From The TyeeApril 12th, 2013
It's one of the first sunny days of spring, and the herons have returned to their rookery in Vancouver's Stanley Park. Judy Graves walks slowly, pausing to admire the wiry herons' nests, the new daffodils, and the fluffy cherry blossoms. The 63-year-old's nails are whimsically painted a lilac pastel that matches her goofy spontaneity and youthful inquisitiveness. "Here," she says, leading us towards the Vancouver Park Board's headquarters. We follow her to a side of the building thick with rhododendron bushes. "When I'm a homeless old woman, this is where I'll live."
It takes a moment to understand what she means. She points to a rectangular covered area with a clean white concrete floor. Short walls provide some shelter from the elements. "The people who live here are usually very organized," she says. "One man, he would cook his food out on the beach. And he just loved the flowers."
The space, so small and hidden by the wall of flowers, is easy to miss. But to Graves, it's one of countless spaces hidden in plain sight that are home to the city's homeless. They are places and people she knows well. She has spent more than half her lifetime working with Vancouver's homeless and hard-to-house, and holds the City of Vancouver's only position as an advocate for the homeless. It's a title she's held since 2010. It evolved from her work through the 1980s, '90s, and the first decade of the 2000s, as the city's tenant assistance coordinator.
Now, her days with the city are drawing to a close. She turns 64 on Wednesday, May 29, a day that will also mark her retirement from a career that has spanned over three decades. In much the same way she's approached other aspects of her life, she decided in January to leave, she says, because it simply felt right. She's not aware of any plans to replace her.
Graves isn't the type to self-aggrandize, but she believes her position should be filled. "I think it's important to have an informed advocate within the system who can speak truth to power. It's very easy for government to start believing its own spin," she says. "And it's important for government to have people they trust within their own ranks. I think it's very important, as well, that there be somebody doing the public advocacy and the teaching for the citizens as a whole."
But so far no one else at City Hall is taking on Graves' mission to educate. While she humbly notes that many others have made a positive mark on the city, few have made such a resonant impact on the individual lives of Vancouver's most vulnerable citizens. "I'm not a counter," she admits, but she estimates the people she's helped over the years to secure housing number in the thousands.
Karen O'Shannacery is a longtime friend of Graves'. She co-founded Vancouver's Lookout Emergency Aid Society in 1971 when she was 20 years old, after living on the streets as a teenager. While she believes the work should continue after her friend has retired, she doesn't expect anyone will be able to fill Graves' shoes completely. "Nobody could replace Judy," she says. "Her impact has really fostered the city taking such a leadership role in ending homelessness within the city of Vancouver, which challenges the whole region and challenges the province. I think she deserves recognition for that."
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