Lessons from the 'shwa on poverty, homelessness, and community

Spent a couple of days in Oshawa, visiting with a newly minted grand-daughter and her parents. No matter how generous the hospitality, I hate waking up in someone else's home. I'm ready for a 5k power walk at six a.m. when nobody else gets out of bed before 9, not even the grand-daughter. So this morning I head out for a drive, looking for a Sunday paper and a Timmies. Drove all the way up the main drag, from the lake through the downtown core and the elite neighbourhoods immediately north all the way to the Durham College campus. Downtown Oshawa is the Zone of Lost Souls. At 6 a.m. the streets are full of folks who have gazed too long into the face of God. Whatever drug/alcohol combo it takes to pull that off, there's plenty of downtowners who know the secret. Some have clearly cracked the code for catastrophic personality disintegration, and wobble down the street raging at the sky. But here's something else I noticed. Three people trying to push a bicycle up the street. One woman, two men, two white, one black, and they're 100% working as a team to get this bicycle wherever they're going. They'd got about half a block when I came back down the street a half hour later, but by God, they were still giving it the old college try. Together! A totally fucked-up white dude with his arm around a black dude even more fucked-up, leaning on one another to get wherever they think they're going. Those are typical scenes all through the downtown core. As you get further north it's mostly McMansions and condo towers. Up here, nobody's homeless, but a lot of people don't even know their neighbours. If nothing else, the homeless enjoy more community.