Houseless, not homeless.

This past week, the world surprised me. Maybe I've become jaded by Springer, or have become complacent by GST cheques, whatever the case may be, it totally shook me from my repose.

I live in Ottawa's downtown. I'm a ten minute walk to work, three blocks from a grocery store, two blocks away from my cousins, and I can see a Tim Horton's from my bedroom window. Most nights I can hear whatever is happening on the street below me, with the same clarity that I would if the events were taking place in my living room. Bus doors opening and closing, road construction, domestic disturbances, drunk Ottawa Senators fans honking their wild horns, and drunk people Russian waltzing between watering holes. The only time I can't hear anything is when it's raining. As I type, there is a large high-rise construction crane, painted yellow, staring at me through my window. Nobody's there. Every time I look at the crane, my eyes go straight to the three slabs of concrete that are bolted to the opposite end, which constitute the counter-balance. Every time I look at the crane, I think of one of two scenarios: the first is that the crane operator is watching my every move, like some undercover Big Brother; and the second, is that the three slabs of concrete will become loose and fall crashing to the earth, either killing whomever may be passing on the sidewalk below, or seriously maming them.

On my way to work, I become a part of the not-so-random acts of the city. I never understood while people call cities jungles. When you look at them from a higher vantage point, you realize the happenings and peculairities of a given city, more closely resemble a hamster on a wheel. Each day the same people walk the same streets, to work in the same parts of the city, take the same bus to walk (and why wouldn't they?), meet the same friends for coffee, at the same coffee shop, while ordering the same thing they always order, smiling the same smile, laughing their work laughs and flexing all the important work muscles: good handshake, not too firm, you don't want your boss to think you're trying to impress him/her, shit, your palms are wet with nervous sweat, but she can't see you wiping it on your pants. This isn't exciting.

Another thing about downtown, is that there are a lot of homeless people, some of whom are travelers trying to find help staying at a hostel. When I walk to work, I usually stop at the Tim Horton's I can see from my bedroom window, get a coffee and leave with my pocket ringing of change. The first person that asks me for change, or that I see sitting as dosile as Hindu cows on the side of the sidewalk, I will give them the change. I give more if I have it on me. Most people I see, pass by them without a care in the world, or even an acknowledgement of their existence. Now, I can't say that I haven't done this either. But after a while, you start to see the same people, standing, sleeping, or sitting on the same patch of sidewalk, and after a while, you start to expect to see them. On my walk to work, I usually pass a woman who asks you for a dollar for coffee - at any time of day, I've never seen her at night. She's hard to understand because she has speech impediment that disrupts her words. She also walks like she's commanding a battalion of Monte Pythons performing the Ministry of Sillywalks. I don't know anything about this woman, this isn't judgement, these are my observations. Somebody looks after her though, because when it's cold, she'll have a warm jacket.

Another man I see, sits in a wheel-chair, and has a gigantic Basset Hound that stops and smells all the roses. I passed him once and remarked that I admired his dog, whose name it turned out was Moe, and he said, 'oh he could sniff that damn wall all day if I let him.' You could tell he and Moe had been together for quite some time.

When I walk home from work, I used to see a man that looked like Walt Whitman reincarnated. He would sit beneath the awning of a government building when it rained, or a little further up the street when it was sunny. He also had a dog, a black one that looked like a Husky/Lab mix. The man would speak a foreign language I didn't understand, very quiet to himself whenever anybody walked past him on the street. He had a map of the world on his face, deep blue eyes, and an old fishing hat on his head, which covered his wirey gray hair. Tucked away in his thick gray beard (hence the Whitman comparison), his aging teeth showed when he smiled. I've worked downtown for almost a year now, and every time I walked home from work, for a span of five months, I would see him sitting at his corner, with his dog and an overturned hat.

About three weeks ago, he was gone. There was nothing left of him, except a piece of paper taped to the bricks of the building he always leaned against. I passed by not thinking anything of it. Next day, same thing, I was walking home, about to cross the street onto the block where he sat, but there was two pieces of paper and a bouquet of flowers laying on the ground underneath the papers. As well, there were two women in business suits kneeling down, looking like they were reading the paper, and talking to each other. So I stopped, and took a look at the paper. One of the pieces of paper had a name and a life span written across it, the other, advertised a picture. In the picture, was the portait of the gray-bearded Whitman twin, fishing hat and all. Over the course of the week, when I passed by, I noticed more flowers and people stopping to read the sign and look at the picture.

Most of these people I could tell worked in the area, meaning, that they would probably have seen this man during the course of their routines as well. I'm not sure who put the signs or the picture there, but I am sure of the effect it had on the neighbourhood. Everybody stopped to read the sign, or lay flowers, or reminisce with their co-workers, as I would overhear a couple of times, about the homeless man who died.

Every once in a while, we are reminded about humanity - the day I noticed people caring about the absence of this man from the sidewalk was mine. Anytime you see a homeless person, you may wonder about their situation - what got them there, does anybody know they are spending the cold nights huddled under cardboard - but then you walk away. You never notice that, while they may not have a house, the streets are their home. My mother likes to believe that maybe some are angels. Maybe she's right, I'm not really sure. But I know one thing, you still miss them when they're gone.