get reported or not be taken seriously.

But working the street was the only way to make enough money to support myself and to get my own place, away from those two men. I was also addicted to drugs by then, which I did to forget the violence of my parent’s home and the pain of the streets. I started by snorting cocaine. Then I started smoking crack in a pipe. Doing drugs is fun at first; it helps ease the everyday pain of just wanting to end your life. But over time, I started to realize how dangerous it was—three of my personal friends overdosed and died. Over 4,700 injection drug users live in this neighbourhood, and until recently, overdose deaths here outstripped all other North American cities.

It is not just the probability of overdosing that worried me, but also the risks associated with the street-level drug trade. People are often trying to steal your drugs. If you have a drug debt with your dealer, they show no mercy. Women have all of the hair on their heads shaved off, are kidnapped and tortured for days, or are pushed out of their windows. I knew a woman who was raped all night by several different men because she owed money to the drug dealers.

After 15 years, I realized I wanted a better life for myself and I believed that I deserved it. Even though I had a drug habit and needed money to survive, I decided to get out of the sex-trade. My boyfriend at the time helped me realize that I could get other work and take better care of myself. So I started volunteering and working on furthering my skills. I am proud of myself now.

I really wish my life had turned out differently, but I had few options back then. So that no one else has to go through what I had to go through, I believe there should be housing available for young girls so they do not end up homeless or in an unsafe housing situation. If I had a younger sister, I would do everything possible to prevent her from entering the sex-trade. I believe it is important for young girls to know that the street is disappointing and dangerous.

The government should make it easier to get on welfare and raise the welfare rates so women do not have to work the streets to survive. Welfare for a single person without disability is $610, made up of $375 for rent and $235 for support. Even in the DTES, average rents in slum buildings are above $450, forcing people to rent in unsanitary housing and leaving us hardly enough money for food. Our society should also make it easier for people who live in the DTES to work because no one is willing to hire people who have the DTES as their address or who have no address at all. Finally, I think people should have more understanding and compassion towards us. We should not be judged for who we are or what we do for trying to support ourselves when no one else even seems to cares whether we live or die.

Diane (not her real name) lives in the Downtown East Side and is happy to have a life where she can start over. She wishes others could do. She likes the DTES Power of Women Group.

Photo by Tre Lan CC 2.0

Daily Struggle and Resistance in the Downtown Eastside

mccabe.melissa — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:50:04 +0000

A dispatch from the In our Own Voices writing project

VANCOUVER—I could not help wondering what life would have been like if I had stayed back East, as I walked on Hastings and Main Street on a gray, rainy, rather typical Vancouver day. My reverie was broken by an ugly sight before me near Pigeon Park. A man and a woman were walking just in front of me and appeared to be having a casual conversation. Suddenly, without any warning sign to me or the woman, the man took a fast sideways kick to the woman’s face. I shall probably always remember the bewildered look on her face and the sight of her blood stained eye and dress. Of course such acts of violence are taking place all over the world, but in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver they occur so often in public rather than in private.

The next day I had arranged to meet a man who had requested my help. It was a simple request, “I heard you do advocacy and I need someone to go with me to the welfare office. I have an appointment there, and I am afraid that if I go alone that I will end up hitting a worker!” When I joined him at the office, he told the receptionist that he would like to bring someone in with him to the welfare worker’s office. When the welfare worker came out somewhat later than the appointment time, I was a little surprised by his attire and his attitude. I thought to myself, “Do they deliberately try to look tough to intimidate the clients?” He was wearing an open neck shirt, well-worn jeans, and heavy boots. He had a muscular build and was tall and surly.

“Well I see you are living common-law now” he growled. His client explained in a far more polite tone that I was there to help him. I fully understood why the man had asked for a witness, as I sensed that the welfare worker would have been far worse in attitude and behaviour if I was not there to accompany my friend.

