MAKING THE HOMELESS COUNT

The man in his 30s curled up in the shadows of a parking lot under the
Burrard Street Bridge confides that he's a drug addict who collects bottles
to pay for food and his habit.

The long-haired 53-year-old woman pushing a buggy full of junk outside the
McDonald's on Granville Street keeps her distance from the foul-mouthed,
pot-smoking young men on the sidewalk.

The bearded man with the Newfoundland accent standing outside a closed
convenience store on Bute Street jokes with the hardscrabble lot lying on
the sidewalk.

It's one week before Christmas on a mild Wednesday morning, and life as
these people know it doesn't change much from day to day; it only worsens
when you're addicted, mentally ill and flat broke.

If they have any hope on this morning, it's because of what the
soft-spoken, 55-year-old woman in the powder-blue rain jacket, jeans and
black runners is doing for them.

Judy Graves, in her gentle, disarming way, has spoken to them, taken their
names, their birth dates and their social insurance numbers to try to get
them on welfare.

She gives each a piece of paper with the address of the welfare office in
the West End, and tells them to show up the next day. Mention her name, she
says, they will know her.

For 13 years, Graves has worked for the city's housing centre trying to get
people off the streets.

As the coordinator of the tenant assistance program, her job includes
counting the number of homeless.

This means roaming alleys, parks and parkades from midnight to 6 a.m. to
check in with a transient population which is hard to track by day, and
often wants to be left alone.

About 600 people sleep on the streets in the winter months with 1,200 in
the summer, according to Graves' conservative estimates. That's double the
number of homeless from three years ago.

A combination of cuts to welfare, health care, insane house prices, a
shortage of low-cost housing, limited shelter space and a paltry minimum
wage are reasons, she says.

Graves' work is not only crucial for the homeless, but for social service
agencies, bureaucrats, police and politicians making decisions on reducing
homelessness, tackling addiction and treating the mentally ill.

She points out homelessness is often one of the main issues during a
political campaign, of which there will be two this year-the provincial
election in May, the municipal election in November. Graves can't help but
be political, but notes she doesn't take sides.

"I really don't care what the motivation of politicians is as long as they
do the right thing. It doesn't matter to me which party is in power because
the issue is too important. The homeless will tell you they can't wait for
a particular party to be elected."

Before Graves begins her morning patrol, she meets for "breakfast" at
Denny's restaurant at Thurlow and Davie.

It's midnight and Dana Walker, the city's coordinator of the West End's
Coordinated Response Program, is sitting in the booth next to Graves.

The 45-year-old Walker is the facts man to a new advisory committee
comprising police, health workers, various community organizations and
business people.

The committee's first priority is the homeless and Walker has come to the
right person to learn about the estimated 200 people sleeping in the
streets from Granville Street to Stanley Park.

After eggs, toast and a few cups of coffee, Graves pulls candy, dog treats
and cigarettes out of a bag and places them on the table. The candy and
cigarettes are for the homeless, the milk bones are to keep their dogs happy.

"I'm always amazed how much information Judy can get from somebody with a
few chocolates and some cigarettes," says Walker, who escorted Graves on
previous patrols when he worked for the parks board.

Outside on Davie Street, Graves and Walker pull new scarves, gloves, socks
and hats from the back of a car and fill their backpacks. The clothes are
courtesy of Graves' friends, who held a party to collect the merchandise.

The weather is mild, but the streets are wet from days of heavy rainfall.
The only real activity on Davie comes from Celebrities nightclub down the
block, where a queue is forming on the sidewalk.

It takes a stroll along Bute and through Nelson Park before Graves comes
upon a homeless person. He's a 58-year-old man bundled in a blanket at the
top of the steps of St. Andrew's-Wesley Church, next to St. Paul's Hospital.

He's not talkative, and doesn't want to be bothered. Graves leaves her card
and gently pats him on the shoulder before descending the steps to Burrard
Street.

