When the residents of Moccasin Flats homeless encampment need a helping hand, someone who cares about what happens to them as they shiver through another Prince George winter, James and his pickup truck are never too far away.
He doesn’t have much money himself but sometimes he’ll sell scrap metal he’s collected and use the cash he got in return to buy second-hand winter coats or gloves at Value Village. Other times he’ll just invite people to sit inside his toasty truck to have a cigarette and briefly get out of the cold.
He’s there for them because they’re his friends and because he knows what it’s like to be in their shoes.
James, 65, says he’s lived close to skid row a few times in his life and he can relate to the problems of the less fortunate, who don’t want to be out in the cold living under a tarp or makeshift shelter and are just trying to make it through another day.
“I don’t live here but I know a lot of the people here, they’re my friends and I’ve known them for a long time,” James said. “I guess you can call them homeless and I’m only a couple steps above them but that don’t make these people bad people at all.
“The people down here are just as friendly and kind to one another as anybody out there, in fact, these people are probably tighter and closer because they’ve got each other’s back,” he said. “I can’t say that about a lot of the other people out there in the world today that are selfish. They look down on people that are here and they should be looking up to them."
He helps them and knows they will reciprocate. All he has to do is ask.
“If I needed someone to help me load up some lumber or shovel dirt I could come down here and I’d have three or four guys who would be happy to do it, and they wouldn’t be having their hand out for money, they’d be happy with a pack of smokes.”
James makes regular trips to the camp in the east end of downtown on Lower Patricia Boulevard and has been going there for at least two years.
James knows the bulk of society, people who live in the suburbs and have their own houses and are not dealing with poverty, mental health issues and substance addictions that are common in the Flats, look down at the residents with scorn, rather than trying to help. He just wants them to show a little compassion and not treat people who are visibly struggling to get by in life.
“There isn’t anything wrong with these guys,” he said. “Sure the tents and things they’ve got here look a bit untidy, but it’s not bad.
““Maybe if they weren’t getting so much flack from everybody outside and they had a bit of understanding from the city to work together… Just take the stereotype away and quit referring everybody down here as losers. They’re not, they’re people that are tight and they have families, they have loved ones, mothers, fathers children.
“Life is hard, even if you have a home and mortgage and all that stuff. In fact I think some people out there that think they’ve got it together, they couldn’t handle this stuff. They would perish, whereas these guys are strong and they keep it together.”
