I had a brother, Tony Giesinger, and many people in town knew him. You might have as well.
He was homeless for most of his life.
My mom would make sure we went out and rounded him up every Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. I continued the tradition when she passed on. He was quite a bit older than me, but even as a kid I wondered why.
As years went on, I realized he had a problem with alcohol at a young age. He also had a hole in his heart and had open heart surgery as a young boy. He was one of the first in B.C. to have it so they weren't so great at doing it yet. They had a little bit of lack of oxygen to the brain and so he had some minor/major processing problems from that. He lived at St. Pat's a lot.
When I got into my later teens and started working, I got him jobs firefighting, doing any cleanup at construction, got him into an apartment, gave him a stereo and furniture. Within a month or two, he had an eviction notice, the stereo was gone and so was all his money from his cheque. This happened often.
I was very upset and I asked him what happened.
"Well, you know, Shane, my 'friends' needed some money, my other friend really needed the stereo and I ended up with no rent but I'm OK."
If he ever had $500, he would have no problem giving away $499. There is no question you had a heart of gold, my brother.
Time went on and I got into my 20s and 30s. I'd still give my jobs and he had lots of jobs as well at car lots washing cars. He had a huge network of friends that would save him bottles. He was always in a shelter by dark after he got robbed one night for his cans and beat up pretty badly. A very small percentage are violent. Over time, I got to know many of the homeless community and his friends. I heard a lot of their stories and most of them were filled with sadness of loss and heartbreak and addiction.
One of his friends that was living on the street was once in management from one of the mill operations, with cars, trucks, kids, wife and everything paid for. He came home early and found his wife with another man, so he so he turned the streets and was living there ever since.
Another huge percentage of people on the streets live there because they're on their own mission and obligation-free. Then there's mental illness. I think many of them suffer from one form or another but there's no help for that anymore.
It takes many different characters to make the world go around and these are some of them.
Some people like to ridicule them, pick on them, one even tattooed "village idiot" on him while he was young and in a stupor.
I'd see my brother out with his group of friends. I'd stop and talk to him for a while, hang out and offer them some food. Their response was "food everywhere we go, we got no shortage of food but thanks."
I asked them: "What do you think, you guys are all homeless?"
All of them just laughed out loud and cackled and I think it was Norm that said: "We're not homeless, we're just houseless. The streets are our home."
That is a phrase I'll never forget.
Shane Giesinger
Prince George
