It’s happier over here

The following is a snapshot from the campus of Columbia Bible College in Abbotsford, B.C., written by Outdoor Leadership student Andrea Ykema.

The billboard immediately caught my eye. It was an advertisement for Telus with a monkey holding a banana in each ear. Haven’t you heard? read the line above the monkey. And below him, It’s happier over here. Telus.

The cute animal and colourful fruit all looked very happy. Except . . .

The billboard was pasted on the side of a small concrete building, likely a drop-in centre or shelter. And it was facing an empty lot littered with garbage, dirty clothing, and needles. A chain link fence separated the lot from the sidewalk.

There were four of us standing there in the rain on West Hastings Street in Vancouver, making our way back towards our rooms in the Ivanhoe Hotel. Further down, I could see a row of people wrapped in shabby wool blankets, sleeping through their day. Across the street was a woman pushing a shopping cart full of old things.

A bitter laugh rose in my throat at the billboard’s audacity and irony. It’s happier over here?

We were on CBC’s Urban Mission Adventure, a weekend class to raise awareness about the condition of Vancouver’s Eastside. We volunteered our time at local shelters and were exposed to worldviews that differed vastly from our own. We stayed in a hotel that had permanent residents. We walked the streets with cookies and sandwiches, and later gathered to debrief our experiences.

Sometimes we tried to trick ourselves into thinking we were making a difference. But we weren’t.

It’s happier over here?

Of the approximately 18,000 people living in the area, 12,000 are substance abusers. Nearly half of those are needle users, primarily heroin. Some have hepatitis, AIDS, or even tuberculosis, an illness that should no longer exist. Most of the women who walk the streets, whether sex-trade workers or not, were molested.

It’s happier over here?

We learned that drugs are not a moral issue. It’s what drives an addict to self-medicate that’s the issue. And those deeper issues – the things behind what we saw – cannot be addressed or even encountered without a foundation of relationship and time.

We were flirting with charity, which is a dangerous thing to do. Charity is good, but it’s blind. Charity doesn’t know who it’s helping.

We learned that treatment centres have a 95–99 percent failure rate; research is now showing that addicts are often genetically prone to their condition. And with the upcoming 2010 Olympics, single occupancy residences where some in the street community are lucky enough to reside are being purchased by the government and converted into housing for international visitors.* The old residents are right back on the streets.

We also learned that some people see this situation and, instead of allowing it to frighten them, move into the midst of it. They live their lives and raise their children across the street from gunfights, drug deals, and heroin trips.

They do this not because they think they have something to offer, not because they know a secret to success and want to share it with every addict, sex worker, and homeless person they meet, but because they realize that they – that we – are human. They realize that we’re all created to be in relationship and that everyone benefits from restored community. Everyone benefits when shalom is returned.

If happiness is a state with deeper meaning, a place where the sound of shalom is vital and strong, then perhaps it is indeed happier over here.