Cycling Through Poverty: a Study of Homelessness and Bicycling in Vancouver, Canada

(RE)CYCLING THROUGH POVERTY: A STUDY OF HOMELESSNESS AND BICYCLING IN VANCOUVER, CANADA

JEANETTE STEINMANN

B.Kin, University of Calgary, 2017

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF ARTS

THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES

(Kinesiology)

THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

(Vancouver)

September 2020

The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled:

(Re)cycling through poverty: a study of homelessness and bicycling in Vancouver, Canada submitted by Jeanette Steinmann in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Kinesiology

Examining Committee:

Brian Wilson, Professor, Kinesiology, UBC Supervisor

Laura Hurd, Professor, Kinesiology, UBC Supervisory Committee Member

Moss Norman, Assistant Professor, Kinesiology, UBC Supervisory Committee Member

ABSTRACT

In this research I explored the experiences of homeless and unstably-housed men who use a bicycle in Vancouver, Canada. Bicycling, the fastest growing mode of transportation in

Vancouver (City of Vancouver, 2018), has become popularized due to its associations with positive health, economic, and environmental outcomes. Cycling has been taken up by upwardly- mobile and often white city-dwellers as a lifestyle choice signifying environmentally-conscious and responsible citizenship (Golub, Hoffman, Lugo, & Sandoval, 2016; Green, Steinbach &

Datta, 2012). At the same time, many people who are homeless or unstably-housed may depend on walking and cycling for transportation, and may cycle out of necessity, not by choice (Lugo,

2018). To date, however, cycling scholarship tends to focus on infrastructure implementation or the public health benefits of cycling, and frames cyclists in a commuter-leisure dichotomy

(Mayers & Glover, 2019). As a result, little is known about the experiences of low-income people who cycle out of necessity. Relatedly, more research is needed regarding how cycling is connected to larger issues of inequality, such as Vancouver’s current housing crisis, opioid epidemic, and settler-colonial history. The study was guided by critical and interpretive theoretical perspectives that helped bring attention to social inequities and the experiences and perspectives of marginalized individuals. Using primarily ride-along interviews, I did five in- depth semi-structured interviews with homeless or unstably-housed men who ride bicycles.

Results indicate that bicycles were used for a variety of reasons, including for leisure, for transport, and for informal recycling work. The bicycle was a mobility aid for participants who had multiple health issues. Participants met their bike-related needs through an underground economy and a network of places and people. They cultivated relationships along these networks that helped them ‘get by’ despite experiencing significant stigma from the public and from

iii police, as well as structural barriers. These results suggest that homeless and unstably-housed men who use bicycles employ varied and creative means to get by, and that work remains to decriminalize informal recycling and de-stigmatize low-income cyclists in Vancouver.

LAY SUMMARY

The goals of this study were to learn about cyclists who are experiencing homelessness or are unstably-housed in Vancouver. I conducted individual interviews, in most cases while riding bikes, with five men. I found that bicycling meant many different things to participants, and that they used the bicycle for different reasons. One main reason participants used a bicycle was as a mobility aid for their health conditions. Participants used underground networks of places and people to address bike-related needs, and experienced significant negative stigma from the public and from police officers when they were bicycling. These results suggest that homeless and unstably-housed men who use bicycles employ varied and creative means to get by. Results illustrate the importance of informal resources and social connections for low-income cyclists. I suggest that informal recycling should be decriminalized in Vancouver and work should be done to de-stigmatize low-income cyclists.

PREFACE

This study was approved by the UBC Behavioural Research Ethics Board - H19-02923.

This content of this thesis is the unpublished work of Jeanette Steinmann.

TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ...... iii LAY SUMMARY ...... v PREFACE ...... vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... vii LIST OF TABLES ...... viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ...... ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... x CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ...... 1 Justification and Relevance ...... 4 Structure of Thesis ...... 8 Theoretical Approach ...... 9 Literature Review ...... 12 CHAPTER TWO: METHODS ...... 40 Background on Conducting Research in the Downtown Eastside ...... 41 Semi-Structured Individual Interviews ...... 42 Transcription and Data Analysis ...... 50 Reflexivity ...... 52 CHAPTER THREE: RESULTS ...... 56 Theme One ...... 57 Theme Two...... 75 Theme Three ...... 89 CHAPTER FOUR: DISCUSSION ...... 100 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION ...... 120 REFERENCES ...... 129 APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW GUIDE ...... 139 APPENDIX B: INFORMED CONSENT FORMS ...... 140

vii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Participant chart………………..………………………………………………...67

viii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AAA All ages and abilities

BFD Bicycles for Development

DNC Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council

DTES Downtown Eastside

LICO Low-income cut off

LIM Low-income measure

PWUD People who use drugs

SRO Single-room occupancy

VANDU Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users

VPD Vancouver Police Department

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many people supported me throughout each phase of this thesis. First, I owe a massive thank you to Dr. Brian Wilson, my supervisor, for encouraging me as I chose a topic, and for being there alongside me as that idea grew into this thesis. I greatly value your guidance. I am thankful for the opportunity to learn from you over the next four years.

Thank you to my other committee members for your helpful suggestions and positive support. Dr. Laura Hurd, your confidence in me helped more than you know. Your advice about interviewing was vital. Dr. Moss Norman, thank you for your guidance around Indigenous considerations. To you both, I carry your many thoughtful insights with me.

My immense gratitude to the participants of this study for the time and stories they kindly gave up for me. Thank you to UBC Kinesiology for the grant to carry out my research.

This thesis would not have been possible without the support of my family. Thank you,

Mom, for always being available and for your astute editing eye. Thank you, Dad, for your enthusiasm and for catching the tiniest of typos. Grammy, your support means so much.

Sadie, Julia, Anna, and Zoë, your friendship buoyed me from afar. Thank you, Dawson, for building me an office out of a barn on your beautiful farm. Thank you for making me countless meals, for having the wittiest ideas, and for your unwavering moral support and love.

Thanks to all those at the Annex for leading the way and for truly inspiring me. Liv,

Devra, and Shawn, I’m thankful to have spent one year in the presence of you three giants. Jesse and Nik, dab, I’ve learned so much from you both. Madison, you paved the way for me. Katie,

I’m immensely grateful we went through this together. Joe, Jess, Staci and Danni, you all rock.

Finally, thank you to these Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsiel-Waututh lands for providing a beautiful place for all of us homeless, unstably-housed, and housed folk to cycle on.

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

Over the past several decades, many upper- and middle-class people in the Global North have taken up urban cycling as a mode of transport that is economical, environmentally- conscious, and healthy (Mayers & Glover, 2019; Buehler and Pucher, 2012; Hoffman, 2016).

Vancouver, Canada portrays itself as a ‘green’ city, and promotes cycling as part of its sustainability image –an image that is linked to social, economic and environmental progress.

The following quote by Claire Trevena, British Columbia’s Minister of Transportation and

Infrastructure exemplifies this perspective: “Cycling is great for your health, your wallet, and the environment. It’s an excellent way to stay connected to your community” (Government of BC,

May 2019, n.p.).

Many residents have clearly heeded this message, as cycling is the fastest growing mode of transportation in Vancouver (City of Vancouver, 2018). The city has a large network of cycling infrastructure1, and was recently ranked as the second-best city in North America for cycling behind Montréal (Global Bicycle Cities Index, 2019). In 2017, 10% of Vancouverites cycled to work (City of Vancouver, 2017). In 2018, 53% of all trips within the City of

Vancouver were made by walking, cycling, and public transport, a number that the municipal government aims to increase to 66% by the year 2040 (City of Vancouver, 2018). Additionally, car trips have steadily declined over the past five years, because, according to the City of

Vancouver, “more Vancouver residents are opting to leave the car at home in favour of taking more sustainable modes of transport” (Walking and Cycling Report 2018, p. 3).

1 Vancouver has a number of different types of bike infrastructure, including All Ages and Abilities (AAA) bike lanes, protected bike lanes, local street bikeways, painted bike lanes, and shared bike lanes. AAA bike lanes and protected bike lanes and off-street paths have barriers between cyclists and motorized vehicles. They also include off-street paths such as the sea wall. Local street bikeways are quiet neighbourhood streets where cyclists share the road with cars. Painted bike lanes designate a lane for cyclists on busy streets. Shared bike lanes are relatively busy streets with painted markings indicating where cyclists should ride (City of Vancouver, 2019).

While the City of Vancouver promotes cycling as a green alternative to driving, a large group of homeless and unstably-housed people continue to cycle or walk as their only transportation option2 (Lugo, 2018). Despite their visibility on the streets, cycling scholarship and government policy tend not to address the fact that many low-income people use a bicycle out of necessity (Hoffman, 2013; Koeppel, 2006), instead targeting people who choose to go car- free.

In Vancouver, a housing crisis coupled with an ongoing opioid epidemic has disproportionately affected areas where low-income cyclists live and work such as the

Downtown Eastside (DTES) (Collins, Boyd, Mayer, Fowler, et al., 2019). Many homeless and unstably-housed individuals must partake in work outside of the formal economy in order to supplement inadequate social assistance income3 and live in Vancouver, a city known for its very cost of living (Wittmer & Parizeau, 2018). Informal recycling is common in Vancouver, where people scavenge for items to sell and use, as well as for recyclable beverage containers to return for a deposit at a recycling center. Many of these workers utilize bikes to operate their recycling services.

The dominant cycling discourse, which promotes ‘going green’ through being healthy, environmentally-conscious, and economical, also implies that the person on a bicycle is a conscientious and active citizen who consciously chooses to make positive changes in their community by partaking in an oil-free (and thus superior-to-fossil-fuel-driven) form of transport

(Green et al., 2012). Marginalized cyclists are largely excluded from this sustainability narrative

2 One term used to describe people whose only transportation option is to walk or cycle is “captive” (Lugo, 2018, p. 10). 3 Income assistance payments can be up to $760.00 per month for single individuals (Gov. of BC, 2020). Disability assistance payments can be up to $1,183.42 per month (Gov. of BC, 2020) and are sent out on the last Wednesday of the month, nicknamed “Welfare Wednesday” (Lupick, 2017). One analysis suggests that the cost of living for a single person in Vancouver is approximately $3,355.80 per month (DailyHive, 2019), significantly more than income assistance and disability combined.

2 of cycling, a narrative which is often associated with whiteness and upward mobility (Lugo,

2018; Hoffman, 2016). Informal recyclers and other low-income people who ride bicycles instead face exclusion and stigma related to poverty, disorder, and uncleanliness (Wittmer &

Parizeau, 2016).

Some literature exists on low-income cyclists, but more is needed. For example, multiple accounts document the ‘invisible’ cyclists of southern California: immigrant workers who ride to work on department store bikes at odd hours of the day on sidewalks or streets away from the commuter-business routes (Koeppel, 2006; Lugo, 2018; Bernstein, 2016). Far from being afforded the ethical, eco-friendly-citizen cachet of the suit-clad cyclist, these cyclists are not even seen by most people. Also, a substantial scholarship documents the work of informal recyclers in the Global South. Few studies exist on informal recycling in the Global North, and these studies do not focus on the bicycle (Wittmer & Parizeau, 2016; Gowan, 1997).

The study I present in this thesis focused on the experiences of five homeless or unstably- housed men who used bicycles regularly for transport, leisure, and informal recycling. Using in- depth, semi-structured ride-along interviews, I was guided by the following research questions:

What does the bicycle mean to unstably-housed people or people experiencing homelessness?

What does it mean to be a cyclist for unstably-housed people or people experiencing homelessness? To what extent do homeless and unstably-housed cyclists experience stigma? To what extent do support networks exist for homeless and unstably-housed cyclists? What formal and informal resources do homeless and unstably-housed cyclists use to support their cycling- enabled day-to-day activities? To what extent do bike advocacy work and cycling policy address the needs of homeless and unstably-housed cyclists?

Justification and Relevance

As briefly discussed above, bicycle literature tends to highlight cycling’s benefits, particularly those related to environmental and health concerns; and to a lesser extent, economic and social concerns (Mayers and Glover, 2019). In particular, most studies on urban cycling focus on cycling infrastructure relevant to city planning, and on cycling as a public health strategy to combat low rates of physical activity (Crawford, Rissel, Yamasaki, Frank et al., 2012;

Pucher & Buehler, 2012). Research from a public health standpoint commonly attempts to quantify the relationship between active transport and health measures such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular health (Pucher & Buehler, 2012). Regular cycling has been touted as a way to combat Canadians’ low levels of physical activity and promote public health in general, and therefore has been considered an important site of research from that perspective.

Studies about cycling infrastructure used to inform policy tend to highlight neighbourhood environmental characteristics and traffic data relevant to cycling (Mayers &

Glover, 2019). For example, certain environmental characteristics have been associated with cycling for some groups of people. ‘Walkability’ is one environmental characteristic that has been found to promote physical activity, including cycling, at a population level (Saelens, Sallis

& Frank, 2003). Walkability is generally a product of street connectivity, land use mix, and residential density (Frank, Engelke, Engelke & Schmid, 2003). When these three environmental characteristics are present, studies have suggested that people are more likely to choose nonmotorized transport (Saelens et al., 2003).

However, other research has suggested that neighbourhood environmental characteristics such as measures of walkability might be relevant only to certain groups. For example, Kerr,

Frank, Sallis, & Chapman (2007), in their study of youth pedestrian travel, found in their

4 assessment of five environmental characteristics4 related to demographic factors, that only two of the five characteristics (land use mix and access to recreation spaces) were significantly related to walking for non-white respondents, whereas all five were related for white respondents. They also found that all five environmental characteristics were associated more with high-income than low-income households.

Studies such as these illustrate how infrastructure may go only so far in encouraging walking or cycling or, importantly for this study, considering the experiences and perspectives of diverse cycling populations. As a result of these identified shortcomings, a critical branch of urban transport literature called ‘bicycle justice’ has emerged. Scholars in this field continue to identify the ways in which cycling infrastructure tends to be geared primarily towards white, upwardly mobile cycling populations. For example, Lugo (2018) found that the installation of bike lanes can be a form of gentrification that increases property values, attracting affluent people to the neighbourhood. In turn, people who might be transit-, walking-, or cycling- dependent, and are often racial or ethnic minorities, are pushed to outlying areas and away from well-connected neighbourhoods. Lugo (2018) suggests that, for some, bike infrastructure may have direct negative consequences, a finding that is in opposition to many studies suggesting that an increase in property values is an economic benefit of cycling infrastructure (Mayers &

Glover, 2019).

Bicycle justice literature such as the above example is beginning to “problematize [a particular form of] hegemony of cycling culture, and to explore the inequities that may currently exist” (Mayers & Glover, 2019, p.15). Scholars such as Lugo (2018) and Bernstein (2016) have

4 The five environmental characteristics are residential density, intersection density, mixed land use, commercial land use, and recreation/open space land (Kerr, Frank, Sallis, & Chapman, 2007).

5 studied male illegal immigrants in the southern United States who use bicycles to travel to and from their jobs. Others have focused on the importance of involving low-income and non-white communities in discussions about bike infrastructure and bike share programs (Hoffman, 2016;

Lubitow, 2016). This literature shows it is essential to reframe cycling in a way that includes the experiences of those living in poverty or otherwise marginalized. To date, however, most of the bicycle justice research is U.S.-based and focuses on American cities. More research from a wider range of places is needed on these topics.

Additionally, Mayers & Glover (2019) pointed out that even a growing body of bicycle scholarship that takes into account class, race, and gender differences among cyclists tends to describe cyclists as either commuter or leisure cyclists. As a result, they suggest, further research into the intersectionality of cycling identities is needed, beyond the leisure/commuter dichotomy

(Mayers & Glover, 2019). People may use a bicycle for many other reasons, including as a vehicle to support livelihood, for mobility, to help carry their belongings, as well as for transportation and recreational purposes. All of these warrant study and are particularly related to people experiencing homelessness.

Cycling as a means to a livelihood, which may be particularly important for people experiencing homelessness, has been examined by Fincham (2006) and Kidder (2005) in the context of bicycle courier work, and by Lee, Ho, Banks, Giampieri, et al. (2016), who studied food delivery cyclists in New York City. Fincham (2006) and Kidder (2005) both became bicycle couriers for a period of time while conducting their respective ethnographies. Using media analysis, Lee et al. (2016) revealed the experiences of low-income, male, immigrant delivery workers. There is a dearth of literature, however, on bike riders who experience

“advanced marginality”: homeless and unstably-housed cyclists (Wacquant, 2008, p.2). Cycling

6 and homelessness have been explicitly connected in only one study, which focused on cycling’s health benefits for homeless youth in Australia (Crawford et al., 2012). The youth associated cycling with physical activity, personal transport, social inclusion, and independence, and expressed that the independence aspect of cycling especially would help them eventually get out of poverty.

Informal recycling, a means of generating income for many homeless and unstably- housed cyclists, has not been extensively studied in the Global North. The literature that exists on this topic does not focus specifically on informal recyclers who use bicycles (Wittmer &

Parizeau, 2016; Tremblay, 2007; Gowan, 1997). Yet, low-income cyclists and cyclists with bottles are visible in most cities, including Vancouver.

Considering this background, the present study was designed with the aim of contributing to further understandings of the hegemonic structure of urban cycling culture. Specifically, I examined cycling beyond the leisure-commuter binary, highlighting the experiences of marginalized cyclists. This study is a response to the need for more studies of urban transportation that explore the social environments in which people cycle and the cultural norms that influence cycling behaviours (Mayers & Glover, 2019) – and the need for studies in the bicycle justice literature to expand past the binary of commuter-leisure cyclists, with the aim of deepening understandings of the individual and structural social inequalities present in cycling.

In seeking to learn about the experiences of homeless cyclists, this research allowed me to explore what turned out to be contradictions between the dominant cycling ideology in

Vancouver and the actual daily practices of homeless cyclists, while considering also some intentional and unintentional synergies. The study also adds to the growing body of critical

7 bicycle scholarship and contributes to understandings of links between urban homelessness, mobility, and active transportation.

In particular, this research highlights the experiences of marginalized cyclists who cycle out of necessity rather than by choice, something that has not been widely examined in the urban transport or sociological literature. From a sociological perspective, the study contributes to understanding the unique and creative ways that homeless and unstably-housed cyclists navigate the seemingly difficult day-to-day circumstances that accompany living in poverty. Practically, this research has a local application, in that it offers a foundation from which to comment on the extent to which homeless and unstably-housed cyclists and informal recyclers are included in

Vancouver’s urban cycling vision, which could lead to further investigation into changes in cycling policy in Vancouver, as well as discussion around the structural underpinnings of poverty in Vancouver. Finally, by taking a unique methodological approach, using ride-along mobile interviews to shed light on homeless and unstably-housed bicycle-users’ daily activities and experiences of place, I am well positioned to comment on the potential and challenges with this approach.

Structure of Thesis

Having introduced and justified the study that is the focus of this thesis, I proceed next to discuss my theoretical approach to the research, and then review literature that is pertinent to homelessness and on cycling – which includes documents relating to poverty and active transportation in British Columbia. Following this, I outline the research methods used to carry out the study, report key findings from the research, and then discuss these findings – with particular attention to how results from my study compare with, inform and/or align with the

8 research and theories I featured earlier in the thesis. The study concludes with a summary of key contributions from the study reported in this thesis, and recommendations for future research.

Theoretical Approach

This research draws on critical interpretive approaches and is guided, in part, by Erving

Goffman’s (1963) concept of stigma. Critical interpretive approaches draw from both cultural studies and critical theory as well as from interpretivist approaches, including symbolic interactionism. A critical interpretivist approach essentially acknowledges that meaning is created through social relations, and that structures of power exist in which struggles over meaning take place (Beal, 2002). I will first consider interpretive approaches, followed by a discussion of Goffman’s concept of stigma and how it relates to the present study, and I will conclude with a discussion of critical approaches.

Interpretive approaches privilege interpersonal relations and everyday actions of people as vital elements of data because “symbolic reality is created, refined, and lived out through social interaction” (Beal, 2002, p. 360). Interpretive approaches aim to develop understandings of social life and the ways in which people create meaning in various contexts (Neuman, 2011).

An interpretive approach is especially salient in the present study, because it “grant[s] humans, irrespective of their social location, a significant amount of power in the creation of social

‘realities’” (Beal, 2002, p. 356).

Goffman’s (1963) concept of stigma, which emerged from interpretivist understandings of meaning making, micrological power relations, and identity, is relevant to this study. Lamont,

Beljean, and Clair (2014) expand on stigma in their work on cultural processes pertinent to inequality. They suggest that one cultural process that can lead to inequality is identification, described as “the process through which individuals and groups identify themselves, and are

9 identified by others, as members of a larger collective” (Lamont et al., 2014, p. 587).

Stigmatization, described as the ongoing process of negative labelling, stereotyping, and discrimination, is one type of identification. Lamont et al. (2014) and Goffman (1963) suggest that when people feel they are being stigmatized, they actively promote other parts of their social identity in order to avoid being viewed as a “tainted, discounted” person (Goffman, 1963, p. 3).

Lamont et al. (2014) suggest that this type of identity promotion has the potential to reflect a more socially legitimate identity, and can lessen the effects of stigmatization. Therefore, in this study I reflect on what role, if any, being a cyclist played in promoting an identity that combats stigmatization. Also, I discuss the extent to which cycling identity counteracted the stigma already experienced by homeless people, or if a cycling identity strengthened, or added another layer of stigma.

Research to date suggests that being a cyclist may indeed, in some circumstances at least, provoke stigma. Despite the widespread uptake of cycling, Delbosc, Naznin, Haslam & Haworth

(2019) found a link between the dehumanization of bike riders and acts of deliberate aggression towards them on the road. Fincham (2006) similarly suggests that because cycling has been constructed as a form of mobility resistant to car culture, motorists continue to feel entitled to the road. Taking these studies into account, this research offers a foundation from which to identify ways in which homeless cyclists sometimes distance themselves from other road users. Lamont et al. (2014) suggest that stigmatization can be performed by both dominant and subordinate groups – and, as I will demonstrate, this research explores ways homeless people feel stigmatized, while also considering ways in which homeless cyclists perhaps stigmatize other road users too.

This research will also adopt a critical approach, which takes into account political and social context and situates interpretations within the macrolevel and systemic understandings of power and inequality (Beal, 2002). Thus, my research attempts to describe the particularities of life as a homeless or unstably-housed bicycle-user while also accounting for the wider circumstances and sociopolitical context in which this study takes place. A critical approach is warranted in this study because of the value of considering broader sociopolitical factors such as the well-documented structural underpinnings of homelessness (Belcher & DeForge, 2012), the policies that dictate cycling laws and informal recycling practices in Vancouver, the prominence of Indigenous homeless people in Vancouver, and the combined and devastating effects of the current opioid and housing crises.

Lister (2015) suggests that research into poverty needs to move beyond measures and statistics towards conceptualisations grounded in the lived experience of those in poverty. The experience of poverty is relational, both at societal and interpersonal levels, via public and policy discourses, the media, and common perceptions. Therefore, the shaming and othering felt by those living in poverty can be altered and re-created by improved relational discourses. Engaging in a critical interpretive approach in this research aims to reflect a relational discourse and potentially contribute to broader conversations about the lived experience of poverty.

Both critical and interpretive approaches value human agency and the production of meaning. In combination, the “dialectic between individual consciousness and structural determinants” (Weiller, 1988, as cited in Wilson & White, 2001, p. 80) can yield robust insights into the complexities and processes underlying theories of hegemony and resistance. The present study focused on the experiences of people living in poverty enacting a lifestyle seen as discursively ‘green’; therefore exposing potential contradictions at the intersection of

11 environmental-consciousness and social inequality. This research investigated how those at the bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum enact ‘green’ lifestyles and considered how they fit into the dominant narrative surrounding what it means to be a cyclist in Vancouver. In sum, the theoretical approach to this study was guided by Richard Quantz’s important query:

How are marginalized people positioned in the material and symbolic relations, how do they participate in these relations, and how can our understanding work towards the restructuring of those relations? (Quantz, 1992, as cited in Beal, 2002, p. 362)

Literature Review

In this section, I identify some of the key literature related to my study. I begin by considering a variety of studies from the body of sociological research on homelessness, particularly with regard to definitions of homelessness and pathways into homelessness. I then discuss pertinent geographical literature on homelessness, followed by a section on the experience of homelessness. Next, I provide context about the DTES in Vancouver. I then move to a discussion of bicycling literature, and consider how cycling has recently been reimagined as a symbol of “sustainability”5, and in doing so describe Melody Hoffman’s (2013, 2016) concept of the bicycle as a “rolling signifier” (p. 6). I conclude the literature review with a discussion of

BC government documents regarding poverty and regarding walking and cycling.

Research on Homelessness and Unstable Housing

Homelessness has been broadly defined as “not having customary and regular access to a conventional dwelling” (Lee, Tyler & Wright, 2010, p. 503) and definitions often include reference to extreme poverty. The City of Vancouver defines individuals as being homeless if

5 Since the mid-70s, the term ‘sustainability’ has developed from a term connected to environmentalism to one more generally used to describe wider and interconnected goals for social, environmental and economic change (Brown, 2016). Its broad and often imprecise use, which can be subject to diverse interpretations, essentially renders the term an ‘empty signifier’ (Laclau, 1996). The term is also controversial from ecological and Indigenous perspectives, and will be used rarely (and in quotations) in this document.

12 they “did not have a place of their own where pay rent and can expect to stay for more than 30 days” (Vancouver Homeless Count, 2019, p. 9). The three types of homelessness based on temporal considerations commonly mentioned in the literature are a) transitional or temporary

(people who are homeless for a brief period of time, b) episodic (people who repeatedly move in and out of homelessness), and c) chronic (people for whom homelessness is a permanent condition) (Lee et al., 2010). Importantly, chronically homeless men have been over-represented in the literature due to difficulties studying the unstable nature of housing situations in the other groups (Knight, Lopez, Comfort, Shumway, et al., 2014; Lee et al., 2010). Yet, the chronically homeless make up only 10-15% of the U.S. homeless population (O’Grady, Kidd, & Gaetz,

2019), as many homeless have been “pushed out” (Blomley, 2016, p. 90) of downtown cores areas as a result of neoliberal policies that seek to transform urban space, as will be discussed further.

Lee et al. (2010) suggest that homelessness is more like a continuum than a dichotomy of homeless/not homeless, because large numbers of precariously-housed people may find themselves temporarily or episodically homeless. For example, many homeless people are

‘invisibly homeless’ or part of the ‘hidden homeless’ population, meaning they live in recreational vehicles, are housed with family members or remain in abusive relationships to avoid homelessness, or expend the majority of their income on rent. Many invisible homeless people are women with children (Martin & Walia, 2019), although the number of people living in recreational vehicles in Vancouver is greatly increasing (McIntyre, 2020). Relatedly, a Canadian report called ‘The State of Homelessness in 2013’ lists a typology of housing and shelter circumstances that includes unsheltered, emergency sheltered, provisionally accommodated (as opposed to permanently accommodated), and at risk of homelessness. These definitions illustrate

13 that the pathways into and out of homelessness are nonlinear, and instead reflect “an intricate interplay between structural factors, systems failures, and individual circumstances” (Gaetz,

Donaldson, Ritcher, & Gulliver, 2013, p. 5).