Life in the Downtown Eastside is very often like this—tinged with violence from strangers, service providers, and the police. We suffer particularly from the cruelty of poverty. Living in poverty erodes one’s feeling of adequacy and diffuses one’s confidence and sense of self-worth. It is a struggle to maintain one’s dignity when one has to tolerate sneers and jeers from the public. The stereotype of poverty is an addicted person who lives in the Downtown Eastside. But the faces of poverty are diverse and can be found all over BC, which has the highest child poverty rate, the highest cost of housing, and the lowest minimum wage.

In particular, single parents endure crushing levels of poverty in this province. Fifty-six percent of lone parent families headed by women are poor, compared with 24 percent of those headed by men. One-third of BC welfare recipients are single-parent families, 88 percent headed by women. Single parents do our best to provide a good home for our children. If we are forced to accept housing that we do not find adequate for our needs, there is a tendency in many cases to blame ourselves and to feel guilty, although we are trying our best to care for our family.

These days, Vancouver City Council continues to support the real estate developers. Most recently, City Council made the decision to remove the neighbouring area of Chinatown from the Downtown Eastside planning process, and subsequently agreed to let developers build 12 to 15 story buildings and condominiums in historic Chinatown. Remember that historic Chinatown is home to many low-income seniors, and is an area where Chinese stores flourish as a direct result of anti-immigrant sentiment which disallowed Chinese people from renting in other parts of Vancouver throughout the 20th century. This recent Vancouver City Council decision to allow condominium towers in Chinatown was made despite one thousand petition signatures opposed to the plan and concerns raised by hundreds of Chinatown residents in City Council meetings. As a resident of Chinatown myself, I attended and spoke at one of these City Council meetings and voiced my opinion against this plan. Let it be clear to the powers-that-be that I have no intention of moving out or being kicked out from my home in Chinatown! (Well, unless I win the lottery maybe.)

And even though the very roof over our heads is constantly under threat by the greed of developers and the government who seek to control us, we still carry on with persistence. We support the homeless, victims of violence, those with addictions, and people suffering from mental health. We demonstrate, talk to politicians, send delegations to City Council, and raise awareness to the public.

Daily, we remind ourselves that our oppressors cannot take our power away. Our power can only be taken from us if we give it away. Not even involuntarily or unintentionally will we relinquish our power! We remember that “What does not kill us only makes us stronger.” The Twisted Sister’s Song “We’re Not Gonna Take It” often runs through my head. Yes, our earning capacity might not be up to many others in society, but we are not ruthless, we do not worship money, we keep our values, and we have a rich spirit. On the other hand, those who have a poverty of spirit number many, and among them you will find politicians, police officers, and big businesses. They think they are strong, but we believe we are stronger.

Joan Morelli has resided in Canada for over thirty years and has raised her children on limited wages. She has been a tireless activist, actor, and writer in the Downtown Eastside for approximately two decades. As long as she breathes she truly believes that we must fight for housing and that housing is a universal right, and that no one should have to live and suffer in poverty.

Joan Morelli

The Foster Home System Damaged Me

mccabe.melissa — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 12:53:31 +0000

A dispatch from the In our Own Voices writing project

VANCOUVER—I was born in 1957 and in my early years I lived in a cabin with my mother and six siblings in Quesnel, BC. When I was eight years old, our mother took off and left us alone for three days. My younger siblings had no diapers and we were eating dry oatmeal. As a result, the neighbour called the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD). When MCFD apprehended us and took us into their custody, we were all separated from one another except for one of my brothers and I who remained together.

I was brought up in 15 foster homes. Two of the homes I was in were reasonably okay, while in the others I suffered neglect, starvation, and physical and verbal abuse.

In the worst foster home that I was in, the foster father would touch me. When I was washing the dishes, he would come up behind me and touch my breasts and my genitals. I would tell him not to and move his hand away, but he would keep doing it. To this day I still get scared when people come up behind me.

The foster father would also sexually abuse my brother and me at night. We slept in the basement on hard cots with one sheet separating the two of us and we could hear everything that was happening to the other person. At the age of 12, I became pregnant as a result of the rapes by my foster father. When the foster father found out that I was pregnant because of him raping me, he forced my brother to have sex with me and then told the MCFD’s social worker that I was pregnant because of my brother. MCFD forced me to have an abortion.

Although that was the worst foster experience that I endured, it was certainly not unique. Sometimes foster parents would send us to bed without dinner, and then we would wait until we could sneak into the freezers at night. We hardly got any clothes, although all the foster families get clothing allowances from MCFD for us. Beatings were commonplace in a significant majority of the homes. In one foster home, I was beaten with belts and wooden sticks to my head. Today, I have a serious learning disability and I think my disability is due to the head injuries that I sustained from the beatings, compounded by Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

My entire childhood I was too afraid to sleep. I remember vividly all the nights I would lay awake and stare at the sky, wishing I could just fly out the window. I was even scared to have showers, because it would mean being naked and vulnerable.

My brother ran away. He stole food and clothes to survive, which landed him in jail frequently. When I got older I would run away as well, and I started drinking and doing drugs. I even tried to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge, but a passerby grabbed me and MCFD put me back in the same foster home. I could never understand why MCFD would keep putting us back in the same foster homes that we had to run away from. They must have known something was wrong, but they just ignored it.

I know that many other women have similar stories. Currently in BC, over 9,271 children are living in foster care, more than half of whom are Aboriginal. As a recent PIVOT Legal Society report concluded: “The child welfare system continues to fail to address the systemic factors impacting children’s well-being, such as poverty, the legacy of colonialism and the lack of social supports for single mothers. We conclude that as long as those systemic factors are ignored, BC’s government is not in a position to claim that it is genuinely acting in the best interest of children.”

Recently, my brother and I tried to take these issues to provincial court. The court said they could not do anything because MCFD was not legally responsible for our mistreatment, abuse, and assault. The court said that we would have to file criminal charges against each individual foster parent. But I believe it is the government’s responsibility for ensuring we were placed in an appropriate and caring environment after apprehending us.

My entire life has been affected by my apprehension and subsequent foster home experiences. I feel damaged and inadequate. I was not taught a lot of things that children learn in a supportive family environment, like cooking, cleaning, reading and writing. I am upset that the court never helped me seek justice. I am furious that social workers do not actually care for children, or believe them when they tell MCFD about the negative experiences in their foster homes.

Today, I am happy that I am alive. I have a good husband, three cats, a home and a life that I am grateful for. I have not done drugs or alcohol in years, and I still feel at home in the DTES. I have friends here who do not judge my disability and do not call me ‘slow’ or ‘stupid’. I am not stupid, I am a survivor.

Debbie V. is a volunteer at the Downtown Eastside Womens’ Centre and proud member of the DTES Power of Women Group.

Debbie V. DTES Power of Women member.

The Intergenerational Impact of Child Apprehension

mccabe.melissa — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 12:45:36 +0000

A dispatch from the In our Own Voices writing project

VANCOUVER—At the age of 12 years old is when the abuse in my parents’ home started. My siblings and I were subjected to physical and emotional abuse and violence by my parents. We had many visits from the Ministry of Child and Family Development (MCFD) but my siblings and I were forced to lie about the abuse because we were afraid that telling the truth would result in even more abuse.

In 1994, at the age of 15, I was pregnant and gave birth to my first child. The abuse from my parents continued, until I could not take it anymore and I ran away from home. The following day I was taken into MCFD’s foster care and from then onwards, I was moved from home to home. I lost custody of my son, who was also placed into the foster system, thus perpetuating an intergenerational cycle of child apprehension and misery in the foster system.

I have read a report that in BC, young women who have been permanently apprehended by MCFD are four times more likely to become pregnant than young women who have never been in the foster care system. I, too, became pregnant with my second child while in foster care. During my pregnancy, the foster mother slept all day, and I was responsible for our meals and all the cleaning. I was constantly kicked, my hair was pulled, and I was kicked in my stomach. I made phone calls to MCFD, the police, and youth advocates for more support for my unborn baby and I, but to no avail. Instead, when I gave birth, MCFD apprehended my second child as well. Since they were both apprehended, I have not seen my two sons, nor do I know anything about their well-being.

