A drug user heating up a meth pipe.

(DAN WALTON / iNFOnews.ca)

On a rainy day earlier this week, a small group of people were staying dry underneath a makeshift tent in the alleyway between Main Street and Martin Street.

Dee, who was smoking meth inside, knew it was only a matter of time before bylaw officers would be shooing them along.

“Why didn’t they leave everybody down at the hobo trails – everybody was down there in one place and it was good,” she said.

READ MORE: Concerns rise as downtown Penticton tent camp grows

The hobo trails is the unofficial name for an area near Esplanade Park, where squatters have gravitated for many years. On April 1, a large number were cleared from the area after being given one-month’s notice. That was also when a new shelter opened at the Compass House to coincide with the closure of Victory Shelter. A homeless man died that week after he was tossed into the compactor in a recycling truck while sleeping in a dumpster.

Dee said bylaw officers are friendly about letting them set up tents in parks at night, as long as they don’t arrive too early or stay too late. And she assumed they would be nice enough to wait until the rain stopped before making them take the tarp-tent down.

A group of drug users kept dry on a rainy day by building a makeshift tent.

(DAN WALTON / iNFOnews.ca)

It may not look very flattering, but a structure like that feels like an oasis for people with no place to call home. It offers warmth, shelter and privacy. And their friends are there too.

But not everyone there is able to be in good spirits.

One man who stopped by, when asked how’s it going, told everyone he’s sick.

“That’s what we hear every day, all day,” Dee said. “A lot of sick people.”

For those who want to go to detox treatment, there is a long waiting list, she said.

One of Dee’s friends is Meranda. She said many addicts who are given a bed in Penticton get kicked out for one reason or another, and then lose the will to seek out support from a shelter again.

“A lot of people, they wanna get better, they’re tired of trying to make money every day,” Meranda said.

She said drug users feel safer together in groups. But at the same time, theft is a common occurrence amongst the community.

“Everyone's trying to survive together but then they’re fighting amongst each other.”

A homeless Penticton man named Eric holding a glass pipe.

(DAN WALTON / iNFOnews.ca)

Those with severe addictions have to stretch tight budgets in order to support their habit.

“Average cost for a half ball is about $40,” according to Eric, who was open to speak while smoking methamphetamine in an alleyway behind Martin Street last week.

A “half ball” means 1.75 grams, half an “eight ball,” which is a common term for one eighth of a quarter ounce (3.5 grams).

“Lasts a day if I’m lucky, really,” Eric said, although he normally shares half balls with others to benefit from a volume discount.

“If it’s just me or one other person I’m sharing with, I can stretch it to three or four days.”

READ MORE: The end is near for Penticton's controversial homeless shelter

Eric’s primary income is basic assistance, and he said he receives a little less than $875 each month.

“I support my habit by selling a little bit here and there, just to make sure I have enough cash to get some more, right?”

When craving meth, or speed, Eric said he becomes extremely tired and lethargic, and for up to five days.

“Versus when I’ve had a couple of hoots, I feel like I can accomplish quite a bit.”

Eric said he became homeless four to five years ago, and while he was able to live in shelters for some of that time, he has been kicked out several times and has been on the streets for the past year-and-a-half.

He doesn’t agree with all the rules at the shelters. He was banned for a few days after installing a camera to watch over his valuables, but he chose not to return as he would have been given the bottom rung of the beds available. And another shelter banned him for staying out all night without notice on three separate occasions.

READ MORE: How Penticton's homeless people cope at -20 C at night

However he accepts blame for when a third shelter banned him because he used bear spray in the hallway.

“That was my own stupidity,” he said, calling it an accident.

One of the shelters available in Penticton is Burdock House. Around the corner from it, there’s a church where other users were also comfortable talking about how they maintain their addiction.

Over the past decade, as drug markets have seen heroin displaced by fentanyl, both of which are called “down” by users. It has always cost $20 per “point,” which is one-tenth of a gram, according to a user named Dave.

Even when fentanyl is cut to sixteen parts to one, people still overdose from it, he said, adding that pure heroin is extremely rare now.

“I only do speed and maybe a little bit of crack, that’s it,” Dave said.

Asked if he ever tests his drugs, Dave said no.

READ MORE: Penticton man says camping rough is better than homeless shelter

Dave’s mother Terry said some prices have risen.

“Crack just hit the roof in price, it went sky high at the start of COVID,” she said.

Terry, who turns 59 this month, said she didn’t begin using drugs until she was in her late 40s. She moved to Penticton in 1980 where she raised Dave.

Terry said she has been homeless in the past by choice but now has been staying in a unit at Burdock House since it opened in 2019.

“I became homeless because I wanted to see why my kid was living on the street,” she said. “Somedays I really miss being out there.”

“There’s some serenity to it,” Dave said.

READ MORE: Penticton youth resort to desperate measures to avoid homelessness

Dave said he prefers to be homeless because of the amount of theft that happens at shelters.

“I refuse to stay in a shelter because I would probably end up hurting somebody really badly,” he said. “People don’t know how to keep their hands to themselves.”

Dave, Terry and their friends were spending the afternoon together on the steps of the church. Although some people in the group were taking drugs during the daytime near a residential neighbourhood, they did so discreetly, and the neighbours who walked by seemed used to it.

READ MORE: Penticton supportive housing review finds housing affordability a top issue

The mother and son believe there is more property crime in Penticton because of the efforts of bylaw enforcement.

“You become homeless, you try to get better for yourself, bylaw comes along, takes all your shit, and then you’re five steps backwards,” Dave said. “Then you do property crime to gain that back … that’s what they don’t get.”

If the city allowed homeless people to live in a tent city, Terry believes that would be an effective way to reduce theft.

“Tent cities stop people from doing crime to get their stuff back,” she said.

READ MORE: Woman trying to prevent dumpster deaths feeling voiceless after accident in Penticton

Also hanging out with Dave and Terry that afternoon was their friend Ryan. He recently got out of prison.

About a week before his release date, he said prisoners are asked about their financial status and set up with social assistance if need be.

Ryan got $700 “for getting out.”

When asked if some drugs are preferred over others, he said that “when you’re addicted to fentanyl, you’re getting fentanyl.”

Real heroin “tastes like shit,” he said, whereas fentanyl, depending on how it’s cooked, “some of that shit taste like raspberries.”

What’s so good about the high offered by fentanyl? Ryan compared it to an orgasm.

READ MORE: Penticton man who beat addiction planning memorial bench for overdose deaths

But despite the pleasure it offers, people generally abuse it to escape past trauma, he said.

“There's not one addict that’ll say, ‘I get high because I like it.’ Unless it’s weed.”

And craving it is a horrible feeling, he said.

“Think of the worst fever you’re ever had and times that by like 15. For seven days. Of pure hell. It’ll make you beg for god. Killing yourself literally feels like the easy way out when you’re sick.”

However, the only way to enjoy life normally again is by making it through that rough week-or-so days of detox, he said. 

“After seven days, it’s like this – the birds are chirping, you got a pep in your step.”

Another user named Daniel, who's in his 40s, said "the soul is still here" from Penticton’s long-gone party days. 

"That’s the problem, people still want to party."

A needle disposal box is located in an alley where drug users are known to frequent.

(DAN WALTON / iNFOnews.ca)

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