Failure of the Human Spirit

It's not hard to feel compassion for other people.  Their plight moves us when they are hard done by, when nothing they seem to do is capable of helping them, when somehow fate seems to decree that theirs is a miserable existence through no fault of their own.  Most societies have safety nets to ensure that those of their citizens who are in dire need of assistance, the basics of shelter and sustenance and health care do have access to enable them to endure their lot in life.

Social service agencies proliferate whose purpose is to help people who have made poor choices in life, and to help lead them toward reconsidering those choices, abandoning them and adapting themselves to alternate opportunities to raise themselves out of the squalor of their existence as homeless, as ill people, as alcoholics and drug-dependent.  Nothing, however, can be accomplished of any lasting value, without the co-operation of those needing help.

If people who are down and out make no effort to help themselves, even with the encouragement and practical assistance of social service agencies, they they are simply marking time.  Poor choices in life sometimes occur through circumstances unforeseen and forced upon one, but everyone has the luxury of free choice; at one time or another when life achieves its lowest point, strength of character can prevail with a determination to make change happen.

In Ottawa there are more than enough destitute people living on the streets.  There are social service agencies whose job it is to find permanent placements for people, but those people have an obligation to indicate that they want to be helped.  Annie Pootoogook, an Inuit woman who achieved great acclaim in the world of art through her artistic abilities, and who was able to earn substantial amounts of money for her artwork, is one of those street people living in Lowertown.

At 43 years of age, she has two children, now 23 and 16 born in Cape Dorset, and adopted by relatives, a common enough occurrence among the Inuit.  Annie Pootoogook, for whatever reason, decided to surrender her children and get on with her life.  Her life included recognition for her talent in Europe and the U.S. where her artwork sold for $1,600 to $2,600.   In 2006 she was honoured with the $50,000 Sobey Art Award.  She had major exhibitions of her work in Europe and the U.S.

Now, and for the last five years, she has lived in Ottawa.  Her common-law partner is 49, addicted like Annie to alcohol and drugs.  William Watt has been living rough on the streets for years, and lives there now with Annie.  He spent, he claims ,$3,000 in a few days on crack cocaine last November.  They have both been 'clean' for the past five weeks.

Annie Pootoogook is pregnant with their child.  She informed William Watt of that when he emerged from prison for stealing alcohol from an LCBO store.  The couple get their meals from agencies for the homeless, and Annie Pootoogook gets regular health checks with a doctor at the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre.  The aid they receive from agencies like the Salvation Army irritates them.

They claim they have been denied housing for no good reason.  Annie isn't registered as a dependent on William's $420-monthly Ontario disability pension.  She has lost her birth certificate and other ID is no longer valid.  She refuses to undergo a mental-health evaluation at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre; neither will agree to undergo alcohol and drug counselling.

The municipality's Social Housing Registry needs them to register to begin the process of placing them on a priority list for the homeless.  Housing Help, another agency, promised to help, but the two have not made contact with them.  They complain that their needs are not being met, that they are not recognized as a common-law couple with no record of having lived at a permanent address together.

William Watt feels agencies "gave up (on) finding us a place because we weren't willing to jump through hoops", which is obviously their take on the need to be responsible for themselves, even to the extent of registering with the social agencies for whom that is a requirement before they are enabled to work on behalf of clients.

"I can't say that I don't want money.  I have to buy cigarettes", says Pootoogook, smiling.  She has taken to selling her pencil-crayon drawings on the street for $24, $30, for cigarette money.  She was, she claimed, beaten, suffered sexual abuse, and alcohol and drug addiction; recently came off another substance abuse binge.