The Bosman Hotel houses more than 100 residents with mental health and addiction issues, but faces an uncertain future. Photo by Justin Langille. 

Safe and stable housing hangs in the balance for at least 100 Vancouverites with the looming closure of the Bosman Hotel Community.

A joint project between the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) and PHS Community Services Society, the Bosman Hotel is a key part of the MHCC’s At Home / Chez Soi experiment to study the link between mental illness and homelessness.

The project has provided over 300 people with mental health or addictions issues access to housing, health and social support services since 2009. One hundred of those participants were also given a place to live in the Bosman.

But the project is ending in 2013, putting the tenants’ future in doubt.

Liz Evans, executive director of the PHS Community Services Society, is working with MHCC, different levels of government and other homeless advocacy organizations to protract the housing beyond next year.

“We are hoping to extend the lease. The owner of the building is willing to do that. This would give us time to work on developing a plan to find decent permanent replacement housing, ideally purpose built and near the existing project,” Evans wrote in an email to Megaphone.

Although she didn't provide Megaphone with numbers, Evans says stable housing at the Bosman has decreased tenant trips to the emergency room and involvement with the courts.

Peter Thompson sells Megaphone in downtown Vancouver at Robson and Howe six days a week. His piece "Past 'n Present" (click here to read) is featured in Megaphone's 2012 Voices of the Street literary anthology. Just prior to his reading at the issue launch at the Waldorf last month, Peter shared some thoughts with us about his storytelling process:

On finding a voice through writing 

I’ve been struggling along, going to writing classes. I don’t feel like a real ‘writer’ right now, but I’m catching up and doing some stuff so I can help out and contribute to the Megaphone project.

I really want to produce things that the audience wants to read, and my purpose with "Past 'n Present" is to help people get to know that all the people from the Downtown Eastside didn’t get there by choice. 

A lot of them, like myself, worked for a living before, and some of us just had bad breaks. Other people have different ways of dealing with their issues. Some turned to drugs, in my case I turned to alcohol, and once I hit rock bottom there was nowhere else to go. 

On moving forward from hard times 

You’ve gotta pick yourself up somewhere along the way. This is the story that I brought out for [the launch] but other times I’ll be talking to my customers, and they’ll stop and we’ll talk about a lot of different issues. 

Sometimes this story comes up, and I can tell them, you know, I’ve been down and out too, but this has helped me bring my life back to standards where I can respect myself. And they know I’m still struggling a bit, but they like to help out once they find out what I’m about.

On the benefits of developing relationships with his customers 

I want to bring about a lot of positivity not just for myself but to the people that I talk to on a day-to-day basis. A lot of them don’t know me yet, but a lot of them who do stop and talk to me come back and I get more and more sales.

It helps because I can talk to them about not only my story, but other people who are writing stories too, and where they are coming from.

I want to be able to bring people into the magazine, so people say, “Hey, I like what this guy’s putting out,” and they keep coming back. 

If you take from the earth, you give back to it. And what you take, you make use of.

I grew up in a small community in the Fraser Canyon called Boston Bar. People say, “Don’t blink your eyes or you’ll miss it.” So I headed to Vancouver in the ‘70s to look for work and some different scenery and got a job at a logger’s agency. They sent me out to a camp where I worked 30 days on, 10 days off. Work was hard there. 

They fed you good, the pay was good, but it was very dangerous. One guy had a log roll over him. He stood up and tried to say something, but he just collapsed. The log crushed his chest and, just like that, he was gone.

Then machinery started taking over for labourers, and I was in search of other employment. Where I grew up, our traditional ways taught me it was always important to give back to the earth what you take from it. I saw that they needed tree planters and I thought it was a good way for me to give back to the land. I worked for a year at that job, eight hours a day, five days a week, planting many, many trees.

I also wanted to make use of what i took out of the land so I enrolled in carpentry at Cariboo College, and then worked in Kamloops for two years. But again, small town work was short, so again I found myself in Vancouver, where I worked as a carpenter for 25 years. I helped build many apartments and residential houses. But it could also be dangerous.