Finally, at the age of 18, I moved into an independent living situation where I had my own living quarters with my own facilities for cooking and cleaning. At the age of 19, I landed my first job as a home supporter worker and was able to financially support myself. That is when I started drinking heavily, almost every night.

At the age of 19, I was pregnant again with my daughter, who is now eight years old. A few years later, I gave birth to my second daughter, who is now four years old. I was the primary parent for both of my daughters until MCFD got re-involved in my life. I did everything MCFD asked of me as a young, single, low-income parent. I did the best that I could to support my daughters. I quit drinking and I never did drugs.

Then in 2009, MCFD made several visits to my home alleging that I was constantly yelling at the girls and that on one occasion I had hit them. On Sep 14, 2009, a MCFD social worker advised me that the ministry was apprehending the girls and that the matter was now before the courts.

Since then, I have been going to every court date and every visit with my daughters, even though the ministry was making it very difficult for me to have visits. I went to a parenting program that they wanted me to attend. While MCFD is falsely pointing fingers at me, I find that the foster parents are completely negligent in caring for my children. In 2010, my youngest daughter had an infected hang-nail and a 101 degree fever. The foster parents refused to take her to the doctor, so during a court date I had to show the social worker a photograph of my girl. The ministry then granted me permission to take my daughter to the emergency room, where she was placed on an IV and antibiotics for a week.

This year, my lawyer and I attended a “mediation” with the ministry. I attempted to get answers as to how they were able to apprehend my children without any proof to back up their allegations of me abusing my girls. The ministry did not provide any answers. They simply said that their intention was to seek a continuing custody order to keep my children in the foster system and will be going to court to seek an extension. I then advised my lawyer and the ministry that it was my intention to have my girls come home with me. We are waiting to set trials for next year.

In the meantime, I start weekly 1-hour supervised visits with my daughters this month. If all goes well, MCFD will increase my visits after one month. I will also be able to attend all the girls’ doctors’ appointments and extracurricular activities. I recently attended a meeting with MCFD and the foster parents to arrange visits and access to my daughters. The foster mother said that if she had to supervise the visits then she would consider sending the girls to another home! I am so frustrated by her attitude and MCFD allowing my daughter’s to be shuffled around like this.

Over the past two years, I have been left feeling hopeless and alone. I feel like I am being ganged up on by MCFD. I have resorted to smoking cigarettes to keep my stress levels down. I wonder, how can I ever be happy without my girls at home with me? Since coming to the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre I have gotten a lot of support and I have learned that I am not the only one whose children have been apprehended by MCFD. Other women have advised me that it is possible to win against MCFD, which brings me hope.

But my question remains unanswered: why are so many single mothers, especially Aboriginal, being targeted by the MCFD? I found out that as of September 2009, only eight per cent of children in BC are Aboriginal, but approximately 53 per cent of the children being apprehended are Aboriginal. We are stereotyped as abusive, but physical abuse and sexual abuse are not the primary reasons that children are apprehended. In fact, physical harm by a parent was only cited as a ground for removal in ten per cent of child protection cases in the Lower Mainland. Apprehensions are generally the result of a parent’s struggle with poverty; 65 per cent of all child apprehensions are from single parents on welfare.

Serious harm is being done by keeping families apart and by tearing children away from their mothers without just cause. More times that not, siblings are separated from each other and placed in different foster homes. It is not only the children who are harmed, but also the mothers, who then suffer from severe depression and sometimes spiral further into addictions. We should do more to unite against MCFD abuses. It is time that these injustices end.

Courtney is a volunteer at the Downtown Eastside Womens' Centre as well as a member of the DTES Power of Women Group.

