NATALIE'S STORY - HOW ONE YOUNG MOTHER GOT OFF THE STREETS

$165 a month: Natalie Adams' welfare when she was homeless. Now she
gets $880.

Louise Dickson
Times Colonist

Natalie Adams felt safe sleeping in the Cridge Park tent city that
sprang up in downtown Victoria in the fall of 2005.

When a court injunction forced her and the other campers to move on,
her dream of living in a peaceful, safe community died. Adams' new
home became a tent hidden in Beacon Hill Park bushes near the petting
zoo. One night, she woke up with a start. She was being raped.

"It was just happening," she said. "And I was extremely angry and I
got more and more and more angry."

She also got pregnant.

Living on the street for 12 years had aged Adams. "I was 25 going on
80," she said. "And I didn't care about myself. All I knew was chaos
and vulnerability. I

didn't feel cold or hunger or damp."

But the sexual assault sparked a sense of self-preservation. Even
before she realized she was pregnant, Adams decided to quit cocaine
and crystal meth. She went through detox by herself, holing up in a
hotel room on Vancouver's West Pender Street, far away from everyone
she knew.

"I got off drugs because I got sick of being treated like a piece of
sh-t all the time," she said. "I got sick of having police threaten
and jeer at me. I got sick of having to beg for a public washroom."

Her anger propelled her into a new life. Adams has received her
one-year pin from Narcotics Anonymous, signifying a full year of
drug-free living. An outreach worker at Our Place, Roman Witowksi,
guided her through the bureaucratic hoops and frustrations to find an
apartment.

Then, when Adams received a rental agreement from the landlord, Our
Place helped her apply for social assistance. Without a place to live,
she was receiving $165 a month in welfare. Today, she receives $880 a
month and pays $550 in rent.

Outreach workers such as the five at Our Place help people connect
with needed services, whether it's applying for income assistance,
finding housing, getting medical care, accessing detox treatment or
even arranging funerals.

Four outreach staff, two men and two women, work at the centre, and a
fifth goes into the community with a volunteer to find people who are
known to need help. They might look for someone who's been diagnosed
with tuberculosis or another communicable disease, for instance.

Witowski has seen hundreds of people try and fail to combat their
addictions. He says Adams is an inspiration.

"I look at her every day and know it can be done," he says. "She's
totally clean, focused on trying to get things happening for her baby."

That baby, Daemian Michael Adams, was born on Feb. 6. He was
apprehended by the Children and Family Development Ministry on Feb. 8
because they feared because of her addictions and her life on the
street she would not be able to take care of him.

Adams is seeking legal aid trying to have Daemian returned to her. She
takes parenting classes and attends Best Babies, a pregnancy outreach
program for women and their babies at Blanshard Community Centre. She
voluntarily complies with weekly drug testing.

Adams' quest to live clean and sober with her son marks a change in a
life that was shadowed by a tragic event that occurred even before she
was born.

Adams' father died in a car accident when her mother was pregnant with
her. Her childhood was filled with other men, mostly bad, that her
mother relied on to help pay the bills. "I had a different dad every
month," she said.

She went to six elementary schools as the family moved between Surrey,
New Westminster, Delta, Coquitlam and Burnaby -- always fleeing
something, Adams said.

Then it was her turn to escape. When she was in Grade 7, Adams put
herself in foster care because of her mother's abusive boyfriend. She
stayed in foster care for only six weeks. When her foster parents
complained they didn't have enough room, Adams moved in with an
alcoholic, abusive grandmother for 18 months.

"They could have helped. They could have prevented so much stuff," she
said.

At 14, she ran away to live with an older sister whose fiance
introduced Adams to cocaine and made sexual advances, so then she left
for Granville Street in Vancouver and more trouble.

"I was young and cute. It was raining. The shelters were full. I was
fresh meat."

At 16, living on the streets of Oshawa, Ont., with a boyfriend, she
became pregnant. Her daughter Tiana was apprehended by Ontario's
Ministry of Children and Youth Services.

"I couldn't handle her crying and screaming," Adams said. "I started
to have extreme anxiety and panic attacks."

Eventually, she gave her daughter up for adoption. "From that point, I
kind of crumbled," she said. "I was hurting a lot. I tried to parent
but the Children's Aid Society made me feel that nothing I did was
going to be good enough."

Adams is desperately hoping this time, this baby, will be different.
She's clean. She feels loved and supported by the street community at
Our Place.

"I don't want to lose another baby. I don't want to end up like
everyone else I've helped bury. I don't want to be chased by Tasers or
wake up with anxiety worrying the cops are going to come and end up
beating me up or arresting me because I'm homeless.

"I'm in a place I can afford on my own. I'm not going to lose that
place," she says.