We’ll call him the Seeker, because we don’t know his name and we found him seeking a hoped-for oasis in his travels. When we encountered him, we learned how intractable are the problems of the homeless. We were also reminded that “man does not live by bread alone.”
We were two women walkers pursuing fitness on our accustomed early-morning four-mile loop from downtown Vancouver eastward to the Heights. As usual, we were hashing out our life challenges — family, community, jobs — as we walked. We reached “double Grand” — as we call that steep two-part incline from 5th Street and Grand Boulevard to the hill crest at McLoughlin Boulevard — when we encountered the Seeker.
He hailed us from the east side of Grand at its steepest point just north of Mill Plain Boulevard. A frail figure, slender, not much bigger than the wool cap and threadbare sweater that he wore in the early morning chill. His arms were full of a tattered paper bag that he shifted sideward to wave at us, yelling, “Where is it … where is it?” Then he strode into traffic toward us, barely avoiding morning-rush cars and trucks hurrying downhill on Grand, “where is it” — he repeated. We racked our brains as he approached us — “where is” what?
Within seconds, we knew. We were within blocks of the Vancouver Navigation Center, the homeless services center that has been the focus of controversy among homeowners, businesses, city planners and the city council since its opening in late 2018 and even before. It has recently been evaluated in the city’s “Navigation Center Third Party Assessment,” as part of a multi-year assessment of the growing challenge of homelessness and its impact on business, public safety, property values and other factors.
