I had a chance to wander around an old building that is being restored to give people somewhere to live once again. It seems like it hadn’t been lived in since the 1950’s (I found a cent from 1956).

There is a desperate need for housing here, where tents in the park or on the sidewalk are commonplace. The park is Oppenheimer Park where once stood a 1000 crosses to memorialise those lost to overdose. Where a child’s playground stands on the spot where once drug deals were made. I don’t see many children playing though. It was built in faith.

There is a desperate need for safe housing here where social services are so pressed that a brothel is deemed an adequate place to house teenage girls… I don’t think so.

“And so it stands” a poem –

There is a beauty in craftsmanship.

And yet,

A deeper beauty in wood

That has been set to good use;

Maybe overused,

(and I hesitate to use the word)

Abused even –

And yet,

It still stands.

A monument to life,

To lives,

Lived,

And fought for,

And died for,

and yet to be lived.

And so it stands.

Mark Spence 24/12/18

(For Bud Osborn – poet and activist of DTES 1947-2014)