Courtney, DTES Power of Women group

My Story of Domestic Violence and Child Apprehension

mccabe.melissa — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 12:34:42 +0000

A dispatch from the In our Own Voices writing project

VANCOUVER—I was abused by my ex-partner, who is also my children’s father, for ten and a half years. I had four children with him—Angela, Rosalie, Mike and Jackson. I was beat all throughout my first pregnancy, and as a result my girl Angela was born a month early. She did not develop properly and was born with her heart on the right side of her body. She was a Mother’s Day baby, born on May 13, 1973, at 5 lbs 11 oz. I named her Angela Michelle because she looked just like an angel. She only lived to the age of 16 and died on January 17, 1990, in Prince George.

It is for her and in her memory that I tell this story.

You might be wondering why I stayed in a violent relationship for that long? I grew up without a dad and was often called a "bastard." I was always taunted with sayings such as, "Do you even know who your dad is?" It hurt a lot to be bullied and I did not want my own children to go through the same experience. So I silently suffered the abuse. At the time I did not realize that it was equally bad, if not worse, for my children to witness the violence of their father beating up their own mother.

I tell this story for the women who are still in abusive relationships so that they will have the courage to get out. Anyone who controls you and physically and emotionally hurts you does not love you. We have to understand that violence against women is always unacceptable, and as Native women we are five-times more likely than other women to die as the result of violence.

I became an alcoholic while I was in the relationship. The alcohol would numb the pain of being beaten; it would numb me for when he got home in the evenings so I could tolerate all the kicks and punches; it would numb me against his false accusations of me cheating on him when he was the one cheating on me with other women.

As a result of my drinking, the Ministry of Child and Family Development (MCFD) became involved in my children’s lives. I had several visits from MCFD over the years and they told me to stop drinking and to get counseling, but I could not stop drinking. They also told me to leave my ex-partner, but I had nowhere to go. For years, MCFD kept apprehending my children. Sometimes they would take my children away for a few weeks; sometimes it was for a few months.

Then in December 1981, in a surprise visit, MCFD workers came to my home. I was not home, but my children’s father was supposed to be home. However he had left them alone in the house and the upstairs neighbour called MCFD. MCFD apprehended my children, this time seeking a permanent order. That meant that my young children, ages one to five, were going to essentially be kidnapped from me forever.

I broke down and started drinking even more heavily. I felt that if I did not have my children, then I had nothing to live for and would rather drink myself to death. One night in March 1982 I drank so much that I felt my heart was going to stop. That night I decided that I did not actually want to die an alcoholic and that I had to fight for my children.

I quit drinking cold-turkey. I went for alcohol counseling at the Native Courtworkers Society and also enrolled at Native Education Society to get my GED. I finally left my partner. After a few months I was able to get two-hour supervised visits with my children every six to eight weeks, but only after I appealed the decision by MCFD to deny me visits entirely.

After I won my right to supervised visits, I decided to appeal MCFD’s decision to apprehend my children permanently. I did not even know that I could appeal this decision until I was informed by an advocate at Native Courtworkers that I could. I realized that MCFD had not informed me of my basic legal rights as a parent and did not actually care to fulfill their responsibility and mandate to keep families together. I felt that as a survivor of violence and as a Native woman, I was being re-victimized by being labeled as a bad mother who was unable to protect her children.

After four years of fighting in the Court system, I finally won my case and my children were given back to me in 1986. Throughout the four years I often felt like giving up but I knew I had to fight for my family. The MCFD social worker reported to the Court that I was ‘not showing love and affection’ to my children. But the Court-ordered psychologist determined that there was lots of affection between us and said that it was clear that my children wanted to come back home. I thank Dr. Diane Mitchell for helping me win my case by recommending that my children be returned. It is frustrating though that we have to rely on these professionals to validate us.

The whole system of child apprehension is grossly unfair and unjust. From my experience and those of other women I know, it seems that the Ministry is interested in keeping children in the foster system rather than returning them to their parents. Most of the children in MCFD’s custody are Native children. In BC, Native children are 6.3 times more likely to be removed from their homes than non-Native children. I believe this is both a continuation of the residential school experience—where children are torn away from their families and communities are destroyed—as well as a consequence of residential schools, which has forced Native families into social dysfunction with rampant alcohol and drug use and abuse in the home. I feel like the odds are stacked against us, but still we continue on.