The Homeless Identity

While the objective definitions of homelessness above are valuable, it has been noted that subjective definitions are also important, and are much less common in the literature (O’Grady et al., 2019). People experiencing homelessness are often described only in terms of their lack of stable housing. Gonyea and Melekis, (2017) suggest that this singular and stigmatising definition reflects moral and personal failures and allows those without homes to be seen as different and lesser. Sparks (2017) proposes that ‘“homelessness’ masks a complex set of beliefs about the nature of home, identity, and citizenship in which one’s relationship to real estate solidifies and signifies not only one’s physical, but social ‘place’ in society” (p. 90). Without this relationship to real estate, homeless people are both physically excluded from spaces, and also stigmatized, pathologized and seen as deviant. In seeking to learn about how people experiencing homelessness manage this exclusion, homeless people’s own self-identification should be considered. O’Grady et al. (2019) found that people who fall under an objective definition of homelessness may not themselves identify as homeless, and they found that homelessness can be one of multiple identities. However, while some homeless people may not identify as homeless, they are aware of being identified as such and must navigate that labelling (Goffman, 1963).

With both objective definitions and subjective identities relating to homelessness guiding this study, I now discuss three pathways into homelessness: structural factors, systems failures, and individual circumstances (Gaetz et al., 2013).

Structural Factors Influencing Homelessness

Key structural factors leading to homelessness include lack of adequate income and access to affordable housing, and the experience of discrimination (Gaetz et al., 2013; Piat,

Polvere, Kirst, Voronka, et al., 2015). Here I discuss each factor. The experience of discrimination towards marginalized and minority groups can impede access to employment, housing, and other necessary services. This is evident in Vancouver, where 39% of homeless people identified as Indigenous, despite Indigenous people being only 2.2% of Vancouver’s general population (Vancouver Homeless Count, 2019). This disproportionately large population of Indigenous homeless people reflects the continued presence of (and discrimination towards) the Musqueam, Tseil-Waututh, and Squamish peoples on land they have occupied for thousands of years, as well as what Fast and Cunningham (2018) call “the disproportionate burden of social suffering” (p. 240) that Indigenous peoples continue to face. These deep-seated inequalities lead to Indigenous men, in particular, to be labelled as “both economic failures and racialized violent offenders” (Koch, Scherer, & Kafara, 2020, p. 2).

Across the country, access to affordable housing in Canada has dwindled since the 1980s, when the federal government withdrew support for affordable housing and made cuts to welfare programs (Gaetz, Gulliver, & Ritcher, 2014). While affordable housing had been traditionally supported by government subsidy, in recent decades, with the rise of neoliberal policies known to exacerbate inequalities (Harvey, 2005), housing is “now but one amongst many policy fields where state apparatus’ have moved away from direct provision to an ‘at-a-distance’ enabling governmental role within complex multi-scale governance arrangements” (Wetzstein, 2017, p.

3166). Vancouver, in particular, faces a housing affordability crisis that involves skyrocketing real estate prices, the encroachment of redevelopment projects into urban areas once deemed

15 marginal, and an increase in displacement and homelessness (Blomley, 2016). This is discussed further in a later section.

Concurrently, in Canada and elsewhere there is a growing trend towards income inequality. Since the 1970s, poverty rates in Canada have remained relatively stable or have declined, according to two poverty measures ̶ the low-income cut off (LICO), and the low- income measure (LIM) (Green, Riddell & St-Hilaire, 2016). However, median income in Canada has increased, which is to say the rise in income has largely been realized by those at the upper end of the income distribution. While those at the top of the socioeconomic spectrum accrue more wealth, vulnerable groups at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum are more likely to stay poor once falling into poverty (Green et al., 2016).

Systems failures, as described by the “State of Homelessness in 2013” report, is another main factor for pathways into homelessness and it is often considered a structural factor. Systems failures include transitional moments, such as when youth shift out of foster care, and when individuals transition out of institutional placements such as jail, prison, rehab, or hospitals (Piat et al., 2015; Cloke et al., 2008). People experiencing homelessness often cycle precariously through systems many times over the course of their lives; this instability is a barrier to getting out of poverty (Cloke et al., 2008). In these institutional spaces, people often experience

‘clientization’: “a process whereby citizens are redefined as clients who are responsible for their own success, health, and well-being” (Wittmer & Parizeau, 2018, p. 329).

Individual Factors

Individual and relational factors that may contribute to homelessness include personal circumstances such as traumatic events, personal crisis, unstable mental health, and substance use (Gaetz et al., 2013). Up to a third of homeless individuals experience severe mental health

16 issues, and homelessness itself is a risk factor for developing mental illness (Piat et al., 2015).

However, averse life events including family violence, and physical and sexual abuse (which often cause significant emotional trauma) are common among most individuals experiencing homelessness (Piat et al., 2015). For Indigenous individuals, traumatic life events can be exacerbated by discriminatory factors (Gaetz et al., 2013; Martin & Walia, 2019). Indigenous women in particular are stigmatized as having ‘high-risk lifestyles’ and are blamed for violence committed against them when, in fact, data suggests that colonial poverty and patriarchy are the highest risk factors in Indigenous women’s lives (Martin & Walia, 2019). As previously stated,

Indigenous men are often stigmatized with labels and stereotypes that link them with being both poor and violent (Koch, Scherer, & Kafara, 2020).

As illustrated above, the pathways into homelessness are complicated and interrelated, but research suggests that underlying social and economic factors play a larger role than individual factors (Belcher & DeForge, 2012). The Canadian Homeless Research Council (2012) suggests that “the problem of homelessness and housing exclusion refers to the failure of society to ensure that adequate systems, funding and support are in place so that all people, even in crisis situations, have access to housing” (p. 1, original italics). In the next section I will discuss literature regarding geographies of homelessness and experiences of homelessness, followed by a discussion of contextual factors relating to homelessness in the DTES in particular.

Geographies of Homelessness

Homelessness has long been a topic of both sociological and geographical investigation.

In the geographical literature, studies of “new homelessness” (Lee et al., 2010, p. 502) from the

1990s onward have highlighted the punitive measures taken to criminalize homelessness, and have shown that the dwindling spaces left for homeless people to occupy have become coveted

(De Verteuil, May,& Von Mahs, 2009). For example, what were once marginal and undesirable urban spaces in downtown cores (such as older buildings and industrial sites) are now being sought-after. Gentrification is key to this process, and it involves the redevelopment of new, market-value housing (e.g., expensive condos) and efforts to upgrade what was there before

(e.g., upscale cafés replacing family owned business) in what were once low-income downtown cores (Blomley, 2016). Gentrification, then, creates what the Downtown Eastside

Neighbourhood Council (2011) calls “zones of exclusion” where low-income residents are unwelcome: they lack the “economic means for participation” (DNC, 2011, n.p.) Ultimately, as more land is allotted to wealthy people, DTES residents may feel “out of place in [their] own community” (DNC, 2011, n.p.). Since the homeless occupy public spaces in cities, the privatization of these spaces “usurps their right to exist” (Harmon, 2019, p. 2, original italics).

The City of Vancouver, however, frames gentrification in the DTES positively by using terms such as “renewal” (p.88) and “revitalization” (p. 92) (City of Vancouver, 2014).

Policing the streets in order to make them appear clean and safe is another aspect of urban ‘revitalization’. Gentrification has led to prime city space being occupied by more affluent people, and with this occupation comes surveillance and heightened security that does not condone disorder and poverty (Parizeau, 2017). In Vancouver some of these attempts include police literally pushing people who use drugs (PWUD) into the alleyways and out of the public eye (Collins et al., 2019). Scholars have suggested that attempts such as these to eradicate (or at least make invisible) on-street homelessness reflect the goal of creating seemingly clean, safe, and livable cities that will attract international capital (De Verteuil et al, 2009).

Current geographical discussions of homelessness, then, are often framed around rights to public space and to the city. Yet, this legalistic approach fails to consider the experiences of

18 homeless people themselves. De Verteuil et al. (2009) suggest that as a result of affluent people’s encroachment into city centres, there has been a “radical expansion and disarticulation” (p. 651) of spaces taken up by the homeless, including more homeless people in shelters, in single-room occupancy units (SROs), on streets outside of city centres, and in institutional placement. They suggest that such spaces, and the homeless experience of such spaces, are in need of study, something the current study aims to do. In the following section I introduce some of the sociological research on the experience of homelessness.

The Experience of Homelessness

Since the 1980s more people have fallen into homelessness than ever previously documented, including more women, children, and families (Gaetz et al., 2013). The average life expectancy of a homeless person in B.C. is very low in comparison to the national average of 82 years: between 40 and 49 years (Martin & Walia, 2019). Despite the significant challenges faced by people experiencing homelessness, recent literature is pointing to the need to “recognize the homeless as active, resourceful agents in their social worlds” (Meanwell, 2012, p. 73). Research suggests that homeless people “excel at improvisation, and coping through creative, opportunistic, and varied means” (Lee et al., 2010, p. 507), despite the acts of the homeless sometimes appearing deviant. For example, Koch, Scherer, and Holt, (2018) in their urban ethnography of homeless men who played hockey together, found that although the men threatened one another with violence in the context of the hockey game, it was often in response to a lack of “alternative recourses for survival” (Koch et al., 2018, p. 284). In comparison, on the streets, a similar threat of violence could be an adaptive and performative expression (rather than an inherent one). Koch et al. (2018) also found that the men used multiple other strategies to establish a legitimate identity while living on the streets, including the use of humour.

Cloke et al. (2008) studied geographies of performativity and affect in the homeless city, showing that homeless people in Bristol, UK employ numerous strategies for meeting daily needs. They found that people experiencing homelessness also engage in acts or behaviour “not obviously governed by the rationalities of regulation” (p. 259), including spontaneous moments of emotion. While displaying emotion may seem an obvious or even mundane aspect of being human, they suggest it is important to acknowledge these moments because most research focuses only on the logical and rational strategies people experiencing homelessness use to get by, and not on their emotive or creative states. Their approach reflects Michel De Certeau’s

(1984) theorizing about the creative ways that people who are oppressed resist structures of power in their everyday activities. These acts are referred to as ‘tactics’ which, as described by

Cloke et al. (2008), can “overrule the predispositions and assigned meanings of space, transforming an environment for unintended purposes” (p. 244).

Binning and Informal Recycling

Other scholars have studied the ways in which people experiencing homelessness earn money. While formal work is difficult due to many factors, including employment histories, clothing and transportation requirements, Lee et al. (2010) found that many homeless people take to “resource-generating efforts outside the formal economy, including scavenging, panhandling, recycling, bartering, street vending, plasma donation…theft, prostitution, and drug sales” (p.

507).

As previously mentioned, one example of such work common among homeless people in

Vancouver is ‘binning’. A “binner” is defined as “a person who collects redeemable containers and other things from bins to sustain their livelihood and to divert waste from landfills; a dumpster diver” (Binners’ Project, 2018, n.p.). It is not uncommon in Vancouver to see

“binners” or “informal recyclers” in the literature (Wittmer & Parizeau, 2016) riding bikes with large bags of recyclables on their backs, on a trailer, or in a cart. The “Income Sources” section of the Vancouver Homeless Count (2019) lists 10% of over 1000 homeless respondents as generating income from “binning/bottles”.

Extensive literature exists on waste-picking and informal recycling in the Global South.

Gowan (1997, p. 159) notes that “the collection and sale of other people’s trash is a common means of survival” for many informal workers, especially in cities in the Global South where rapid urbanization has led to inconsistent or inadequate waste collection services (Dias, 2016).

Waste pickers are recognized within academic discourses for their contributions to city waste management systems, the environment, the economy, and the state of public space, although their efforts go unnoticed by most city officials (Dias, 2016). Limited studies examine informal recycling practices in the Global North, which is interesting considering the visibility of binners in many cities (Wittmer & Parizeau, 2018, Gowan, 1997). Existing research on informal recycling practices in North America suggests that binners face significant stigma as well as spatial restrictions based on neoliberal conceptions of poverty (e.g., more public spaces do not condone illegitimate acts such as binning). Due to their proximity to solid waste and their status as low-income citizens, informal recyclers have been found to be one of the most “widely excluded and disempowered groups in society” (Wittmer & Parizeau, 2016, p. 95). Yet, Gowan

(1997) found that recyclers embrace their work as a way to prove their worth to society, and

Tremblay (2007) suggested that recyclers should be recognized for their contributions and their practices legitimized.

Informal recycling is one activity that homeless and unstably-housed people might partake in as a way to meet their daily needs amidst challenging circumstances (Meanwell,

2012). This study contributes to the growing body of literature that recognizes the creative ways that homeless individuals carve out space for themselves and contribute to the community while navigating a multitude of challenges. The next section discusses some of the local structural issues exacerbating the complexity of low-income living in Vancouver. It is followed by a discussion of another major challenge: the stigma faced by unstably-housed individuals. This stigma is widespread on account of the ways in which homelessness broadly, and the Downtown

Eastside in particular, is depicted by media and represented in the common imagination in

Vancouver.

Portrayals of Homelessness in Vancouver and the Downtown Eastside

The City of Vancouver (population 675,218) is located on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓ əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) nations, and is “simultaneously celebrated as one of the world’s most beautiful, cosmopolitan, and livable cities, and criticized as the site of Canada’s poorest urban postal code” (Fast &

Cunningham, 2018, p. 237). While home to some of the most affluent people in Canada,

Vancouver also has a large concentration of homeless people. In 2019, homelessness in

Vancouver was higher than ever counted before, at 2,223 people6, up 2% from 20187 (Vancouver

Homeless Count, 2019). Many homeless individuals reside in the DTES, the “poorest urban postal code” site, and of the homeless population counted, 60% had two or more health concerns,

23% were seniors (over age 55), and 76% were men (Vancouver Homeless Count, 2019)8. The

DTES has long been home to Indigenous people, immigrant populations, PWUDs, and those

6 As Gonyea and Melekis (2017) note, homeless counts cannot accurately account for the episodically homeless and invisible homeless populations. 7 Some have suggested that this number has risen significantly since the outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020 (see https://vancouversun.com/news/homeless-count-numbers-collected-pre-isolation-dont-paint-the-real-picture) 8 As previously described, 39% of homeless people counted identified as Indigenous

22 who experience homelessness or housing instability— including people living in SRO hotels and shelters (Lupick, 2017; Parizeau, 2017). The DTES is the site of a variety of social amenities including housing, food, and health care services. It is also known as a community of activists.

Ongoing advocacy continues on issues related to the current overdose crisis, Missing and

Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit People (MMIWG2S), and drug legalisation9 to name only some of the community’s efforts.

At-a-distance governing has left community and non-profit organizations to provide services to DTES residents, marking a neoliberal approach and replacement of the welfare state model (Wittmer & Parizeau, 2016). Two organizations relevant to this study that provide services to homeless cyclists include the Binners’ Project, and United We Can bottle depot. The

Binners’ Project is a non-profit organization employing and centering binners and also working to de-stigmatize binning. One of their initiatives is the sale of recycling hooks for residents to hang bottles on so that binners or recyclers can pick up bottles without having to go through garbage cans, dumpsters or recycling boxes. The United We Can bottle depot was founded in

1995 “by and for informal recyclers” (Wittman & Parizeau, 2016, p. 97), and while in 2014 it moved out of the DTES, it is still located nearby (United We Can, 2020).

History of Downtown Eastside

The history of the DTES is unique and I expand on it here, noting that urban poverty is location-specific and it is important to avoid generalizations (Wacquant, 2008). Nicholas

Blomley (2016) describes the repeated histories of forced displacement in the DTES and the

‘pushing’ out of cultural groups and marginalised people from the DTES:

9 During time of writing the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police called for the decriminalization of simple possession of illicit drugs (see https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/vancouver-news/call-for-decriminalization- of-drugs-an-old-story-in-vancouver-2560511)

…a significant number of the contemporary residents of the Downtown Eastside are [I]ndigenous. Driven from their lands by the expulsion of settler capitalism, many are forced into the urban margins. Japanese-Canadian residents in the Powell Street Nihonmachi neighbourhood were forcibly ‘pushed’ from their homes during the Second World War…African-Canadian residents were expelled from their homes in Hogan’s Alley to make way for a viaduct in the early 1970s, as were residential hotel occupants during the preparation for Vancouver’s Expo World’s Fair in 1986. These historical layers now combine with the current round of ‘pushing’, as developers look to the Downtown Eastside as the next ‘frontier’. Echoing the colonial logics that created the space, a contemporary condo marketer invites urban ‘pioneers’ to colonise ‘undiscovered territory’. (p. 90-91)

When the City of Vancouver was incorporated in 1886, its core was known as the “East

End”. Initially, this was the political, economic, and cultural core of Vancouver (Kimbley &

Canning-Dew, 1987). After the Depression, however, the city’s political and economic core moved westward. The drug trade, which had always occurred in the East End, became more rampant, and eventually the East End became known by its nickname, Skid Row. Skid Row is now known as the Downtown Eastside.

Today, the drug scene continues in the DTES, with open air drug markets offering sales of an extensive range of drugs. Due in combination to the proliferation of illicit fentanyl (an extremely powerful synthetic opioid), and a drug supply repeatedly contaminated with fentanyl and carfentanil (a synthetic opioid more powerful than fentanyl), Vancouver declared an opioid crisis on April 14, 2016. The crisis is ongoing (Collins et al., 2019).

Vancouver implemented the Four Pillar drug approach in 2001, which guides policy related to prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and enforcement (City of Vancouver, 2019).

The DTES is the site of many harm reduction centres that offer options for safer or supervised drug use. These include North America’s first supervised injection site, Insite, as well as overdose prevention sites (informal consumption sites set up in tents or trailers as a response to the overdose crisis), methadone treatment clinics (methadone is a heroin maintenance drug), and

24 heroin prescription trials (Lupick, 2017; Collins et al., 2019). Despite the success of this range of measures, the ongoing criminalization of drugs contributes to risky drug use including PWUD shooting up in alleys to avoid being arrested (Collins et al., 2019) or hiding their drug use from building managers to avoid being evicted (Bardwell, Fleming, Collins, Boyd, & McNeil, 2018).

These practices are risky for a number of reasons, including that people end up using drugs alone, which can lead to fatal accidental overdoses, in large part due to the absence of another person present who could for instance administer naloxone, a drug that neutralizes the overdose.

Housing conditions are intimately related to drug use in the DTES, something I discuss in the following section.

Single Room Occupancy Housing in the Downtown Eastside

The DTES is home to some of the first established neighbourhoods in Vancouver. It is largely comprised of a collection of old hotels, many of which are now single-room-occupancy dwellings (SRO’s). As described by Lupick (2017):

An SRO is a building characterized by small rooms, usually less than 250 square feet with shared bathrooms on each floor. In the early years of the twentieth century, this layout was fine for the lumberjacks for whom these hotels were built. The men stayed for a few days, enjoyed city life, and then returned to British Columbia’s forests, where the booming logging industry was in full swing. By the 1980s, however, most logging jobs were gone and the Downtown Eastside’s SROs were filled with the region’s mentally ill, physically disabled, drug users, and poor (p. 32).

The typically small SRO has shared washrooms and showers but only some have kitchens or even refrigerators (Lupick, 2017). The building conditions of Vancouver SROs vary, and they can be publicly or privately owned. Privately-owned SRO buildings tend to be more dilapidated, less safe, and less clean; as well they may be poorly managed and lacking in harm reduction protocols (Bardwell, Fleming, Collins, Boyd, & McNeil, 2018; Knight et al., 2014).

Despite SROs being referred to as “high-risk housing environments” (Bardwell et al., 2018, p.

13) and SRO inhabitants being described as “unstably housed” (Collins et al., 2019, p. 202),

SROs are one of the only options for low-income and unstably-housed PWUD. While some newer or recently-renovated public (i.e., government-run) SROs tend to be safer, cleaner, and better-managed, fewer of those exist, meaning that, as Bardwell et al., (2018, p. 17) note, “the severity of the housing crisis in Vancouver means that PWUD often live in dire social, structural, and physical environments within SROs that compromise their health”. Even people who have a

‘roof over their head’— and who would not be considered homeless according to the City of

Vancouver’s definition— are often living in dire situations and are accessing resources for homeless people such as methadone clinics and food initiatives.

Policing in the DTES

Wacquant (2008, p. 12) notes that police cannot be ignored in discussions about urban poverty, as they are the “frowning face of the state directly turned toward precarious and marginal categories”. Police are directly involved with DTES community members. Enforcement is the fourth pillar in Vancouver’s drug approach, and the most heavily funded pillar (Rehm,

2006), which means that areas known for their drug activity, such as the DTES, are heavily policed. There has also been an increase in police presence as a result of gentrification in the area

(Collins et al., 2019). In the media, the DTES is often framed as a place so rampant with criminals and drug dealing that it must be heavily policed (Liu & Blomley, 2013). This is a good example of criminalization, a framework that identifies law enforcement as a major part of the

“solution” to social ills. Such a portrayal can result in a political struggle where the

“powerful…criminalize the ones whom they perceive to be a threat” (Barack & Bohm, 1989, as cited in Liu & Blomley, 2013, p. 125).

One place that figured large for participants and is a grey area for policing is the DTES

Street Market. The Street Market began in response to and as a form of resistance to increased ticketing of street vendors in the DTES before the Vancouver 2010 Olympics (Young, 2010).

Ticketing was one of multiple measures taken by the VPD as “city cleansing” efforts ensued in advance of the Olympics (Kennelly, 2015, p. 15). These efforts were aimed at making poverty less visible and making the DTES appear safer to visitors, efforts which ultimately contributed to the advanced marginality of the DTES, and especially its Indigenous population (see Kennelly,

2015 and O’Bonsawin, 2010). The outdoor market operates daily on Hastings Street10, and it is run by the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council (DNC) and the Vancouver Area

Network of Drug Users (VANDU), which are both run by DTES residents. The market has a permit to operate legally and receives a small grant from the City of Vancouver. While most items for sale are scavenged from bins, it is well known that stolen items are also sold there, something the VPD takes measures to prevent but otherwise doesn’t interfere with (Young,

2010; Vancouver’s Best Places, 2020).

Outside of formal resources for DTES residents like the Street Market, Vancouver police have routinely performed “street checks”, where officers stop and interact with people they deem to be suspicious or involved in criminal activity (VPD, 2020). Officers have been criticized for racial profiling and gathering information about people during these checks; these practices are congruent with the wider literature on police checks (Beletsky, 2019). After reports were released in 2018 showing that a disproportionate number of Indigenous and Black people were targets of street checks, the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) formalized their approach to street checks, thereby cutting down occurrences of the checks as of January, 2020 (Crawford,

10The market closed not long after I conducted interviews due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in Vancouver.

2020). During the time of writing Vancouver City Council voted unanimously to abolish street checks (CBC, 2020).

Stanley Woodvine, a homeless contributor to the Georgia Straight newspaper, noted in an article that many activities of homeless people could be seen as “suspicious” by the police: dumpster diving, for instance. He showed that homelessness is likely a key factor in the disproportionate number of Indigenous people stopped by police (Woodvine, 2018). Indeed,

Indigenous people represent 15% of all street checks between 2007-2018 yet only 2.2% of the population of Vancouver (Vancouver Homeless Count, 2019).

As evidenced above, residents of the Downtown Eastside are rarely portrayed in a positive light, as some depictions tend to overemphasize homelessness as an individual (rather than a structural) problem, and DTES residents as not “useful” to society (Belcher & DeForge,

2012). Downtown Eastside residents are often identified only by their deficiencies and have been described as being “disproportionally low-income, marginalized, addicted, and mentally ill” (Liu

& Blomley, 2013, p. 119). Canadian media also depict homeless people as having lower morality than non-homeless (O’Grady et al., 2019).

When the DTES is portrayed in light of medicalization, criminalization, and socialization, it further frames DTES residents as passive entities to whom the medical, criminal, and social powers that be will bestow aid. Homeless people then must find ways through these complex systems if they want to access resources, all while being stigmatized for not “participating” in a capitalist society (Belcher & DeForge, 2012). None of these portrayals acknowledge the day-today strategies and activities that DTES residents have adopted to navigate ongoing structural and personal difficulties.

Negative portrayals of DTES residents reinforce the notion that new conceptualizations of poverty should be grounded in the lived experience of those living in poverty (Lister, 2015).

This study foregrounds the experience of those in poverty by using interviews to highlight the perspectives of homeless cyclists.

Cycling Literature

In this section, I discuss the bicycle as a “rolling signifier” (Hoffman, 2016, p. 6) and I review some literature that questions understandings of bicycling as an indicator of ‘being green’. This background will help to contextualize the final section of the literature review, which details government documents relating to homelessness and to bicycling.

With the rise in numbers of people cycling in Global North cities, cycling scholarship is also growing. Quantitative studies of cycling are abundant in urban planning, transportation, and health-related fields (Mayers & Glover, 2019). However, numerous qualitative studies on cycling have also been conducted, including studies on cycling and environmental movements (Horton,

2006; Green et al., 2012), cyclotourism (Cox, 2008), group cycling (Aldred & Jungnickel, 2012), cycling and fitness technology (Barrie, Waitt, & Brennan-Horley, 2019), cycling as part of the

Sport for Development (SFD) movement (Ardizzi, Wilson, Hayhurst, & Otte, 2020), cycling subcultural groups such as bike couriers (Fincham, 2006; Kidder, 2005), critical mass group rides (Furness, 2010), bicycle justice (Lugo, 2018; Hoffman, 2016; Golub et al., 2016), and experiences of cycling among different demographics including homeless youth (Crawford et al.,

2012) senior citizens (Winters, Sims-Gould, Franke, & Mckay, 2015) and immigrants (Law &

Karnilowicz, 2015; Lee et al., 2016).

Melody Hoffman (2016), in her book on bicycle advocacy, discusses the bicycle using the concept of a “rolling signifier” (p. 6), borrowing from Stuart Hall’s floating signifier theory.

She shows that the bicycle has certain varying cultural understandings attached to it, and that these understandings appear “natural” to those in power positions, obscuring other understandings of bicycling. One common understanding of cycling in the literature is its affiliation with environmentalism as a result of cycling being emission-free. Horton (2006) suggests that the bicycle is both practical and symbolic in the environmental movement, because it is an “iconic object of green discourse” (p. 42) as well as a tool for mobilizing a green lifestyle.

