Down to This.

Down to This, by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall. Random House, Canada.

You have an addiction to alcohol. You are distressed by your lover leaving you and you want to find yourself?. What do you do ..? You go to live in Tent City, Toronto's infamous shantytown that was dismantled in 2002 by the City of Toronto. The end result is a book culled from over 1000 pages of the hand-written diary Bishop-Stall kept during his stay in Tent City.

Bishop-Stall never makes it clear why he chose the company of strangers (ex-convicts, prostitutes, and the mentally ill) to conquer his personal demons. And he's not your typical homeless person nor is he new to writing. He has a degree in English from Concordia and he has written articles for a number of Canadian publications.

Nonetheless, the reader should be forewarned this is no Walden Pond. At times you can smell the stink, hear the rats running in his shack, and feel the numbing cold. In page after page, Bishop-Stall describes men and women with a huge capacity to consume alcohol and street drugs of all kinds. Fights breakout almost daily, usually when everyone is high on crack-cocaine. Bishop-Stall frequently gets mentally lost for days in an alcoholic haze and it is remarkable that he was able to write in his journal almost every day under these conditions.

Bishop-Stall wisely chooses to build a shack after he discovers that none of the residents of Tent City actually live in tents. From that point on, he experiences it all. He almost freezes to death after two days of constant rain; the residents suspect him of being an undercover narcotics police officer; he is badly beaten; and he stays drunk a good deal of the time.

Through it all, he finds what he calls his "edge"--his ability to use his smarts to get what he needs and wants. And he does have street smarts. He finds a community centre where he can use the shower facilities for free; he capitalizes on his skill at playing pool, often coming home with $60 for three-hours work; he fully utilizes the free food services offered to the homeless and comes to realize that food isn't their biggest need, rather, it is money for drugs and alcohol. It is only after he is no longer living in Tent City that he understands the importance of good housing in keeping all of us sane.

Front-line workers encounter many contradictions when working with the homeless. Bishop-Stall briefly comments on a few. When he encounters professionals (social workers, nurses and activists) or well-meaning religious groups and other volunteers, they leave him confused about their capacity to comprehend their clients' true natures.

One social worker he encounters comes to live in Tent City and talks to the residents about, "class struggle and political systems and harm reduction ..." Bishop-Stall is frustrated and annoyed by her talk. Remarkably, though the residents don't understand her theorizing, they accept her as a mother figure because she administers to their physical and mental well-being.

A similar encounter takes place when Bishop-Stall attends a screening of a documentary film about the Tent City issue. The film documents the efforts of the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee, operated at the time by nurse Cathy Crowe. The professionals in attendance seem wimpish as they read poems and make speeches about wanting to end homelessness. In the film, two residents of Tent City are interviewed and presented as being, "politically aware, humanitarian hobos with hearts of dented gold". Bishop-Stall contrasts this depiction with his Tent City experience of the men: both are repeat offenders and in need of serious anger management counselling.

Down to This is a soap-opera documenting the near daily violence and substance abuse that took place amongst the residents of Tent City. We do not hear about the countless families including hundreds of children forced to live in motels, or of the seriously mentally ill, or the seniors who are also part of the homeless and under-housed population. BishopStall started this project with no real goals other than to survive. What we are left with is a book with no coherent center or purpose and at almost 500 pages it is a long read that goes nowhere.

Michael Juarez, MSW lives in Toronto with his wife.