Pubdate: Thu, 05 Jan 2006
Source: Tacoma Daily Index (WA)
Copyright: 2006 Tacoma Daily Index
Contact:  http://www.tacomadailyindex.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2605
Author: Mario Bartel

HOPE ON WHEELS

It's rainy, windy, cold and Eric stands at the corner of Sixth Avenue 
and Sixth Street in clothing fit for a fair fall day.

Eric, who's in his 20s, has been homeless for more than a month. And 
to make matters worse, he's now "using" " likely crack cocaine, which 
can be bought in $5 rocks. Somewhere out there on this cold winter 
night is Eric's younger brother Patrick, who just turned 16. He has 
also been homeless for a month and likely also uses crack.

While Eric shivers, Michael Badior from the local Salvation Army 
tries to talk him into entering an emergency shelter for the night. 
The shelters in New Westminster are full Thursday night so Badior 
offers Eric transit fare tickets to get to a Vancouver shelter and 
then come back the next morning.

Badior, one half of the Salvation Army's recently launched Hope on 
Wheels team, also wants to find out where Patrick is. But his brother 
either doesn't know, or doesn't care.

Badior and partner Ivan Montenegro will spend much of the night 
trying to locate Patrick and other homeless individuals in need of 
help and hope.

Riding mountain bikes, they pedal through alleys and parks, peer 
under bridges and into underground parking lots. They are the 
Salvation Army's first-ever bike squad and there are plans to have 
others set up around the Lower Mainland. If the pilot project proves 
successful in New Westminster, there could also be Hope on Wheel's 
programs across Canada and the United States " wherever the 
faith-based organization operates.

Badior and Montenegro are oddities to those on the streets. People 
seeing them on bikes for the first time wonder if they're part of the 
New Westminster police bike squad. But when they break out the hot 
chocolate and start asking them if they have a place to sleep that 
night, people warm up to them.

When the program started a month ago, the two men found it took a 
strong heart to pedal a fully-loaded mountain bike up and down the 
hills of New Westminster.

But it takes an even stronger heart to give help and hope to the 
homeless, the drug and alcohol addicted, the mentally ill, and those 
who have lost their way and live on the streets of New West.

Two days and three nights a week, that's what these two "street 
missionaries" try to do.

The idea isn't to push their faith on those they deal with, says 
Badior. "You can't eat religion," he explains.

Instead the cycling pair are resource people to the homeless. They 
know the phone number of each agency and organization that offers 
help to those in need. They'll even make an appointment with that 
agency or organization and escort their clients to a meeting the next day.

It sounds simple but the real challenge is getting people to take 
that help. When Badior and Montenegro come across Eric again later 
that evening, they find out he doesn't want the help they offered. 
It's 11 p.m., he's still in New West and it's likely that he sold the 
two transit tickets for a few dollars.

It's also likely the money he pocketed will go toward a rock of crack cocaine.

Once bitten, twice shy, said Badior. The two won't be giving tickets 
to him again. Not unless they can actually escort him on to the SkyTrain.

But there's also some ongoing success stories out there.

Down at the Garfield Hotel (the Salvation Army's shelter for men), 
they meet Simon early Thursday evening. He's bipolar, but it's 
difficult to tell that because he's taking his medication. He's had 
the mental illness since he was a teenager but has been able to 
manage things " even holding down a good-paying job for years.

His life fell apart seven years ago when he was in a severe car 
accident. Now he's blind in his right eye, deaf in one ear and has a 
curvature of the spine because of several damaged vertebrae. After 
the accident he couldn't work and received a disability pay-out for 
his injuries. His common-in-law spouse then left him and took most of 
the money with her.

But Simon is now on the rebound. He holds down a full-time job in a 
woodworking shop and makes $10 an hour. He doesn't make enough to 
live on his own, so for now he stays at Stevenson House, another 
emergency shelter the Sally Ann operates in New West.

He tried sharing an apartment with others but "got ripped off" by his 
roommates. The shelter will do, he says, but he hopes one day to have 
a place of his own.

"I want to be a part of society and not a drain on it," says Simon, 
who has a photographic memory and a wit as quick as a whip.

Trust is a huge issue with Hope on Wheels, says Badior.

The strategy is simple. First they want people to gain trust in them. 
Offering up hot chocolate on a cold, wet and windy night is a great 
starting point to gaining that trust, says Badior. Then they have to 
get them to trust the message they're giving them and finally trust 
themselves to make the decision to help themselves.

Right now the street missionaries are trying to build that trust in 
Eric and Patrick, who they didn't find that night, but have dealt 
with him before. Neither brother is ready to get off the street now, 
and may not until they hit "rock bottom."

Badior uses himself as the "poster boy" for Hope on Wheels. He came 
to the Salvation Army after years of living on the street as a drug 
addict and a criminal. Montenegro's role is more to offer guidance. A 
lawyer by trade and a lay pastor, he's worked in his native El 
Salvador helping the poor.

Despite coming from a developing country, Montenegro says he was 
shocked when he came across the despair of the homeless in Canada. 
"It shocks you," he says. "You don't think it should be like this."

Editor's note: The Salvation Army asked the NewsLeader not to use the 
real names of its clients.  
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman