Sixteen hard years on the street has cost Nick pretty much everything. He hasn’t seen his father or siblings in a decade, and even the people he considered his street family seem to have disappeared. “I don’t know where all my old friends went. They’re just gone, and I don’t know where. They probably went…

The police have nicknamed him Godzilla, so he says to go with that name. “I asked them why they called me that, and they said it was because I was so damn old,” he laughs. He’s had a bed to sleep in for the past year at a pod-style shelter, but life’s still chaotic for…

Getting into treatment as soon as possible is a critical need for Devon. Her little girl is in government care and about to be adopted, and Devon thinks her only chance to ever get her daughter back is to show the Ministry of Children and Family Development that she is serious about giving up substances.…

Inner-city physician Dr. Jill Wiwcharuk says there’s no question that the single biggest help for people in poverty is to give them more money. She’s helping Ron complete the complicated forms that require a doctor’s signoff so he can get on disability benefits for the first time in his life, at age 63. Jill does…

He works the fine strand of wire carefully, soldering with his lighter, winding the wire around and around until his tiny creation is done. It looks like a miniature fishing rod; he says it’s a divining rod to find things buried in the ground. I ask his name and he pulls up his sleeve to…

This is Andrew’s dog, Terra Firma. He named her that because “she keeps me on solid ground.” He first spotted her on the Block as a pup three years ago, and it was immediate love on both their parts. She often rides in his cart as part of the forced-nomad life of a person without…

Two oversized beach umbrellas and a propane fire ring turned out to be the perfect combo for creating a warm, dry space for chatting with friends in a fall downpour on the Block, as Victoria’s epicentre of people living homeless is known. Things that help keep people warm and dry are supposed to be off…

Beau has been panhandling at the intersection of Cook and Pandora for six years, and is pretty sure he was the first one out there at the now in-demand spot. His rule, which he wishes everyone would follow: Make $20 or be there for an hour, whichever comes first, and it’s ok to stay on…

Robyn is a newcomer to homelessness, four months on the street. But she has found love on the Block with a man she met out there, and “that has been a happy thing.” When bylaw officers took her brand-new tent recently, her boyfriend bought her a new one. Robyn’s home Nation is on the South…

This is Cynthia, spotted in her splendour outside a converted hotel near Mayfair Mall that provides temporary housing for people living homeless. Cynthia doesn’t live there but comes regularly to visit a friend, though visitors are only allowed to stay for 10 minutes, and even less if staff decide to cut things short. She likes…