- [Interviewer] J.R.
- Yeah.
- [Interviewer] We're out here homeless.
Tell me about it.
- Well, it's actually not that bad right now
because it's warm.
I've been out here since the middle of February.
I got kicked out of my place where I was paying rent.
Then the landlord kicked me out,
and I've been living over here ever since then.
But we go around and pick empties,
my brother used to come in here and help me.
Let's go for
empties.
Okay, so we hit the bins.
And then people do give us empties, so
we've been making our money since then.
And then people come by, or even at A&W,
they'll come over and
give me 20 dollars, 10 dollars to eat
and that's what we do, we buy something to eat,
and then we just keep on doing what we do best.
And I've been doing this for eight years
and then I went indoors and I quit drinking for a year.
And then I fell off,
went four months,
and then I went back on the wagon, and then.
But I still went out and picked.
We call it picking.
- [Interviewer] Okay.
- And
we make our money for whatever we need, like food,
and we go hit other places like Bibles for Mission
and they'll give us free clothes.
And we've been swimming in this river over here to bathe.
We've got soap, shampoo.
- [Interviewer] It's no way for people to live.
- No.
But it's pretty hard around here
because you need more than one person to pay rent.
'Cause it's pretty expensive.
Who can afford, I'm on disability.
- [Interviewer] Right.
- And who can afford $1100, $1200 a month?
And you still gotta pay utilities.
- [Interviewer] Right.
- And you gotta buy food.
- [Interviewer] Right.
- So I try to find the cheapest place,
so I was thinking of,
whenever my brother's ready to move,
I'm going to see if he wants to,
my mom wants us to share rent with her in Kamloops,
in a place, and I said, well as long as he stays out here,
I'm not gonna leave his side.
And people come in here and thieve.
They stole a packsack from me,
and it has my prescription glasses.
And I need those.
- [Interviewer] Oh my gosh.
You need glasses.
- Yeah, 'cause this one eye here is blurry.
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
- And that's where I got my prescription done,
in 100 Mile House.
- [Interviewer] What do you do when the weather gets bad?
- Oh, we go indoors.
- [Interviewer] In the shelters.
- No, we just
combined three people, four people, and we all share rent.
- [Interviewer] Okay.
- But last eight years, I was doing this before, man,
me and my old lady used to camp out over there,
I used to put down two sleeping bags on a mattress
and throw five on top of us to keep warm.
And the only time it gets cold is when you get up.
And we go to McDonald's and buy a,
we'll have enough for a coffee.
Buy a coffee and you get free refills.
- [Interviewer] Right.
- And we drink that, and
we're out freezing again, and.
- [Interviewer] What would you want people to know
about homelessness?
- Don't be there.
If you can't handle it, don't be there.
- [Interviewer] Don't be homeless.
- Yeah.
- [Interviewer] Good advice.
- But I've been in it so many years, man,
that I can handle it.
I've been doing it for just about 10 years now.
- [Interviewer] Wow.
- And my parents always wanted us to move in with them,
but
I just said no, I'm old enough, I'm 46 years old now.
I says, I'm old enough to look after myself.
I used to work out in the bush,
and I end up with double pneumonia in 2005, and
I have three doctors that told me that
you cannot work no more.
- [Interviewer] Wow.
- You cannot do anything no more, I said,
okay, otherwise I'd go back in the bush.
- [Interviewer] If you had three wishes, what would they be?
- Stay alive.
And eat.
And be merry.
- [Interviewer] Well thank you very much for talking to me.
- You're welcome buddy.