Two days ago I completed my biannual pilgrimage to the Real Canadian Superstore.  After staring dazed at the overhead lights, accidentally knocking into store displays and people alike, gaping wide-eyed and wide-mouthed at all the available stuff, I exited the huge building with a squeaky cart full of deals: crock pot on sale, check; dried beans and lentils, check; exact-brand socks and shampoo, check; tinfoil, toilet paper, squash, cans of tomatoe paste, and a huge vat of refillable hand soap, check, check, check.

Now  I’m usually  happy to get out of such a big store with my life, my close relationships still intact and no hidden super packs of whatever mini-chocolate bar I think will bring me closer to God  late at night.  And I usually don’t think beyond these towering personal accomplishments.

Well, that is, until two days ago.

At the trunk of the Co-operative Auto Network car we rented for our  mission, I was approached by a woman in an oversized black and red ski jacket.  Just as I was heaving a reuseable bag full of fresh, heavy produce into the trunk, she asked:

“Excuse me, could I please return your cart for you?”

I was startled by the gentleness of her request, by the incredible disparity between my coupon-calculated $220 worth of purchases and her empty hands which she wrung softly in front of her.

“I’m really hungry,” she said.

It takes a lot of guts to ask people for things -especially money-  I know, because I’m currently fundraising for The Arthritis Society. And I can’t even imagine the guts it takes to be that polite and kind to someone putting $220 worth of stuff into a trunk of a car while you are hungry, homeless and forced to beg. I was struck just as dumb as I was in the flourescent lights just moments before in the store, trying to decide between cold-wash laundry detergent and the go-green stuff.  I replied in a very loud and upbeat, “of course you can have the cart!” as though I was a cheerleader for a high school football team and she just gained a few yards rather than a tired, privileged shopper standing in front of a marginalized woman in a large, emptying parking lot.

Then she said something that made me wish I had bought something more easily edible then the squash, onions and cabbage.

“Can I help you load your groceries?”

After living in Burnaby for over a year and in Vancouver for six months, being approached for a shopping cart, change, food, cigarettes, cans, bottles and bus tickets is actually (and sadly) commonplace.   There’s a good reason the UN declared homelessness in Canada a ‘national emergency.’ Because it is.

With all the letter-writing, petitions, rallies, and even Jean Swanson’s columns in the Vancouver Sun, homelessness continues to rise.  With numbers jumping to 10 500 people in BC alone.

Can I help you load your groceries?

She wanted to earn that dollar. (In a way I’ve never had to). Like all of us, after our basic necessities are met, shelter food love, we want to feel useful. And I struggle with feeling useful but not with getting a roof over my head. I struggle with finding regular work but not with making dinner.

Long after the woman thanked me (!) and had left with the cart, I sat in the car with my mountain of stuff spilling out of the trunk and into the backseat behind me. Deciding on which pink re-useable razor to buy was replaying in my mind. Those were some of the decisions I had made that night. Quite different from the ones the woman who approached me was making. Where to walk to next? Where to find something to eat? Where to be safe?

I was just awake enough post mega-store daze to realize there was nothing different between this woman and myself save for circumstances. And that there was no reason why I got to go home to a bed and she didn’t. Having a place to go should be a right for the both of us and for all of us.

I can’t count how many interactions I’ve had with people who are homeless that gives me a pang of guilt (when I say no) a shot of worry when I give change or bus tickets, (is this actually helping the person?), or  a hit of sorrow when someone carting a huge array of recyclables moves out of the way so I can easily pass them on the sidewalk. But two days ago something deeper happened.

And that something deeper has happened to a lot of Vancouver and BC residents, Jean Swanson for one. Am Johal for another.

The 2010 Homelessness Hunger Strike Relay began on December 29th, 2009 and is ongoing until June 2010.  Every week participants who have fasted for seven days pass the wooden spoon to a new group of people who continue the hunger strike for the  next week. You can support the ‘passing of the wooden spoon’ this Sunday at noon at the north side of the Vancouver Art Gallery in front of the Olympic clock.

MP Libby Davies is about to take up the wooden spoon herself to stir up some much needed attention and crank up the pressure on Parliament to pass her Private Member’s Bill for a National Housing Strategy.  (Bill C-304) Parliament is set to debate it quicker than I run out of groceries.

You can also sign this Petition to Re-establish a National Housing Program in Canada.