I am now 29 years sober and my three beautiful children—Rosalie and Michael and Jackson—are parents themselves. Once I had my children back, I told my boys to never hit a woman because it is like hitting your mother. I still live with the guilt about what happened to my deceased daughter Angela. I also felt responsible when my other daughter Rosalie was in an abusive relationship worse than mine. I felt that she thought it was okay to be abused because she watched me take it. But now my daughter Rosalie is happy and has a beautiful eight-year-old daughter named Kayla. My son Michael is 31 years old and has been clean from heroin for several years now. He is working and has a two-year-old daughter named Tayla. My youngest son Jackson is 30 years old and recently graduated from the Academy of Learning. He has a wonderful ten-month-old baby girl named Gianna. I am so proud of my children and thank the Creator for every new day. Love to all my family and friends.

B. has lived in Vancouver for 35 years. She is from Bella Bella. She is currently 29 years sober and volunteers at the Downtown Eastside Womens’ Centre. She loves being part of the DTES Power of Women Group because the group fights for everything she has been through—from violence and abuse to child apprehension—and gives her a voice! She also marches in the February 14th Womens’ Memorial March Committee for her murdered sister and niece.

Recently, B. was in the hospital for two months due to double pneumonia. She went through surgery for her right lung on December 28, 2010. She feels lucky to be alive and would like to thank all her family and friends for their prayers and visits, which meant a lot to her.

This story is part of the Downtown Eastside Power of Women “In Our Own Voices” writing project. For more information and to read more stories, please visit http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group

B. Photo by Joe Philipson

Mental Health and Police Violence

mccabe.melissa — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 14:17:38 +0000

A dispatch from the In our Own Voices writing project

VANCOUVER—The heart of the Downtown Eastside (DTES) is home to survivors of the war on terror: the terror of poverty, physical and spiritual abuse, child apprehension, addictions, and residential schools - all of which quietly destroy the human spirit. Yet in spite of its image as the poorest urban postal code in the country, the DTES has the highest number of art galleries per capita in the country. This seeming contradiction becomes more understandable when one looks more deeply into the neighbourhood. The DTES is made up of the most extremes in our society —brutality and indifference on the one hand, and selfless generosity and compassion on the other hand.

My entry into the world of the DTES started four years ago when I spiraled into homelessness due to a mental illness that was later diagnosed as bipolar, anxiety, and ADHD. It seems that it runs in my family and I had battled it in the form of depression for much of my adolescent and adult life. A bout of hypomania took me from working at a university and living a comfortable middle-class existence in one of Vancouver’s priciest neighbourhoods to becoming homeless.

In this province, there are 15,500 adults with severe addictions or mental illness who are homeless. When one is mentally unstable and doesn’t have stable housing, keeping track of health appointments takes a backseat to overt survival. People are too busy foraging for food, waiting in line for a shelter bed, pandhandling for a few dollars, or searching for clothes or cardboard to protect against the rain and snow. Under such stressful situations, even the most mentally stable and capable will become unstable!

Soon enough, I secured housing in a single-room occupancy with a shared bathroom. I was very fortunate because I had kitchen facilitates in my room and the building was well-maintained, both of which are rarities. I realized that once a person is tagged with the stigma of mental illness, life changes substantially. One's credibility, trust, and reason immediately diminishes before the eyes of others, particularly authority figures like police, doctors, and lawyers. We become invisible. In the Downtown Eastside, it is even more evident: the poor who are seen but not heard, the walking wounded who are over-medicated on illicit or prescription drugs. The DTES is overrun with different agencies that provide services to its vulnerable low-income community. However for someone who is mentally unwell working through the agencies and maintaining continuity to obtain services is such an impossible labryinth to negotiate that so many people fall through the cracks.

But home is where the heart is and the DTES is very much home now. What fascinates me about this 'slum' neighbourhood is the beauty of the trees and plants, and correspondingly, the people. Though I have moved to a new apartment in the West End and have just finished professional mental health peer support trainings and advocacy programs, I spend most of my time in the DTES.

