“A lot of Canadians think Natives are pampered. If they are, why are so many down-and-out? To ask these questions, I would have to pass as an Indian.”
So starts a recent article by Pierre Pelletier in The Financial Post Magazine. Pelletier prepared for going “undercover” as a Native by spending three hours straightening his hair, dyeing it black and sewing 14 inches of someone else’s hair to his own. A few coats of tanning lotion darkened his skin and some old clothes completed “the look.”
Excerpts from the article: I decided Saskatoon, Winnipeg and Vancouver – three cities of varying population, yet each large enough to have a defined skid row – would be my home for 16 days. I couldn’t travel by plane or car so I bussed the West. I slept in Salvation Armies, except for one night in a Winnipeg hotel to catch up on my writing, and another night under a Vancouver viaduct, where I shared with two homeless Indians a shanty built of old clothes atop a transparent tarpaulin. My meals came from the Salvation Army kitchens and over a dozen sandwich lines and missions. With my ponytailed black hair, dark complexion and rumpled clothes I looked like a Native. Even my sister in Vancouver didn’t recognize me.
Cigarettes fostered the assimilation. I don’t smoke but I always tucked one pack of du Mauriers into my unbuttoned breast pocket and by journey’s end had gone through 11 packs. Handing someone a cigarette warranted small talk and conversations matured naturally…
Surprisingly, safety wasn’t a problem. Although I saw a number of fistfights, I was usually left alone because I was bigger than most of the Natives I encountered. The one exception occurred in Calgary as I made my way from Winnipeg to Vancouver. A Native man ran off with my rucksack as I sat on a bench. I caught up with him and yanked at the sack. He pulled a knife, so I had to kick him to defend myself. He released my rucksack and we went our separate ways…
What did I learn? First of all, there’s nothing glamorous about skid row. Natives are here because there’s nowhere else to go. The unemployment rate on reserves is near 31 per cent and educational opportunities are hard to take advantage of when you live in the middle of nowhere. Cities sparkle with the promise of money. That seems to be why Natives flock to our cities and wind up on the street…
From my observation, I’d say that once they’re on the street, the same conditions that put them there in the first place keep them chained to down-and-outness. They are faced with, and I came face to face with, racism. Social services exist, indeed counselors fall over themselves trying to help skid row residents, and the residents know it. Free money, food and accommodation are magnets for fraud. Some Natives I spoke to had money but chose to eat at sandwich lines, using cash for booze or drugs. Although they mean well, benevolent organizations and governments foster Native destitution. Self-worth vanishes when everything’s free… Why don’t Salvation Army residents mop floors or clean dishes as payment for the handout?
