Nine years living homeless for this self-described “Sooke boy” have taught Rickie Bobbie a thing or two, most especially how to stay out of the way of police and bylaw. “I never have much interaction with them,” he says. Rickie Bobbie counts on getting a mat for the night at Rock Bay Landing or the shelter at St John the Divine church, benefiting from a kind of reservation system for people who dependably show up for a mat each night that ensures they’ll get priority. Regular shelter lists in Victoria are typically full before noon each day and another 30 or so emergency mats are totally dependent on whether overnight temperatures are expected to hit 0 C, so landing a reserved mat is a big perk. I ask Rickie Bobbie what people in the community need to know about living homeless. “That if they were in our shoes, they wouldn’t survive.”