One looks at downtown Vernon and sees the squalor of living as an addict. The tragedy of a generation; lost to an opioid hell. A messy, toxic contamination where ordinary prescriptions are derailed into aggressive addictions.
You see the raw, fleshy honesty of humanity, the unbearable poignancy of intimate carnality, the love in hopelessness.
Many are friends of friends before drugs devoured them whole. Our eyes and our camera lenses distil a brutal life in razor-thin slices. They are stuck in a pit of sharp edges surrounded by enemies. Their existence instils a passion for truth and desperate determination to expose the world’s underbelly in all of its flawed beauty and its hard realities. There is beauty in every dark corner of their lives.
Homeless are like us. They breathe the same air. They see, hear and feel the same as we do. A single stroke of bad luck can put us where they are. Let’s reassess them as human beings that exist alongside us in the beautiful Vernon surroundings. Thy need healing. Let’s extend our love to them by embracing them and help them in whatever way we can. Let’s transform ourselves from being sheep into shepherds by sacrificing ourselves through acts of love and care for the weak, homeless, hungry; the oppressed, the poor. There are ways we will hear the shepherd’s call. We have harsh words for these souls. Instead, we should have words of inspiration.
The homeless have stories and scars of the frontline. Each has their own storyboard. They see things that we in our privileged, self-entitled lives don’t see. Let us lay down our lives by loving them as ourselves. We have a lot to learn from them.
Being homeless changes your sense of self. Your walls are closing in. Wild camping is beautiful as every day you wake up to just be. You have no idea how tough it is hustling on the streets all day and night. This is not glamorous and hedonistic.
When a person identifies themselves as homeless you automatically recoil and scurry off. Change the story, tell people instead you have sold your house and are going where the wind blows you. To that, people would say, “Oh, that’s inspirational.” The difference is just one word: homeless.
When you say you have lost your house, home and family and have nothing you are seen as a social pariah. It’s a real insight into people’s preconceptions. Observing the homeless makes one realize how much people judge without knowing the truth of someone’s story.
One never expects to become homeless. It just goes to show it can happen to anyone.
The people of Vernon need to change their preconception of the homeless. We should not be vicious and show a heartless attitude, leaving people to rot on our streets. If you do feel moved to give something, offer them your love, food or a warm drink, but please do not offer money.
If the people of Vernon want to support the homeless, it is for the better if we donate to registered charities who work with them, help find them shelter and are in a much better position to know which people on the streets are genuinely destitute.
Ed Witzke