One of the reasons cycling is celebrated for being green is because cycling is often discussed in opposition to automobile use and as an alternative form of transportation. The automobile has been the dominant mode of transportation in Canada since the 1920s (Davies,

1989). Some scholars have suggested that the rise of bicycle ridership may indicate the first crack forming in the web of car-dominated automobility (Green et al., 2012). Resistance to the car may be appearing with the growing political consensus that oil-dependent forms of transport are unviable in the long-term. For example, Green et al. (2012) found in their study of the moral economy of cycling that “car travel was universally described [by Londoners] as being not only dysfunctional but as inherently morally dubious” (p. 277), suggesting a normative shift towards factoring in environmental concerns when selecting a mode of transport, at least in one urban setting. This shift, however, leaves out those for whom the bicycle is not an alternative, but is instead their main option for transport. For people who cannot afford to own a car, bicycle use is not necessarily a choice made out of a commitment to being green, but the only way to get around (Golub et al., 2016).

When cycling is framed as a green alternative to car use, the cyclist is also framed in a certain way. Some scholars have suggested that the cyclist can now be constructed as a moral citizen, a citizen who is not only ecologically responsible, but who transports themselves without

30 dependence on others, who is engaged in an act of health maintenance, who obviously cares about their physical wellbeing, who has extensive knowledge of the city’s layout, and who travels the city with a keen sense of alertness and assertiveness on the road (Aldred, 2010; Green et al., 2012). Because cycling is presumed to demand this set of characteristics, the cyclist can be constructed as the ultimate moral citizen.

Despite these green ideals objectified through cycling, constructing the cyclist as a moral citizen and the bicycle as a green alternative to the car excludes, as we have seen, many cyclists who do not fall into these categories. This depiction of cycling can act as a barrier to others who are not accurately identified by these descriptors, and can even prevent them from engaging in cycling. Law and Karnilowicz (2015) provide an example of some of these barriers in their study of new immigrants who had recently moved to Melbourne, Australia from Japan, Vietnam, Sri

Lanka, Eritrea, South Sudan, and Saudi Arabia. The new immigrants’ perceptions of Australian cyclists were that they were “exclusively elitist, sporty, professional, and green” (p. 303). The benefits of cycling were thus seen to be reserved for “dominant and elitist white Australians” (p.

306). Constructing cycling as a morally superior activity has the potential to render invisible those cyclists who do not fit the “sporty, green, elitist” bill, and in the study noted above, prevented those interested in cycling from taking it up.

Similarly, Green et al. (2012) suggest that cycling is not as easy as simply picking up a bike and rolling away; on the contrary, it involves a great many abilities:

To cycle autonomously…involves the coordination of a large number of skills, technologies, and systems. The technologies of the bike itself and its adaptation to the particular human rider, the road system, the rules for using this system, where to place the bike when it is not being ridden, how to clothe the travelling body and then the arrived body… (p. 283).

Constructing the cyclist as a ‘moral citizen’ is potentially detrimental to people who are unable to cycle, and fails to take into account the variety of skills necessary to cycle – skills which can take time, money, knowledge (of the bike itself, of geography, of the rules of the road, of safety measures), and cultural capital to hone. Therefore, suggesting that cycling is a viable option for all and attaching moral worth to cycling potentially leaves out many people who do not fit into what might accurately be called hegemonic norms.

Additionally, many people already cycling don’t fit into the dominant ‘green’ understandings of bicycling. Golub et al. (2016) note that in the U.S., white, upwardly mobile people are not the majority of bicyclists, although they are the most visible. Their visibility is partly a result of their interests being prioritized in transportation planning. Golub et al. (2016, p.

6) explain that white, upwardly mobile people are “a desirable group to attract to gentrified urban cores, which is why real-estate marketers, city boosters, policymakers, and bicycle advocates continue to focus on their preferences”. Cycling infrastructure, then, tends to go along with gentrification. Similarly, Lugo (2018) suggests that bicycle design is part of market driven urban development which happens “through lobbying elected officials and planning agencies to adopt bicycle infrastructure” (p. 15). Elected officials listen to those with enough time and privilege to advocate for their preferred location for bike lanes. Flanagan, Lachapelle, & El-Geneidy (2016) found that cycling infrastructure in Portland and Chicago was built in marginalized communities only when privileged populations were present. Hoffman (2016, p. 89) found that the installation of bike lanes in a gentrifying area in Portland “did not speak to the transportation needs of longtime residents”. For these residents, bike lanes signified a shift in power resulting in the demands of the new residents being privileged over the voices of the established community.

When the bicycle is seen only as a green transportation option, and bicycle infrastructure is seen as wholly positive, other important perspectives are obscured. Hoffman (2013) explains how pervasive dominant ‘green’ understandings of cycling are:

A lot of bicycle advocates in urban spaces understand the bicycle to be a superior mode of transportation due to its lack of reliance on oil and thus demand street alterations to make room for them (i.e., bicycle lanes). Therefore, it is a challenge to question the status quo about who a bicyclist is and what they need to ride in urban spaces. …bicycle advocates who push the dominant, cultural understanding of bicycling have a hard time grappling with community members who question this understanding. (p. 6).

Hoffman (2013) calls for bicycle advocates to “give up on their naturalized understandings of urban bicycling and instead listen to what other groups of people understand bicycles to mean” (p. 8). This thesis study is based around a questioning of the naturalized understanding of bicycling in Vancouver as a green alternative to motorized transportation, among other things, and will ask what homeless and unstably-housed cyclists understand bicycles to mean in their lives.

With this background, I now shift to a discussion of some examples of the naturalized understandings of bicycling put forth in documents by the City of Vancouver. I will discuss the

Walking and Cycling Reports of 2016 and 2017 in comparison to the Government of British

Columbia’s Poverty Reduction Strategy, and will highlight the different ways poverty and active transport are discussed in each.

Government Documents in British Columbia

In an effort to explore the relationship between bicycling and homelessness in

Vancouver, I turned to Government of British Columbia and City of Vancouver documents regarding poverty and active transportation. The City of Vancouver’s Walking and Cycling

Report Cards (2016 & 2017) provide statistics relating to walking, cycling, bike share, and car

33 share, and to the ways that these methods of transportation are growing in Vancouver. The reports also show targets for what future numbers might look like regarding walking and cycling.

In my review of these documents, I compared these reports to “TogetherBC”, British

Columbia’s Poverty Reduction Strategy (2019), which was released in March, 2019, and the preliminary report from the committee that developed the Strategy, titled “What We Heard

About Poverty in BC”. Transportation is one aspect discussed in the documents as an element of poverty reduction, among other methods for reducing poverty, and poverty-reduction targets for

2024. Below I discuss my assessment of these documents, and the extent to which poverty and homelessness were discussed in relation to transportation and cycling.

City of Vancouver Walking and Cycling Report Cards 2016 & 2017

In the walking and cycling reports, it was clear that the City of Vancouver celebrates when people choose to use “sustainable modes” of transport rather than the implied alternative of driving their cars (Walking and Cycling Report 2016, p. 2). As previously mentioned, the 2016 report suggested that the City aims for “Vancouver residents to see walking and cycling as convenient, fun, and normal ways to get around every day” (p. 36), suggesting that people have a range of transportation choices. In the future goals section of the 2017 report, the goals for the year 2040 included Vancouver having a:

smart and efficient transportation system that supports a thriving economy while increasing affordability; healthy citizens who are mobile in a safe, accessible, and vibrant city; and an enhanced natural environment that ensures a healthy future for people and the planet. (Walking and Cycling Report, 2017, p.2)

In connecting cycling to a thriving economy, healthy citizens, and environmental consciousness, the report explicitly associates cycling to larger goals for the city. The words “poverty” and

“homeless” are not mentioned in either the 2016 or the 2017 reports. As background for my proposed study, it also seems pertinent – and curious - that poverty is not included in reports

34 about active transportation. It would seem that those living in poverty are excluded from the

City’s vision of what it means to partake in active transportation.

What We Heard About Poverty in BC (2018)

“What We Heard About Poverty in BC” is a 62-page document that is the culmination of five months of community meetings with people living in poverty across the province of British

Columbia. The community meetings centered around two main questions: “What are the issues facing you and people living in poverty right now?” and “What would address these issues and help you and people out of poverty?”

The BC Government’s survey leading up to the Poverty Reduction Strategy focused on very different themes from those in the Walking and Cycling Reports. Homelessness was addressed in this document, as the following quote suggests:

“It’s almost like homelessness is a crime”… people told us they had been homeless for years. They spoke about the incredible prejudice they faced every day and the barriers between them and a better life. They spoke about how once they became homeless, it was harder to find a home and harder to find and keep work, so they could get out of homelessness (What We Heard About Poverty in BC, p. 23).

The quote conveys that the cycle of poverty is immensely stigmatizing and immensely difficult to exit. In this context it is reasonable to see how people might resort to shadow work such as binning in order to make some income, and how riding a bicycle for binning work would likely be first and foremost a necessity, ahead of being a “fun choice” (as the Walking and Cycling

Reports suggest).

A section of the document also addresses transportation. The word “transportation” was used twenty times, but cycling was not mentioned once – suggesting that transportation in this context means transit, such as buses, SkyTrain, handyDART, etc. (which were mentioned

35 multiple times), and not active transportation, such as walking or cycling. The absence of any mention of cycling, when it is widely known that binners use a bicycle, is surprising.

Often, transportation was listed as an important monetary choice that people make. For example, people would have to choose between buying groceries, paying the electricity bill, or using money for transportation, and often transportation would be cut first, leaving people effectively isolated in their homes (p. 42). Transportation was also discussed in terms of its rising costs, which generally does not apply to certain self-propelled forms of transportation.

Overall, then, in the “What We Heard About Poverty” report, transportation was shown to be vital to peoples’ abilities to participate in work, access groceries, and be an active member of the community – but, it was often the first to be cut when people had to choose between options. As a means to an end, not an end in itself, cutting transportation meant that people became limited in their ability to get out into their communities, and, importantly, to access services.

Together BC: British Columbia’s Poverty Reduction Strategy

BC’s Poverty Reduction Strategy emerged from the “What We Heard About Poverty in

BC” preliminary report, which is the final document I examined for this review. Transportation was mentioned 13 times in the 48-page document, and active transportation was mentioned once.

Neither walking nor cycling were explicitly mentioned. Many instances of the word

“transportation” were used to connote “transit”, as was the case in the preliminary report discussed above. Transportation investments are listed under “Investing in Social Inclusion”, one of the six pillars of the document.11

11 The other five are Making Housing more Affordable; Supporting Families, Children, and Youth; Expanding Access to Education and Training; More Opportunities, More Jobs; and Improving Affordability (TogetherBC, 2019).

Under “Investing in Social Inclusion”, the affordable transportation section is quoted below:

In partnership with the federal government, B.C. is investing in new transit, including the new Broadway subway, upgrades to Expo and Millennium line infrastructure, and new and retrofitted buses in communities throughout the province. In addition, Budget 2019 includes an additional $21 million over three years to improve bus service in over 30 B.C. communities, including improvements to handyDART for both rural and urban communities. And it provides $6 million for active transportation investments over three years (TogetherBC, 2019, p. 35).

It is notable that $6 million of the budget will be allotted to active transport. Interestingly, no explanation is made regarding how or why active transportation might be tied to poverty reduction, unlike other forms of transit that link services with social needs (e.g., the document goes into detail about how handyDART is valuable for people living with disabilities). Active transportation is listed last in the section, and it is allocated the least funding, yet its inclusion at all is noteworthy, especially considering active transportation was not included in the preliminary report.

The Strategy has a subsection on homelessness, including the announcement of an

Office of Homeless Coordination, which aims to “move beyond reactive emergency responses to homelessness and towards a coordinated, effective approach that prevents people from becoming homeless in the first place” (p. 29). Detail on these approaches is not offered.

Overall, these documents suggest that the Government of BC is investing in active transportation as an element of poverty reduction, but those in poverty are not necessarily included in the City of Vancouver’s vision of walking and cycling. Although many homeless people use a bicycle as a necessity, the Vancouver vision of bicycling is one tied to robust health, economic growth, and environmental awareness, and has little room for people who do not ride

37 with these same goals in mind. Melody Hoffman (2016) states that “bicycling for leisure and for political reasons is still a privileged use of the bicycle, one reserved primarily for the middle to upper class. People who fall outside of this demographic are more likely to take up the bicycle as a necessity” (p. 13). It would seem, according to the reviewed documents, that the BC

Government does not see people who take up the bicycle as a necessity as part of the local cycling narrative. However, by allotting money to active transportation and including active transport in the Poverty Reduction Strategy, the provincial government appears to be recognizing people who are captive to active transportation.

Conclusion of Literature Review

Homelessness is a major concern in Vancouver, where, as we have seen, the homeless population is often perceived in ways that do not intersect with their own lived experience. That is, the media, the public, and city decision makers may be prone to medicalizing, criminalizing, and socializing homeless people, with the result that homeless voices are neither sought nor heard. Several structural factors that contribute to homelessness require attention, including further access to affordable housing in a context of huge income inequality, and the recognition that discrimination can create major pathways into homelessness.

As I have highlighted, one aspect of the homeless experience for some people relates to cycling, and it is already known that homeless people use cycling in a variety of ways, including for their livelihood and for independence. Cycling has been tied to “sustainability” in Vancouver, and cycling has become a mode of transportation associated with moral worth, despite the many problems posed by this naturalized and binary understanding of the activity. However, the experience of people living in poverty should be at the forefront of discussions around poverty, and around cycling as an activity that occurs in poverty.

The study I conducted for this thesis, that I discuss in further detail in the sections that appear below, includes attempts to illuminate the experiences of homeless people, and to consider these experiences in relation to the current policies and dominant discourses around cycling in Vancouver and beyond.

CHAPTER TWO: METHODS

In this section I discuss the research methods I used to conduct the study, and my justifications for using these methods. I conducted individual semi-structured interviews alongside five homeless or unstably-housed male cyclists. For three of the interviews, the participant and I engaged in a ride-along interview (Wegerif, 2019). Another interview was a go- along interview (Carpiano, 2009), and the final interview was a sit-down interview (Smith &

Sparkes, 2016). All participants provided verbal informed consent and were compensated $40 honoraria. All interviews took place in or near the Downtown Eastside. I also spent ~30 hours in the field cycling to all ten of the Encorp Pacific Return-It recycling centres in Vancouver12, and cycling the streets of Vancouver, primarily in areas I suspected homeless and unstably-housed cyclists might ride, such as in alleyways instead of streets, in the Downtown Eastside, and in places I had seen homeless cyclists before. Data collection lasted one month, from January 28th,

2020 to February 29th, 2020.

I attempted to gain access to participants in multiple ways. I volunteer at a community bike shop, and hoped to encounter potential participants there. While this community bike shop is a place referred to by multiple participants in the interviews, I did not meet any participants while I was volunteering there (potentially due to the fact that I preferred to volunteer during the

Women, Genderqueer, and Transgender evenings, where I feel more comfortable as a woman in a bike mechanic environment. All participants I interviewed were male, so they would not have been at the shop on those evenings). I attempted to contact one known binner named Stanley

Woodvine, who is a contributor to the Georgia Straight. He did not respond to my emails. I

12 Encorp Pacific is a “federally incorporated, not-for-profit, product stewardship corporation with beverage container management in British Columbia as our core business” (https://www.return-it.ca/about/). They run every major bottle depot in Vancouver. I also visited a few smaller independent recycling centres.

40 successfully connected with one participant through a contact at Mobi, a bike share system in

Vancouver and where I had formerly worked. I also successfully scheduled six interviews through the Binner’s Project, a non-profit agency that employs binners, but those interviews were cancelled due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in Vancouver. In the end, I met four participants during my bike rides in Vancouver, and I set up one interview through the contact at

Mobi. I suggested that participants contact others using the snowball sampling method, in which participants “propose other participants who have had the experience or characteristics relevant to the research” (Bryman, 2015, p. 415) and one participant followed up on this, but I was unable to confirm that the person was indeed a cyclist— it seemed that perhaps the participant simply wanted to ‘hang out’ again, this time with his friend.

In the following sections I discuss some background information related to doing research in the Downtown Eastside, I expand on my research methods of ride-along and go- along interviews, I discuss thematic analysis, and I review researcher reflexivity.

Background on Conducting Research in the Downtown Eastside

Ethical considerations are of central importance to all research, but are potentially more important when studies involve vulnerable groups (Palmer, 2016), such as in the study I carried out. I consider here my multiple methodological responsibilities to participants in my study

(Palmer, 2016; Bryman, 2015) where participants were experiencing multiple forms of vulnerability and stigmatization: among these housing instability, drug use, unemployment, trauma, chronic illness, mental illness and more (Palmer, 2016). The Indigenous participant had likely also endured broad social disadvantage within the structural injustices imposed by settler- colonialism over the past several hundred years (Martin & Walia, 2019).

Recognizing that the power dynamic inherent in many research settings may be exacerbated when interviewing persons from vulnerable groups, and endeavouring to be attentive to the specific needs of the DTES community, I attempted to take measures to ensure the research would be an ethical and fruitful experience for participants. I was guided by “Research

101: A Manifesto for Ethical Research in the Downtown Eastside” (hereafter referred to as

Research 101), a collaborative document released in 2018 and compiled by individuals representing a wide variety of organizations in the DTES as well as university-based researchers.

Research 101 addresses past experiences with the heavily-researched DTES community, the specific context of the DTES as a site for research, and community expectations for more ethical research practice going forward. Following Research 101, measures I took to attempt to ensure ethical research included compensating participants in cash, practicing effective listening skills, communicating empathy by being willing to hear stories that did not necessarily directly relate to the research topic, meeting participants in environments that they were familiar with, and perhaps most importantly, undertaking an interview method that allowed participants decision- making control and leadership: ride-along interviews. In the following section I discuss semi- structured interviews before expanding on the ride-along interview approach.

Semi-Structured Individual Interviews

This research employed in-depth semi-structured mobile interviews, that is, interviews seeking to:

create a conversation that invites the participant(s) to tell stories, accounts, reports and/or descriptions about their perspectives, insights, experiences, feelings, emotions and/or behaviors in relation to the research question(s) (Smith & Sparkes, 2016, p. 104).

While I had initially planned to conduct twelve interviews, UBC called for the suspension of all research activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic in British Columbia in March, 2020. I had

42 conducted five interviews at that time, and these five interviews became my entire sample.

Fortunately, most interviews were lengthy and detailed, providing a great deal of qualitative data.

Three interviews took place outdoors and on the move, using the ride-along interview method

(Wegerif, 2019), discussed later. One interview took place at an outdoor location, a method known as a go-along (Carpiano, 2009), and one interview took place inside a McDonald’s restaurant at the request of the participant (Hurd Clarke, 2003). Interviews were recorded using two methods: an iPhone recorder, and an app that recorded a call between two phones (with both the participant and I wearing headphones so as to be hands-free while riding our bikes).

Interview length ranged from 34 minutes to 2 hours and 21 minutes. The duration varied based on the participant’s energy level and willingness to share information, and on each recycler’s keenness to show me their route and methods. Since these interviews took place in the field, and because I was prepared for participants to expand on topics as they wished, I did not have my interview guide in front of me during interviews. Before each interview I studied the interview guide (see Appendix A), but not every question was asked during every interview.

My initial sample included people experiencing homelessness who use a bike. While it was difficult to determine participants’ housing status, and frankly awkward to ask about their housing upon having just met them, I changed my sample description to include people who fall under the broader term of “unstably-housed” (Collins et al., 2019, p. 202). Participants’ housing situations could also be defined as episodically homeless (Lee et al., 2010), as all of the men I interviewed had experienced homelessness in one or more instances in their lives. They had also circled in and out of other institutional spaces of homelessness over the course of their lives, such as jails, hospitals, recovery centres, and SROs (De Verteuil, 2009). Only one participant was homeless during the time of interviewing. The four other participants lived in different

SROs in the Downtown Eastside. All participants used the bicycle as their main form of transportation, for leisure, for mobility, and/or for their livelihood.

The five interviews I conducted yielded rich data about participants that allowed me to address my research questions. To my knowledge, homeless cyclists have only been researched by Crawford et al. (2012) who focused on the health benefits of cycling for homeless youth, so five interviews focusing on the lives of homeless and unstably-housed cyclists were sufficient to attain a “new and intimate awareness and understanding about unfamiliar… aspects of human life” (Smith & Sparkes, 2016, p. 116). Instead of garnering more superficial insights into the lives of a larger number of unstably-housed cyclists in Vancouver, I unearthed in-depth accounts of particular aspects of their day-to-day experience. Aware that men make up 76% of homeless people counted in Vancouver (Vancouver Homeless Count, 2019), I aimed to recruit both men and women, but was able to interview only male participants. One participant identified as

Indigenous, which is consistent with data that 39% of homeless individuals identify as

Indigenous in the Downtown Eastside (Vancouver Homeless Count, 2019). This participant was living on the streets at the time of the interview.

Prior to each interview, I read aloud to participants the letter of informed consent and told them I would give them an hour to respond. All of them responded right away with verbal consent. The interview began soon after. I quickly discerned what type of interview each participant was comfortable with. I had expected that some participants would be binners or informal recyclers, so I was aware that they might be protective of and even secretive about their

“trap lines”, or the routes they take to collect cans (Binners Project, 2018). So, I was prepared. If they were unwilling to ride with me while binning, I would propose other options, including a ride around the neighbourhood (that would not involve cycling by places on their trap line), or a

“tour” of the set-up of their bike, which would not involve cycling, but instead discussion about their bike. Both of these alternative options would allow for insight into different meanings created by participants about cycling, and bicycles. A variation on these options occurred when I stood with one participant in an alley while he binned, and we discussed cycling and informal recycling, but did not actually ride our bikes together. Another participant requested we conduct the interview at a McDonalds restaurant, and a third interview concluded at a McDonalds restaurant, after we had ridden together for some time.

Mobile Methods: Ride-Along and Go-Along Interviews

Qualitative researchers have used a variety of methods outside of traditional face-to-face interviewing techniques (Smith & Sparkes, 2016). I used mobile interviews, in which the researcher and interviewee move through space together. In this case, mobile interviews took the form of ride-along and go-along interviews. The go-along interview involves participant and researcher partaking in an activity together (Carpiano, 2009), whereas the ride-along interview’s goal is “addressing transport in qualitative research” (Wegerif, 2019, p. 122). These methods fuse field observations and interviews (Carpiano, 2009). Others have used these methods to study experiences of neighbourhoods (Carpiano, 2009), leisure activities (Burns, Gallant, Fenton,

White, and Hamilton-Hinch, 2020), transportation (Wegerif, 2019), policing (Rios, Prieto, &

Ibarra, 2020), and bicycling (Kidder, 2005; Spinney, 2011).

My focus was on the bicycle, bicycling, and activities associated with bicycling, so I was interested in both the activity (i.e., go-along) and the experience of moving through place (i.e., ride-along), as well as the object of the bicycle itself. Both the ride along and the go-along forms of the mobile interview were particularly effective because they can “provide embodied and

45 multisensory data…, stimulate memories… [and] provide contextual understandings of behaviour, emotion, and feeling” (Smith & Sparkes, 2016, p.106).

Overall, ride-along and go-along methods provided excellent means of combining interviewing and participant observation, and for getting real-time insight into the activities carried out by informal recyclers and cyclists, something that would be difficult to convey in a face-to-face interview. These methods allowed me to experience the embodied aspects of recycling, and to learn by doing, which for me, as a kinaesthetic learner, was intuitive. In riding alongside participants I did not have to ask much: the participant could essentially go about his day while explaining his daily life involving a bike. The ride-along probably saved a great deal of awkward explaining of binning methods, which instead I observed and experienced with ease.

Burns et al. (2020) explain,

the go-along interview offers leisure scholars the opportunity to gain access to spaces and experiences in real-time that would otherwise require retrospective description by the participant… Similarly, it is the ability to co-participate that affords the participant greater control in drawing the researchers’ attention to what they identify as important or meaningful that might otherwise go unsaid (p. 52)

Additionally, the ride-along method provided key insight into participants’ specific uses of their bicycles, which also gave me a sense of the meanings that they associate with bicycles and cycling. Also, I was able to observe participants’ bicycles in detail and notice any unique accessories. Observing, for example, how the trailers are attached, how the cyclists manage weight, and how they stack and balance their belongings, was pertinent to recognizing the differing needs of homeless cyclists and the potential barriers these cyclists may encounter. As my results section suggests, learning about where participants go on their bicycles also allowed me to learn about an entire underground economy of bicycle-related activities.

Go-along interviews allow for rapport-building moments (Carpiano, 2009). In particular, it was easy for me to show participants that I was a good cyclist, something I sensed would be important to them. Were we doing a sit-down interview, participants would have to rely on my word; instead, they could see that I was a proficient cyclist (except for Brent, who I suppose had to rely on my word). As a woman I was especially alert to male assumptions that I am an unskilled cyclist, having encountered many such experiences. However, I verbally explained to participants that I am trained and employed as a bike mechanic, since I could not display my bike mechanic skills.

Mobile interviewing methods are highly flexible (Carpiano, 2009). Sarah Pink discusses how strategies for doing fieldwork are shaped by participants’ circumstances, perceptions, and expectations of the research, and that “we have to construct our theories of how to do fieldwork in the field” (Josephides, 1997, as cited in Pink, 2007, p. 7, my italics). I had to change plans on the fly when it became evident that deviating from my plan was best, and mobile interviews allowed for this. The two instances in which participants chose a sit-down interview (or to conclude the interview at a McDonalds restaurant) were for practical reasons. I met one participant after he had concluded his day of binning; he was tired and hungry. It was also raining outside. We biked together for approximately one kilometre before locking our bikes together and going into a McDonald’s restaurant. He was eager to have a meal paid for. He had recently been binning, was quite weary and wanted to sit. I met another participant outside the same McDonald’s, and when I read him the letter of consent, he stated that he would prefer to sit down and have a bite to eat. Again, it was raining (interviews took place during the winter months in Vancouver, a city known for its plentiful rainfall).

Every participant indicated interest in being interviewed again, something that ultimately was not included in my methods due to restrictions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and to thesis-related time restrictions, but I continue to be interested in pursuing this option. All participants said they had cell phones at the time of interview, though many of them mentioned the precarity of cell phone ownership. At the end of each interview I asked participants if I had missed anything in my questions or if there was anything they wished to discuss further. Since this was my “first crack” at interviewing people, I felt that my interviewing skills improved with each interview, but I feel that more interview training and practice will be necessary for future research.

Critiques of Ride-Along Interviews

While I found ride-along interviews to be effective overall, there was one instance where

I noted that I may have put the participant in an awkward position. Burns et al. (2020) explain that “the go-along interview may be seen as demanding of participants because they are asked to allow the researcher to enter into and play a role in their lives, often interacting in places and with people who are significant to them” (p. 61). While participants communicated that they were happy to be part of a research project, in one instance in particular, when a building manager came by when a participant was showing me a building that he recycles in, I was acutely aware that I was getting an insider look into the recycling area of a large building— an area that, perhaps, was not meant to be public or on display to outsiders. In that moment, I hoped that the participant would not feel that by showing the space to me, he was violating a relationship with the building manager that he had established over the course of many years.

