Pandemic puts marginalized youth at risk

Mandi Pekan had long been looking forward to this month.

The registered psychotherapist is the director of the Street Resilience Project, scheduled to officially launch April. Like so many other events and projects, it has been postponed.

But its core mission must somehow go on. The project aims to give community service providers and the wider public a better understanding of the lived experiences of racialized men who are involved in criminal activity as they receive support.

The three-year project is a collaboration with Ottawa’s Debra Dynes Family House and youth advocate Jamil Jivani.

After the first year of interviewing and providing help to dozens of young men in Ottawa, Pekan and her team were readying to unveil a short film that narrates what it’s like for those who are struggling to survive in low-income neighbourhoods where the call of easy money is sometimes hard to ignore.

“They are the most underserved, misunderstood and silenced population,” says Pekan, who has family members and close friends who were lost to the streets, experiences that motivated her career path.

“This is an opportunity to share their stories and humanize their experiences,” she told me. “Often, society believes these young men enjoy their lifestyle, but this lifestyle choice comes with constant traumatic stress.

“There is a cost to it. They are in a present-like war-zone in their own community, where the politics of street-life induces constant trauma. They are feeling paranoid, hyper-vigilant, a mixture of emotions they can’t understand, nightmares, the feeling of constant threat and the fear of incarceration.”

And now, in the midst of a global pandemic and a near total shutdown, Pekan says she and others who work with these vulnerable communities are even more worried.

Her colleague Zervos Selvendren works with individuals who have been recently released from prison and are re-integrating back into society.

He says the pandemic has made it difficult to reach his clients on a consistent basis. Efforts to connect virtually are not always possible because many lack connectivity, he points out in an email.

The loneliness, loss of stable supports and lack of understanding of why all this is happening may exacerbate the already challenging situations many of his clients would normally be facing trying to get their lives back on track and avoiding a return to harmful habits.

Someone with an intimate understanding of those challenges is 29-yearold Adam Katake (a pseudonym), one of two advisers with lived experiences consulting on the Street Resilience Project.

In a poignant essay, Katake shared with me his life story from his arrival to Canada with his family as a three-yearold and his many years of struggle with poverty, bullying and living with an abusive father.

He would eventually traffic in cocaine, making $300 a day. It came with many risks, including extreme violence. After one gun incident saw his friend shot and a bullet graze his leg, he tried to break out of the lifestyle but would return to it several times before finally quitting.

With great effort, he managed to earn an engineering degree over the course of eight years, even with drug and gun convictions and while serving two sentences. Employers eventually gave him a chance despite his criminal record. He now holds down a lucrative job, is married, and shares his story with at-risk youth.

“I’ve wanted to give back for a long time,” he tells me by phone. “But with a criminal background, it’s hard to volunteer. With this, I get to know these young people better than anyone and help them when they need it most. This project has been a great outlet for me.”

Pekan’s team hopes this work continues, recently introducing “Voices from the Streets” as a platform for the young men they have been working with to share current experiences.

Yet she admits she’s frustrated with the lack of coordination in the social services sector.

“Any means of engaging these young men has stalled. They are left to fend for themselves.” Just when they need support the most.