One day on the job, I was carrying a big I-beam and stepped in a pothole I didn’t see. I tripped. My leg went “Snap! Crackle! Pop!” and my shin bone was sticking out. In all, I got five pins in my ankle, one in my shin, bolts in my knees and one in my femur. I couldn’t work anymore.

When you become used to working hard and good money coming in and then find yourself unemployed, depression sets in. So i started drinking. From there I went from Single Room Occupancy (SRO) hotel rooms to the streets.

I drank every day with a group of friends, and that can take a toll on you. One day I realized this wasn’t only hurting me, but my family too. I wanted to quit. I told my friends I was going to quit, and they gave me their full support. 

Instead of trying to push the bottle on me, they gave me words of encouragement: “Right on, bro,” they said. “Keep it up.” That’s what kept me reaching for my goal. These are true friends. Now I find myself on a different path: healthy, happy, focused and more energetic.

I’ve been through a lot. Sometimes I didn’t know if I was going to make it. But through words of wisdom, the elders taught me the greatest gift is giving. It’s something I’ll always remember. I like giving back to my family, friends and my community, may it be through writing, volunteering, selling Megaphone and Hope in Shadows or just helping the guy on the street.

Now I have a purpose and it’s a great feeling to know I’m doing something for myself and for others.

Peter Thompson sells Megaphone in downtown Vancouver at Robson and Howe six days a week. His piece "Past 'n Present" is featured in Megaphone's 2012 Voices of the Street literary anthology. Click here to read Peter sharing his thoughts about the writing and storytelling process.

For award-winning poet and novelist Garry Thomas Morse, many of the stories published from Megaphone’s writing workshops have a very personal connection.

Born and raised in low-income housing in Vancouver’s West End, members of Morse’s family have struggled with issues such as alcoholism and mental illness.

“I have seen how our system can reject people,” says Morse. “When the social safety net collapses, there’s no place for some to go.”

Because Megaphone creates space and dialogue in the magazine for people who have often been rejected, Morse has been a repeat donor to Megaphone’s writing workshop program. He has donated $500 on two separate occasions and has donated a further $1,000 to this year’s fundraising drive.

Run in treatment centres, social housing buildings and community centres in the Downtown Eastside and downtown Vancouver, Megaphone’s writing workshops give an opportunity for marginalized people to express themselves and explain to readers what it’s like to struggle with homelessness, poverty, addiction and mental illness.

“I support Megaphone because I feel it helps to encourage both independence and self-esteem for people,” says Morse. Sympathizing with how difficult it can to be an artist of any kind in Vancouver, his work sometimes touches on this aspect of the city, especially in his book of fiction Death in Vancouver. Additionally Morse has written four books of poetry and is an editor at Talonbooks.

His most recent work, Discovery Passages, a collection of poems about his mother’s people, the Kwakwaka’wakw (Kwakiutl) First Nations, was a finalist for the 2011 Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry and is currently nominated for a BC Book Prize for Poetry. Talonbooks will publish Morse’s second book of fiction, Minor Episodes/Major Ruckus, in the fall, 2012.

Although Morse won the 2008 City of Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award for Emerging Artist, in 2009, when simultaneously, his small business of 10 years was hit by the economic crisis and he fell victim to job cuts along with hundreds of other workers, he felt compelled to leave Vancouver for a while because the city had become too unaffordable for him.

“It’s a hard city to live in—very real estate driven,” he says. “There doesn’t seem to be much room for anything else in this city.”

This is all the more reason to support Megaphone, which Morse considers a “publication from the ground up.” Megaphone often does investigative features into the city’s housing crisis.

As Morse indicates, “It’s up to independent media like Megaphone to make sure the voices of everyone in our community are heard and to talk about issues that are ignored by mainstream media.”

Please consider making a donation to Megaphone’s writing workshop program by making a donation today.

Flip through any issue of Megaphone and you'll read powerful stories written by people struggling with homeless, addiction and mental illness. These stories come from Megaphone's writing workshops, which are run in treatment centres, social housing buildings and community centres in the Downtown Eastside.