The building manager acknowledged us both, however, and seemed a bit more miffed about the

48 backlog of recycling (the participant had been ill the previous few days), than about the fact that

I was present.

Field Notes

Directly following each interview, I voice-recorded brief field notes and recounted my initial reflections on the interview (Bryman, 2015). When I returned to my home, I voice recorded or wrote down extensive field notes, incorporating vivid description of dialogue, movement, place, and mood (Emerson, Fretz & Shaw, 2011). Since I was cycling with participants, post-ride field notes were crucial for capturing the moments, conversation, or body language cues that occurred while riding. For example, field notes provided important information about places that participants referenced or pointed to, or details about participants’ riding styles and how they moved through the streets. Sit down interviews may not have fully captured these spontaneous details. I also did a simple sketch of participants which helped to visually recount what the participant looked like and what cycling accessories they were sporting, as well as what their bicycles, trailers, and carts looked like and how they were set up. I also reflected on my own thoughts and feelings about each interview, my immediate reaction to what was said, and I summarized my own feelings about my positionality (Bryman, 2015;

Pachego-Vega, 2019).

Taking primarily voice-recorded fieldnotes (i.e., speaking into my phone and recording a voice note) proved highly effective, because I could record the voice note at any point— even while riding a bike. I reflected on previous interviews as I was about to leave for another interview, as this example suggests:

Heading out again but it just popped into my head right now that the bike is a commodity that isn’t necessarily around for a long time, so all the three people I’ve talked to so far have had multiple bikes stolen, like the bike had been stolen but whatever, you could get a new one, so bikes come and go, and I think that’s a bit different than how I think of it.

Another reflection I noted in my field notes is the difference between the homeless cyclists’ riding territory and my own. While cycling around Vancouver to conduct this study, I noticed the places I travelled to were less accessible by bike than the places I tend to cycle in my everyday life (e.g., to UBC, to bars or restaurants, to the homes of various friends). When I was attempting to cycle as one of my participants would, I found myself cycling on the sidewalk much more than usual so as to avoid riding on some of Vancouver’s highest car-traffic streets. I also used my mountain bike instead of my road bike because I was biking on terrain rougher than that on my usual routes. I also cycled on unfamiliar non-paved alleys and back roads, something surprising given the prevalence of paved roads in Vancouver.

Transcription and Data Analysis

Upon completion of data collection, I transcribed the interviews verbatim (Bryman,

2015), which also allowed me to become familiar with the data. The flexibility of mobile interviews means that participants have significant decision-making power, which in turn meant that participants took me to locations of their choice. Some of these places had louder background noise then others, so that at times a phrase or two was muffled. However, being unable to hear a few words was a small price to pay for the rich communication of the mobile interview.

When I had finished transcription, I analyzed the data using thematic analysis, a method that can help researchers elicit the identification of patterns of meaning in data (Braun, Clarke &

Weate, 2016). Thematic analysis can be used within different theoretical frameworks (Braun &

Clarke, 2006), including critical interpretivism. It is a “method that works both to reflect reality and to unpick or unravel the surface of ‘reality’” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 81), because there is room for both acknowledging the “ways individuals make meaning of their experience, and, in

50 turn, the ways the broader social context impinges on those meanings” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p.

81). While computer programs such as NVivo exist for conducting thematic analysis, I opted to do analysis by hand due to my small sample size and because I had used NVivo before, but had never coded by hand, and I wanted to try the hand-coding option.

Semantic and latent coding can help to decipher layers of meaning in data. After familiarizing myself with the material through transcription and reading and re-reading the data,

I began to generate codes. Semantic coding refers to creating codes based on what is explicitly expressed in the interviews, and latent coding refers to analyzing the data based on more implicit meanings that might underlie what participants express (Braun, Clarke & Weate, 2016). I used both methods, and generally speaking I coded the data once using primarily semantic coding, and then I coded portions of the data a second time, focusing on latent meanings. The second time I coded data pertaining to cycling and living in poverty generally (some data was not coded a second time, e.g., one participant told a lengthy story about a fishing trip in his youth that was interesting but not directly related to my research questions). Most quotations received more than one code, as they corresponded to multiple analytical functions (Castellanos, 2018). For example, some quotations had descriptive elements and also referred to social relationships (e.g., in this case the codes might have been titled “employment histories” and “relationships with professionals”).

I developed codes based on important elements driven by my research questions, and on patterns that emerged from the data (Braun & Clarke, 2006). For example, I was not expecting that I would have multiple codes related to (the eventual theme of) health and bicycling. Next, I developed themes by sorting the codes. I labeled potential themes by highlighting them on the transcripts themselves using different colours, line patterns, and roman numerals (Rosenblatt &

Weiling, 2018). I then reviewed, refined, and named the themes. The process of familiarization, coding, developing themes, and refining themes occurred multiple times. In this sense, developing themes is an iterative approach, in which data and analysis inform each other

(Bryman, 2015).

I then ensured that the collated data formed a pattern that related to each theme, and that each theme related to the broader data set and research questions (Braun & Clarke, 2006). In doing this I made an outline of a results section, which included the three main themes, subthemes, key data points, and research questions. Following this process, I wrote up my findings, using vivid examples and an analytic narrative that makes an argument (Braun &

Clarke, 2006), attempting to “represent experiences while reflecting on broader social, political, ideological context” (Palmer, 2016, p. 325).

Reflexivity

Reflexivity refers to “a researcher’s critical self-awareness of personal values, beliefs, and preferences, where these have originated from, and why” (Schinke & Blodgett, 2016, p. 89).

The positionality of the researcher is central to “ethics at every step” (Palmer, 2016, p. 316). As a researcher, it was and continues to be important for me to reflect on my own experiences, history, and social position, recognizing that as a young, white, cis-gendered female graduate student who has not experienced nor been at risk for extreme poverty or homelessness, my positionality affected “the interactions, relationships and observations” that I was able to access with participants and the interpretation of the interview data (Thorpe & Olive, 2016, p. 133). In sum, I recognized that my values, beliefs, and ideological position would affect my interactions and observations in the field, as well as what elements I included or did not include in analysis

(Pachego-Vega, 2019).

I kept a research diary and made personal reflections on interviews and time in the field, ensuring that I considered how my positionality influenced the interactions and fieldwork. A few instances are worth recounting here. Due to the flexible nature of mobile interviews, they felt quite informal. Interviews were also fairly long and involved physical exertion (i.e., bike riding), so most involved a snack or drink. On more than one occasion, participants would offer to buy me a beverage, even though I had mentioned I had university funding to cover beverage costs.

These, I reflected, were instances where the hetero-normative patriarchal culture of the Global

North prevailed; the older men who I was interviewing offered to pay for a drink for me, a younger person, and a woman.

Thorpe & Olive (2016) note that participant observation can result in the researcher facing ethical dilemmas. For one, I observed illegal recycling activities taking place13, as well as activities related to illicit drug use. The illegality of such activities did not impede my research, however, as I also bore in mind Thorpe and Olive’s (2016) comment about the importance of conducting “observations with a clear understanding of one’s researcher identity, politics and ethics, and relationships to the culture and place of fieldwork” (p. 135). Having grown up in East

Vancouver, I have observed recyclers at work many times, and I’ve long known that the DTES is a neighbourhood, and not, as media tend to depict, a wholly scary place. This local connection allowed me to be less concerned with illegal activities related to recycling and drugs, perhaps, than if I did not have a more intimate knowledge of Vancouver. Having said that, during all of the interviews I was distinctly aware of expansive gaps in my knowledge of living in poverty.

After the first interview, for example, I realized I needed to read more about street drug lingo.

13 Recyclers operating within Vancouver are subject to the British Columbia Safe Streets Act (2004) and Solid Waste By-Law No. 8417 (2001), which explicitly prohibits the removal of “(a) any recyclable material from the premises of that owner or occupier, or (b) any recyclable material from the blue box recycling container or recycling cart”.

Some participants were more overt about drug use than others. Near the end of an interview, one participant stopped riding to search a small drug bag he found on the street. He later picked up a lighter off the ground. These events brought considerable self-reflection.

Power relations about the bicycle itself were also evident in interviews. As a bike mechanic, cyclist, and cycling enthusiast, I consider myself to have insider access to a number of forms of cycling culture, which I hoped would serve as a point of connection with participants.

However, I also kept in mind that my experiences of cycling have been for commuting, training for sport, or leisure purposes. Cycling has always been one choice out of a variety of transportation options for me, and cycling has generally been a positive aspect of my life. I also kept in mind a point made by Golub et al. (2016, p. 6), who suggest that one challenge facing bicycle enthusiasts who are also researchers is confronting our own personal convictions about bicycling, car use, and sustainability, which sometimes leads us14 to appear as “self-righteous crusaders rather than collaborators in equitable social change”.

With that said, Burns et al. (2020) discuss one of the paradoxes related to transportation and research: “At the end of our interviews we would leave the interview site, typically in a car that had been parked strategically out of sight. As we headed back to the office, our research participants typically waited for the bus” (p. 61). When heading to an interview, I chose to ride the least nice of the four bikes I own, in an attempt to fit in. During the interviews I felt that I had indeed shared an experience with my participants (Burns et al., 2020), but when the interview finished, I headed home to my pleasant garden suite while participants headed back to their

SROs or to the street. Participants commented on how nice my bike was, and how it would be well-suited for binning. In a sense, I felt I had succeeded in attempting to fit in, especially with

14 I say “us” because I am both a bicycle enthusiast and researcher who has strong convictions about cycling.

54 those participants who, like me, closely identified as serious cyclists. However, I was also somewhat surprised that my “least nice” bike was so well-received by participants. This was a class-based reflection I pondered further.

Finally, considering my own positionality meant considering my own safety during data collection. As a young female I took steps to ensure my safety, including telling someone my whereabouts during an interview, meeting participants in public settings, and terminating the interview if I felt unsafe. While I did not ever feel unsafe, I felt slightly uncomfortable a few times, including when a participant asked if I wanted to come into their SRO. I felt a bit caught off guard as I had not considered this option. I said no, because I did not think that a visit to his home would help to directly answer my research questions.

CHAPTER THREE: RESULTS

The bicycle has been referred to as a “rolling signifier” (Hoffman, 2016), as it is a vehicle that absorbs different meanings corresponding to the lives of each individual bicycle user. This concept can be used to illustrate how even among a somewhat homogenous population of homeless and unstably-housed men in the DTES, the bicycle had varied meanings. To trace the origin of these different understandings of cycling, it’s important to note that the five men I interviewed all came to cycling via very different routes – a result of their respective upbringings, their somewhat unique social positioning, and their contextual life experiences.

John grew up with a bicycle as a part of his every day. He told me he’d been cycling “all my life, probably, here and there. I just love it, is all”. He rode for the joy of it. In comparison,

Brent’s formative years were spent not on two wheels, but in stints of juvenile incarceration and homelessness. At age 34, recently released from prison, he’d become taken with the bike as a mode of transport. George was once a champion mountain biker on the North Shore and a bike courier in the bustling streets of downtown Vancouver. For him, cycling was as entrenched in his identity as sleeping or eating. Pete had always biked as part of his intense exercise regime.

Simon, along with George and Pete, rode bikes as part of their work as “recyclers”. These descriptions of participant backgrounds show just some of the ways that knowledge of participants’ somewhat distinct individual experiences, preferences, and social positionings can help us understand the myriad meanings associated with the bike.

I will follow these differences as a way of exploring some of the varied and complex meanings of the bicycle, and the role it plays in the lives of those I interviewed. At the same time, while recognizing and considering the distinct experiences and perceptions of all five participants, I note striking similarities that are pertinent. A most prominent similarity that is

56 relevant across all findings is that interviewees in this study shared the experience of living within and negotiating numerous structural constraints; and that these negotiations can sometimes be understood through the bike; and that they may be reflected in how the bikes are used. Put another way, accompanying the range of views on bikes is a set of seemingly stable meanings related to bicycles that appeared to result from the shared experience of marginalization among study participants.

In the following results section, I explore these differences and similarities, focusing especially on what is revealed that is pertinent to questions about the roles and meanings of bicycles for homeless individuals, and the contextual factors that are integral to and underlie these experiences. I do this within three thematic areas: the meanings participants associated with cycling; the underground economy participants utilized and maneuvered within to meet bike- related needs, and; participants’ experiences with and perceptions of stigma and surveillance in relation to bicycle usage. While I note a range of findings that speak to both individual experiences and shared experiences, all five participants were strategically negotiating a range of constraints— despite sometimes employing different tactics and outlining sometimes distinct views on the barriers they faced. My findings demonstrate both the variety of constraints experienced by all participants and the individual ways of dealing with these constraints, as they relate to the bicycle.

Theme One

Different Spokes for Different Folks: How Individual Preferences, Experiences and

Biographies Influence Meanings Associated with Bicycling

The first major theme I identify, which I allude to above, is that meanings associated with the bicycle and with bicycling vary depending on the experiences and preferences of each

57 participant. This theme addresses two of my research questions, “What does the bicycle mean to unstably-housed people or people experiencing homelessness?” and “What does it mean to be a

‘cyclist’ for unstably-housed people or people experiencing homelessness?”. In the following section I expand on the different meanings that participants assigned to bicycling and the bicycle, keeping in mind the respective contextual factors as well as the often shared structural constraints of each participant.

As a way of explaining these meanings and linking them to the structural factors and experiences that shape the meaning-making processes of those I interviewed, I will begin by briefly discussing what I learned about the cyclists I met, and weave in commentary from these cyclists that offers insight into the meanings they ascribe to the bicycle. I begin this process with a table, below, to introduce each participant and illustrate similarities and differences among participants.

As the table shows, three of the participants used their bicycle for recycling, which was how they made a living.

Name (all Age Living Type of Bike Use for bicycle pseudonyms) Situation Brent 34 Homeless Dual- Transport suspension mountain bike with trailer John 59 SRO Hardtail Leisure and mountain bike transport Pete 57 SRO “Women’s” Recycling (“part- hybrid bike time”) and transport

Simon 50s SRO “Old-school” Recycling (“full- mountain bike time”) and (self-built) with transport shopping cart George 56 SRO Electric bike Recycling (“full- with child time”) and trailer transport

Table 1. List of participant information

Brent: A Bike for Getting Around

Brent was a 34-year-old Métis man whose recent departure from prison had landed him on the streets of the DTES. He explained how a large portion of his life had taken place in the incarceration system:

I was born in Burnaby, but my roots are from Manitoba. I grew up in foster homes. When I turned 12 I went to juvie. Until I was 18 and then I went to adult jail for eight years, it was like, two years, two years, two years, two years, and then I went to the penitentiary for five [years], and then I just got out a month ago. While Brent’s current situation of living on the street could be seen as a product of systems failure (Piat et al., 2015), meaning an ‘unsuccessful’ transition out of prison, it would be unreasonable to ignore the broader picture that as a Métis man, Brent was a member of a community made vulnerable by settler-colonialism, and this identity alone put him at higher risk of incarceration.

When I spoke to Brent, he had a newly acquired dual-suspension red Specialized mountain bike with a trailer that he was borrowing from a friend. Brent explained that he had formerly sold dope (the street name for heroin) in the DTES, but had stopped doing that and was currently “partying, doing that kind of stuff, right”. He was open about his drug use and he illustrated how difficult it is to stop partying and doing dope saying “I don't think I'm ready to stop now. Another week, and another week”. He was “a little bit sick” at the time of interview

59 and had many sores and scratches, and he spoke of being unable to sleep—another side effect of heroin (Lupick, 2017).

Brent hoped to eventually go back to his foster parents’ home in a suburb of Vancouver, and he had many life goals. In the penitentiary he had been well-connected and well-respected due to the intense and, at times, violent presence he cultivated in order to make it to the top of what he described as a hierarchy. His reputation followed him into the DTES. However, he expressed a desire to know people outside of the DTES and to have a life beyond the DTES, which included getting an education and a job to support his two- year-old daughter, who lived in a shelter with her mother.

Brent felt that his life was in front of him, and that he would make it out of the DTES soon. He associated cycling with a middle-class life involving leisure, something that he hadn’t grown up with. He explained, “I spent four years on the street since I was 12, and so, not a lot of bike riding”. Despite being excited about his bike, which was at least ten years old, and would have been best-suited for the North Shore mountain bike trails (“It's such a nice bike though, it's got, like, shocks, right”) and despite using it for transport around the DTES, he spoke of bike riding as if it were something he would do in a different life, perhaps a life in his future. He said,

“yeah, I’d use my bike, take it on transit, that’d be my first option. ‘Cause, like, driving cars is like, I heard you get fat, right”. Were Brent to be in a position where he would, perhaps, be commuting daily, he remarked that his first choice of transportation would be cycling and transit.

His views on cycling were, in a sense, quite reflective of the anti-car stance common among cyclists who embrace sustainability narratives (Green et al., 2012; Horton, 2006) – he felt that active transport was a good option and that driving cars had potentially negative health consequences.

However, he also wanted to enjoy the current moment because he had been incarcerated for so long. He said, “I don't know, just trying to, I don't know, I'm just living this life, because

I've been in jail for like two decades, I'd say. And it seems like the quickest way to catch up with everything, I don't know”. His bike seemed to represent his current state of partying and having fun: “I've been riding it everywhere I can, so it's fun”. Ultimately, however, he hoped to move forward, get out of the DTES, and— literally and metaphorically – get a different bike. I interviewed Brent at a McDonalds restaurant.

John: Leisure Cycling

John, 59, was a longtime resident of the Downtown Eastside. He was originally from

New Brunswick, but had begun making his way West when he was 20. He was white and had been bike riding all his life. He was riding a new-looking Iron Horse hardtail mountain bike when I rode with him for the interview. He was homeless in the DTES for a while after coming out of jail, but currently had lived in a government-funded SRO for about a year. When I met him, he was cycling in a park where the DTES meets the waterfront. John, who was very skinny and wore two large rings on his fingers, was HIV-positive, had Hepatitis C and was awaiting further treatment. He was a heroin addict and had been on methadone for 10 years, something he described as a life-saver. He was “not much of a social guy” and did not have many close personal connections. A bike ride was part of his daily routine, as he explained, “right now, I just, I've been trying to keep my place clean, I go for a bike ride, and every day I go for my medicine”. John hoped to go back to school, and he “would love to have a job that I go to every day, and actually love what [I’m] doing.” Although John described many hopes and dreams of the future, it seemed that he was quite firmly situated in the DTES. His bike helped him get out

61 of the DTES neighbourhood from time to time, and helped him to feel that he was not trapped there:

I liked going to Canada Place 'cause it was here, it was away from the East Side a bit, free to get out, get away every day, get- so I don't feel, 'cause someone says… they felt like they were trapped here and never going anywhere, and it's, maybe they were a lifer or maybe they were just old, 'cause you can get up and go anywhere you want- I can get on my bike and go for a ride. Despite the fact that John was almost 60 years old and had lived in the DTES for a very long time (i.e., a “lifer” himself), he did not feel that he was stuck, and his bicycle was part of the reason for not feeling this way. For John, cycling was a daily practice, a means to freedom, and a long-established part of his life. I biked with him through the DTES, around part of the seawall, and back to his SRO in the DTES.

Brent and John can be described as leisure and transport cyclists, but the normative meanings of the words leisure and transport don’t necessarily apply to them. Brent and John use their bike for quite different reasons than the transport and leisure cyclists described in most research and policy documents. Some of these different cycling practices are elaborated on in the second theme. Both Brent and John were hopeful about the future, and about moving into a different state of life. The bicycle was a positive aspect of both men’s lives, but they cycled for different reasons from one another. For Brent, the bicycle was associated with enjoying the current moment and making up for lost time spent incarcerated, but cycling also related to what he hoped for in his next phase of life—a time when he might commute to work by bike and live outside of the DTES. For John, the bicycle helped him keep a routine and momentarily escape his current life (reasons to cycle likely shared by cyclists across the socioeconomic spectrum).

The Informal Recyclers, Meanings and Methods of Binning and Recycling

The other three participants identified strongly as binners or recyclers. For Pete, Simon, and George, bicycling was inextricably linked to their income and their livelihood. I first outline important distinctions between binning and recycling, and then explore how the bicycle related to and articulated with each recycler’s method of work.

I’ll begin by referring to a discussion I had with Simon, who illustrates the difference between binning and recycling:

Jeanette: So you’re the only binner [living in your building]? Simon: I’m the only recycler, yeah. Jeanette: Yeah, what is it, do you call yourself a recycler? Simon: Well, I do now, ‘cause I don’t really bin, I don’t jump in garbage cans anymore. Jeanette: Oh ok. Simon: Sometimes I look in one, and when I see a bag of cans, I’ll take it. But I won’t start ripping through them. I’m done with that. I won’t jump in and start looking around. So I’m just a recycler now, yeah, no more binning. I had my days of binning. I saw, and I know what it’s all about now. Found everything you could possibly find in a bin. Similarly, Pete told me that while people who bin do find valuable things, it’s a step too far for him:

Jeanette: Yeah, so you said you’ve been binning for- or, what do you call it? Do you call it binning? Pete: No, I call it recycling, ‘cause I don’t jump in the bins, I won’t do that, I gotta draw the line somewhere, right. [Chuckle.] They’re the ones who really reap the rewards, ‘cause you find money, and find jewelry, all kinds of stuff. You gotta go through some crap to do it, literally. I can’t do it. While “binning” was used in a colloquial sense to refer to both binning and recycling, it was clear that the official term Simon, Pete, and George used to describe their work was

“recycling”. Binning, as described above, involves jumping into large dumpsters and looking for valuables as well as for bottles and cans. Recycling refers to collecting empties and bringing them to a recycling depot in exchange for money. It seemed that the term “recycling” carried

63 more dignity than the term “binning” for participants, potentially because it was less associated with the uncleanliness aspect of sorting through garbage bins. George also collected scrap metal including aluminum, copper, and steel, and brought that by bicycle to metal recycling depots, or

“scrap yards”.

I will describe the background of each recycling participant as well as some of the techniques participants used for binning and recycling effectively with the aid of a bicycle.

Although some of what I outline below might be seen as mundane details of day to day life, I will emphasize here, in keeping with the critical interpretive approach that guides this thesis, that the activities and practical decisions of those I interviewed can (and I think should) be seen as creative negotiations of the circumstances they face – negotiations that are necessary to ‘make do’ each day. In this sense, and as I will discuss further in my Discussion section, the techniques outlined below can be seen as acts of creativity and, in some cases, as ‘acts of resistance’. That is, the use and reuse of bicycles, and the materials that bicycles carry and allow access to, do not generally align with the ‘intended’ bicycle uses one might think of, or those highlighted in media, policy or health promotion documents that describe the benefits cycling.

Pete: Part-time Recycling

Pete was a white, 57-year-old recycler living with scoliosis. He was originally from

Ontario, but had lived in Vancouver since 1998. Prior to becoming a recycler he’d been in the army and had done various labour jobs until going on disability due to scoliosis. When I interviewed him, he was grieving the loss of his wife, who had also been his recycling partner.

She has recently died, as he elaborated, “she got into the dope, and had a heart attack, it killed her”. He told me that they had recycled together every day. Pete continued to recycle every day by himself for the exercise and accompanying endorphin high, and because “it buys my beer,

64 mostly, right”. He went on, “That’s basically the main reason why I do it, it’ll buy a six pack for me a day, and some food, and whatever. Enough to keep me goin’, right.” For recycling, Pete attached bags to the handlebars and to the milk cart on the back of his very worn-out, baby blue

Louis Garneau “women’s” hybrid bike. He explained:

The best way I do it is, I don’t have it on hand now but I use one of those milk crates on the back, and I get rollin’ and it’s good, and I’ll swing two of the same size bags on one side of each milk crate and tie it down, and then I’ll use the bags on the handlebars. Whatever works. Whatever works. (Jeanette: And you can balance it ok?) I can balance it, yeah. The only thing I gotta watch for is the bottles, ‘cause they get heavy. They get really heavy and it’s hard on the bike too. On account of his scoliosis, Pete leaned heavily to one side while riding and balancing sometimes precarious loads. He also wore glasses, which were extremely scratched and likely difficult to see out of. After making “what I think is probably 10-15 bucks, or it’s close enough” he biked to the bottle return depot to claim his earnings for the day. Since Pete recycled only enough to buy a daily six-pack, I refer to him a “part-time recycler”.

Although Pete was in constant pain related to scoliosis, he could still ride a bike. When I asked Pete if recycling feels like work, he said, “Not at all. Totally enjoyable. I still get a rush out of it. It’s the only thing I can get a rush out of, really. Because I can’t really jog, I can’t work with my legs no more, so, best buzz I can get is going crazy on the bike, right”.

For Pete, the bicycle represented two of the only things left that brought him happiness: it allowed him to accrue enough money to sustain himself each day, and it gave him an outlet to exercise and to attain an endorphin buzz, which he could not get anywhere else. He was no longer interested in the endorphin high heroin use once offered. He elaborated: “Totally just not interested in it anymore, really, you know. The thrill is gone, there’s no, there’s nothing.” Pete was well-connected in the DTES because, like Brent, he had formerly sold dope, but he was skeptical of many people and did not have a lot of close friends, especially since the passing of

65 his wife. He lived in an SRO that he disliked immensely. Pete shared a variety of qualms about his life with me, but he was somewhat resigned to his fate. Looking back on his life, he was ambivalent. He remarked, “I haven’t had that really bad of a life, you know. It hasn’t been the best but it hasn’t been the worst either”. I interviewed Pete at a bottle depot and then we biked to a McDonald’s restaurant together for the remainder of the interview.

Simon: Hardcore Recycler

Simon, a “full-time” recycler, was in his fifties and had been binning for 16 years. He was originally from Ontario, but had lived in Vancouver for 20 years, a place he loved. He was a white male in his fifties. Simon binned out of enjoyment and for the money, and his bicycle was a tool for the job. He remarked, “I’m the most interesting binner you’ll ever meet!”. In this fieldnote I provide a description of Simon:

He was wearing black jeans, old Vans, and he had a number of shirts and sweatshirts on. He was wearing a watch and necklaces. He was very skinny. He had his hood up and he was wearing a Canucks ball cap. He said he usually wears a helmet but he just got this hat and he likes the hat. His face was gaunt and he was missing multiple teeth. He was stooped, and couldn’t straighten one leg. He had a silver old school 26” MTB with no logo. The tires were very worn, he had canti brakes and sweet thumb shifters. Very bare bike, no fenders or anything. Lights on the back… He was very friendly to passersby during the interview, as we were in the alley but very visible in the street (Fieldnotes, February 19, 2020)

Simon had built his bike up from the frame by himself, resulting in an enviable minimalist-looking bike with a few iconic parts (e.g., Shimano thumb shifters are famous for their durability). However, he did not build his bike only for the aesthetic appeal, he constructed it with what was available to make it as durable as possible and to minimize the risk of theft (see

Theme Two for more discussion around this).