She's known the mentally ill man for about two years. He's the same age as
another man, likely suffering from dementia, sleeping behind a stairwell at
First Baptist Church across the street.

He gladly takes a cigarette and is happy to talk about his medical
problems, including a sore shoulder. He gives Graves his personal
information before graciously accepting a pair of wool socks.

"Thank you, thank you Judy."

She records the information of both men in a notebook, and will forward it
to the welfare office. Whether either man will make it to the office is
something Graves won't know until the next time she sees them.

"The welfare office doesn't tend to phone me back, and plus they do have to
keep a person's information confidential," she says as she continues along
Burrard Street.

Graves doesn't like to prod too deeply into a person's life. In some cases
it takes her several years before she knows people's names or gets them
help. But for many of the homeless, Graves is the only person they've
talked to in days.

"For my own records, I don't ever want to violate somebody's privacy. But
if they want me to do advocacy with the Ministry of Human Resources, then I
do need their name, their social insurance number and their birth date. At
that point, if they want help, they're quite glad to give that. But not
everybody wants help."

The next hour is spent in the alleys and streets between Howe and
Granville, with the most desperate scene unfolding in front of a shoe store
in the 800-block Granville Street.

A woman in her 20s, with long black hair, and a passing resemblance to
Canadian pop star Alanis Morrissette, is darting up and down the street,
whimpering and screaming in French gibberish.

The madness is softened by the soaring voice of another young woman sitting
across the street, who is singing for money to rent a room at the nearby
Dufferin Hotel.

"Roll the stone away, roll the stone, Lord God almighty, I'm going to roll
the stone away," she sings as Graves calls 911 on her cell phone to see if
the police can respond to the woman in crisis.

Vancouver police operate Car 87, the only police-mental health nurse team
available in the city. The nurse's job is to assess the person while the
police officer decides whether to admit the person to hospital.

As Walker watches the frantic woman, he points out how this would be an
ideal situation for intervention by a rolling social service team. This
way, he says, the woman would get what she needs, whether it be
counselling, medical attention, housing or welfare.

"There's not much available for someone like this at this time of night.
Car 87 is stretched, and it doesn't have everything this woman needs. We
need the service to come to her, to work with her, to get something started
for her."

Graves isn't given a firm answer from the 911 operator whether Car 87 can
attend, but there is obviously not much she can do so she continues up the
street.

Her morning gets brighter a few blocks away at Howe and Robson when an
aboriginal man with a cane sidles up to her at a crosswalk.

"Judy Graves," he says, and gives her a bear hug.

He's an old face from the streets, and Graves helped him find housing in
the Downtown Eastside. He jokes that he now has a dishwasher-which Graves
lacks-and that he's been waiting for her to bring over her dirty dishes.

He also has a painting for her, he says, and wants to make sure she gets it
before Christmas. He'll drop it off at the Carnegie community centre, he
says, before continuing down the street.

Graves won't get into detail about the man's history, but says he had a
tough life. She pauses for a moment to watch him walk away.

"He looks good, it's nice to see."

She crosses the street to the Vancouver Art Gallery, where another person
is sleeping on the steps under a huge banner, advertising the Massive
Change exhibit.

Graves stops long enough to say hello and moves on to an alley north of
Robson Street. She records information from several people sleeping in
alcoves, partially hidden by dumpsters.

Walker remarks on the series of metal barricades installed along the back
of stores to prevent the homeless and others from using stairwells.

"I'm seeing a lot more of this-a sign of how things have changed down here.
It could be a trend."

At Robson and Nicola, Graves meets a 54-year-old man named Bobby, sitting
in the shadows of a storefront. He's lively and extends a welcoming hand.

He has thin, dirty hair, a grubby beard and his blackened hands look as if
he's been working on cars. He's wearing a black nylon jacket, dirty khaki
pants and black work boots.

