PART OF THE PLAN

Anita closes her eyes to describe her son. Squeezing them tight, she
paints his face: dark, almond-shaped eyes; cocoa skin; a slender
nose; loose, curly black hair.

"I can see him see," she says, shutting her eyes again, her mouth
curling into a smile.

"He is right here in front of me. He has a huge smile and the heartiest laugh."

It's been three years since her baby was whisked away by his father.
He's hardly a baby anymore; he's six years, she says.

So this Christmas, there is only one gift she wants: she wants to see her son.

Life has changed a lot since Anita ran naked and frightened from a
trailer where she was sexually assaulted and held against her will on
Mother's Day.

The crack cocaine addiction that forced her to work the dark downtown
strolls is under control.

She has a roof over a head. She has found love at the Salvation Army
shelter and has another baby in her tummy.

Anita became addicted to crack more than 10 years ago. A boyfriend
spiked weed with cocaine. Unable to take care of her older children,
Anita left them with her mother.

Then six years ago, she had her son - the one she can't forget.

This time it was different, Anita said.

"I had managed to take care of him. We had our own song. I potty-trained him."

She stayed cleaned, enrolled in school and shared custody with his dad.

Then one day Anita was late to pick him up from the day-care. Staff
called his dad and she hasn't seen her son since.

"There was always a part of me that said, 'I deserved to lose him.'"

Anita's life once again spiralled out of control . She turned to crack.

"It made me numb."

Two years passed by in a haze of highs and sleepless lows.

At the beginning of this year, she came to Hanna House, a recovery
centre in Maple Ridge. She had a part-time job in Burnaby and an
apartment. But soon she stopped getting the government allowance that
paid for transportation to work.

"For the first time in a long time, I had a job and I ended up losing
it because of a lack of help."

Anita was homeless by March. She turned crack, again.

"Every time I took the drug, the craving doubled. I could not stop
until I fell on my face."

She started selling herself to get the money to buy crack.

"When you are doing that, you are doing it for the drugs. You just
think about the next fix so you can forget about the last date," she said.

"It comes to a point where you don't care if you live or die."

People would walk in the middle of the road to avoid her while she
stood on a sidewalk.

Then came Mother's Day.

Anita was held in a trailer by a customer for hours and assaulted her.

She escaped after telling him she wanted to throw up and ran naked to
a neighbouring house.

A neighbour brought her to the Salvation Army Caring Place. She was
reluctant to make a report, at first, but Sally Ann staff convinced
her to call police. She provided RCMP with a location that led to a
man's arrest. A trial is schedule for January.

Anita stares out at the falling snow.

She's been clean since July, now volunteers at the shelter and lives
in one of its transitional housing rooms.

She marvels at the attitude of staff at the Caring Place.

In Vancouver, when she asked if she could volunteer, she was told she
had to be clean for two years before she could apply.

"It was separatist. There was staff and clients. Here, I just had to
be clean and ready."

She knows she's been given another chance.

"I want to become one of those people who break the stereotype," she
said. "To show people that anyone can change."

Sally Ann captain Kathie Chiu sees the change.

When she first met her, Anita was skinny, addicted, didn't care.

"When I first met her, I thought she was a lost-cause," Chiu said.

"I thought, 'What a shame.' She had an attitude. She didn't care
about herself. Now, it's like there is fight in her.

"She is really making a change, saying, 'I am going to do this and
nothing is going to stop me this time.'"

Anita wakes up at the crack of dawn every day, walks downstairs and
visits with the crowd of people who came to the Caring Place for a
warm bed overnight.

"I try to reach out to people because I like to help," Anita said.

She plans to move in with her new boyfriend, get a comfortable
apartment with a room for her new baby.

"I go through my day grateful that I am not out there," she said,
pointing to the snow. She has even started looking for her son.

"I want my son back," she said.

"That would return a huge part of what I've been missing for two years."

All this, the brutal assault, her addiction, losing her son, finding
love and looking to the future again is part of a plan.

"I believe that nothing happens on God's earth by mistake."