Simon was well-connected and seemed quite popular. He lived in an SRO, and discussed his friends there often. He had a positive outlook on life, and was content, despite being hardly

66 able to walk due to a variety of injuries. Simon especially enjoyed finding interesting things, and spent considerable time telling me about the amazing items he had come across while recycling.

He told me he usually makes around $100 a day recycling. While he was recycling, Simon flew on his bike down the streets of Vancouver with a handlebar in one hand and a shopping cart in the other, a number of bags tied onto the handle of the cart, and glass bottles inside the cart.

Simon explained his method using his bicycle and cart:

Jeanette: So, is your ideal mode like one cart full? Simon: Yeah, about $50 bucks all the time. I keep that, and I'll do that a couple times a day whatever, three times a day. 20 bucks, 30 bucks sometimes, you know. Yeah. Some days I'll only go once and only collect like 40 bucks or whatever and then call it a day. Simon’s shopping cart, that accompanied his bike, was incredibly organized. I described his cart in a fieldnote: “His cart was organized immaculately, with glass bottles in the main section, cans tied onto the right side, juice bottles and another bag tied onto the front and left sides respectively of the handle of the cart” (Fieldnotes, February 20, 2020). Simon expanded on the convenience of his method:

Well it's already sorted, I just gotta throw it in the trays, right, ‘cause they got glass in here, I got plastic in here, and tetras, pop, and then beer, right. Or beer and then pop, yeah. So once I get to the depot I just put it in trays of 24 and it's done, right. Yes, so it's good to have it pretty much organized when you get there, it's quicker that way. For Simon, using a bike was a no-brainer. He said, “I’ve always used a bike. You get around a lot quicker. So much quicker. Oh yeah, absolutely.” I interviewed Simon in an alleyway in East Vancouver while he was recycling.

George: (Re)Cyclist

George, a white male who had lived in the Lower Mainland for his whole life, was the only participant who referred to himself as a “cyclist”. He was also the only participant who had a history of both bike racing and bike couriering. Prior to becoming a binner and recycler,

George had been a forest fire fighter, a motorcycle courier, a bike courier, and a courier dispatcher. Technology had made obsolete his last job as a dispatcher, and he’d gotten into drugs. He’d had two long bouts of homelessness but was currently living in an SRO, which he was content with. He recycled “for the money,” and he was the only participant who stated that he was “also concerned about the environment”, especially in regard to diverting recycling from the landfill. At 56, he’d been recycling for “probably 18 years” and also made around $100 a day. He explained how he got into binning and recycling:

I found I can just, I can pick up 5 dollars in empties and feed my cat and myself for a night, and [that’s] better than standing in line for two hours for a hot dog and still gonna be hungry in an hour. And one thing just turned into another and [I] just....found the right places and people, you know, after doin’ the same route, I call it my trap line, people would see me on a daily basis and instead of having to, like, jump in the garbage, and things, it's like "oh, here we got a bag here for you and a bag here for ya". (George) As the above quote suggests, George was very independent and disliked waiting in line for food, so he found a way to make enough money to buy his own sustenance. He had established many personal connections through recycling, which he was proud of and which lead him to have a relatively regular recycling schedule in one neighbourhood in East Vancouver.

George had a variety of severe health issues but he still planned to ride across Canada in the near future. He was extremely knowledgeable about cycling technology. George was riding a hefty electric bike, and he had a child trailer filled with recyclable containers and scrap metal, a big backpack with his tools and more recyclables, and a large speaker inside the trailer. George, like the other recyclers, loaded his trailer of recycled scrap metal cautiously: “When you're dealin' with a 65-pound capacity, I gotta be careful on how I load it. Let's see. I used to, I have a- ah, this will be ok. I won't go full out here. I'll just put some brass on the back”. Rather than take too heavy a load, he chose to leave some metal behind for another trip. George alternated between cycling to the bottle depot or to the scrap yard, depending on which type of recycling

68 material he had more of. He has space in a loading dock at an art studio building in East

Vancouver to sort his recycling. Similar to Simon, it was obvious to George to use his bike when he first got into recycling. He said, “so, I just started pickin’ up bottles, and I've always been a cyclist”. George was the only participant who carried a water bottle with him. I rode many kilometres with him around East Vancouver.

All three recyclers loved bicycling, but the bicycle was first and foremost the tool for doing their job. The thrill lay in recycling as a whole, which involved numerous steps. While their work would have looked very different without a bicycle, the bicycle was also only one aspect of the job.

All five participants had in common the experience of regular bicycle use, although, and as we have seen, their reasons for riding differed significantly. While their lives varied in other important ways, participants were dealing or had dealt with significant hardship including trauma

(including the emotional pain of unresolved trauma), substance use issues, and physical and mental health challenges while living within numerous structural constraints associated with poverty. The bicycle played a role in how they addressed some of these issues, something I explore in the following section.

Shared Meanings around Bicycle Use: The Bicycle as Mobility and Health Aid Despite the variety of understandings relating to bicycle use, a few shared meanings around cycling emerged among participants. One shared meaning regarding the bicycle for all five participants was its relevance as a mobility and health aid – a meaning that is best understood in relation to the chronic illness and residual pain sustained by participants from various and multiple injuries over time. Chronic illness and pain in this context are also related it would seem to drug use (which the participants described quite openly) – as the men in their

69 fifties (only Brent was under 50) discussed their chronic illnesses with specific reference to drug use.

For example, Pete believed that drug use was a possible reason for his scoliosis. He illustrated his goals of quitting heroin, and his ability to still ride a bike:

Pete: So yeah, they call it scoliosis. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but that’s probably drug-related all the way down the line, I’m assuming. I was pretty much told so by a lot of experts, and stuff, right… For the most part I’m trying to pack it in. And I know people who have actually quit and who’ve straightened right back up. Yeah, so that’s what I’m gonna do. Gonna see what happens. So. What’s the worst that could happen? Jeanette: Are you in pain? Pete: Mmhm. Yup. My bone’s broke, my spine, at the bottom, it’s got a double (indecipherable). Jeanette: But you can still bike. Pete: That’s my legs. Without that, I don’t know what I’d be, probably dead. I have to be able to get out, eh. ‘Cause exercise is my whole life, and I’m not gonna stop now, right. It’s the only endorphins I get, I have to keep doing it, right.

For Pete, cycling offered the only remaining outlet to exercise, something he valued deeply. Still, he wanted to quit taking ‘the dope’ entirely, with the goal, literally and figuratively, of straightening up.

John described his multiple chronic illnesses: “I had to go to the hospital and they told me

I was dying of HIV and I was refusing to accept it. Yeah, ‘cause I have Hepatitis C and I started the treatment for that”. Numerous times throughout the interview, in which we biked at an extremely slow pace, John would forget what he was saying and his words would dissolve into mumbling. He often brought up his drug use as a possible reason for some of his injuries, and for his inability on occasion to keep track of his thinking. The following excerpt is an example:

Why’d I bring that story up, hmm, (Jeanette: Um, your friend, drinking). Oh yeah, so I was giving him a hard time yesterday about walking our bikes, that’s what I was trying to say. Man, I forget what I’m talking about now. Seriously, they say, drug use can lead to,

like—I, I’ve had numerous concussions in my life, too. Maybe I’m starting to get some symptoms from all those knocks to the head. (John) Both John and Pete suggested that some of their health issues may have resulted from drug use. It was unclear whether or not participants had chronic health issues before they became drug users (i.e., if one of the reasons for using drugs in the first place was to relieve pain associated with health issues).

Relatedly, all the participants except Brent looked underweight and had trouble walking.

Bicycling, because it is low-impact, remained a viable activity. George describes the relative ease of cycling compared to walking:

Because I got tendinitis of the left foot, I can ride my bike a hundred miles a day, but I can only walk a couple blocks before I start crippling up, and once ya start limping… ya compensate, before you know it you’re a pretzel, you know your back’s out of place... (George) George dealt with multiple health challenges: “I’m awaiting heart surgery, I got a steel plate in my head from when I got, uh, five fractures in my skull, robbed for eighty dollars’ worth of beer cans at a hockey game”.

Unrelated to drug use, other injuries were experienced while on the job of recycling.

Simon describes one such instance:

I had over two hundred dollars on my cart, it was massive, it was the biggest load I ever did, and I had so much glass, so much glass tied to me on bags off the side, and bags tied together and flipped over the top, I had sooo many bags, like sixteen garbage bags on that load. It was incredible, I was bigger than a car. I had my BMX at that time, and yeah, my GT, or no, that was my, the Badboy. I was going down the hill, I was walking my bike and I was walking the cart, but going down the hill the cart started going out of control ‘cause there was too much weight to hold it with one hand, going down the hill, and I had a split second decision to decide what to do, throw the friggin’ bike and get in front of the cart to stop it, or throw the friggin’ cart and run! [Laughter] But I worked too hard for it, I said “no”, plus if that went ahead with a collision with a vehicle comin’ up the hill, oh man, it would’ve been a bad scene. So I got in front of it, and right away, the leg [of the cart] takes out my ankle. I shattered all my bones in my leg there, and it still hurts like a son of a bitch. Like right now I have so much pain and that was three years ago. It hasn’t healed. It is in massive, massive pain right now. Yeah, I’m very very careful with that. I

can’t turn sideways like this, I can only go straight with it. Yeah, massive pain if I turn it right or left. It’s really, really crazy. But, I stopped the cart [Laughter]. Somebody asked me, “do you need an ambulance or anything?” I’m like, “No, I gotta make the depot! I’m not carrying this home!” (Jeanette: Did you make it?) I did, I did and then I went home and cried, I was in pain. (Simon) The above quote illustrates the importance of making it to the depot to drop off the load of recyclables and receive the cash return, despite having been in a serious accident. Indeed, saving the cartful of recyclables is much more important than saving the bike here, although it’s clear that Simon remembers the bike fondly, too (and that it was one of many bikes he has owned).

Importantly, Simon expressed here how protecting his health was of lesser concern than both the cart and the bike.

Other participants described instances in which they declined or refused to seek medical attention. John regretted refusing physiotherapy after he was diagnosed with HIV. He explains,

“I think I upset the physio lady, I shouldn’t have refused. I needed it, I needed it, that night when

I went to the washroom I fell, so I did need to do some physio”. While he did not explain why he refused physio, it’s possible that the treatment would have been an additional cost. All participants described having various injuries or illnesses that they were worried about, (e.g.,

George told me about multiple injuries of his after learning I was in a Kinesiology department), but only John seemed to be in regular contact with medical professionals, for his daily methadone shot and his HIV and Hepatitis C treatments.

In sum, one commonality among participants was that the bicycle was a mobility aid: compared to walking it was lower-impact and it and allowed participants to travel greater distances. The bicycle worked well for participants who had complex histories of chronic health issues and related drug use, which ultimately meant that walking was uncomfortable. However, cycling posed certain risks, including risks to health, especially when recyclers had full loads on

72 their bicycles. These risks did not outweigh the benefit of cycling (and recycling). Seeking medical attention when injury occurred was unlikely unless the injury was severe.

Little Personal Attachment to the Bicycle Itself Another commonality between participants regarding bicycle use was the personal attachment, or lack thereof, to any given bicycle. As Simon alluded to in the excerpt above where he sacrificed his bicycle in order to save his cartful of recyclables, participants expressed little to no attachment to any given bicycle, although having a bicycle was itself valued. Losing a bike in a road accident like Simon’s was rare, but two more likely occurrences led participants to avoid forming strong attachments to their bikes. These were the extremely common occurrence of theft, and, for the recyclers, bike breakdown due to the burden of heavy and constant workloads. As we saw in the above example, Simon sacrificed his bike in order to save his load.

Similarly, George illustrated that he runs bikes into the ground: “I've gone through – other than having them stolen – just regular wear and tear I'd go through a good mountain bike in a month”.

Due to constantly needing a new bike, George had several systems in place, which are discussed more in Theme Two.

Bike theft was a major issue among all participants. George illustrates the magnitude of theft in his circles: “Last year I went through eleven bikes in one year. Eleven. Stolen. Eleven stolen bikes. And four trailers. So sometimes I'd have to walk, and to do what I do on foot – I could not do it.” Simon explains the prevalence and professionalism of bike thieves:

Yeah people steal parts off my bike all the time when I leave it, right... Yeah, crazy they take my lights and they try to take anything they can, really. I got wheels missing all the time, if I leave it long enough my wheels will be gone, for sure. And they'll take my pedals. They strip bikes out here. I got four bikes stolen at [a certain] McDonalds. One a week! I had it, literally on the window beside the door and I was at the counter, I turned my bike and it was gone that fast. That's how friggin’ fast. They stand there and they wait for people. They got bolt cutters and they'll cut your lock and everything. It's crazy.

Because of the constant risk of theft, participants established alternative means for acquiring bikes, something I discuss in the following section.

George was also appalled at the amount of bike theft in Vancouver, given the number of discarded bikes left out by Vancouverites that he has come across:

I don't understand why so many of my bikes have gotten stolen. You know, on moving weekends, people are literally giving them away. "Oh, it's got a flat", it's just flat because they haven't RIDDEN it in 10 years. It's been sitting in their basement. And I've found GOOD bikes, people just don't have room for it in their new condo. It's insane. (George)

Multiple times throughout the interview George remarked on what a “horrible, wasteful society

Vancouver is”. He was incredulous that bikes would be dispensable items that could be discarded or forgotten about for years in a garage, when people like him were often in dire need of a bike. Constantly being on alert for bike thieves and often needing to obtain a new bike were two of many precarious aspects of life for participants.

Summary

In sum, and in response to my research questions, “What does the bicycle mean to unstably-housed people or people experiencing homelessness?” and “What does it mean to be a

‘cyclist’ for unstably-housed people or people experiencing homelessness?”, I found that as a rolling signifier, the bicycle was used and understood differently by each participant. It was a tool for doing a job for some, a long-standing recreational pursuit for others, and a method of transport for the present and the future for others. In contrast to the City of Vancouver’s rhetoric around cycling, most participants did not identify with the bicycle as a tool for a green lifestyle.

Despite these differences, two commonalities were evident. First, participants used the bicycle as a mobility aid for their various health conditions. Second, bicycles were not long-lasting items that participants were attached to. Bikes would come and go, but having a bike was vital.

Theme Two

Mapping the City for Support Networks and Informal Resources: The Underground

Bicycle Economy

The second theme I identified was that participants were tied into an underground economy for their bicycle-related needs. This theme relates to my research questions, “To what extent do support networks exist for homeless and unstably-housed cyclists?” and “What formal and informal resources do homeless and unstably-housed cyclists use to support their cycling- enabled day-to-day activities?”.

In attempting to address these questions, I discovered the importance of the geographies of bike-related places: where participants went for bike-related needs and why these places were significant. I attempt to descriptively map the places and spaces that participants showed me and explained. For some participants, service-providing institutional spaces figured large: places like a church, where one would take a meal, or a clinic, where one would receive a methadone shot.

For participants’ bike- related needs, however, their map expanded out of the relative containment of the DTES and into spaces often overlooked in the formal understanding of the city: alleys, bottle depots, and informal spaces for buying and selling.

As I note in the introduction to the results section, participants used various and sometimes resistant tactics (de Certeau, 1984) in order to carve out space to do work, have autonomy, make connections, and solve problems. While in a sense these were all practices that allowed them to “get by” while living in poverty, participants did much more than “get by”; they constructed, and re-constructed space to live full and vibrant lives.

Focusing on bike-related spaces, in the following sections I will expand on each of the key places of these city maps and underground economies, and I will discuss what happens in

75 each. Broadly, the key spaces and places participants constructed and inhabited included the

DTES Street Market, the community bike shops, the streets and alleys of both the DTES and the larger city of Vancouver, participants’ dwelling places, the bottle depots, participants’ trap lines, and their workspaces. In response to my research questions, these places constituted many of the support networks for homeless and unstably housed cyclists. A few of these places provided informal resources that participants used to support their cycling-enabled daily activities (as well as activities beyond cycling). First, I expand on one place related to bike theft and bike acquisition: the DTES flea market.

The Downtown Eastside Street Market: A Place for Accessing Formal and Informal

Resources and Connections

As previously described, given the prevalence of theft and constant wear-and-tear, participants were often in need of a bicycle. The DTES Street Market was one place participants could purchase a new-to-them bicycle. The market was a key place for buying bikes and trailers, for negotiating the return of one’s stolen bike, and for making personal connections. Simon discusses a time he negotiated for the return of his bike trailer after it was quickly stolen:

The last one I had one [stolen], I had a trailer on my bike, and I ran down to [the Street Market], I got my trailer back from the guy, the guy who they sold it to, I had a helmet hanging out the back of it, I seen a guy who was on his knees he was emptying out my trailer, so I grabbed my helmet and I swung around in front of him and I says, “buddy this is my trailer, I just got it stolen, and I'm taking it back”. He said, “relax man, relax”, and the guy's like 6 feet-something, I'm lookin’ up at him now, and he’s like, “relax, relax”, so I'm like, “ok, ok, I'll relax” [Laughter], now that I see the size of ya. So I kind of, he calmed me down a bit, gave me the trailer back which was cool, and then we went looking for the guy to get my bike back, but I never found him again. But yeah, he paid like a quarter ounce of weed for the trailer. (Simon) A few things are notable about this quote. First, Simon was able to negotiate for the return of his trailer, which seems unlikely in most experiences of theft. Second, the trailer was traded for marijuana, illustrating the alternative methods of currency prevalent in the DTES.

Third, an element of comradery is present in that the man who bought his trailer helped Simon look for his stolen bike. Finally, the element of precarity is again relevant here, as Simon found himself with a trailer but no bike for a period of time.

Brent discusses the Street Market as a place where he caught up with his cousin and some friends, and also bought a speaker for his bike:

Ok, so today, me and my buddy, we hooked up… and grabbed all our merch, all his merch actually, and we went... we went and rented a table, made it all out, all nice. Oh, so we're going down, the flea market there, yeah. So, we roll in, and I see my cousin…“what up cuz”, and I’m like, “yo what up”, and we went for Mike's, um, Mike's, we went for Mike's methadone shot. (Brent) Brent later described buying a speaker at the flea (AKA street) market, which he intended to mount on his bike trailer. Here we see that the Market is both a centre for trade where Brent and his friends buy and sell “merch”, and also a central meeting place where people gather before heading off to the next activity (i.e., to Mike’s methadone shot). Brent may have distanced himself from the merch by qualifying his comment—"all our merch, all his merch, actually”— in order to avoid associating himself with potentially stolen merchandise.

Bikes and the Moral Economy

The “merch” sold at the Street Market is scavenged, or, sometimes, stolen (Young, 2010).

Yet, it is one place where DTES residents can make money legally. Participants varied in their moral stances about buying potentially stolen merchandise. The concept of moral economy

(Thompson, 1971), in which people act according to moral codes when the structure and function of the larger economy is not fair, is relevant here (and continues to be relevant in later discussions).

In the following examples, John was perturbed by the thought of supporting crime by buying a possibly stolen bike, while George did not see anything wrong with buying items at the

Street Market. George nonchalantly discussed how he bought a child-trailer (which would have been worth well over $100 new) for his bike from the Street Market, which in his view was a reasonable place to buy a trailer. He said, “I got this one used for twenty dollars. I got it at the flea market a year ago. And it's more than, it's more than paid off. The twenty dollars I put into it”. George felt it was sensible to spend $20 on a long-lasting trailer. He was not concerned with where it might have come from. John, in contrast, discussed a moral dilemma he faced when buying a bike on the streets of the DTES:

Oh yeah, sometimes when I buy stuff…the more I thought about it more, the more I felt, like, guilty, and I just pack it up and get far away from goin’ back to jail, right…I kinda let it bother me cause it's sixty bucks, it's like a fifteen-hundred-dollar bike, like come on. And I just started feeling, like, guilty, kinda, I was like, you know what, I don't think I want it, it's not worth it. So when I, at Christmastime I just went by, this old lady was on Hastings and she had a bike, she was like, "you wanna buy a bike?" and I thought, “hmm, where is he, is this your bike?”, and she goes, "this is just my old man's bike and he asked me to try and sell it", and she only wanted thirty bucks, right. So I talked to her for a bit, and I got a good vibe that she was telling me the truth, that he had put the bike together himself with some parts, and I looked at it for a while, it didn't look brand new spanking hot or whatnot, I gave her forty bucks. I go, "here, there's twenty each, for you and your boyfriend". (John) John, who did end up buying a bike that may have been stolen, felt he needed to thoroughly check the bike out first. It gave him some peace of mind to establish that the bike was probably not stolen; he then gave the seller an extra ten dollars for it. In these examples, George, as a hardworking recycler, may have been operating out of a moral economy which allowed him to potentially buy a stolen trailer, but because he likely could not afford it (at its usual price in a store), he was fine with the purchase. John’s mindset seemed to be more in line with the formal economy, where buying a stolen good is seen as unethical and wrong.

As these examples suggest, the method for acquiring a bike – or getting one’s stolen bike back – was quite different from the formal economy where bikes are bought at market-value. In this underground economy prices varied, different methods of currency were accepted, and deals

78 were done not in stores, but in the streets, or in the open-air Street Market. It is evident here that the DTES Street Market was one important formal locale and resource that participants could access for bike related needs, as well as for informal social connections.

Precarious Living and Bike-Related Strategies

Another important place in the underground economy was participants’ dwelling places.

Due to the constant threat of theft, it was unwise to leave one’s bike alone. Participants had various theft prevention strategies, some of which are intimately related to where participants lived. First, while all participants had stories about their bikes being stolen, none of the participants carried a bike lock at the time of the interviews (perhaps because bike locks are expensive). I had brought one lock to the interviews, so I ended up locking my bike to Brent’s bike, John’s bike, and Pete’s bike respectively, while, during each respective interview, we went into a McDonalds or a corner store. Participants indicated that they rarely kept their bikes out of sight; instead, when not in use, bikes were kept close. John explained that he keeps his bike safe inside his room. He lived in a government-funded SRO which provides, “permanent housing for people living with mental health challenges who have a history of experiencing homelessness”

(Raincity, 2020). His living situation was more secure, and he was less worried about bike theft happening there than other participants. When I met George on the street outside his SRO, he carried his large, heavy electric bicycle and trailer (as well as a large backpack) down three flights of stairs, from his room to the street. George told me that when he was homeless, he had two tents, and he’d keep his bike and other valuables in one, and sleep in the other. He could rely on his belongings being secured by a company on whose property he was camping:

I had a nice camp underneath the bridge on private property. That company's mining in there, that no one could get in and steal my stuff, ‘cause they were there during the day, and in the day they would watch my stuff during… and I would watch their stuff during the night, ‘cause they had equipment outside. (George)

Now that he was in an SRO, George was more fearful of theft than when he was homeless. I asked him if things get stolen from his building, and he said,

Oh yeah, yeah, we don't have a door person. Like, we got two locking doors, but the one at street level doesn't close that well, and neither does the upper one now, 'cause somebody bent the hinge. And some people in the building just don't care about who they let in, or if the door is closed, which is sad because they've lived there for a number of years. So we have people, like, sleeping in the showers. (George)

Since there was not security at the door, and the door did not close properly, effectively anyone could enter the building, though many intruders simply needed a place to sleep. Pete, too, described numerous incidences of theft in his SRO, which he despised and called the “snake pit of the city”.

In addition to the threat of theft, another negative aspect of SRO living was the proximity to drugs, for those trying to quit, and for recyclers, who had somewhat regular schedules. George explained that when he was living in a tent, he found it easier to stay “off the dope”. He remembered his camp, which he lived at for eight years before the land was reclaimed by the

City and he was displaced, fondly:

Because I didn’t want to live in the [name of SRO], you know, I was kickin' a coke habit, so living at [name of SRO] was just not a good environment…Yeah, it was a good camp, I really miss it, and when the city took the land back, I had to camp around a bit. (George)

However, George said that ultimately it was good that he now lived in a building. SRO’s had one upside: they provided opportunities for social interactions where participants could gather more recyclables. Simon described people in his building leaving bags of cans in the hallway for him, and George explained that people in his building came to him with scrap metal that he sometimes buys—other times people greatly exaggerate the value of what they are trying to sell him.

Since most SROs have meager kitchen facilities if any kitchen at all (Lupick, 2017;

Bardwell et al., 2019), Simon shared that he regularly uses his recycling income to order food from Skip the Dishes, a food delivery app. Ironically, participants had little options in between standing in line for meals that were often insufficient, or spending more than what groceries cost for meals from restaurants via Skip the Dishes. George found a way around this by buying microwavable meals from the grocery store and warming them up in gas station microwaves.

Brent, who was currently living on the street, had only negative things to say about street living. He was constantly worried about being stolen from, saying that thieves were “lining themselves up” to steal from him while he was trying to sleep. On-street living was unanimously discussed by participants as the worst living option, and all participants save for Brent stated that they were grateful not to be on the streets.

I include one’s dwelling place— be it in an SRO, homeless camp, or on the street— as part of the underground bike economy, as it was an important place for bike storage and security, social interactions, and, at times, acquiring recyclables. Relatedly, having money from recycling allowed participants to purchase decent meals, since they did not have adequate kitchen facilities in their dwellings. There were a host of negative aspects related to these living situations, among them the threat of theft, the temptation of substance use, and the precarity of homelessness.

The Community Bike Shop: A Social and Maintenance Resource

When one was fortunate enough to have a bike for a given amount of time, community bike shops came in handy for specific fixes or for building up a bike. John explains one reason he would go to a community bike shop: “I've taken it to the shop up here, oh actually it was not this bike, what bike was it? But there was a tool I needed, a special tool …”. In this example it’s clear that John has had multiple bikes, and that he would visit the community bike shop for a

81 very specific reason. Most of the participants fixed their bikes themselves before ever going to a community bike shop, as the following conversation illustrates:

Jeanette: What happens when you get a mechanical problem?

Pete: I try to fix it.

Jeanette: Yeah, do you go anywhere?

Pete: There’s a community support bike shop up on [street name].

Participants were resourceful and skilled, and were experienced with doing bike repairs. Simon was very familiar with the community bike shop, saying, “Oh yeah, yeah, this one right here I get a lot of parts from there. Oh yeah, they've given me a lot of bikes”. We went on:

Jeanette: Sweet, wow. So do you fix your own bike? Simon: Yeah. Yeah I built this one myself here, it's an old cromoly GT, an old school one, but the frame was in such great shape, I said why not, took me about like an hour and I had all the parts on it, it was done. Jeanette: That's cool. I'm a bike mechanic as well. Simon: Oh wow! Yeah I love it. They gave me these pedals to put on it. The seat I got from them and both tires. They don't, they don't make 26” no more eh, it's all 27.5” now, since 2014. So 26” are collectors. In this instance I included the fact that I am a bike mechanic in the hopes that he would elaborate on his bike build, which he did, explaining more of the technicalities of his bike build, and showing that he is proud of his “collector” 26” mountain bike, and that he has knowledge of bike technology, such as the relatively recent innovation of larger 27.5” wheels on mountain bikes. He also appears to be pleased with the frame he found to build the bike up from. A cromoly GT is an old chrome-alloy steel frame that has come back into style and would be recognized as “cool” by many bike enthusiasts.