The program means a lot to the participants, who get an opportunity to develop their writing skills and tell their story in their own voice. This spring Megaphone needs your help to raise $10,000 to keep this important program going.

To help encourage your support, some of Vancouver's most acclaimed authors and poets have lent their voices to our campaign.

Read their testimonials below and help support Megaphone's fundraising drive. This spring we need to raise $10,000 so we can continue to ensure marginalized voices are heard in our city.

"Megaphone’s workshops provide a much-needed sense of support and encouragement, as well as professional guidance, for people in this community who are determined to tell their stories," says Evelyn Lau, Vancouver's Poet Laureate. 

"The great thing about Megaphone has always been its emphasis on empathy, solidarity and empowerment over paternalism or pitying condescension," says author and comedian says Charles Demers. The Writing Workshops are a natural culmination of that philosophy—to be armed with the skills to tell one's own story, in one's own words and style, is among the most profoundly empowering experiences life has to offer.” 

"Articulation is the catalyst of change. If an obstacle is to be overcome, one must first speak its name," says Michael Christie, winner of the 2011 City of Vancouver Book Award. This is perhaps the hardest part. Writing Workshops like these encourage people who have been ignored their whole lives--by their families, by teachers, by you, by me--to do just that: to speak, and to grow."

Megaphone's Community Writing Workshops amplify whispered voices for the whole city to hear. It would be hard to think of a more vital, more essential part of our city's cultural fabric. What kind of society shall we live in? One that drowns these voices out, or one that bends low, shuts up, and listens?"

"These days I think of a story about forest creatures who fled from a forest fire and stood outside helplessly watching the fire, except for a hummingbird who flew back and forth taking a beak-full of water from a stream and dropping it on the fire. A bear watching, looked up and asked, somewhat annoyed, 'What are you doing?' And the hummingbird replied, 'I'm doing what I can.'

"I think when we're doing 'what we can' we'll be amazed to see what happens. It's certainly true in my life. See you flying over the forest fire, Megaphoners," says Joy Kogawa, a member of the Order of Canada.

"Megaphone is more than just a magazine; it is an organization that instils a sense of pride in homeless and lower-income Vancouverites by offering them the dignity of being heard," says fromer Vancouver Poet Laureaute, Brad Cran. Simply put, Megaphone and the Megaphone Writing Workshop have the power to change lives. It starts with the written word and it ends with people empowered by self-expression and self-respect. To help Megaphone is to help our city." 

Misty-Lee Davis is a member of Megaphone's community writing workshop at the Rainier Hotel. She produced two of the pieces in Megaphone's 2012 Voices of the Street literary anthology (click either title to read): "Try" and "Why am I an addict?"

Below is a conversation Megaphone had with Misty-Lee prior to her reading at the 2012 Voices of the Street issue launch at the Waldorf:

Can you tell me a little bit about how you became involved with Megaphone's writing workshops?  

Well, I was living at the Rainier and saw they had a writing group for Megaphone, so I thought, “Well, I might as well try it out”. When you're trying to get clean, it’s a time you definitely have to keep yourself busy. So it was just by fluke that I went in there, and I ended up really enjoying it.

Do you consider yourself to be a writer? 

Not really.  I love writing but there are only a certain few things that I’ve turned in to Megaphone. I’ve written my life story, actually, at [the Studio writing workshop], and I’m thinking about turning that one in too.

How does writing in a workshop setting differ from writing on your own?

Well, you get other people’s input. Sometimes I’ll be stuck and then I’ll hear something that goes, “Aha! That’s it!” It makes it quite a bit easier being in a group than writing on your own, because you can get little ideas, and tidbits of input back.

In each of the two pieces published in the 2012 Voices of the Street anthology ["Try" and "Why am I an addict?"], you bring the reader into a place that has a lot of darkness and sadness, but there are definitely glimmers of hope and positivity that shine through it all. Is this a common theme throughout your work?

