I read this for a mixed race/biracial author prompt for The Diverse Baseline challenge. And the Métis stuff in here was great.

(Métis is a Canadian word for someone with mixed Indigenous and European ancestry with a deep history, particularly in the prairies.)

In fact, his insight into Métis identity is so compelling that, irl, this author went from being a high school drop out homeless man to a professor at York University publishing important papers on Métis history and culture.

But—holy crap—it was the homelessness part of this memoire that wrecked me. Maybe even radicalized me?

As I was reading this, homeless encampments were being broken up in some major American cities and there were a lot of stories about ‘good’ homeless people—people with no criminal records who were on the streets because of medical debt, impossible rent prices, or low wages.

But this memoire was about a ‘bad’ homeless guy. And I dare you to try and not care about his story.

There were so many parts that struck me.
▪️ how his downfall began when he was just a baby, maybe even before he was born
▪️ how many different people have to refuse to support you to even end up homeless in the first place
▪️ how many people take advantage of homelessness (from petty criminals to legitimate day-labourer businesses to predators)
▪️ how help with ‘strings attached’ ties you up in knots

And then, just personally, there was a part of the story where he lived at a shelter in Ottawa during the same years that I worked beside it at a Tim Hortons while I was in university (he wrote its official name Shephards of Good Hope, we called it Sheps). Do you know how scared I was of that place? My weekend shifts started at 3am! To read how he was a bit scared of it too (even after decades of homelessness), yet it was also a much needed refuge… broke my damn heart.

I highly recommend this memoire.