The most prominent memory I have of the DTES is of a hot August afternoon when the police had roped off a whole block with their yellow tape. Why? Because someone was about to jump off a 6-storey building. I was with our beloved Power of Women facilitator-activist Harsha who asked 3 of the 10 attending police officers if a net was being called for the person. The police officers responded with condescension, stating that he did not know what Harsha was talking about and tried to shut her up by intimidation. I quietly observed the abuse coming from the police officer to someone who only wanted to help.

What interrupted the exchange between them was another officer yelling at a partly-conscious older man on the sidewalk to get on the other side of the yellow tape. The police officer then proceeded to lift the man up, handcuff him, and drag him across the intersection. In trying to balance himself, the older man lost one of his shoes. There was such an overwhelming display of disrespect and indifference shown to this man that it was hard to remain silent. Many of us started commenting on the negativity of the police, which in turn made the police even more confrontational.

Eventually, another police car drove up and five police officers proceeded to the trunk. What emerged from the trunk were two rifles and a two-person SWAT team also stepped out of the car. I gasped. That was how they were going to deal with a person wanting to jump off a building! That single incident exposed the attitude of the police towards anyone that they deem mentally unbalanced- a John Wayne shoot-em-up mentality. I understand why the people in the DTES do not trust the police. The police consider people living in the DTES as expendable human beings and treat them with such disdain.

This is what residents breathe and live with on a daily basis—fear and intimidation by the police. For what, you ask? For being poor, for being poor and indigenous, for being poor and of colour, and the most vulnerable are those who are poor, indigenous, and women. Meanwhile, the real criminals – the monied few who rape the land and destroy hearts of peace – authoritatively rule over us as their banks create financial messes and their police and military try to squash us.

Last year, the DTES witnessed an intensification of the violation of civil and human rights by the police upon vulnerable homeless men, women, and youth. Just before the Olympic Games, more police officers were hired in the DTES and they indiscriminately ticketed harassed, intimidated, and arrested people. We witnessed this almost every day in the DTES and heard horror stories of homeless friends being dragged off in police cruisers for no reason.

To try and protect our most vulnerable DTES residents, members of the DTES Power of Women group - in conjunction with anti-poverty and anti-Olympic activists - were able to create and host an Olympic Tent Village in a fenced-off vacant lot in the DTES during the Olympics. Hundreds of homeless men, women, and children moved into the Olympic Tent Village and were given tents and were protected from the intimidation of the police. The now world-renowned Olympic Tent Village lasted four weeks and demonstrated to us what true democracy can do: create a liveable space of peace and harmony where each member-resident listens, speaks, is heard and then decides collectively at a daily community meeting what self-rule looks. What I have learned so wisely from so-called 'mentally-unbalanced-loser-morally-corrupt' DTES residents is what social justice really is. The grace, joy, and utopian home of the Olympic Tent Village is something that I shall carry for all the days of my life.

Shurli is a member of the DTES Power of Women Group. She advocates for social justice by ending poverty; by ending the marginalization of Indigenous and mentally or physically-challenged people; by providing safe affordable housing, wholesome food, education, and meaningful work to all; and by living peacefully with respect and dignity for all Life in harmony with Nature.

Shurli Chan

Childhood Abuse Brought Me to the Downtown Eastside

mccabe.melissa — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 14:00:30 +0000

A dispatch from the In our Own Voices writing project

VANCOUVER—In 1954, when I was six years old, I came to Canada from Germany. Ever since then I have lived in Vancouver. When I was growing up, my father abused me physically, mentally, and sexually. My mother did nothing to protect me. At the age of 13, I ran away from home and stayed with my friends in New Westminster until I turned 17. I was pregnant and went back home to Vancouver to give birth to a baby girl in 1966. She was apprehended in 1967 by the Ministry of Child and Family Development (MCFD). She was only 9 months old.

Shortly after that, at the age of 19, I ended up in the Downtown Eastside. I found myself sinking into a depression and was constantly tormented by the horrific memories of my father’s abuse. I started using alcohol and drugs such as LSD, and entered into several abusive and exploitative relationships with men.