It appears that this community bike shop literally gave bikes to Simon, something that community bike shops I have worked at have also done. Giving old frames to recyclers to build up themselves or to exchange for volunteer hours is quite common in my experience.

Beyond giving bikes and parts to recyclers, community bike shops offered other resources. Pete discusses what happens when people cannot pay for a mechanical fix on the spot:

So when I get a flat tire or something like that, a lot of the times, the guys don’t have the money on hand to fix their bike, right, so they, the volunteers or whatever the fuck, the people, they’ll fix it for you. You know when you get your cheque, you can square up with them, kind of thing, right. And, it’s a really needed thing. They kept me on the road for quite a while, right. When you get a flat tire, it’s very rare I have seven, eight bucks on me to go and get another tire. I just don’t have it, right. (Pete) This credit system, where Pete could fix the mechanical issue on the spot and pay later, is one example of an informal yet established practice that clearly helped Pete continue to recycle and earn the money he needed to sustain himself, as he put it earlier.

George, too, illustrates the importance of the community bike shop:

…and they're right across the street [from the main building I bin at]! Which is fantastic, because, ah, I, I actually got a flat on this bike... I had everything all loaded up basically just like this, to go to the scrap yard, and I picked up the bike and the tire was flat! And I didn't have my patch kit, I had nothing with me. And I thought, "oh crap", and I sat there downhearted for a minute, ‘cause it was, like, twenty minutes till closing the scrap yard, and, oh wait a minute, [name of community bike shop]! And they had one 20” tube left! In the used bucket! It cost me a dollar. Threw it on the bike, pumped it up, and got to the scrap yard, oh it was a life saver. (George) In this instance, the community bike shop was a life-saver due to its proximity. Three out of the four community bike shops in Vancouver are located in East Vancouver; one is in the

DTES, two are near the DTES, and the fourth community bike shop is located at UBC. The price of the used tube – one dollar – was also a positive aspect. Had George not been in close proximity to a community bike shop, he would have been in trouble, since transporting the massive number of recyclables he likely had to his SRO for the night was out of the question.

For all the recyclers, “making the depot” was paramount. Only George had a place to leave recyclables overnight – in a loading dock, which is discussed in the next section. However, leaving recyclables in the dock, which was visible from the alley, could attract the attention of thieves who might jump the fence and who could potentially steal more from the building, something George did not like risking. The risk of theft on one’s person was also substantial, as

George illustrated in a previous example about being beaten and robbed for beer cans.

Community bike shops were important for acquiring bikes and repairing specific fixes, and they were often conveniently located and sometimes had credit systems that allowed participants to stay on their bikes and on the road.

Social Connections and Economic Capital in a Sanctuary for Recyclers: The Bottle Depot

The bottle depot was a very important place in the recyclers’ maps of the city – perhaps the most important place. The bottle depot was practically a sanctuary where they received money for their hard work, made personal connections, and sometimes, received a variety of perks intended only for recyclers. Pete illustrates differences in various depots, and he discusses the social connections he’s made with people at his favourite one:

Jeanette: So you go [recycling] on the weekends too?

Pete: Every day, I try to, yeah.

Jeanette: And do you usually go to that recycling depot? [the one he had been to earlier that day]

Pete: Yeah, for the most part. You know, you build up rapport with them, right. I been to that other one… but they were really cold and not very friendly. (Jeanette: Really?) Yeah, that’s what I found anyway, for myself, eh. It seems a little bit farther than I’d rather go. And then there’s this one over on the hill here... I don’t much like that one either, because they’re not even paying you full price, right. They give you, what is it, they’re only giving you, I think it was like, on the five cent things they’re only giving you three [cents], and on the ten cent ones you’re only getting eight. (Jeanette: Oh, what the heck.) You know, how much more you do wanna take, right? So I didn’t really like that one much, I’ve been there, but this one here, they, they, you know, it’s all donated, everything

and sometimes stuff comes in, and they get lots of food donated and stuff, right, so every little bit helps right. But truthfully it’s all for the beers. (Pete)

Pete enjoys the personal connection at his preferred depot, which is in close enough proximity to his trapline, and it doesn’t underpay, like some other depots do. He also sometimes leaves with donated goods, which is evidently a perk, although the main reason he recycles is “for the beers”.

Simon discusses another perk available at one depot: the lottery for money available to recyclers. He explains: “They actually have a... you can win a hundred dollars a week there if you put your ticket in, you put you receipt in the box there. I used to go there and my friend won it, like, three times already”. This lottery was clearly set up for recyclers to make extra cash.

Similarly, George explains that the depot he goes to is very welcoming: “These people are so accommodating to binners and homeless. You can ride your shopping cart right in there, there's an overhead heater that you can turn on if you're freezing, and then the coffee and all that.” Free coffee was available at this depot in a large pot with disposable cups. After George had finished recycling his beverage containers, he and I had a coffee and hung out at the depot for a while. No one blinked an eye that we were talking together, in contrast to other interviews, where patrons at

McDonalds stared questioningly at us, or where street passersby gave long glances as I interviewed Simon in an alley.

The bottle depot, in most cases it seemed, was one place where recyclers were welcomed and accepted. While bottle depots were set up to accommodate recyclers, the recyclers had other important connections that they themselves had cultivated, discussed in the following section.

Trap Lines, and the Importance of Connections with Businesses and Property Owners

Trap lines, the established and routine routes that recyclers collected recyclables on, offered important places of connection. The recyclers had secured connections with business owners and property managers in order to obtain a regular supply of recycled items from various

85 buildings and businesses. Places along the recycler’s trap lines where they had established relationships were key to the recyclers’ success. Simon explains how recyclers show respect not only for the territory of each other’s trap lines, but also the businesses on their trap lines:

Everybody knows [one another], everybody has their owns spots and that, and businesses that they do, and nobody touches that, ‘cause they know who does them, right. It's like everybody knows that I'll do this place, right, and nobody does it, unless they see that I'm not here then it's ok, right, they’ll do it. But for three years I've missed it twice here. (Simon)

George and Simon in particular had long-established relationships that were often mutually beneficial. Simon explains:

I start from back here, I do the hotel here as well. I'm right in with those guys, they actually gave me the key for the bin. They love me ‘cause I keep it clean, I keep in clean, I take graffiti off the bin for them and they really love me over there, they give me a lot of stuff people forget in the hotel…just a few weeks ago they gave me an $800 camcorder, a Sony camcorder somebody bought with five batteries, extra batteries, and two boxes of DVD recording. $800 from the receipt they bought it at Future Shop, and they waited a couple days they never came back so they just gave it to me. (Jeanette: Wow, nice!) Yeah, they give stuff to me all the time people leave in the hotels, so I'm right in with them. (Simon) Clearly, the hotel managers trusted Simon and appreciated the work he does. They also realized that he may be in need of some of the things that are left behind at the hotel. Similarly, George explained the relationship he had with a building manager and how it had resulted in him having his own work area:

But this is the place where I've gotten to know the building manager very well and I have a little, a little work area down here, and that's my stuff. Oh! You can probably come in here and see Randy. Oh, and I see they've dumped more stuff for me. (Laughs). I've been, I've been- the tenants have a lot of storage areas in here, and I've got, like, a couple recycling boxes in the building, and people say, after years of doing it, it's gotten nice, that I don't have to, like, jump in the bins anymore, people save it for me. (George) This is the large art studio building in East Vancouver previously mentioned. George’s work area was in the loading dock at the back alley of the building, and when I went there with him, we discovered a very large pile of metal recycling waiting for him. George also showed me

86 the inside of the building where his inside recycling boxes are located. Again, the building manager clearly trusted George. Many of the studio residents worked with various metals and likely appreciated that George would recycle their metal for them. Here he described how he and the artists work to divert metal from the garbage:

…all the shops are metal shops, wood shops...it's all basically artists in there. And a lot of them are really good with not throwing something into the garbage until I've had a look at it. Like, during the week, I'll, like, I don't know what's in front, ‘cause I haven't been here since Monday, but there's probably a whack of stuff in the front of the building for me, so I'm going to leave my bottles here, and I'll take some aluminum. Phew. (George) For the recyclers, these places where they had social connections were important because they could count on recycling awaiting them, and they could keep a consistent schedule. In part because people relied on them to take the recycling on a given day, the recyclers’ routes were very important. The routes themselves also constitute part of the underground economy. George creatively described his route, and how he had such a sophisticated system that it would sometimes take him days to get to all the recyclables:

This is like the centre of my universe, eh (the art studio building). And I was describing it to my ex, and how, like, this would be my universe, centre of the universe, and I'd do that little core of it, and then once that's done, I'd do all my little satellite galaxies. You know, little spot over here, little spot over there, and I mean, some days, I mean, some weeks, it would take me three days to get a place from here that's right across the street. I could look at it, but because I'm so loaded up with other things, alls I can do is look at it. And it's just been crazy. (George) George went on to describe the ownership he felt over this building, the centre of his universe: Where we just were, is like my second home. I know all the tenants in there, I can walk around in the building like I own it, I got pick-up boxes in the building, I've got a key to where we just were- go left here- (regarding cycling). (George) Clearly, some of these relationships offered another place where recyclers could feel accepted and appreciated.

With this feeling of acceptance came a degree of responsibility. George shares the sense of conscientiousness he feels over his own trap line, saying, “I hate gettin’ in shit for other

87 people's messes, and that's why I quite often, you'll see me picking it up, 'cause it's not my mess,

'cause especially if it's on my trap line. Everywhere we just went, they know my name”. George brought this up as we cycled past an RV that appeared to be abandoned. There was clothing strewn on the ground nearby the RV, as well as old furniture and a dilapidated tent. George felt that it was his duty to keep his trap line clean, and he knew that people knew him and relied on him to keep the area clean.

Summary

In response to my research question, “To what extent do support networks exist for homeless and unstably-housed cyclists?”, I found that an underground bike economy existed, and provided support. It was comprised of the DTES Street Market, the community bike shops, the streets and alleys of both the DTES and the larger city of Vancouver, participants’ dwelling places, the bottle depots, participants’ trap lines, and their workspaces. In response to my research question, “What formal and informal resources do homeless and unstably-housed cyclists use to support their cycling-enabled day-to-day activities?”, I found that a few established yet relatively informal resources existed, including the community bike shop that offered a credit system, and bottle depots that offer warmth, coffee, a chance to win a lottery, and donations to recyclers. The underground economy, comprised of informal resources and social connections participants had fostered with other DTES residents, as well as with people the recyclers encountered along their trap lines, was able to address many of their needs. These personal connections and formal and informal resources allowed for some sense of stability in the lives of participants, as well as, it seemed, some meaning and purpose.

Theme Three

“Even though I work honestly on my bicycle, you're calling me a criminal”: Stigma,

Surveillance, and Marginalization of Cyclists

Theme three addresses my research questions, “To what extent do homeless and unstably-housed cyclists experience stigma?”, and, “To what extent do bike advocacy work and cycling policy address the needs of homeless and unstably-housed cyclists?” All five participants described stigma they faced regarding bicycling. Participants specifically referred to numerous structural constraints they had negotiated, including police surveillance, which often took the form of street checks, where police target and penalize homeless-looking cyclists who commit small infractions. Participants also described being unable to access certain spaces, and being perceived by the public as thieves or criminals. Participants responded to unfriendly structural aspects in a variety of ways, which I will illustrate below.

Stigma and Surveillance

According to George, participants faced stigma from two primary sources: one, from police; and the other, from “regular people”. George explains: “A lot of them, cops and regular people, they instantly think of you as a criminal. Pickin' up empties? You're a criminal”. All participants referred to “when” they get pulled over by police, not “if” they get pulled over.

Simon illustrated the ways that police asserted their presence while also mocking him while he was wearing his cycling raingear:

The policemen, when they pull me over, all my raingear is yellow and wearing these yellow gloves, and they called me a yellow rubber duck or something like that, when they saw me..."I thought you were a big yellow rubber duck" or something stupid like that. So every time they see me they'll honk the horn and say "rubber ducky!”. (Simon) Asserting their presence was one way the police communicated that they were surveilling the cyclists. Another method was handing out tickets and warnings for relatively minor infractions.

Vancouver has cycling legislation that includes a helmet law, a law prohibiting cyclists from riding on the sidewalk, and a law mandating that cyclists must have lights on their bike past sunset (Government of BC, 2020). Participants I interviewed describe being street-checked and ticketed for breaking these laws – laws that could be considered quite minor and that may not be enforced outside of the DTES. It seems that this could be an example of broken windows policing practices, where police can stop people for minor infractions—people who might be contributing to making an area of the city appear sketchy or undesirable (Kennelly, 2015).

Pete, who knew what I was asking before the words were even out of my mouth, elaborates:

Jeanette: Have you gotten pulled over for- Pete: Mmhm. Jeanette: Yeah, how are the police? Pete: (Indecipherable). They went on a spree there a couple years ago and started handing out 29-dollar tickets for no helmet. ‘Course, I got nailed, everybody I know got nailed. But, now they want you to pay it. You don’t pay it, they say you’re gonna go to jail. I said, well 29-dollar fine doesn’t put me in jail for, like three, days, like, oh no, not a whole three days (sarcastically). I can’t, I can’t pay that bill, and just cause it’s wrong for me to give (indecipherable), you know what I mean. I make the decision, you can’t tell me what to wear and what not to wear, what the fuck is that all about, right. I don’t really complain about too much, but that kind of stuff, you know, I can see, I can see, it’s for my own safety and whatever, and I understand that, but you know what, if I go out there and have no helmet on and kill myself, well I’m the one that’s gonna wear that, aren’t I. They’re not gonna be sweating it too much. It’s ok, you can carry on with life without me, it’s not a big deal. Participants responded in different ways to these encounters with authority. When police gave a ticket to Pete who could not pay it, Pete responded by resisting the law that mandates helmet-wearing among adults in Vancouver. When I interviewed Pete, however, he was wearing a Mobi helmet (helmets which are attached by a clip to Mobi bikeshare bikes). Essentially, there are helmets for the taking at Mobi stations all over Vancouver. Three participants were wearing

Mobi helmets when I interviewed them. Simon chose to wear a helmet most of the time to avoid getting stopped by police, although he sometimes acted illegally when he biked on the sidewalk when the business he was making his way towards was on that side of the street. He explained:

If I'm biking on the sidewalk, sometimes, I do that. Yeah, you have to bike, you have to bike on the way you’re going, like the side you're going, right, but sometimes, I want to get on this side, ‘cause I'm hitting some businesses, so I'll bike up on this side, right, instead of walk, ‘cause it saves me time, right. I just take my chances, and I've never gotten a ticket yet, but they just give me, they give me a warning, right. And I always usually wear a helmet, but I didn't know why I didn't the last couple days wear one. (Simon) While Simon attempted to avoid getting pulled over by wearing a helmet and rarely riding on the sidewalk (even though riding on the sidewalk was more convenient for his recycling work), Brent described how he actively defies certain laws that he found to be petty, as chosen acts of personal resistance:

I don’t wear a helmet, I say… I’m kind of like, ok fuck you pigs, ‘cause I know they can fuckin’ pull me over for that shit, or riding on the sidewalk they can pull me over for that, or there’s probably some other shit I don’t know about. Yeah, so I’m kind of like, jeez man, you know what, these little things, these little laws that I break, it kind of gets me through the years, I used to… break a lot of laws by stealing cars, and I did a lot of that, so I’m not doing crime no more, right, I quit, and my friends want me to do this, want me to do that, and I’m like, “NO”, I’m not going back in jail, I have, I have a bigger plan, and what it is, is, well…I’m gonna stay (indecipherable) and going to school, get my Métis card, and do something, I just don’t know what, be an electrician, or something. (Brent) As we see above, Brent viewed breaking these little laws as acts that helped prevent him from breaking larger laws, and kept him on track with his goals. Breaking these laws was a good thing for Brent to do, in that it satisfied an emotional need that helped keep him from doing larger crimes (Cornish & Clarke, 1986 in Atkinson & Young, 2008). This approach is surprisingly contrary to the goals of broken windows policing, where small infractions are ticketed in order to prevent large offences from occurring (Mitchell, 2010). As we see here, Brent found that actually engaging in small illegal acts helped prevent him from committing larger crimes. These

91 examples show disparate ways that participants responded to authority. Some conformed to safety laws in order to be seen as legitimate while others chose to defy these laws as acts of resistance towards authority.

Another contrast in participants’ responses to the strong presence of authority was emotional: some were quite docile and understanding towards police and others were confrontational. John described a police incident in which he was wrongly arrested and brought to the police station for stealing a purse, and then was allowed to leave because the police had picked up the actual thief. John elaborated:

They took him out, and they come back in, the officer goes, "yeah, you're being released, sorry about that, sir, we made a mistake…I hope you don't feel-", I go, "no, not at all, I don't feel no animosity, it happens". I wasn't in cuffs that long, it had only been twenty minutes, or half an hour the whole time. Maybe an hour at the most. But that was cool, that was the first time I'd been drove in the paddywagon, and they just went and let me out, ok right on… (John) While John sympathized with the police to an extent despite being handcuffed for a period of time and transported some distance, George described the more aggressive response he employs when he’s getting “jacked up”:

You know, I love getting jacked up. And I'm just waiting for it because, because of the scrap metal I do, there's such an issue with stolen metal, and I just- I get real, I get snotty with them. I love just throwin' it back in their face... Um, so, when I, when a cop pulls up and he starts rollin’ down his window, I know what the first question is gonna be… I'm always in a good mood, but sometimes that one STUPID question, or that one comment will just, will just, fuckin’ just ruin my day! And that's when, when, the cop will get it, well he's rolling down the window, and before he even says "hello, how you doin?" I'm like, [full name] NO WARRANT, NO WARRANT, NO CONDITIONS, BLAH BLAH BLAH" He's like, alright, alright, I just wanted to ask you how you're doin’! (George) George prepared for his encounters with the police by assuming a forceful disposition in order to catch officers off guard before they had a chance to state their assumptions about him.

Besides the police, sometimes fellow motorists made stigmatizing comments while

George was riding his bike. George described such an instance:

This is where people say, "you should join the circus”. Yeah, I get a lot of that. (Jeanette: Oh, yeah, really. People make lots of comments?) Oh, the ones, the ones that will FOLLOW me and honk, and say, "get off the road", where am I supposed to go? I'm supposed to follow- and, if you really wanna get by me, go in the other lane! And people do that, honk, and say, "get outta the way, get outta the way", and I'm like, "well, where do I go?” (George) Here George describes being insulted and then being told he doesn’t belong on the road.

Riding the bike on the sidewalk was not an option due to it being both illegal and not wide enough for recyclers’ loads. Yet some motorists felt it necessary to make sure George knew he was not welcome on the road. George also experienced stigma and verbal abuse off the road.

Here he described an incident that clearly still troubled him:

You know, the meanest woman in the world is down on, ho, she, I have been, ha, I am a “social housing, welfare-abusing, drug-addicting criminal”. Her words. She- for pickin’ up empties out of the parking lot of the complex of a building I've been going to for EIGHTEEN YEARS, she just happens to come out, and just tore a strip- I, I, I, I, finally left, and I got a block away, and I couldn't move for two hours. I was in tears. I'd never been so insulted for a "social housing, welfare abusing drug-addicted criminal, get a fucking job you criminal". (George) George experienced this comment as particularly offensive: he was just doing his regular work.

While picking up empties was one act for which recyclers could be criminalized, they were also commonly mistaken for bike thieves. They responded to this in different ways. George described himself as an “opportunist”, not a thief, illustrating the concept of moral economy

(Dodson, 2007; Thompson, 1971), where “wrongdoing” is in the eye of the beholder. George explained:

I get bikes used, I've never stolen a bike, I'm an opportunist, I, I am guilty of jumping fences and stealing garbage, ‘cause I- I've gone to jail, I've spent a few months in jail for jumping a fence and stealing garbage, I mean, scrap metal out of a garbage can, that's break and enter. And I had tools on me 'cause I'm a cyclist, so those were break and enter tools. Ten pounds of aluminum that's worth twenty dollars, theft under five thousand. And it doesn't, it doesn't tell the difference, you look at, you know, bring up my name on the computer when I get gassed up, it says, "Break and Enter! Possession of stolen property! Theft under two thousand! Possession of break and enter tools!" Basically, I

jump the fence, and I had a multi-driver in my pocket, and I stole some garbage. What I did. But, yeah. But I've never stolen a bike. (George) For George, there was nothing wrong with jumping a fence to take metal that would be thrown out anyway. He described how in the eyes of the law his theft of “ten pounds of aluminum” fell under the far more severe sounding “theft under two thousand” range, and the purpose of his bike tools was disregarded and instead coded as break and enter tools. His sentence, which appeared extreme when compared to his description of the theft, followed him whenever he got “gassed up” by police.

In contrast, John explains a dilemma and the potential threat he could face from the police for being in possession of a stolen bike:

I’ve been enjoying this bike, I’ve had it for about three or four months. And it rides really nice. And I’d kinda convinced myself that it was the guy’s, and he was just trying to get some drugs, right, but I hope it wasn’t one of those things. I don’t wanna be buying from- it's like, John, you gotta learn more about someone takin' that from you, stealin' it. [Chuckle]. It is good to try and avoid supporting crime in any way, I don't want to be a, a, a, supporter of that by buying goods from people that you know are...so it's good to avoid that if you can. But this would be more, like, you could get charged, right, "ya right buddy, you bought it off somebody, sure, where'd you take it from, where'd you steal it?" (John) John described feeling guilty that his bike might be stolen goods because he’d rather not

“support crime in any way”, although he clearly still used the bike. He also identified wanting to avoid potential police assumptions that he had stolen the bike he was riding, when in fact he had bought it from someone else.

Marginalization and the Structures that Support It: Limits of the Bike

Clearly, participants faced various forms of stigma from authority and the general public and they dealt with it in different ways. Participants also had to navigate unfriendly and marginalizing structural aspects at both municipal and provincial levels. George explained that cyclists and people with shopping carts are barred from most metal recycling depots:

No, no, used to be able to [go to the metal recycling depot by bike]. When it was, there was a real, there was a real thing with, when the prices were good and everything in the city was getting stolen, because somebody with a shopping cart had some stolen metal in it, the government and the city, and the scrap yards felt that if they stopped, if they stopped letting people in with shopping carts and bicycles, they, that would stop the stolen metal problem. So basically, what that says to me is- even though I work hard and work honestly on MY BICYCLE, you're calling me a criminal because I don't have a vehicle. (George) There was only one municipal scrap yard where George could bring metal on his bike:

Yeah, this is the only scrap yard in town that'll take people without a vehicle. He pays pretty good for the copper and brass. He pays crap on the aluminum and stainless 'cause he doesn't want it. But it's the only place we can bring it, so. Take it or leave it, he's kinda doing us binners a favour by the fact that he'll take it. But he pays shit for it. Every other place is, ah, forty cents a pound right now for aluminum, um, but I'm only gettin' twenty. But, you know I've got no way of takin’ it to Mitchell Island or out to Surrey where it is worth more, so being as I'm coming here anyways, I'll bring it though I don't feel good about it. (George) Because the options were greatly limited for George, who did not have a car, he had to accept a lower price for the metal he recycled. While he felt that this was unfair, George still obtained

(oftentimes heavy) scrap metal, transported it by bike, and recycled it, while recognizing that the scrap yard that accepted bikes was indeed “doing us binners a favour”. It appears that most scrap yards rewarded those who were affluent enough to have access to a car and penalized people without a vehicle, moving recyclers to the further margins. This may be an example of the stratification that tends to characterize neoliberal cities such as Vancouver (Kennelly, 2015).

Additionally, recyclers faced administrative barriers in provincial bureaucracies. George wanted a car for the sole reason of taking metal to scrap yards that paid a fair price. However, he did not have a driver’s license because had accrued two charges for riding the SkyTrain without a ticket, and his driver’s license had expired. He faced bureaucratic obstacles to paying these fines that disallowed him from earning back his license:

I been tryin' to pay ICBC off for two years now. They haven't wanted my money, and they raised my fine, and they wouldn't believe it's me paying my fine and I didn't have the

proper ID, and it's been a SHITSHOW tryin’ to give them money to get my license back, just so I can get a vehicle, that I'm not even gonna drive. The only reason I need a vehicle is so I can take stuff to the scrap yard 'cause they won't take it, 'cause I don't have a vehicle. (George) George had numerous complicated obstacles to work through with ICBC before he could begin to think about owning a car. From George’s experience, it’s easy to see how banning bikes and carts is an effective measure to prohibit binners from accessing fairly-paying scrap yards.

Further, scrap yards weren’t the only places inaccessible to recyclers. Simon described how the relocation of recycling facilities erected barriers for those who wish to access the UBC campus, an abundant source of recyclables. The distance prohibits travel from the DTES, to

UBC, and to the bottle depot in the same day:

I used to do the bottles at UBC too, and I know two people that do them. There's over 300 pop machines at UBC… when I started recycling I'd go down to UBC and I'd hit all the pop- I'd hit the area and I'd pull a hundred dollars out of there no problem! Look, there's recycled boxes EVERYWHERE you look over there, and pop machines. So there's a lot of money, it's just nobody, TWO PEOPLE I know, they’ll do it but it's only because they have a vehicle. But, you can't get it back ‘cause it'll take so long, some guys steal some of these (pointing to cart) and they'll wheel it back but it'll take them almost two days to get here. (Simon)

While UBC would make an excellent place to bin, according to Simon, it was too far away unless one had a vehicle or was prepared to make a multi-day journey to the depot, something that was both dangerous and inconvenient, as discussed in previous sections. As Figure 1 shows, all ten Return-It bottle depots are located east of Granville Street; the majority of them are located in East Vancouver and the DTES, away from the wealthier westside neighbourhoods of

Vancouver.

Figure 1: Location of Return-It Bottle Recycling depots in Vancouver

As well, according to Pete, binning was a job that may well soon become obsolete. Pete explained how binning itself is precarious on account of neighbourhoods becoming more gentrified and recyclers being pushed out of areas that are busier and more upscale:

Pete: Yeah, we (Pete and his wife) did the recycling for a long, long time together. Starting with me, I had a spot in Granville Island, but they brought compactors in, so. It seriously killed everything. I was making 40-50 bucks a day, and it dropped down to, 6 bucks, 7 bucks.

Jeanette: So you had to go somewhere else?

