No sleep tonight

By Maria Nguyen

How do you take care of your health when you don’t have a home?

The answer was simple to Nancy, one of the seven homeless individuals to tell horror stories about life on the streets in a photo and sound installation exhibit at the church of the Holy Trinity this week.

The answer is: you can’t.

“If they were housed, they’d be able to take care of themselves better,” said Nancy.

Heather, a prostitute suffering from Hepatitis C, slept on park benches and tents for years. But from her smiling life-size portrait, you would never have thought that about her. Her clear voice resonates in the audio interview recording that accompanies her photograph. “It’s like camping, but it’s not camping,” she semi-chuckles. Heather was 48 when she passed away this year.

Ola experiences memory loss, not from hard-core drug use like Heather, but from sheer exhaustion and stress. “It’s like a form of suicide living down here… I feel lost.” Ola sleeps with one eye open because she’s always afraid. It’s because she’s seen so much violence.

For Phil, a handsome man who looks too young to be 50, the hardest part about living on the streets is to keep a positive outlook. “You see people living the life you used to have,” he reflects, but says with the money allotted to housing, “we can’t rent anything that’s worthwhile, that’s not drug-infected, prostitution-infected…”

So for three years, Phil dragged around a 70-pound bag -- his whole world on his shoulders. The incredible thing about Phil is his generosity. Phil gives away his belongings to other homeless people because, he says, “I see people with much less than me. At least I have my mental health... That's how I deal with my depression.”

The resilience and strength these people have makes me feel almost ashamed. Joe, a sweet-looking man with blue eyes and a neat brown beard – sums it up for everybody: “It’s been a rough one, but I’ll get through it.”

Many of Toronto’s homeless never had a name, but thanks to Toronto Street Health and the National Film Board of Canada's Filmmaker-in-Residence program, now they do.

This year NFB teamed up with Street Health to bring lively voices to the somber statistics summarized in the 2007 Street Health Report (a health survey of homeless adults in Toronto), in hopes of shedding more light to the grave issues that threaten those who live for years on the streets.

Four photographers -- Adrienne, Jess, Keneisha, and Meghan, then document stories of 28 homeless men and women through audio recordings and portrait-photography and presents eight of them in tall lightbox prints with headphones.

The stories offer a small glimpse into a very big problem in our city. They’re eye-opening.

Some provincial parties awaiting election are promising to develop better health care, fight poverty, house the homeless, etc. but the facts show that one third of the people are homeless for five years or longer. That's more than one political term. And homelessness is not a new problem. The huge disparity between promise and action leave people on the streets dealing with their health issues on their own and continuing to be ignored.

Like when Joe got stabbed in the chest with a pair of scissors, he had to go to the hospital, which wouldn't dress his wound because his OHIP had expired. He fears reinfection because he's on the street without adequate equipment to care for his wound.

It’s a little ironic and sad that the exhibit is tucked away in the back of a church in the middle of the city next to a shopping mall and across the street from a swanky restaurant. Two homeless people were sleeping on couches laid out nearby while I was there, and only two others came in to view the photographs and listen to what Heather, Ola, Rook, Nancy, Phil, Joe, Susan and Anthony had to say.

If only more people cared.

“People think they know about homelessness, even the homeless people themselves, but they don’t,” Rook observes.

I sure didn’t, but I’m starting to get the picture.