In 1969, I moved to Winnipeg with a man. I quit drugs and had two children. But the relationship did not work out and I returned to the Downtown Eastside with one of my daughters in 1978. I ended up in another relationship, but this man began assaulting my young daughter. I did not know about this right away, as soon as I found out I broke up with him. But by then, MCFD was re-involved in our lives because they already a file on me, and my daughter was apprehended and taken away from me.

I started drinking again and even tried heroin. It was hard to survive without enough money. I hardly ate. I relied heavily on food banks and collected recyclable bottles to make some extra dollars. I thought about prostituting myself, but I felt too ashamed and was worried that if my children found out, that they would look down on me. I was homeless and stayed at the Triage Shelter and Lookout Shelter.

My favourite hangouts on the street were on Main and Hastings, Hastings and Abbott, as well as Hastings and Dunlevy. All the people there were also drinking and doing drugs and I felt like I fit right in. It was the only life I knew. In the bars, I would always meet men. They saw me sitting alone and would ask if they could join me, and I would let them. The men were never young and always offered me drinks. When they told me to come home with them, I would tell them that I had a disease.

Now, almost twenty years later, I am clean and sober and have housing. But the issues in the Downtown Eastside, and the struggles that bring women to the Downtown Eastside, persist. Thousands of people still sleep on the streets or are in shelters because of a lack of affordable housing, and every year the Homelessness Count goes up. According to BC Housing’s own data, there has been an overall net increase of only 280 new social housing units over the past five years. Meanwhile, hundreds of condominiums are going up for the rich, supported by City Council and the dollars of the real estate industry, which displaces and pushes us out of our own neighbourhood.

Why is it so hard to treat us as human beings? The government has the ability and the capacity—but not the political will—to ensure the elimination of poverty. I challenge any politician to switch places with us. Sleep in the alley, stand in a food line, and live off $6 a day; then perhaps they will understand our pain. We need housing. We need safety for women. We need more services like detox centres and health support teams. We need the police to stop their brutality, stop their illegal searches, stop beating poor people up, and stop arbitrarily arresting residents of the Downtown Eastside.

For all these reasons, I like to be involved in supporting the Downtown Eastside. In 2006, I was involved with other women in starting the night shelter for the Downtown Eastside Womens' Centre (DEWC). We occupied the DEWC - which at the time only operated in the daytime - because we did not want the doors to close on homeless women who were getting kicked out and had nowhere to go. So we staged a sit-in at the DEWC after-hours and refused to leave. All night, we made beds for women with donated blankets and served food. After about 4-6 weeks of operating the shelter as volunteers and doing lots of media events and rallies, BC Housing funded a night-time shelter.

Another major accomplishment that I was involved in was the Olympic Tent Village, which the DTES Power of Women Group and others organized during the Olympics. We were opposed to the Olympics because $7 billion was going to towards a big sporting party for tourists, while the Downtown Eastside was becoming poorer and homelessness had tripled. The Olympic Tent Village, which began on February 15 2010, was a safe place for Downtown Eastside residents, away from the cameras and the police.

Every day I would help prepare meals for the site and gather donations. One day there was a young homeless woman with her daughter who arrived at the Tent Village. She would stay in a corner because she was afraid that she could get reported to MCFD as homeless and then her daughter would get apprehended. So I would take food to her tent and bought a toy for her daughter. Everyone was fed and happy and people felt free at the Olympic Tent Village. We even had activities like singing and drumming and storytelling. After one month, about 80 people got housing as a result of the pressure and advocacy at the Olympic Tent Village.

Though the institutions that govern and rule the Downtown Eastside are ugly, as you can see, the residents of the Downtown Eastside have so much beauty and strength.

Madeline A. volunteers at the Downtown Eastside Womens' Centre and is a member of the DTES Power of Women Group. She likes talking to other women and listening to women when they want to talk about their problems and tries to assist everyone she can.

Madeline A.