Pete: Had to go somewhere else, yeah, I had to expand my route, that’s all, instead of getting a whole bunch off one I had to go to a few and a longer way. But, you know, got nothing better to do anyway, so… People are not picking up for themselves, eh. There’s a lot more to it than meets the eye. The depots are either way, way, too far away. Yeah, everything went up. Ten cents for bottles, ten cents for plastic. That was a good bonus, that’s probably the only thing that kept most of the recyclers here. We’re battling the industry, now, eh. There’s not enough to go around, eh. The industry doesn’t want to do the little piss-ass jobs like we’re doing, eh. So we’re still good for something

Jeanette: So where are recyclers going?

Pete: Everywhere. Everywhere you can imagine.

Pete points to the fact that after recycling depots moved out of the core of Vancouver and into the area surrounding downtown, only one recycling depot remains in downtown. It is a small

97 depot near the waterfront in Yaletown, which is likely not convenient for recyclers operating out of the DTES— none of the recyclers I interviewed used it. Pete now had to travel further than he would like to do his daily recycling work, and he had been pushed out of his original recycling territory by the introduction of recycling compactors. Pete suggested that recyclers were being pushed further and further out, as the growing recycling industry took over Vancouver.

Lack of Bike Infrastructure near Recycling Centres

The location of bike infrastructure in Vancouver seemed to contribute to the marginalization of homeless and unstably-housed cyclists, especially those who were recyclers.

Bike infrastructure was not located in areas where participants cycled, so it was not all that relevant to the ways they navigated the city. Despite my direct interview questions about bike lanes, participants spoke about them sparingly. Only the interview with John, the leisure cyclist, involved us biking on some designated bike lanes in the DTES as well as on the sea wall, an off- street path bike. George was quite against bike lanes:

I know when somebody shouldn't be on the road, like, bicycle lanes terrify me, I really don't like them, because they're, it takes away a lot of road space, and, with these electric scooters, they don't know where they belong. Electric scooters are for people who are too lazy to ride a bike, and don't know where they belong. (George)

George preferred to ride in traffic with his electric bicycle and trailer, and he did not like the bike lanes. Interestingly, he greatly disliked electric scooters. Other participants, while not quite as staunchly opposed to bike lanes, simply did not have strong opinions on them. This may have been because participants – especially recyclers— biked where they needed to go, and where they needed to go was often not anywhere near the extensive separated bike lane network in

Vancouver, or even near on-street bike lanes. In other words, bike lanes were superfluous to recyclers.

Instead of using bike lanes, recyclers rode in alleys, on sidewalks near buildings they needed to access, and in the middle of busy roads that were on the way to recycling depots or scrap yards. For example, one bottle depot is only marginally accessible due to railroad tracks blocking it on two sides. Cyclists must ride over a viaduct that has sidewalks but no bike lane, busy, four-lane traffic, a tall curb, and a post in the middle of the sidewalk making it impassible for recyclers with large loads. When George and I cycled to this depot, we rode in the wrong direction down the opposite sidewalk (in order to avoid the sidewalk post on the other side). We passed pedestrians coming towards us, wheeled onto the grass before cutting underneath the viaduct, and then made another series of turns that would not have been necessary had cycling infrastructure been located on the viaduct. All this George negotiated with almost-failing brakes.

Earlier in the interview, en route to the scrap yard, George had taken the full car lane on arguably the busiest truck route in Vancouver. Although normally I would never ride this road, I pedalled behind George as he continued chatting amiably to me over his shoulder. When cycling with

Pete, we illegally crossed a road instead of going one block south to bike crossing lane on it, because the bottle depot we were coming from was in a location with no cycling infrastructure.

This was not surprising to me, as when I had ridden around the city investigating the Return-It bottle depots, I had found in places inconvenient to the bicycle. While they are technically accessible by bike, they certainly are not bike-friendly.

These results demonstrate the variety of ways that cyclists effectively navigate their lives even while vulnerable to the many factors discussed above. While the meanings associated with the bike and bicycling varied for each individual, participants utilized sophisticated bike-related networks of places and connections while battling stigma, surveillance, marginalization, and complicated structural factors to survive and carry on with their lives.

CHAPTER FOUR: DISCUSSION

In the following section I summarize my findings and bring them into conversation with the literature. I begin with a discussion of how my findings complement, build on, and/or reflect existing research on cycling identity and on links between cycling and health. I then consider my findings pertaining to the creative and resourceful ways participants navigated life in relation to studies and sociological thinking about negotiations of the day to day in a range of circumstances. Following this, I discuss my finding on participants’ perceptions of stigma in relation to the stigma concept and research on stigmatization processes and experiences. The final section involves a consideration of my findings about the key spaces occupied and utilized by participants within the underground economy of cycling in Vancouver – with a particular emphasis on some of the features of the more welcoming and supportive spaces, and how these spaces might be seen as ‘real utopias’, drawing on the work of sociologist Eric Olin Wright.

Meanings & Identities Related to Cycling

The five men I interviewed had different reasons for cycling and used their bicycles in different ways. While some cycled for leisure or transport, others used a bike as a tool for recycling work, which allowed them to earn enough money to meet their daily needs.

At the same time, two commonalities around bicycle use were evident from my interview findings. First, participants had significant health challenges and the bicycle offered a way of travelling that did not exacerbate these health issues. In this sense, the bicycle acted as a mobility aid. Second, participants felt little personal attachment to any given bicycle due to the constant threat of theft and wear and tear on bicycles.

These findings align, first of all, with Hoffman’s (2016) description of the bicycle as a

“rolling signifier”, and her suggestion that “the bicycle’s meaning changes in different spaces,

100 with different people, and in different cultures” (p. 6). Moreover though, I think my findings about not only the range of meanings, but also the types of meanings ascribed to the bicycle by the participants in this study sit interestingly beside the meanings attributed to the bicycle in policy documents on transportation and sustainability in Vancouver and amid the sometimes unique social positionings of participants in my study. For example, and as discussed in more depth in the literature review section, such policy documents tend to associate cycling with living a green lifestyle (City of Vancouver, 2020; Horton 2006) and present cyclists as being either recreational cyclists or commuters (Mayers & Glover, 2019) – a dichotomy that is framed within a view of cycling as an alternative form of transportation and a choice. For example, in their study of older adult cycling behaviours in Vancouver, Winters et al. (2015) found that seniors cycled for transport or recreation.

With this background, the current study illuminates a few important issues in existing literature. First, current transportation policies such as Vancouver’s Walking and Cycling

Reports and other literature focusing on infrastructure (Buehler & Pucher, 2012), health (Winters et al., 2015) or sustainability as it relates to cycling (Horton, 2006) offer little acknowledgement of the relationship between social location and the meanings ascribed to bicycles. Not only did my study show that participants viewed the bicycle differently than those who devised transportation policies, it also showed that even within this small sample of interviewees who shared an important experience related to precarious living circumstances, diverse points of view prevail.

By demonstrating these other ways of understanding the bicycle, my study further illuminates the problems with a transport-leisure dichotomy that fails to recognize understandings of cycling beyond “green” discourses (Mayers & Glover, 2019). For example,

101

Harmon (2019) questioned whether leisure can even exist for people experiencing homelessness.

My research aligns with arguments made in a few other studies that similarly identified understandings of cycling that exist beyond the confinement of the transport-leisure dichotomy – including Law & Karnilowicz’s (2015) study of Australian immigrants who often understood the bicycle as a marker of poverty, and Lugo’s (2018) study showing that illegal immigrants in

Southern California viewed the bicycle as the best available transportation until they were able to afford a car.

In fact, and building on Lugo’s study that highlighted the practicality of the bicycle and its relationship to work, I found that the informal recyclers I interviewed similarly saw the bicycle as a utilitarian tool that allowed them to do their work. Some of them, but not all, hoped to eventually own a car or scooter, which they felt would make their jobs easier. This finding relates in interesting ways to Golub et al.’s (2015) finding that the car remains an important signifier of middle-class lifestyle in North America— a signifier that is ironically reflected in the

City of Vancouver’s promotion of bicycling to those with the economic security to give up car ownership. This is interesting in the context of my research too, because other participants I interviewed associated their own cycling activity with some of the same pro-“sustainability” symbolism that we see in Vancouver’s pro-cycling campaigns. For example, one younger participant explained that he will continue to ride a bicycle once he is out of poverty, articulating the anti-car language of some urban cyclists – an anti-car language that Green et al. (2012) made note of in their research on commuter cyclists in London too.

Beyond regarding the bicycle as only a utilitarian tool, some participants saw the bicycle as a long-standing part of life and used it as a form of exercise that also offered a sense of freedom. These findings are consistent with what Crawford et al. (2012) found in their study of

102 homeless youth who used bicycles. The youth associated cycling with physical activity, personal transport, social inclusion, and independence, and expressed that the independence aspect of cycling especially would help them eventually get out of poverty. Unlike Crawford et al. (2012) though, some participants in the study I conducted were set in their current lifestyles (four participants had lived in the DTES for over fifteen years) and did not regard the bicycle as something that would necessarily help them transition to a ‘better’ life. The younger participant, however, did associate the bicycle with a life beyond homelessness.

In a different context, Ardizzi et al. (2020) found in their study of the Bicycles for

Development (BFD) movement in Uganda, that understandings of the bicycle varied depending on social and geographical positioning. They found that, depending on the context, the bicycle could be a sign of wealth, or a sign of poverty. In rural areas the bicycle was often viewed as prestigious, whereas in cities it was the opposite. As well, the bicycle itself could be stigmatizing because it was a marker of HIV/AIDS (the organization that donated the bikes displayed its logo on the bicycles, connoting that the rider carried HIV/AIDS). Despite the bicycle largely being framed positively in my study conducted in Vancouver15, participants in the current study described how they faced stigma when riding. While their bikes did not have logos connoting an

HIV/AIDS diagnosis, participants did not necessarily look or act like commuter or recreational cyclists, (e.g., carrying recyclables; not wearing brand-name cycling gear; not using formal cycling infrastructure) which marked them as different.

Akin also to the findings of Ardizzi et al (2020), I found that the bicycle’s meaning changed in different Vancouver contexts as well. In the Downtown Eastside, where cyclists do

15 Of course, the car is still quite dominant in Vancouver- almost half of all trips are made by car (Walking and Cycling Report, 2018). Also, a large body of literature exists on the marginalization of cycling to the automobile (see Mayers & Glover, 2019; Koglin & Rye, 2014; Buelher & Pucher, 2011).

103 not conform to normative Vancouver cycling identities, the bicycle may well be a signifier of poverty (a signifier that remains evident when cyclists venture out of the DTES) – but it could also, among those with limited resources who value the autonomy and other benefits the bicycle may offer, be associated with forms of privilege within the community, and at least a small increase in ‘subcultural capital’ for bicycle owners (Thornton, 1995).

In sum then, it was clear from my findings that even in a small population of unstably- housed men, the bicycle was a “rolling signifier” that carried multiple meanings (Hoffman,

2016). This finding is important for expanding the discussion of cycling beyond the leisure- commuter dichotomy and learning more about the range of needs in cycling populations, even in bike-friendly cities such as Vancouver.

The Meaning and Role of Bicycle Infrastructure

Participants’ relationships to bike infrastructure are also worth briefly exploring. Mayers and Glover (2019), in their study of cyclists in Ontario, Canada, found that cycling infrastructure was vital to the cyclists’ “behaviour and usage of that space” (p. 10). Winters et al. (2015), too, found that infrastructure was key to older cyclists’ experience of safety in Vancouver and impacted where in the city they rode.

My findings stand out as different from those reported in these other studies; as it appeared from interviews I conducted that bike infrastructure was not all that relevant or helpful to homeless and unstably-housed participants’ navigation of the city—some bike lanes were not wide enough for recyclers with large loads, and bike lanes were seldom located near recycling centres. Without proper infrastructure to serve them, participants rode to wherever they needed to travel, destinations often not on the main commuter routes that were equipped with cycling infrastructure. Recyclers rode in alleys, on sidewalks near the buildings they needed to access,

104 and in the middle of busy roads that led to recycling depots or scrap yards (none of which were located on bike lanes). The perceived irrelevance of bike infrastructure suggests that

Vancouver’s current bike infrastructure did not serve participants.

It could be possible that unstably housed cyclists simply had concerns that were bigger than cycling infrastructure. Golub et al. (2015) note that for those who are “met with discrimination in wages, housing, and access to credit and education – fair access to road space was at the bottom of their list of concerns” (p. 8). Bike lanes, even in places where low-income cyclists might use them, will not solve social inequity. Lugo (2018) suggests that an equitable way forward would include unearthing and better understanding interrelationships between transportation, housing, policing and economic justice. The present study shed light on some of these intersections – and invites thinking and further research on what it might look like for more formalized bicycle infrastructure to be developed with the interests of unstably-housed cyclists in mind.

This suggestion seems, in my view, to be especially relevant considering my findings about the unique experiences and perspectives of unstably housed cyclists – and the fact that the perspectives and circumstances of these cyclists are largely absent from at least some government reports. I am referring specifically here to the City of Vancouver’s Walking and

Cycling report cards, included in my literature review, that promote the health benefits of cycling to people going car-free. The BC Poverty Reduction Strategy, on the other hand, does not mention cycling at all. The participants I interviewed were living in poverty, yet they were acutely aware of the benefits of cycling and were already engaged in the act of regular cycling.

They were cyclists— but they did not have the option to go car-free, as they did not own or have access to cars; and they were low-income, but they used bicycles. This finding indicates that

105 cities like Vancouver that actively promote cycling might benefit from recognizing the number of low-income older adults already cycling, and take measures to address their unique needs, instead of focusing on campaigns aimed at promoting cycling to people from higher socioeconomic groups. Additionally, the province may gain important information from examining a situation that excludes bicycles and cycling from provincial discussions about poverty. The point here is that it appears participants I interviewed fell through the cracks of these government reports, and that this problem requires attention.

Cycling, Health and Safety

In a previous section on meanings associated with the bicycle, I highlighted how participants in my study saw and used the bicycle as a mobility aid, and viewed cycling as an activity that is healthy for them. In this section I follow up on these findings by explicitly considering the links between health and the bicycle – as well as related connections between safety (and threats to safety) associated with the bicycle.

It has become well known that cycling is a low-impact activity that has been found to reduce the risk for cardiovascular disease, obesity, and cancer (Oja, Titze, & Bauman, 2011) – and that these benefits have been celebrated especially for their relevance to older populations that cycle (Winters et al., 2015). Participants in my study similarly reported that they experience cycling as a positive form of activity for a range of reasons, noting especially that cycling did not appear to aggravate existing injuries or illnesses. Regarding the cyclists who were also informal recyclers, my findings are similar to Wittmer and Parizeau’s (2016) study, which examined informal recyclers in Vancouver and found that participants associated positive health outcomes with recycling, including exercising, being outdoors, and maintaining social connections.

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Another element of health related to bicycling is safety. Winters et al. (2015) found that safety was vital for older Vancouverites: safety related to traffic and motor vehicles, safety from theft, and safety related to the behaviour of other road users. They also found that social connection around cycling was an important motivator, as was cycling infrastructure, and a history and familiarity with cycling over the course of a life.

Similar to Winters et al. (2015), most participants in the present study had long- established cycling histories. While some informal recyclers in the present study tended to cycle alone, others sometimes cycled with other people. Participants were likewise worried about safety: theft was a constant peril, and motor vehicles posed some risks. Unlike Winters et al.

(2015), participants in the current study were more worried about verbal abuse from other road users than about erratic behavior on the road. Participants in the current study were also not overly concerned with cycling infrastructure, as previously discussed, although from my observational work I noted that better cycling infrastructure would have enhanced participants’ safety in some cases.

In a similar vein, in the present study, informal recyclers experienced on-the-job health hazards, including road incidents with vehicles and bicycle spills resulting from precariously loaded bicycles. They would rarely seek help in these instances, unless they suffered an acute injury. One reason they avoided seeking immediate help was because of their need to reach the bottle depot before it closed so that they could drop off their load of recyclables and secure their days’ earnings. Wittmer and Parizeau (2016) also found that male informal recyclers avoided healthcare services, partly, they suggest, because recyclers must work long hours and rarely take time off work, but also because they were subject to stigma at hospitals and therefore avoided health care facilities. My results indicate similar findings, but show that recyclers rarely missed

107 days of work for additional reasons. People in the community relied on them to collect their recycling. If recyclers did not pick up, the items could pile up and become a target for theft.

Additionally, recyclers wanted to consistently “show up” in order to prove their reliability to the building managers with whom they had developed relationships. Participants also suffered from various health issues, most mild enough to work while in pain, but sometimes requiring days off.

Furthermore, their bikes or bike parts were regularly stolen, resulting in difficulties performing their work. Addiction was another factor, as some cyclists attended a methadone clinic every day for their methadone shot. Health maintenance, then, was difficult for participants due to intersecting factors relating to stigma, theft, drug use, housing, and the risks inherent in bicycling and recycling. While such issues are highly pertinent to the safety and security of those

I interviewed, they also raise questions about the extent to which such issues are considered at all by those who recommend cycling and related forms of physical activity for health purposes – recognizing that all participants in my study were active cyclists. I explore this in this next section.

Healthism, Health and Unstably Housed Cyclists

Studies such as the one conducted by Winter et al. (2015) compare older adult levels of physical activity to the Canadian physical activity requirement of 150 minutes of physical activity per week. In meeting this goal, whether by walking, swimming, cycling, or other forms of exercise, the authors suggest that older adults could be reducing their risk for a variety of chronic diseases. Emphasized here is the view that one’s health is one’s own personal responsibility – while seemingly deemphasized are the structural circumstances and external factors that people must negotiate while navigating their day to day lives. This individual- focused perspective, known as healthism (see Crawford, 1980), has been critiqued for its failure

108 to acknowledge the broad scope of factors that influence health, including environmental factors, socioeconomic status, gender, and access to healthy food.

My results support the view that health is more complex than the daily individual choices people make. While participants in the study I conducted consistently engaged in a healthy activity and were probably meeting the Canadian government’s physical activity recommendations, they were not necessarily healthy (to the extent that they all had numerous health issues), and they were not viewed as healthy by the general public. Yet, it is likely that regular cycling did have a positive impact on participants’ health. My findings support literature showing that health is complex and is associated with life circumstances and structural factors beyond one’s control (Harrington & Fullagar, 2013; Norman, 2011).

Social Connections, Moral Economy, & Tactics: Creative Ways Participants ‘Got By’

A key finding was around the ways that participants creatively navigated problems associated with the constraints of poverty in their daily lives. Results illustrated the numerous small ways that participants “got by”. I discuss some of these strategies related to bicycle use as they relate to social connections, tactics, and moral economy. This section and the following section on stigma highlight the interpretive aspects of this thesis, showing that participants created meaning through social encounters and relationships.

Social Connections

Through this research I discovered that participants had developed a number of social relationships, many of which related to bicycling. While participants’ families16 were not unimportant to the participants, relationships on a daily basis were primarily friend-, neighbourhood-, or work-based – and the social networks of peers in the DTES that participants

16 While all participants discussed their families, none lived in close proximity to relatives, and many described themselves as the “black sheep” of the family.

109 described were especially notable. “Buddies” provided support and lent a hand in times of need, and participants returned the favour. For example, one participant was taught how to bin by a seasoned binner. Years later, the participant saw his old friend on the street and bought him lunch. The social connections that came with being members of the DTES community, then, allowed certain benefits (Bourdieu, 1985). The two participants who did not engage in informal recycling expressed a desire to participate in social networks beyond the DTES. Other participants were wary of people in their social networks who they feared might steal from them, illustrating that not all social connections yield positive outcomes (Portes, 1998).

These findings are consistent with Neale and Stevenson’s (2015) study of homeless hostel residents who used drugs. Participants in their study had relationships with family members, professionals, hostel residents, friends, partners or ex-partners, and enemies. They found that social connections offered various forms of support, but negative social interactions were also common, making participants feel more vulnerable. They note that support often came from other people who were also living in poverty.

The three recyclers I interviewed with somewhat higher status within this community had social connections as a result of their occupation as informal recyclers. They had positive relationships with various professionals, including employees at bottle depots and scrap yards, business owners, building managers and artists who were tenants of buildings. Similarly, Neale

& Stevenson’s (2015) findings indicated that relationships with professionals, such as hostel staff and general practitioners, were very important, “comprised the majority of their social networks”

(Neale & Stevenson, 2015, p. 479), and were the most stable over time. The social connections that informal recyclers fostered through years of recycling were important not only for social support, but also for securing a constant supply of recyclables. These relationships also

110 represented an element of stability and reliability in the lives of recyclers, for whom so much of life was precarious.

Tactics

Participants also employed tactics (De Certeau, 1984) to take power back in their hands in certain scenarios and adapt to unfavourable environments. While some of these tactics were in direct response to stigma (see next section), others were about resisting the movement between what De Verteuil (2009) called the “unrelated, inadvertent, informal and inappropriate” (p. 652) institutional spaces of homelessness, settings that disrupt stability and ultimately continue the cycle of poverty. Still other tactics were simply about getting by and living day-to-day.

An example of resistance was expressed by one participant who shared how he disregarded small laws related to cycling, such as wearing a helmet and using lights on his bicycle after dark. Breaking these laws gave him a sense of power over police, who he disliked, and in turn stopped him from being tempted to break larger laws, which had put him in jail in the past. Although his actions could be seen as resistant and deviant, he suggested that such micro- resistances were useful in giving him a sense of control and power, which in turn kept him from committing other crimes.

Other tactics helped participants avoid some of the “inappropriate” institutional spaces of homelessness (De Verteuil, 2009, p. 652) that might increase instability in the lives of those in poverty. Participants expressed that they did not want to go back to jail, so some were extra careful when purchasing a bike to check to the best of their abilities that is was not stolen. Others conformed to safety laws relating to cycling not to be safe necessarily, but to appear to be taking the necessary precautionary measures in order to avoid being stopped by police

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Wittmer & Parizeau (2016) found in their study of informal recyclers in Vancouver that the work of informal recycling itself was a tactic that allowed participants to avoid degrading clientization from various social service agencies. This finding is supported in the present study.

Not only could participants get away from food line-ups that relegated them to passive recipient mode, but also from SROs, which can be just as chaotic and dangerous as street life (Knight et al., 2014). The bicycle was important because it allowed participants to physically escape from the DTES, just as it allowed them to take initiative rather than simply respond to handouts of both food and housing.

Moral Economy

Another way participants responded to challenges can be described using the concept of moral economy (Thompson, 1971). Thompson (1971) studied food riots in early eighteenth- century England. At the time, riots occurred as a result of rising costs of bread, which was so high that “more than one-half of the weekly budget of a labourer's family might be spent on bread” (p. 82). Thompson (1971) found that these riots occurred not only because people were hungry, but also because people expected their economy to function as a moral economy. In a moral economy, food would be affordable. Since the moral obligation to be able to afford food was no longer being met, rebellion was necessary, and, as Dodson (2007) notes, legitimate.

In today’s society, there are certain disruptions to moral economy, including social assistance payments that do not match the cost of living in Vancouver. In the present study participants made decisions according to a moral economy, which helped them supplement their welfare and/or disability payments. For example, one participant described a time when he jumped a fence to take some metal that had been donated after-hours outside a scrap yard. He saw nothing wrong with taking it, since the metal would be recycled the next day anyway, and it

112 made sense that he be the one to recycle it and receive the money. Other participants talked about buying stolen bicycles because that was what was available and affordable, and because their bikes, too, were often stolen. Rather than endorsing and enacting deviant criminal behaviour, as they were sometimes portrayed to do, participants were aware of the laws of society, made critical reflections on who the laws were for, and chose to adhere to them or not.

Dodson (2007), in her study of wage-poor mothers in Boston, Milwaukee, and Denver, found that mothers put their families before their jobs, even if that meant bending or breaking the rules. She found that mothers would verbally agree to job requirements, and then ignore them in favour of meeting their family’s needs. For example, mothers would take after-hours cleaning work where they would sneak their children onto the job premises at night so that the children could sleep on the floor while the mothers cleaned. Dodson (2007) argues that mothers expected not only a moral economy, but a moral society, where their economic and family needs would be met. While participants in the current study were not caring for dependents (three had children who did not live with them), I argue that they also expected a moral society. Participants’ behaviour revealed that they expected to be able to purchase and maintain bicycles without fear of theft, they wanted to be seen as hardworking contributing members of society, they deserved a clean living space with a kitchen and bathroom, and that they wished to be treated fairly and equally and not stigmatized. The ways they acted did not line up with the ways they were treated, however. So, sometimes they performed acts that were seen as deviant, but that were helping them to maintain as dignified a lifestyle as possible.

Stigma

A major finding was that participants experienced a significant amount of stigma. Stigma was initially described by Goffman (1963) as “an attribute that is deeply discrediting” (p.3).

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Participants faced stigma related to homelessness while negotiating some of the challenges described in the previous section. They also responded to stigma in a variety of ways, using strategies that preserved their personal sense of dignity, and signaled to society that they did not identify with the negative image attributed to them. W.E.B. Du Bois (1903) outlined the concept of double-consciousness, suggesting that those not valued by society must navigate society’s perception of them and their own perception of themselves. Here I primarily discuss the former and briefly touch on the latter. This important interpretive part of this thesis addresses the social context in which participants lived, and explores how participants’ identities were constructed and shifted through social relations.

Similar to Gowan (1997), who studied binners in San Francisco, I found that the recyclers

I interviewed were proud of their work and portrayed themselves as upstanding and hardworking citizens. Gowan (1997) suggested that since recycling was associated with homelessness17, participants most entrenched in recycling were also entrenched in a homeless identity, and they used their work to promote a positive homeless identity. Rather than distancing themselves from being homeless, they showed that they were both homeless and a hard worker. In the current study, most participants had a ‘roof over their head’, yet since they lived in SROs in the DTES and took part in recycling, they were viewed as homeless. Some distanced themselves from the homeless label by suggesting that they were lucky to live in a room and not be on the streets, suggesting that people on the streets were of lower status than they. Others remembered their days living on the streets fondly, and expressed that in certain respects, “camp life” was better than living in an SRO.

17 Not all recyclers are homeless, however. In this study the recyclers were unstably-housed, but in Vancouver other populations who aren’t necessarily homeless or unstably-housed also recycle (see https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/gia-tran-daily-donations-1.4852982)

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While their identification with homelessness varied, the recyclers were quite passionate about their work and most worked very hard. These findings are consistent with a study conducted by Gowan (1997), who suggests that binners in her study were workaholics who felt they needed to prove their contributions to society in light of their “extraordinarily dehumanizing” (p. 170) fate of being homeless. In the current study, recyclers who had established relationships on their trap lines were especially ardent. Their enthusiasm may have been a way to distance themselves from the stigma associated with binning and recycling, and instead to highlight the positive aspects of it (Wittmer & Parizeau, 2016). Recycling is a very visible practice involving a cart, bike, and/or trailer, and big garbage bags filled with cans. While homeless people are invisible in many facets of society, they are “made visible through their juxtaposition with what is considered acceptable” in urban settings (Clift, 2019, p. 20). Recyclers were proud of their hard work, which was visible on the streets, making them potential targets for harassment. For recyclers, fully embracing a recycling identity may have been one of the only options for combatting the stigma associated with it. From my observations I noted that most participants seemed to adopt enthusiastic and cheerful dispositions towards the general public, perhaps with the goal of receiving similar treatment.

