Homelessness

They say home is where the heart is. Or is it the hearth? Or both? What constitutes homelessness? Are people homeless because they brought it upon themselves,  as some would argue,   or because they have no choice, as mounting evidence […]

  I almost took a Sculpture class once.  The first assignment which was to create an outdoor installation and my idea was to address the manner in which a person who lives on the street becomes perceived as being of […]

  If homelessness of an individual or family is a tragedy, homelessness of millions of people must multiply that tragedy millionfold, mustn’t it? Here’s a recipe for disaster.  Take a city of eight million people, destroy forty per cent of […]

  Twenty five years ago a man strolled by me on Viger Street in Montreal. I figured he was a drifter. He looked straight ahead through his round John-Lennon glasses.  He had a slight stoop to his walk. For a […]

  The Soloist. Written by Steve Lopez and Susannah Grant. Directed by Joe Wright. Starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. The Soloist could have been easily called The Duo since it is the true story of  how Los Angeles […]

Short video clip of my friend Edward Charles Lewis. Ed was my inspiration for writing for this article. He is 54 years old and is a homeless man in and of Chicago and has been homeless off and on for […]

            In the middle of the 9 a.m. newscast I have to leave for work, which is a shame. They’ve just started a story on a heroic rescue in New York. Something about a subway train.             At a quarter  […]

  The glare from the neon lights bores through my eyelids making them flutter. I fight  back and force them shut. They flutter again and one sleep-crusted edge disengages from its counterpart with a subliminal pop. Re-entering my dream is […]

  Lost in the Land of Plenty   I live in a welfare hotel and when the electricity gets shut off again in the room provided by Homeless Services, without the heater, even with blankets, it’s freezing cold.   I […]

  With nails that curved over toes. Her limbs, limp, her eyes vacant. She took her acoustic guitar to music lessons. She attended art courses at the Douglas Hospital for the mentally disabled. She had lived in shelters and foster […]

Notations 21 by Theresa Sauer. Mark Batty Publisher 2009. Hardcover: 320 pages. Reproduced partial images are with permission of the publisher as stated for purposes of a review of the work.   Notations 21 by Theresa Sauer is a collection […]

 Yves Engler’s The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy   When long-time Liberal “busboy” and former “rat-packer” Don Boudria was briefly minister for International cooperation and the Francophonie, he invited me to lunch during “Development Month” in 1997 to get […]

 Truth and Treason by Rahul Varma, Directed by Ariana Bardesono, September 8-19, 2009, Studio Hydro Quebec, Monument National, Montreal. There is no denying that Truth and Treason is politically compelling. The shooting of a ten year old Iraqi-Canadian girl at […]