OUT OF THE TIRESOME DRONING ABOUT POVERTY COMES A SUCCESS STORY

The Odds Didn't Favour Sheldon Vance: Foster Child, Drug Addict, Street Kid.
Yet He Is A Survivor, Thanks To The One Place That Helped Him

Readers often complain there is no good news in the
newspaper.

Here is good news:

Sheldon Vance is not dead. Odds are, he should be.

Instead, Vance, 31, met with Premier Gordon Campbell and a couple of
his cabinet ministers Wednesday. The subject was Covenant House, the
youth shelter at the corner of Seymour and Drake, and Sheldon's old
alma mater. Covenant House, with 90 per cent of its budget funded from
private donations, is celebrating its 10th anniversary today, and
Sheldon was in Victoria to lobby the provincial government for $5
million so the shelter might add another 32 beds to its existing 22.
The demand has exceeded supply.

I would understand if you quit reading right now, because I believe
that any mention of shelters and social services produces a profound
weariness in the public these days, since the public has heard it ad
nauseam. There is not enough social housing. There are not enough food
banks.

There are not enough addiction treatments.

This unending, enervating wheedling -- backdropped by the appearance
that all those tax dollars flowing into the downtown have done nothing
to lessen the overwhelming misery there -- has produced a real
revulsion, with frustrated citizens holding their hands over their
ears, screaming, "Enough with the 'not enough!'" I can't say I blame
them.

But then there is Sheldon Vance.

You should know something about him.

He was born in Edmonton. He had five brothers and sisters. His mother
and father were both aboriginal. He knows almost nothing about them,
since he became a ward of the state at age three.

Between the ages of three and seven, he lived in 50 foster homes. At
the age of seven, he, a brother and a sister were adopted by a couple
in Pincher Creek, Alta.

They were ranchers, and Caucasian. They ran 800 head of cattle.
Sheldon may as well have been living on Mars.

He got on well with his stepfather, who made an effort to keep Sheldon
in touch with his aboriginal roots, but not with his stepmother, who
did not.

He was very rebellious toward his stepmother, Sheldon
said.

He was a bright boy who finished high school by 16, and a local
community college in Lethbridge by 18. He majored in criminal justice.
He minored in taking amphetamines.

When he graduated, he fled Alberta (and more precisely, his past). He
hitchhiked to B.C. He ended up in a Surrey shelter. He soon moved out
into a house with a bunch of guys from the shelter, which was, he
said, a mistake. He became a user.

"It was a crack shack, basically," Sheldon said.

He moved downtown, and lived on the street. He was a boy. He had
knives pointed at him, and guns, and learned how to sleep with one eye
open. Then somebody in one of those social services pointed him toward
Covenant House. It had just opened its youth shelter. It operated
mostly by private donation, and compared to the other shelters in
town, where assault and robberies were always a possibility, Covenant
House was safe and clean -- "the Ritz of shelters," Sheldon said.

He was among the first of its residents. He lived there for a year,
trying to reassemble his life. One day, he met Andrew Dagg, a Covenant
House counsellor.

"Sheldon was broken when I first met him," Dagg said. "I had just
started. I was there one day when he got news that his stepfather had
died."

His stepfather was the one constant in his life, and when he came back
from attending his funeral in Alberta, Sheldon was more broken than
ever before.

Outwardly, he was a solid citizen. He moved out of Covenant House and
got an apartment in Kerrisdale. He worked helping street kids, just
like he used to be. But while he was the picture of stability, he had
begun to use crystal meth again.

Rock bottom arrived six years later, with the rent unpaid and his
girlfriend walking out the door. By then, he was smoking every hour.

"I was right back to where I had started," Sheldon said. "I did a
complete full circle."

Determined to break the cycle, he went back to the one place that had
always been a safe harbour for him.

"Covenant House has always helped me," Sheldon said. "Even if I didn't
choose to accept their help, they were always there. They were my lifeline."

Dagg helped get him into a rehabilitation centre up in the Valley. It
took. There was more counselling, more help. Sheldon stabilized.

"Without a doubt, if it hadn't been for Covenant House, I probably
would have been in jail, or dead, or still screwing up on the streets
with the rest of them," he said.

Now, he lives in Kelowna. He is married -- to Gina, who is South
African -- and they have two children, Mitchell, two, and Hayleigh
Paige, eight months. Andrew Dagg was best man at their wedding.
Mitchell and Hayleigh Paige call him "Poppa Andrew." Sheldon works as
a director of the Okanagan Youth & Care Network. It serves about 320
kids in need.

And so -- as proof good can be done in the face of that overwhelming
misery downtown -- Sheldon Vance is alive. A life has been saved, and
through that life, many more may be saved.

This is good news. It was brought to you by Covenant House, aged 10
today.

Many happy returns of the day.