We are the 99%

In a previous post, I mentioned that we'd donated our extra mats to the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre on Cordova who were short of mats this winter.   I volunteer in the Downtown Eastside every Friday (at The Listening Post), so it was pretty easy to deliver to a very deserving organization, in one of the neediest locations in Canada.

Exactly one week later, I was back in this same area, this time picking up donations for Richmond shelters, from Lotus Light Charity Society located in a Buddhist temple on E. Hastings.   Lotus Light have an annual Winter Charity Drive and distribute sleeping bags, food and socks etc to the needy.   It felt a bit strange to be picking up these things from the Downtown Eastside for delivery to Richmond and I asked Sean, the monk coordinating the charity drive, why they'd chosen Richmond.  He explained that they used to just distribute only in the DTES, but they realized the needs were wider so they extended their gifts to Greater Vancouver.  Sean himself lives in Richmond and most days he sees a man sitting at the entrance to the Brighouse Canada Line station asking for a handout, so perhaps that was the seed that eventually led to this gift to Richmond.

Driving home in a car crammed with 15 sleeping bags, 90 giant bottles of shampoo, dozens of bags of cookies and dill-flavoured Crispers, boxes of toothpaste, clothing, bottled water etc, I got to thinking about "Roy", who's one of the regular panhandlers at Brighouse station.  He stayed with us a couple nights last year and I've talked to him several times on the streets.    Most people walk by panhandlers like Roy, ignoring them.  A few say hello.  Others struggle with the dilemma of whether they should offer cash or not, worrying about how it might be spent.  Enough do give that, after a few hours of work, as he calls it, he has enough money to buy some fried chicken at a nearby greasy spoon and/or beer at the liquor store.

The daily presence of panhandlers in downtown Richmond (and the ongoing existence of the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver) is a thorn in the side of some, an embarrassment; ignored or despised by others, but it does serve as a constant reminder of the work that remains to be done.  

This brings to mind the occupy movement with their "We are the 99%" slogan, i.e. we are the 99% of the planet vs. the 1% who hold a disproportionate percentage of the wealth.  What injustice.

But if we turn this 1% vs 99% model on its head and look at the bottom 1% vs the top 99%, we get a different perspective on us vs them.  In this model, the 1% are the poorest in our community, people like Roy and people living on the margins with very low incomes.   And the constant presence of panhandlers on that little piece of sidewalk outside Brighouse station can be viewed as their "Occupy Brighouse sidewalk" serves as a peaceful protest of the injustices in our community.

Now "We are the 99%" has a different meaning.  Now, we -- the 99%--  are the ones with the wealth and the power, the people who can make a difference.   You'd think solving the problem of the poorest 1% would be easier than the problems associated with the richest 1%, but we'll see.