In light of recent events in the stock market, and all the belt-tightening and purse-guarding expected to dampen even Alberta’s robust consumer culture, SEE Magazine spent some time with five men who are accustomed to living with less than most.

Larry Engbert, Louis Collings, Wayne MacDonald, Geoff Sharpe, and Gord Devitt all live in Urban Manor on 95 Street and 104 Avenue, a shelter that’s home to 75 of the city’s homeless. The following is a snapshot of what life is like when you’re really down on your luck in Edmonton.

SEE Magazine: What is life like for you in the inner city?
Geoff Sharpe: I’ve been mugged quite a few times. I had my teeth kicked out, and just outside [of Urban Manor] I had my head kicked in by three people for half of a bottle of beer.
Louis Collings: The biggest problem in the city is these young punks that have the opportunity to get the education or learn a good trade so they don’t have to be in this situation. But they help cause the situation, by picking on the elders or the defenceless and they’re beating them up for two or three dollars.
Gord Devitt: These guys would sooner kick the shit out of you than look at you. Then they pull a knife on you.
LC: Now we pick up whatever we can use as a weapon to defend ourselves.
Wayne MacDonald: At night you have to walk with two or three other guys. That’s the only way you can go anywhere because you never know what’s going to happen.

SEE: What are some misconceptions about the homeless community?
GS: People think of people being lazy, but there’s a lot of mental illness and drug and alcohol addiction. Those are probably the main reasons [for homelessness].
LC: Everyone has their own little fallback that brings them into this situation. It’s how they deal with it that’s totally different.
GS: Gord and I, for example, we’re binge drinkers. We’ll work and then fall off the wagon, and then get healthy and get back to work. . . . I’ve been in and out of the inner city for 11 years. I get back on my feet and get an apartment and inevitably lose it when I start drinking because I run out of money and I can’t pay the rent. People look at me and don’t believe that I’ve slept on the street, but I’ve been everywhere that everyone else here has been.

SEE: How much do you make a month?
WM: Some months you make nothing. Some months you might make a couple hundred bucks. . . . No one’s going to hire you unless it’s for like $10 an hour. You can’t live on that, you just can’t. And I’m 60 years old. Who’s going to hire me at a job you can live on?
GD: When I’m not drinking I do all right. I usually work over here at the scrapyard. But as long as I stay sober, I can make a decent dollar, but then I get scared to move because I know it’s coming when I go on my next tear. And I’m just winding up on one now. But my back screwed up on me over there in the yard, and they won’t let me go back to work until it’s all cleared up. So here I sit.

SEE: So you can see your next binge coming?
GD: Oh yeah, I can feel it. You see, over there I’m under pressure. I deal with the public a lot, a lot of customers, a lot of money and bills. After a while I start to burn out, and the pressure just gets to me — well, that or it’s just an excuse for me to go drink. But I can last — well, this time I went 11 months.
Larry Engbert: You did good last time.
GD: Yeah. But it’s the pressure. I can handle it for a while but it builds up and that’s why it’s good around here because you can talk to guys. You know, the guys got the same problems. They all know what the hell’s going on, so you can sit, have a coffee, have a beer, have a smoke, and just bullshit back and forth.

SEE: Do any of you panhandle?
LE: I was downtown one night and I was trying to borrow 35 cents to catch a bus to come home so {I ask} this guy down by Canada Place for the specific amount of 35 cents for the bus and he started in on me calling me a dirty Indian, and that I was just going to use the money for booze and stuff like that, and I said, ‘Listen, sir, I’m going to explain something to you. I asked you for 35 cents. I want to get on a bus and get home so I can get away from guys like you.’

And he said, ‘What do you mean by that?’ So I said, ‘Well, you just put me as a drunken Indian panhandling on the street and that’s not what I was doing. I asked you for 35 cents to get on the bus to get home and you want to tear me down like that. You’re a lowlife, you’re worse than I am.’ Then this other guy comes up and gives me a $20 bill and I said, ‘What’s that for? I only need 35 cents. A $20 bill isn’t going to get me on a bus.’

You know, it’s frustrating. Like, for me, it’s frustrating because I’m a half-breed and people look at you and you’re different right from the start and that’s wrong. I’m not a stupid Indian, I’m a drunk Indian now, but I’m not stupid. I’ve had good jobs, I’ve made lots of money while I was working, but once I became crippled and I’m going blind, now I know I’m never going to work again.
GS: I usually have a little story. Either I’ve been mugged or need money for the LRT. I’m a car salesman so I’m used to rejection. So when I get the kind of abuse that Larry talked about I just walk away with a big smile on my face and shake my head. I know it’s a numbers game. If you ask enough people I know I’ll get enough for that drink.

SEE: What about welfare and AISH? How do those sources factor into your income?
LE: [AISH is] giving me the runaround. I get frustrated so much that I just want to throw the phone down and get so drunk that I don’t have to think again. It’s frustrating. I’m surviving on $40 a month that my brother gives me, and that’s it. I can’t go bottle picking anymore — I can’t do nothing.

SEE: What kind of relationship does the homeless community have with police?
GD: When you are standing there with a beer in your hand, they’ll drive up and ask you how it’s going and then leave. But then the next time they’ll give you a ticket.
GS: I managed to get enough for a sixpack and I’m usually quite careful and I’ve never been caught, but there was some kind of a function in July at City Hall. And when you’re a little impaired or shaky, a few sparse bushes look like good cover. So I got in there with my sixpack and I got four down quick to get rid of {the shakes}, and I thought I’d lay my head down for a second and then get the hell out of there.
All of a sudden I hear, ‘Is that your beer, sir?’ I jumped and said, ‘I beg your pardon?’ And after a couple of seconds my head cleared and they asked me again. So I said, ‘If I say that’s my beer are you going to give me a ticket?’ And they said, ‘Yes sir.’ Well, I told them, ‘Well, it’s not my fucking beer.’ They gave me a ticket anyway. When I got back here, Linda {the executive director of Urban Manor}, bless her heart, she took me down to City Hall because I had spent all my money again and couldn’t pay for it, and I said to her, ‘That son of a bitch didn’t have a sense of humour.’ But when we got there, apparently he never turned it in. So I guess he did have a sense of humour.

SEE: Can homelessness ever be eliminated?
GD: No.
LC: No.
WM: No.
LE: No.
GS: No. [They all laugh.]