Had kind of a strange day Wednesday.
Rode my bike to work and along the way I got an earful from a young woman standing on the corner of Commercial Drive and 10th Avenue.
I was stopped at the light in full bike gear.
“Hey, you got some money so I can catch the ferry?”
I held up my hands, as if to surrender.
Her response: “Punched a cop, getting money, anyway.”
I focused on the light, didn’t want to engage.
Agitated and bouncing on her feet like a prize fighter, she unloaded on me. Of the barrage of unfriendly words, this is what I remember: “KILL f***ing corporate pigs, KILL f***ing cops and f*** society and start your own…BITCH!”
The light turned green.
As I rode through the intersection, the cyclist next to me, who was pulling his daughter on a trail-a-bike, said: “Wow, you got a real lecture there.”
Me, shrugging my shoulders: “Hey, it’s Commercial Drive.”
When I arrived at work, a press release from the City of Vancouver was waiting in my inbox. To summarize, it was a good news release about some of the gains the city was seeing in what Mayor Gregor Robertson has called a mental health crisis.
Here are some of the highlights:
- Data from the Vancouver Police Department shows that for the first time in years, the number of arrests officers made under Section 28 of the Mental Health Act “has begun to stabilize.”
- A partnership between the VPD and Vancouver Coastal Health is “beginning to see fewer people requiring emergency health or services.”
Begun and beginning?
Better, I guess, than regressed and regressing.
So, that’s some good news.
And that good news, apparently, can be attributed largely to the work of two health teams. One is called the Assertive Community Treatment team, the other is the Assertive Outreach Team. Combined they look after 590 clients.
The city’s release was heavy with statistics, some understandable, others not so much. So rather than repeat them here, I found a personal story about a previous client of one of those teams. VCH posted it on its website in 2013.
It goes something like this: Sam (not her real name) was once considered a regular customer of the VPD. Drug dependent and suffering from mental health issues, she became a client of one of the teams. Eventually, her contacts with police and hospital visits dropped. Then she got work at a grocery store in a supervisory rule.
A good story.
But let’s get back to Wednesday.
Later that day, police tackled a guy near the Convention Centre after several “concerned and fearful people” called 911 about a shirtless man “who appeared very agitated, was yelling and throwing punches,” according to the VPD.
I have it on good authority the 33-year-old man was reciting dialogue from one of the Thor movies when he turned on the officers. He now faces several charges, including assaulting a police officer.
My Thursday was going along fine until a guy on the street outside a shelter near the Courier’s office asked me what my f***ing problem was and what I thought was so f***ing funny; I was walking by, minding my own business.
Friday morning came. I was stopped in my car at the light at Main and Terminal. Next to me on the boulevard, shaking and sobbing, was a young man. He was holding a sign that read: Lost everything/Sleeping outside/Anything helps/God bless and thank you.
Looking forward to next week.
@Howellings