Recyclers, also, had routine work. The two non-recyclers did not have any work that could become a meaningful aspect of their lives, so they made meaning of other aspects of life.

Here I am discussing participants’ perceptions of themselves (Du Bois, 1903). Both of these non- recyclers employed what Snow and Anderson (1987) call “fantasizing” (p.1360), where they spent considerable time discussing their future hopes and dreams. They both expressed how capable they were, and they expressed that they had a positive self-image (and this was obvious from our discussions too). Snow and Anderson (1987) also found that the people experiencing

115 homelessness in their study tended to assert positive identities, because (they suggest) their identity construction is one of the only things they have. Both recyclers and non-recyclers in my study expressed and demonstrated positive self-identities. For recyclers, associating strongly with a current recycling identity seemed to help them combat stigma regarding their own perceptions of themselves. Non-recyclers expressed a positive self-identity by discussing their future lives, although it was unclear if they generally held this positive disposition.

While bicycling, participants responded to stigma on the roads by adopting various strategies in order to portray themselves as legitimate road users and law-abiding citizens. While bicycles are becoming widely popular in Vancouver, cyclists are nevertheless vulnerable road users and still face drivers’ frustration (Delbosc et al., 2019). Participants, who were already stigmatized by a homeless identity, also faced malice from other road users. They responded in different ways. One asserted the legitimacy of his presence as a vehicle on the road by taking up a full car lane. As previously mentioned, other participants abided by safety laws, not to be safe necessarily, but to appear to be taking the necessary precautionary measures in order to avoid being stopped by police or verbally abused by other road users.

Green et al. (2012) found in their study of commuter cyclists in London that it is the responsibility of the neoliberal cycling citizen to be safe and to take personal preventative measures to avoid accidents (such as being extremely alert, signaling, wearing a helmet, etc.).

Participants in the present study wore safety equipment to communicate with other road users that they were indeed alert and self-aware road-users. Some embraced an anti-car sentiment that is akin to one adopted by many ‘green’ cyclists (despite being unable to own a car themselves, as previously noted). Green et al. (2012) also found that cycling is in direct opposition to driving for the ‘green’ cyclist. While participants in the current study verbalized that having a vehicle or

116 scooter could be advantageous, they also communicated that they were among the in-group of cyclists who were opposed to cars.

Goffman’s (1963) work on stigma suggests that this disconfirming phenomenon arises from perceived differences between and among people. In the present study I suggest that stigma also arises from established and perhaps rigid systems within which people, especially homeless people, as my data suggest— live and think and work.

Cycling Spaces A major finding was the existence of an underground economy of bicycle-related spaces navigated daily by participants. These places included the DTES streets and Street Market, the community bike shops, the bottle depots, trap lines, and dwelling places. While these places were different in terms of their purpose and offerings, in one way or another, they afforded participants autonomy, agency and opportunities to avoid some of the “inappropriate” institutional spaces of homelessness (De Verteuil, 2009).

Cloke et al. (2008) studied homeless geographies in Bristol, UK, a place not dissimilar to

Vancouver in that the UK city provides a significant amount of service for homeless people.

Similar to my findings, Cloke et al. found that lives of the homeless are regulated through direct policing and through concentrating services in a specific area. Homeless people in their study escaped these marginal spaces by finding places to eat, places to sleep, places to earn, and places to hang out as they moved through the city. Their journeys “reflect a tactical crisscrossing of the city to connect up a range of differently significant places,” and this crisscrossing allowed them to “reinscribe sites and connections in the city with meanings associated with homelessness”

(Cloke et al., 2008, p. 259).

Cyclists in the present study also accessed and reinscribed certain places with meaning which was often different from what would seem to be the intended meaning of the place. The

117 bicycle was central to their “crisscrossing” of the city. A loading dock became “the centre of my universe” for one participant: a sort of headquarters where he would sort his recycling before biking off to a depot or scrap yard, and he would do that recycling, sorting and delivery dance multiple times a day. For another participant, the bottle depot was no just a site to quickly drop off recycling and make a few bucks, it was a key place where he created and enjoyed social connections. The bicycle was vital here –providing a method of transportation that allowed participants to crisscross the city and travel to their importance sites.

Cloke et al. (2008) also highlighted participants’ affective states, noting that while participants moved through the city following their tactical assessments and choices, their journeys were “punctuated with spontaneous outbursts of laughter/happiness and fear/anger” (p.

242). Essentially, while the homeless people in Cloke et al.’s study had well-thought-out methods to meet their needs, some of their actions were not governed by rational strategies: they were actions associated simply with being human – and making a range of choices for a range of strategic and sometimes unstrategic reasons.

Similarly, the homeless cyclists I interviewed used numerous tactics, but not every tactic was a strategic method of survival. For example, one participant sacrificed space in his bicycle trailer in order to have a large speaker from which to play and enjoy music while he went about his work day. Highlighting the feelings and emotions of homeless people is important in an academic literature that tends to “stress only the strategies by which homeless people are controlled and contained, or the rational tactics through which homeless people resist that containment” (Cloke et al., 2008, p. 260).

‘Real Utopias’ for Homeless Cyclists?

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I conclude this section by highlighting two important and meaningful spaces for homeless cyclists: the community bike shop and the bottle depot. The community bike shop offered low- income cyclists a credit system, so they could get assistance with or do their bike repairs and pay later. Sometimes, a community bike shop would give a participant a bike, free of charge. Several bottle depots had systems in place to help recyclers: free coffee, food and clothing donations for them, a raffle to win cash, heaters to warm up near on chilly days, and space to bring their bike or cart inside, out of the Vancouver rains. Additionally, along participants’ trap lines, some building owners or property managers made sure recyclers’ had a regular pick-up, and even a place to sort their recycling. I argue that these places are akin to what E.O. Wright (2012) called

“real utopias”. Wright (2012) suggests that real utopias involve resistance to dominant institutions and systems through “showing that another world is possible by building it in the spaces available” (p. 22). Although not all bottle depots in Vancouver were considered to be accommodating or welcoming to recyclers, and some paid less than full price for recyclables, the bottle depots, community bike shops, and trap line sites that had ‘real utopian’ features were places where homeless cyclists were made to feel welcome and where many of their needs were met, in a society that largely did the opposite. While operating within the structures of capitalism in Vancouver18 for their businesses, the bike shop, recycling depot, and building operators found ways to create a setting and system that allowed those who tend to exist on the margins to experience conditions that allowed them, in some ways, to flourish. Wright (2012) argues that when these spaces are identified and the features of these spaces better understood, the next step is to push policy-makers to intentionally support the creation of other spaces with similar features. As a first step, I identify the importance of these spaces themselves.

18 Although, community bike shops tend to be as anti-capitalist as possible and are often non-hierarchical (Arnold, 2012).

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CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION

In this final chapter I summarize my findings and offer some reflections, recommendations, and conclusions. I came to this research project after having been struck by the difference between depictions of cyclists in documents from the City of Vancouver and my observations of people cycling in Vancouver streets. Around the same time, I discovered bicycle justice literature that highlighted discrepancies between structures designed to benefit cyclists and the needs of a broad range of cyclists on the road. Additionally, my own experiences as a woman in bicycle spaces and my work in community bike shops introduced me to lower-income cyclists and some of the cycling-related challenges they must face. With that background, in this research I set out to explore the experiences of homeless and unstably-housed cyclists who use a bicycle in Vancouver.

While bicycling is associated with positive health, economic, and environmental outcomes, these benefits are often reserved for privileged populations (Lugo, 2018). Many people ride bicycles out of necessity, but their experiences are obscured in cycling literature which tends to categorize cyclists as either commuter or recreational cyclists. The City of

Vancouver positions itself as a cycling-friendly city, but emphasizes going car-free, implying that cyclists have the choice to give up car ownership. Knowing this, I sought to find out what cycling meant to participants, what resources and support were available to them, and the extent to which cycling policy and advocacy served their needs. I used a critical interpretive approach as I aimed to investigate how those at the bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum enact ‘green’ lifestyles, considering especially how they fit into the dominant narrative surrounding what it means to be a cyclist in Vancouver. A goal was to contribute to broader conversations about the lived experience of poverty, specifically the experiences of low-income people who cycle out of

120 necessity. Relatedly, I sought to learn about how cycling is connected to larger issues of inequality, such as Vancouver’s current housing crisis, opioid epidemic, and settler-colonial history.

I interviewed five homeless or unstably-housed men who live and ride bicycles in the

DTES of Vancouver. I found that the bicycle carried multiple meanings, cyclists navigated an underground network of bike-related spaces, and they experienced significant stigma. In the remainder of this chapter, I reflect on these and a few other key findings, offer a brief reminder of how they contribute to current literature – and, on this basis outline some practical and research-focused recommendations based on my findings.

Looking Beyond the Leisure-Commuter Dichotomy

I found that even among a somewhat homogenous population of homeless and unstably- housed male bike riders, the bicycle was used for different purposes and its meaning varied. This finding is important for expanding the discussion of cycling beyond the leisure-commuter dichotomy. At very least, cycling for a livelihood could be included in academic discussions, which would broaden cycling discussions to include recyclers, bicycle couriers, and delivery cyclists, a profession which has greatly expanded recently with the rise of food delivery apps

(Lee et al., 2016). More importantly, however, this finding points to a need for research not just about what “types” of cyclists exist, but about the range of needs in cycling populations, even in bike-friendly cities such as Vancouver.

A focus on the specific needs of Indigenous bicycle-users in the DTES is also warranted in order to learn more about specific challenges they face. The Indigenous participant in the current study was the only participant sleeping on the street during the time of interview. He was also the youngest participant, and he was the only participant who had recently spent time in

121 prison. There is more work to do to reveal links between bicycling-related inequities and racial discrimination, as most work on such topics focuses on illegal immigrant populations in the US

(Lugo, 2018; Bernstein, 2016). To my knowledge Indigeneity and urban cycling have not been connected in the literature.

One commonality among participants was their use of the bicycle as a mobility aid.

While cycling is promoted to older adults as a form of exercise that can prevent various diseases, limited studies exist on bicycling as a mobility aid (i.e., bicycling as a way to be mobile when walking is difficult and driving or transit may not be viable options). The City of Vancouver does not appear to acknowledge the use of the bicycle by older populations for simple mobility.

As the population in Vancouver ages, the use of the bicycle as a mobility aid could be worth further study. Cities could benefit, again, from acknowledging and investigating the range of cyclists, including older and homeless cyclist populations who use the bicycle not just for general health but as a means to avoid exacerbating existing health challenges, and for mobility in a variety of settings.

Important Spaces and Alternate Economies

Another main finding centered around places that homeless and unstably-housed cyclists visit often, and places that played an important role related to bicycling. I discussed these findings in terms of an underground economy of places that related to bicycle-use. From a practical standpoint, this research has mapped the bike spaces that offer assistance and haven to homeless and unstably-housed cyclists. This study has shown the positive benefits of these systems.

Results showed that community bike shops, where cyclists could use a credit system, or were sometimes given free bikes, helped to keep them on the road in ways they could afford.

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Some participants needed their bicycles in order to conduct their recycling work. Further study and consideration is warranted around funding for community bike shops, which are often non- profit and grant-funded (Arnold, 2012), that might help formalize the process of making bicycles available for low prices or for free to low-income populations.

Relatedly, this research highlighted the importance of places where participants could buy and sell goods related to cycling. The DTES Street Market was a formalized and legal space where cyclists could connect with other community members and acquire bicycles and related goods at prices that were more affordable than market-value items. Both the community bike shop and the DTES Street Market were important spaces where participants addressed bike- related needs. This research has highlighted the necessity of such places.

Additionally, this study illuminated the importance of housing; specifically, having a secure place to store one’s bike was a luxury available to few participants. For participants, having a roof overhead did not mean theft of bikes would not occur. This research highlighted the importance of bike security; for some participants, their bikes were safer in a homeless camp than in an SRO.

In regard to recyclers’ work, recyclers had connections along trap lines which were part of their routine and were vital to securing a stable stream of recyclables. These situations were often mutually beneficial: recyclers made a profit and building tenants and managers had their beverage containers or scrap metal taken away. While beverage containers likely would have been recycled on recycling day, metal recycling requires that one makes a special trip to a metal recycling depot. Were recyclers not there to pick up the metal recycling, there is a chance that some of it would have ended up in the garbage. Ironically, scrap metal recyclers on bicycles were not permitted entry into most metal recycling depots on account of their mode of transport. This

123 study has illuminated the importance of people who perform scrap metal recycling, as well as the constraints they face by using a bicycle instead of a car. Based on my findings related to both bottle and scrap metal recycling, I recommend that work be done to decriminalize recycling and binning practices in Vancouver.

At times, health, housing, income-generation, and cycling coincided, meaning recyclers sometimes missed days of work due to theft in their buildings, or as a result of being ill (which may have been a result of other factors, such as the lack of kitchen facilities in SROs). Findings such as these highlight the theoretical importance of considering the intersectionality of factors related to housing, transportation, health, and income, even when that income is outside the established economy. Building on the suggestion of Lugo (2018) that equitable transportation must confront the relationship to other factors such as housing and health, this study reveals intersections that contribute to an ongoing sense of precarity in the life and work circumstances of participants. More inquiry may help to unpack this complexity and contribute to the growing literature about the interaction among these events.

Adding to the complexity, the interaction between cycling, recycling, health, and homelessness has become more evident during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which broke out in March, 2020. For recyclers, it was unclear directly after the outbreak whether recycling depots would fully close their operations on not—luckily, they remained open but with shorter hours (Return-It, 2020), which likely impacted the length of recyclers’ workdays. Additionally, bicycles have sold out in most bike stores in Vancouver as more people have leisure time, which may have impacted participants’ abilities to obtain bikes (Uguen-Csenge, 2020). Finally, homelessness has risen in BC since the outbreak began (McIntyre, 2020), potentially impacting those who access resources for homeless people, as resources are stretched thin. As a result of

124 these intersecting factors, it is likely that the pandemic has further unsettled what were already precarious conditions for homeless cyclists.

Cycling Infrastructure

Access to safe cycling and to bike infrastructure were not something participants expressed concern about. They rode in places uncommon to most cyclists, such as in alleyways and on sidewalks. The findings of this study suggest that infrastructure could be better set up to support recyclers. Infrastructure modifications might include bike lanes being established near recycling centers, or new recycling centers choosing locations on established bike lanes. Another modification might see bike lanes being wide enough to accommodate a bicycle with a wide trailer or cart attached, something that would likely benefit not only recyclers, but delivery cyclists who carry large loads, families who cycle with children in trailers, and others. In so doing, these modifications would likely contribute to the safety of all road users.

Stigma, Surveillance and Resistance

Another main finding was that participants faced stigma from two main sources: the police and the general public. This research has shed light onto discrepancies in law enforcement and shown that visibly low-income cyclists face high chances of being stopped by police.

Relatedly, I attempted to address what role, if any, being a cyclist plays in promoting an identity that combats stigmatization, and whether or not a cycling identity counteracts or intensifies the stigma already experienced by homeless people. I found that a cycling identity made participants very visible to police, and gave police a reason to stop participants, or make their presence known to participants. In this way, being a cyclist while also being homeless may have in fact intensified the stigma participants already faced.

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While studies tend to focus on the marginalization of cycling to the automobile (see

Mayers & Glover, 2019; Koglin & Rye, 2014; Buelher & Pucher, 2011), this study has shown that unstably-housed cyclists are stigmatized on account of their visible advanced marginality

(Wacquant, 2008). Participants’ main concerns were not related to personal safety from automobiles, but instead they feared verbal abuse from drivers. This research illuminated other clashes happening in the streets too: not car versus bicycle, but visibly-marginalized cyclists struggling against the tangible effects of stigmatization towards people in poverty. This research has shown that this stigma extends to the streets, and that being on a bicycle may, in itself, lead to exacerbated forms stigma and the forms of harassment that result.

Participants responded to this stigma. Recyclers worked to combat stigma related to homelessness by portraying themselves as hardworking and dependable workers. They viewed themselves as being worthy, contributing members of a community. Participants who were not recyclers also had positive self-perceptions and focused on future hopes and goals. Interestingly, participants did not self-identify as being ‘green’, despite riding bicycles and, for the recyclers, diverting significant material from landfills on a daily basis. Neither were recyclers accorded any merit for their work—rather, they were stigmatized

In addition to facing stigma, some participants stigmatized Vancouverites for whom the bicycle was dispensable. Pointing out what a wasteful society Vancouver is, participants were incredulous that bicycles would be among the items discarded by locals. For participants, bicycles were indispensable and they were regularly in need of a bicycle due to the prevalence of theft. However, towards other cyclists on the roads (i.e., people actually riding their bikes), they expressed no dislike.

Go-Along Interviews

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This study contributed methodologically by using ride along and go-along interview methods, an approach that is underdeveloped in the literature (Wegerif, 2019). The study contributed to both ride-along and go-along literatures as the topic of study was both bicycling and the experience of space and place that people cycle to. In other words, both the experience of cycling and experiences of destinations were examined. The study has illuminated the benefits of mobile methods when working with marginalized populations. Cycling alongside low-income bicycle users made it possible for these bicycle users to lead me, the interviewer, to places that were important to them. In this way, participants in this study wield significant power in the interview, which is uncommon in traditional face-to-face interviewing techniques (Burns et al.,

2020). The ride-along interview technique allowed me to experience, rather than hear about, bicycling and activities related to bicycling alongside participants. These methods allowed me to gather robust data about the complexities of cycling and recycling within a commonly stigmatized group – against the backdrop of society where a binary and limited view of bicycling is dominant.

Final Recommendations for Further Research: A Focus on Women, Immigrants, and

Global North Recyclers

Here I identify further recommendations. More studies of cycling and housing instability are warranted. Only men were interviewed in this study, yet Wittmer and Parizeau (2016) found in their analysis of informal recyclers at one bottle depot in Vancouver that 30% identified as female. It is likely that some of these female recyclers would also use a bicycle. They also found that women were more likely to work with men, akin to how Pete and his late wife would recycle together. Additionally, no recent immigrants were interviewed in the present study. Immigrants make up a significant proportion of Vancouver’s population, and literature has suggested that the

127 specific needs of recent immigrants are not met in cycling advocacy that centers white and upwardly mobile populations (Law & Karnilowicz, 2015; Bernstein, 2016). The need for studies that include female recyclers and that address the cycling-related needs of recent immigrants is clear. Also, and while some studies explore experiences of waste-pickers in the Global South, there is a dearth of literature on informal recyclers and binners in the Global North. Literature focusing on the Global South has identified how informal recyclers make environmental, economical, and community-building contributions (Dias, 2016). Incorporating this literature into city planning and environmental initiatives could be key to reducing waste. Recognizing and supporting the work of informal recyclers in cities’ waste and recycling initiatives could also be a way to foster inclusion. Vancouver aims to be “waste-free” by 204019. Formally incorporating recyclers could put the City one step closer to this goal, and could provide a way for low-income recyclers to have formal work.

In sum, this study shed light on homeless and unstably-housed men who face stigma, yet who are enacting lifestyles more ‘green’ than most Vancouverites despite facing a host of challenges related to living in poverty. In my Ph.D work I plan to inquire into related questions in larger contexts including various other Canadian cities. Comparative studies into the intersection of factors relating to cycling, health, housing, and income are needed in both larger samples of participants and in other locations. Further study is needed with an eye toward highlighting actions which might reduce the precarity in the lives of homeless and unstably- housed people who use the bicycle for their livelihood, sense of worthiness, community membership and health.

19 See the Zero Waste 2040 Complete Plan: https://council.vancouver.ca/20180516/documents/pspc2a.pdf

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APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW GUIDE

1. Do you have any final questions about the research process before we begin the interview? 2. When did you start using a bicycle? 3. How often do you use your bike? 4. What do you use your bike for? 5. What does your bike mean to you? 6. Would you say you consider yourself a cyclist? 7. Tell me about what a typical day on a bike looks like for you. 8. Roughly how much time do you spend on your bicycle in a day? 9. How does cycling make your body feel? 10. Do you take certain measures to keep your bicycle safe? 11. Do you have a lock for your bicycle? 12. What do you do with your bicycle at night time? 13. What do you think of other cyclists? 14. What do you think other cyclists think of you? 15. Do you wear a helmet or reflective clothing? 16. How often do you use bike lanes? 17. Could you tell me about any police encounters you’ve had while on your bike? 18. How long have you lived in the community? 19. What do you do when you need to fix your bicycle? 20. Can you tell me about any other people in your community who also use bikes? 21. In what ways do you feel supported or unsupported if you need a hand? 22. Are most of the people who you know who bike men or women? 23. Are you friends with other binners? 24. What are some barriers that you encounter while cycling? 25. What would make your experience as a cyclist easier? If they are a binner: 26. How did you get into binning? 27. How long have you been binning for? 28. How important is your bike for binning? 29. What does a typical load look like on your bike? 30. Could you tell me about any mechanical problems you’ve encountered? 31. Could you tell me about the set-up of your bike? Do you have a trailer on your bike? How did you set up your trailer? 32. Do you have specific routes that you take while binning? 33. Do you interact with other binners? 34. Have you ever been injured from binning?

35. Do you have any final comments or questions?

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APPENDIX B: INFORMED CONSENT FORMS

Project title: A Study of Homelessness and Bicycling in Vancouver, Canada Investigator: Jeanette Steinmann (MA Candidate, University of British Columbia) Supervisor: Dr. Brian Wilson (Professor, University of British Columbia)

Dear participant, I am an MA student in the School of Kinesiology at the University of British Columbia studying under the supervision of Dr. Brian Wilson. I am conducting a research project on the experiences of people experiencing homelessness who use bicycles in Vancouver. I would like to invite you to participate in this study if you are a person experiencing homelessness who regularly uses a bicycle. Your participation would involve one mobile interview, in which we cycle together and have a discussion. The interview will take approximately 30-60 minutes. Your participation would also include 30-60 minutes where we cycle together in Vancouver. All interviews will be digitally audio-recorded, unless requested otherwise. I will type up the interview into a document and you will have an opportunity to review the document, make corrections, withdraw or add comments, and use a pseudonym. Potential risks and benefits There are no known risks of physical harm, discomfort or inconvenience regarding your participation in this research. Depending on the nature of your experiences, it is possible that you may find some of the questions distressing, however. I will not ask you to disclose any information that you do not wish to discuss. If you feel uncomfortable at any point during the interview, you are free to refuse to answer questions, stop the interview, or withdraw from the study without penalty. If you withdraw, I will immediately destroy all audio recordings and/or transcripts. Although the findings in this study will not benefit you directly, your participation will add to existing research, and potentially inspire other questions for researchers to pursue in the future. You may gain some satisfaction in furthering knowledge, and from the opportunity to share and reflect upon your experiences. Your stories will contribute to understandings of poverty and bicycling, including furthering understandings of the unique and creative ways that marginalized people navigate day-to-day life. Compensation You will be compensated $40 in cash for your participation in this study. Confidentiality

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All digital data will be stored as encrypted files on a password-protected computer. All other physical data such as consent forms will be locked in a secure place at the researcher’s office. Only my supervisor and I will have access to the data. If you wish, you may choose to use a pseudonym, and obvious identifiers of you and your affiliated group will be changed. Transcripts and interpretations will also be available for you to read in order to confirm accurate transcription, representation and interpretation. You may request a copy of the findings or final report at any time. All data will be destroyed approximately ten years after the research has concluded. Who can you contact if you have complaints or concerns about the study? If you have any concerns about your rights as a research participant and/or your experiences while participating in this study, contact the Research Participant Complaint Line in the UBC Office of Research Ethics at 604-822-8598 or if long distance, e-mail [email protected] or call toll free 1-877-822-8598. After you have approved all transcript excerpts and the final draft is complete, I would be happy to provide you with a summary of findings from the study. Thank you for your consideration. Please contact me with any concerns you may have. Sincerely,

Jeanette Steinmann, MA Candidate

Dr. Brian Wilson, Principal Investigator Professor, Kinesiology, UBC

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Oral Consent Script Hello, I am Jeanette Steinmann, a MA candidate from the University of British Columbia’s School of Kinesiology. I am conducting a research study on homelessness and bicycling in Vancouver with the support of my supervisor, Dr. Brian Wilson, the principal investigator of this study. Today you will be participating in a mobile interview which will take approximately 30-60 minutes, in which we cycle together and have a discussion. You will also be participating in a participant observation session which should take approximately 30-60 minutes in which we cycle together and I observe you. Your participation is voluntary, and you will be compensated $40 for your participation. All interviews will be anonymous and digitally audio-recorded, unless requested otherwise. You will have an opportunity to review the transcript of the interview, make corrections, withdraw or add comments and use a pseudonym. There are no known risks of physical harm, discomfort or inconvenience regarding your participation in this research. Depending on the nature of your experiences, it is possible that you may find some of the questions distressing, however. I will not ask you to disclose any information that you do not wish to discuss. If you feel uncomfortable at any point during the interview, you are free to refuse to answer questions, stop the interview, or withdraw from the study without penalty. If you withdraw, I will immediately destroy all audio recordings and/or transcripts. Although the findings in this study will not benefit you directly, your participation will add to existing research, and potentially inspire other questions for researchers to pursue in the future. You may gain some satisfaction in furthering knowledge, and from the opportunity to share and reflect upon your experiences. Your stories will contribute to understandings of poverty and bicycling, including furthering understandings of the unique and creative ways that marginalized people navigate day-to-day life. All digital data will be stored as encrypted files on a password-protected computer. All other physical data such as consent forms will be locked in a secure place at the researcher’s office. Only my supervisor and I will have access to the data. If you wish, you may choose to use a pseudonym, and obvious identifiers of you will be changed. Only excerpts that have been approved by you will be used in future presentations or publications. Transcripts and interpretations will also be available for you to read in order to confirm accurate transcription, representation and interpretation. You may request a copy of the findings or final report at any time. All data will be destroyed approximately ten years after the research has concluded. Some journals and grant agencies require public access to research studies. This study may be made an open access study, meaning the findings of the study could be publicly accessible. Once this data is public, you will not be able to withdraw what you said. If you have any concerns or complaints about your rights as a research participant and/or your experiences while participating in this study, contact the Research Participant Complaint Line in the UBC Office of Research Ethics at 604-822-8598 or if long distance, e-mail [email protected]

142 or call toll free 1-877-822-8598. After you have approved all transcript excerpts and the final draft is complete, I would be happy to provide you with a summary of findings from the study. Do you have any questions or would like any additional details? Do you agree to participate in this study knowing that you can withdraw at any point with no consequences to you? [If yes, begin the interview] [If no, thank the participant for her/his time]

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