Well, trying... (laughs) Sometimes it gets hard though, like I suffer from depression, and so one of the poems I read tonight, “Try”, was from one of those days, where it’s like, you know, ‘I hate life, I hate this world,’ and I ended up writing about that depression.

Have you always enjoyed writing?

Yeah. Just to know that there’s at least one thing that I can contribute to the world, you know... And I’ve been clean for a while now. I’m actually going to have a baby.

That's great. I noticed you mentioned your kids in "Try". How have they been a source of inspiration for you along the way?

I’ve got four kids right now, and they’re with my mother; I’m working on getting them back. But there’s always hope, there’s always a brighter side to everything. That’s one big thing that I’ve learned, that nothing’s ever completely hopeless. There’s always hope there, it just depends what you do with that.

In issue #103 we explore what Canada can learn from Sweden, Norway and Iceland when it comes to protecting sex workers. Can decriminalizing the purchase of sex reduce harm? Find out why former Vancouver city councillor Ellen Woodsworth is standing up for gender equality and better exit services.


Check out Megaphone’s preview of the DOXA documentary festival, which begins today (Friday). We also take a look at the uncertain future of the Bosman Hotel, which houses more than 100 residents with mental health or addiction issues.

David Suzuki tackles the fed’s environmental review process, Poncho ‘Party’ Sanches sees success in your stars, and we walk you through the best arts events in town. Plus poetry from our community writing workshops.

Pick it up from your neighbourhood vendor! 

I try and try and try again 

Will it stop or ever end?

I do this and do that but don't succeed 

When my only wish is just to be freed

I suffer and suffer and want to die 

I am always asking myself when and why

What is wrong with me I really don't know 

Heaven or hell is where I wanna go

I really don't want to live this way 

But to be here for my children, this is the price I'm willing to pay

To have to live this way, doesn't leave a good impression 

But this is me and I live with this depression

By Misty-Lee Davis

Misty-Lee Davis is a member of Megaphone's community writing workshop at the Rainier Hotel. She produced two of the pieces in Megaphone's 2012 Voices of the Street literary anthology.

To read her other piece, "Why am I an addict?", click here. To read an interview about her experience in the Megaphone writing workshops, click here.

I’ve often asked myself this question 

That all my strength crack does lessen

I wonder what the lure is 

Over and over again, I don’t know what this is

Every time I think that I am strong

I walk outside with money and find that I am wrong

I am a very smart person with a solid goal

But once I have a hoot it changes my role

Then I tell myself there is no need or reason to use 

But when I find myself using again I get the blues

Sadness envelopes me once I start to think 

Tears are welling up in my eyes so I need to blink

Trying to stay clean is an incredible feat 

But I swear to myself I will not be beat

by Misty-Lee Davis

Misty-Lee Davis is a member of Megaphone's community writing workshop at the Rainier Hotel. She produced two of the pieces in Megaphone's 2012 Voices of the Street literary anthology.

To read the other poem, "Try", click here. To read an interview about her experience in the Megaphone writing workshops, click here.

Two weeks ago, Megaphone held its Voices of the Street launch at the Waldorf Hotel. It was an emotional night that perfectly symbolized what our writing workshop program is all about—giving marginalized voices an outlet and an opportunity.

 And these writing workshops are having an impact in our community.


"Each week I become a better writer," says writing workshop participant Sherri Johnstone. "These classes are essential to my self-worth and esteem and creativity I posses."

But in order to ensure that these voices continue to get heard,

Megaphone needs your support. This spring we need to raise $10,000 to help fund these writing workshops—which are held in treatment centres, social housing buildings and community centres in the Downtown Eastside and downtown Vancouver.

Your donation will help support:

 * Writing workshop classes

 * Stipends for low-income writers

 *Writing materials

 * Publishing costs for writer's work (including Voices of the Street issues)

We are asking our supporters to help homeless and low-income writers continue to have access to a program that helps develop their skills and gives them a voice.We're half way to our goal. Please make a donation of $25, $50 or $100 today and help make sure that marginalized people in our city have a voice.

Sincerely,

Sean Condon

Executive Director