0:00:20.784,0:00:22.529
My name's Bryan Esslambre,

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I was born on Montreal in 1988.

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I moved to BC when I was 7.

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Had the basic childhood, [br]went to school and everything.

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Went to high school out in Surrey, [br]and that's where I found my passion for football.

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And I was doing great things with it.

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In my grade 12th year, my mother passed away,[br]which had a very big impact on my life.

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I started smoking a lot of weed, [br]and it just led me down a bad path

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to wasting money, not going to school and...

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basically all of the wrong choices that you're told not to make when you're a kid.

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And... I wouldn't change it, I would try and help other people from not doing those choices,

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because I am where I am because of what I did,[br]and it's made me who I am,

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and I'm not ungrateful,

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but I know that 5 years ago,

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I didn't see myself staying in a shelter,

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but I'm glad that I'm here [br]than rather out on the streets.

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It's honestly just a big learning experience.

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I mean, who wants to be in a shelter?

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They're not the worst living conditions.

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I can honestly say that, from what I've seen, down on the downtown eastside [<i>of Vancouver</i>]

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I know that you get your locker [br]checked on every day.

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If you have food, it's not allowed.

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There are constant bedbugs.

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Here they do clean it quite well,

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but living in a place with 60 other guys

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isn't really anything that people envision[br]for themselves.

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I mean, no one really thinks

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"<i>oh, no one's gonna have their own bedroom, [br]no one's gonna have somewhere to sleep</i>,

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<i>no one's gonna have their own food [br]and be able to take care of themselves</i>",

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but the wrong choices can lead you anywhere.

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Uh, my name's Trinity,

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and right now I'm living in a transition house [br]for women 16 to 24 years old.

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I'm from Yellowknife, Northwest Territories originally,

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and I moved around a lot when I was young.

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Since I was 16 I was pretty much on my own.

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And uh, I somehow made it to Vancouver [br]like a year and a half ago.

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And um, I was struggling with homelessness a lot,

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and I was in and out of SRO's [ <i>single room occupancies</i> ] and shelters.

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Like, a lot of the shelters had gotten shut down this year, so there was less,

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and I found that it was really hard[br]trying to get into a shelter,

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and so there were a lot of times where I was[br]sleeping in alleys and stuff like that.

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And I finally found this place, which, uh, [br]I'm allowed to stay here for a year,

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until I can get up on my feet.

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It's not as bad as the other places I've lived, [br]it's actually pretty nice here.

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The living conditions are... it's a clean place, [br]there's no bugs, there's no rodents.

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Um, my boyfriend that I'm with right now,[br]we've been together for about a year,

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and uh, he was also homeless on and off again [br]with me a lot of the times.

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Like sometimes I'd have a place and he wouldn't,[br]or he'd have a place and I wouldn't.

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Right now, he's staying at the Lucky Lodge Hotel, [br]an SRO, which is pretty atrocious.

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I'd say it's one of the worst places [br]either of us have ever stayed.

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Um, my name is Nick, I live in this shit SRO, [br]Lucky Lodge.

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As you can see, there's obviously [br]no sink, no oven...

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nothing really... circuit always breaks because[br]what goes on...

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because you can't have 2 things plugged in at once.

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It just goes out...

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there's like a huge insect problem.

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What they should do is just [br]tear the whole damn building down.

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I came out of detox and I just figured, I wanted just a new place cause I was homeless at the time,

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so I just got this place in literally one day.

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Shouldn't even be here in the bloody first place.

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They charge $10 a night for guests.

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It's outrageous, considering it's $400 a month [br]for this type of place.

0:04:47.049,0:04:51.191
It's an SRO so it's not covered [br]under the Residential Tenancy Act,

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so you can't just go to, like, arbitration[br]and bitch at them.

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It's not under the same act,[br]it's a completely different tenancy act,

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so they can get away with anything [br]'cause it's run like a hotel.

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So the owners can make any rules they want,[br]and they enforce it.

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And the reality in the news,

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they just look at the idea of an SRO [br]as a broad generalization.

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They just say "<i>oh, that's low income housing, single residential occupancy,</i>

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<i>a single human being could live in there</i>"

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They always use the words "could" and "live", like totally it's more like surviving in this dump.

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It's a roof is what it is. A little privacy. That's it.

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Um, I have been looking for quite a bit of work,

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but it's listing this place [br]as your address on your resume,

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people immediately reject it [br]just because it's a shelter.

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So, it's not a hindrance...

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but I do know that people would accept like [br]a post office box better than a shelter.

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I would be in a very different place if I had even just stuck with my sport,

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but I'm trying to get back into it now.

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I'm working on my education [br]with the programs they have here.

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And a lot of people are in my corner [br]trying to make sure that I turn out alright.

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Um, my hopes for the future is, y'know, I'll make it [br]as an artist somehow, y'know.

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Whether that be with painting or with film.

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Um, and to also have my own place I could call home,

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that y'know, I could have like family and friends over[br]whenever I like,

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and it's clean and safe.

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I'm grateful that I found this place.

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It was a nice place to find,

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but I am looking forward to the day

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that I can get out and then give back,

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and hopefully help people not end up [br]where I ended up.

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[ Captions by: the Radical Access Mapping Project, [br]On Un-ceded Coast Salish Territory, 2013 ]