Bobby goes on to talk about a head injury, being charged for a bank robbery
in Toronto and then trails off on a tangent concerning the assassinations
of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

Before Graves leaves Bobby, she gives him a wool hat and some reading
glasses. He takes her card and says he'll make sure to go to the welfare
office the next day.

"I'll be there," he says.

Farther down Robson, near a 7-Eleven at Cardero, a man in his 30s is
sleeping in an alcove, which is barricaded by his bicycle covered in
plastic bags.

He says he's from "an important family" near Toronto, and doesn't need
welfare because he's doing $100 million in business. The weather doesn't
bother him, either.

"This is nothing-this is Florida weather. No problem."

The man showed clear signs of schizophrenia, an illness Graves easily
recognizes after spending 12 years as a care worker at a residence for the
mentally ill in the Downtown Eastside.

From 1979 to 1991, Graves cared for people at Cordova House, where she
worked 12-hour shifts and learned about the madness of mental illness and
the effect on the brain.

People were stricken with personality disorders, depression,
schizophrenia-diseases many people often have before becoming homeless but
are never diagnosed with, she says.

"Men, especially, will tend to cover the symptoms with alcohol or drugs.
They don't think of it as being an illness, so you wind up with people who
have both a mental illness and a substance abuse problem."

A person in that state can rarely find their way to a welfare office, and
even if they do-and are given money for food-finding housing on their own
is almost impossible, she says.

It's a fact evident in Graves' patrol. Taking a coffee break at a Blenz on
Denman Street, she reviews her notes to find that six people told her they
were receiving welfare, only for food, not for housing.

Welfare will not give money for rent, unless a person can prove he or she
has found stable housing. Even so, Graves points out she is working with
three homeless people who suffer from Tourette's

Syndome, but can't find a room for them because they are prone to shouting
and swearing loudly.

"It's a terrible gap, and once a person is outside, they're very unlikely
to receive any medical care, as well. The simplest life tasks for a lot of
these people is so complicated, and it's really depressing when you're
probably at the lowest point in your life."

As of 3:25 a.m., Graves has spoken to 21 homeless people, ranging in age
from their 20s to late 50s. Five were women, at least 12 people showed
signs of mental illness and 15 were not on welfare.

Her findings are consistent with previous patrols in the West End, but she
points out, as she heads back onto Denman, that this neighbourhood never
used to be synonymous with homelessness.

In fact, she recalls 10 years ago the entire city had few homeless people.
She never imagined such an increase in the 1990s.

"When I was 19, the West End was covered with old houses, and so anybody
having a tough time finding housing could find a room. I was making minimum
wage, and I took home about $184 a month, and I could get a room for $56."

The neighbourhood is now dominated by a forest of highrises, high-end shops
and fewer residences for people on welfare and low incomes.

Over the next two hours, Graves finds another 29 people sleeping in
gazebos, under the Burrard Street Bridge, next to the Aquatic Centre, in
storefronts and finally to the most unsettling scene of the night at Bute
and Davie, where she began her patrol.

Dubbed "crystal corner" by police because of the prevalence of crystal
methamphetamine, it is home to a 33-year-old heavily made-up aboriginal
woman sprawled out in front of a convenience store.

She is swearing loudly from behind a shopping cart, while another man lying
in the alcove next to her picks at a moldy piece of garlic bread.

A tall black man, his face mostly covered by a hooded jacket, sits on a
flower stand and stares vacantly into the distance. Another young man, with
a handlebar moustache, rolls by on rollerblades, asking if "anybody has got
anything."

Still, Graves manages to get personal information from two people before
walking back to Davie. It's now 5:45 a.m., and traffic is beginning to pick
up and joggers are out.

Taking a seat in Walker's car, she reflects on another patrol that will
stay with her as she goes home to sleep. It's always hard to erase such
desperation from your mind, she says.

"Right now, my mind is going back to the young man under the Burrard
Bridge, the man lying on the cold floor of the gazebo, all those people in
the alleys off Robson Street. I'm wondering if any of them will be able to
get off the street. I sure hope so."