Andy, Jupiter, and their rather chilly home
I have opened a Go-Fund-Me for Andy: https://gofund.me/cf815fb42 . I have some precious metals that I plan to cash in today and donate to her. I don’t see many homeless people down by English Bay. The world has just come to my doorstep.
People are responding – with suggestions, making informational calls to local shelters for me, and sending donations. We are … OK, OK … I am going to nail this one. I have a list of places to call and will be doing so tomorrow. (Make that asap. I have so many other things to do to raise funds to get Andy off the street, as well now.)
I have an emergency in the Vancouver area.
Andy Stewart (not her real name), a native woman from the Edmonton area (up north), has fled a situation of domestic violence and come to Vancouver for shelter. She has parked herself in the park in front of me, in a tent.
She’s around 21, very pleasant, has arthritis, and walks (ably) with a cane (I had arthritis). She has a pitbull for a pet, who is very friendly unless you get violent with her (I assume). I became his friend the first day I met him. Treats help.
She has a tent and a sleeping bag, a chair and other items that we in the neighborhood or her rescue team have donated to her. It isn’t that someone in a place to help her may not show up eventually. It’s that it’s so cold and organizations can move so slowly. She could die out there in the cold some time before organizational help arrived.
And going to the press right now might antagonize her only organizational friends.
I asked the building owner about taking Andy in, but he will not allow her dog in the building. (If she gets much colder, I’m going to sleep out there with her dog so she can sleep in here.)
I’m furnishing her with whatever I have, including money. To be without money in this situation must multiply its effect beyond belief. Homelessness is bad enough but not having money to boot must be next to a life not worth living. You’re just waiting to kick it.
If there is anyone in the Vancouver area who can take a person in her situation in, I’d be eternally grateful. I know they will be rewarded as I have been when I sheltered someone in her situation. We became lifelong friends.
The situation would be ideal for an older person who wants companionship or who needs assistance or supervision.
I’d have to ask Andy, but she might accept shelter on Vancouver Island (say, on a farm) or outlying Greater Vancouver areas.
Being abandoned in the cold overnight must be the ultimate sobering experience. Facing that as a future is too much to ask of anybody.
I can’t sleep with this situation happening on my doorstep and having nothing I can do about it. And not knowing who to turn to who will act immediately.
If I’m not writing copiously at this moment, it’s because I’m sitting outside a tent across the street for an hour, without Internet service, while Andy shops, washes, etc.
Or weeping in my apartment, remembering how me, Paul, and my Mother were in exactly Andy’s situation when Mom fled Dad’s violence in 1963.
And a kind soul took us in.
It’s this memory that is energizing me now.
If you can help, please email me at the blog: [email protected]. Any help is greatly appreciated. I know. We’ve already appealed. But this is an emergency and they don’t care about time.
