WestEnder
April 7, 2010
It’s a rainy Sunday afternoon in March. Inside the Carnegie Community Centre, a social hub of the Downtown Eastside located at Main and Hastings streets, people are engaged in their usual weekend activities: eating lunch, playing cards, and reading the newspaper, away from the noise outside.
But all is not quiet. Shouts and cheers can be heard from the small gymnasium on the second floor. A lively group, comprised mostly of men, greet each other enthusiastically, shedding their winter jackets to reveal matching black T-shirts and workout gear. They’re members of the Portland FC street-soccer team, meeting for their weekly Sunday practice under the direction of head coach Alan Bates, a resident physician in UBC’s psychiatry department. Bates, a longtime soccer player in his early thirties, is firm yet encouraging as he leads the group through warm-up activities and soccer drills, explaining to the team that today is different because I’m here.
“So, look busy!” jokes Don Chran, an energetic forward who has played with the team since its inception in 2008. Chran, formerly a resident of the New Fountain Shelter in Gastown, recently moved into social housing at Woodward’s — a significant improvement over his time on the street. One of the first users of the New Fountain when it opened its doors as part of Mayor Gregor Robertson’s Homeless Emergency Action Team, also in 2008, the shelter was where Chran found a sense of community in Vancouver. He became homeless shortly after arriving here from the U.S. and, he explains, “making some bad choices.”
“Everybody I know is basically a friend, or a friend of a friend, through that shelter,” Chran says.
When shelter staff began organizing a soccer team made up of New Fountain users in 2009, Chran was among the first to sign up. Encouraged by shelter workers such as Vancouver Park Board commissioner Sarah Blyth (who also helped secure sponsorships to get players running shoes and outfitting), he started attending practices regularly.
Portland FC’s biweekly practices — Thursday mornings at Andy Livingstone Park, and Sunday afternoons at the Carnegie — have played a transformative role in Chran’s and other players’ lives. They’ve made friends, improved their physical fitness, and become part of a supportive, empowering community. Many players have found housing and jobs, and have reduced or eliminated substance abuse, during their time on the team.
“A lot of times, if someone’s at a place like a shelter, they get babied so much, and all of a sudden they’re in an SRO, and they don’t have any support group or infrastructure,” Chran says. “You get someone a home, but after homelessness, then what?”
Even though Chran now lives on his own at Woodward’s, he feels connected to his friends from New Fountain through the soccer team. “I still see a lot of these people, and they can help me out, ask how you’re doing, make sure I’m still alive — stuff like that.”
★★★
Portland FC is part of a growing street-soccer movement in Vancouver, across Canada, and around the world. Its players, most of whom are homeless or at risk of homelessness, come together to play at parks and community centres. The aim is to empower and inspire players through community-building and athletics. National teams have been competing in a Homeless World Cup since 2003. This September, the Cup will take place in Rio de Janeiro, where teams from 64 countries are expected to participate.
Street soccer in Vancouver started only two years ago, with the Dreamcatchers soccer team, launched through Vancouver community programmer Sandy MacKeigan’s twice-weekly program at Oppenheimer Park. “Most of the folks that accessed that program were either living in the area, homeless, or street-involved,” MacKeigan says. The team went on to win a gold medal in 2008 at a national tournament in Calgary, marking Vancouver’s official debut in Canada’s street-soccer movement.
The Dreamcatchers evolved into what is currently known as the Eastside Suneagles. Other teams, such as Portland FC, sprung up around the Vancouver area. Now, with street-soccer teams in Burnaby, North Vancouver, and throughout the Downtown Eastside, MacKeigan and other organizers have been talking about building a Vancouver-wide street-soccer league. “[Right now] we’re running separately, we’re managed individually, we’re all struggling to continue playing,” she says. “Getting gyms [for practice] is really hard; we’re all looking for the same money.”
Coaches like Portland FC’s Bates, Blyth, and former Vision Vancouver campaigner Kurt Heinrich, volunteer their time for practices and seek out sponsorships. The ultimate goal, MacKeigan says, is to unify the city’s street-soccer teams in a league to support activities such as hosting the annual national tournament, which took place in Toronto last year.
Toronto’s street-soccer scene started six years ago under the direction of Paul Gregory, who now manages Street Soccer Canada, the sport’s national organizing body. A homeless-shelter worker and counsellor, Gregory would play pick-up outside the shelters where he worked. “All of a sudden, I’d have a dozen or more guys playing,” he recalls over the phone from his home outside Toronto. “It combined my love of soccer and the fact that I knew these guys needed to be connected in a way that wasn’t working currently in the shelter system. While we warehouse people and put them in these places, there’s no real next step, in a lot of cases. They’re not engaged or empowered in any way.”
Gregory formed a street-soccer team that summer, which represented Canada at the 2004 Homeless World Cup. “It was just an unbelievable celebration of talent and skill,” he says. “It was a bit of a life-changer for me, and for a lot of the guys that went.
“You’d never look at these guys the same way after you’ve seen them play,” Gregory continues. “We’ve had a number of heavy alcoholics and crack users over the years, and when they start playing, they get off it, at least a little bit. It’s a major use of [harm reduction] — you replace drug use [with soccer]. If it’s one night a week, that’s a success.”
For Gregory, street soccer has been a refreshing alternative to traditional approaches to dealing with homelessness. “Oh, someone needs a job,’” he says, by way of example. “Well, you know what? Maybe not. Maybe not right now. He needs something else, and the connection of soccer and sport is just something that goes deep into your core.”
★★★
Back in Vancouver, New Fountain Shelter staffer Zoran Barazanci has seen similar results with Portland FC. “We have over 70 per cent of [players] off drugs — for weeks now, and months, which is huge,” he says. “We bring some happiness and some relief from everyday problems. It’s good for us — the staff — and it’s good for them. We made a lot of friends like this.”
For Portland FC goalie Kevin King, playing on the team has helped him keep clean. “I’ve had my slips here and there, but it’s helped keep me grounded, and from going back to the life I used to live,” he says. “Getting back into athletics and keeping your body safe — I can’t be doing that, being involved with drugs, because then I would have no strength to be able to keep going.”
Elaine Smith, the only woman on the team, says it’s the people that keep her coming back. “These people here, I trust them; they’re looking out for everybody’s best interests,” she says. “They set aside race, class, gender. In a very transient area, it’s kind of nice to know that someone’s looking over you, and making sure that all’s well.”
For more information on street soccer in Vancouver, visit VancouverStreetSoccer.com. As part of efforts to raise money for the team to participate in the Homeless World Cup in Rio de Janeiro this fall, Portland FC is holding a fundraiser, feature live music and a silent auction, on Thursday, April 15, at the Rickshaw Theatre (254 E. Hastings). Tickets $25 from 778-997-3930.
PHOTO: Portland FC after practice at the Carnegie Community Centre. By Jackie Wong.
