Imagine waking up every morning to the same stressful questionings: will I eat today? Where will I sleep tonight? When will I be put out of my misery? Throughout my quest in Montreal last Saturday, November 26th 2016, I was lucky enough to meet Nicole Saint-Coeur, sitting outside of Old Brewery Mission. The conversation we had led me to reflect on her personal story and homelessness as a social issue, the process and reliability of the interview, which are all subjects I will explore in this essay.
To start with, from cardboard cut-outs to sleeping bags and shelters, some are more fortunate than others through their misfortune. However, for Nicole Saint-Coeur, homelessness was not a choice, but more a repercussion of changing life events. Born in 1967, Nicole had high expectancies to meet, …show more content…
The two-hour enthralling conversation we held was about her journey through life and different struggles she encountered that led to her partial homelessness. Partial, because she lives in a place near Parc Station with other people, although she wishes to obtain her own apartment in a foreseeable future. First, in the early 1990s, she met her husband, a military man, with whom she had two sons. Nonetheless, as time went by and her marriage started to fall apart. Ms. Saint-Coeur even expressed that “he gave me three weekly appointments, Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, where I had to pull down my pants” (translated from French), which she mumbled as her voice got lower and weaker, tears rolling down her cheeks. In 1998 she got a divorce and her sons, Jeremy and Olivier, were taken away after the judgment of the court. What sparked up the most anger was that the case she had prepared was not even heard nor read because her husband had been given the advantage. From there, it was an infinite downward spiral on which there didn’t seem to be a rock-bottom to hit. She then turned toward cocaine and had another
To start with, from cardboard cut-outs to sleeping bags and shelters, some are more fortunate than others through their misfortune. However, for Nicole Saint-Coeur, homelessness was not a choice, but more a repercussion of changing life events. Born in 1967, Nicole had high expectancies to meet, …show more content…
The two-hour enthralling conversation we held was about her journey through life and different struggles she encountered that led to her partial homelessness. Partial, because she lives in a place near Parc Station with other people, although she wishes to obtain her own apartment in a foreseeable future. First, in the early 1990s, she met her husband, a military man, with whom she had two sons. Nonetheless, as time went by and her marriage started to fall apart. Ms. Saint-Coeur even expressed that “he gave me three weekly appointments, Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, where I had to pull down my pants” (translated from French), which she mumbled as her voice got lower and weaker, tears rolling down her cheeks. In 1998 she got a divorce and her sons, Jeremy and Olivier, were taken away after the judgment of the court. What sparked up the most anger was that the case she had prepared was not even heard nor read because her husband had been given the advantage. From there, it was an infinite downward spiral on which there didn’t seem to be a rock-bottom to hit. She then turned toward cocaine and had another