MY LIFE STORY, MY EXPERIENCE WITH STIGMA HOMELESSNESS
AND SYSTEMATIC CORRUPTION.
INTRO
Hey my names Cory, I’m here to share my story and experience with stigma & homelessness.
To Empower people that have been through the same trauma & prove by example and real-life experience that it is possible to prevail and overcome All things put against you. To be resilient.
I feel that Your experiences in life can help empower others
And have a large effect. Your story is letting people from the masses see things in a light that they normally can’t see. Fighting stigma.
I believe Stigma is what’s blocking people from changing. Why would I want to change? When society has been turned against me,
In result that Make’s one withdraw and not want to be part of society. Self-destruct, And filled with hate.
EARLY LIFE / HOMELESSNESS
I was Born in Fort Erie, But grew up in Hamilton since I was about a year old,
My Mother and father were alcoholics and my father was a drug addict
I saw him do needles smoke crack cocaine & heroin as a 14-year-old child. My Father went to jail for 10 years when I was still an infant but I remember as a child there was
Always alcohol, cops coming, fighting and abuse
My mother got with another man that I would be told was my stepdad
He was an alcoholic and abusive to me and my mother and that went on until the age of about 13-14 and in that time this is what I experienced.
SCHOOL
I would be kept up all night from loud music drunk people and violence. So I was Getting in trouble and getting suspended at school and was put in a special behaviour class.
Mother would hit me and be aggressive every time I got suspended
The school & my mom Treated me like I was a bad kid.
I Told teachers about the abuse alcohol and violence in the home
CAS got involved or child care services but my parents were able to put them to the side and then they stopped coming.
*The first time the system failed*
FIRST TIME HOMELESS
At 13 I ran away from my moms and went to my actual father’s place. He was married so I had a stepmother she was a good influence and was sober. I lived with my dad but then his wife left him and he started doing drugs and drinking again. He started selling drugs and having gangsters he met from the penitentiary and they ran a large drug operation cooking cocaine into crack selling it and selling other drugs like heroin and prescription pills. There were guns hidden in different spots in the apartment. My father taught me how to cook and sell cocaine and not get caught. By 15 16 I was charged for stealing cars break and entering weapons and drug possession also various probation violations various other charges and breaches. The swat team raided our apartment and we got evicted that’s when I lived in the streets breaking into empty houses to sleep I later went back to the old empty apartment and saw the back door open and my dad sleeping on the floor with no blanket. I was also staying at friends doing crime to get food buy clothes and survive daily I grew up in a big city. A dangerous city full of gangs shootings and robberies,
Another time I and my father broke into a large business and stole everything which the police raided his friend’s apartment we were staying at he was arrested so was I but my father said I wasn’t involved he got 3 years for the crime and I went free. He got out again when I was 18 which we rebonded then I ended up going to adult jail in Barton jail Hamilton Ontario. 30 days into my jail sentence my father got sick and died in general hospital directly across the street from the jail I could see it through the glass on the range when I was incarcerated. He had emphysema and got pneumonia. Couldn’t fight it. Went into a coma and passed away. I was in shock he was just on the phone with me days before saying he was going to bring me some money and visit me. I went to court on the day of the funeral with my lawyer requesting time served in compassion of my father’s death as a first time offender as an adult. I was told I would be getting out and would make it to the funeral for 1 pm but the judge declined ordered me another month in jail on top of the month I’ve already done. And instead of going to the funeral I was brought back to the jail and did my 30 days in shock. In disbelief. Broken. With pure rage and anger towards the system for its lack of care compassion or mercy towards only a first time offender as an adult under the unfortunate circumstances that changed my life forever.
TURNING POINT HOMELESS AS AN ADULT
This was the turning point for me. So far I’ve experienced nothing but pain. Corruption. Death. Abandonment & no good influence or guidance.
Or anything good in my life and I decided I wanted to know what good felt like. And wanted to start a new life. So when I got out I jumped on a bus to the next city that I’ve never been before and had no family or friends there. I went to a homeless shelter for the first time as an adult and felt broken destroyed scared and alone. Lost. But I went to the unemployment center every day looking for help. Looking for a job. An opportunity I’ve never had and told them my story. Months later I ended up getting a job right at the working centre in Kitchener Ontario at the back they had a vegan kitchen. Which was a full-time job min wage for a 6th-month contract. I got a nice apartment right at the corner from where I worked. My job ended,
I thought I would get another job but that never happened. I lost my place used my credit card to survive then became homeless again. I then got on disability as a survival tactic because I no longer wanted to sell drugs and didn’t hurt people or go back to my old ways the only way I’ve ever known how to earn. I didn’t even know what a sin number was until I was 18…
HOMELESSNESS LOOKED LIKE THIS - no way of getting clothes or food, no supports at all no guidance. Nothing but pain suffering and loss. Corruption within the justice system and system as a whole. The failure of the child care system. Failure in parenting. Stigma. Stigma towards the homeless. Employment stigma. Landlord renting stigma. Society stigma. The system turns us against each other. Tells us our tax dollars go-to welfare checks and disability. And the homeless live off your hard-earned dollars and are lazy, don’t want to work, and do drugs all day and it’s our fault why were homeless,
so society copies this idea and then treats the homeless as a disease. This is the stigma that cuts off the ability to heal or rehabilitate. There is no rehabilitation, just corruption.
GOVERNMENT & SYSTEM RESPONSIBILITY.
failure to take responsibility in the failures and excuses of the system pointing the fingure at the individual instead of the poorly designed system that corrupted the person before one became an adult.
It keeps you down. Suppressed and makes it next to impossible to prevail maintain and rehabilitate from trauma and perform to societies standard, At least having a history like mine. saying it’s the victim’s own fault. Causing rebellion. Isolation and stopping needed love care and resources from reaching those who deserve and need it like me. I don’t do drugs I rarely drink unless I’m out for a dinner on an appropriate setting or occasion knowing what I’ve been through. I’ve had many jobs, provided for myself and been on every side of the fence from all perspectives and positions in life. Which is a blessing in a curse?
NOTE POINTS, THINGS TO REMEMBER.
Things I was feeling:
How did everybody fail me? How did this happen to me? Confused. I was victimized the whole way through until I became an adult.
Upset, angry that people did this to me.
Lashed out and led me into a life of crime.
CRIME NOTE POINTS.
Parents failed, school failed, CAS failed – how do I provide for myself?
Didn’t even know ×WHAT A SIN # was.
I started living a life of crime because that’s all I knew.
When you get in trouble it’s the responsibility of the person to change, they don’t see the whole story that led you there or the flaws in the system that burden your ability to change.
The system was against me vs helping me to rehabilitate
The system was corruptly designed for us to fail: probation, systematic things that are designed to fail. Being an alcoholic from 14 and then age 19 given a condition not to drink alcohol when you’re at the peak of temptation, being legal age finally in Canada to drink.
And if I break that condition, I go to jail. Using my addictions against me to create a criminal out of me entrapping me further into the unjust system.
Corrupted before I ever had a fair chance, Now being punished,
For being punished.
MY VIEW ON THE SYSTEM & JAIL SYSTEM. AKA INJUSTICE SYSTEM.
The system is contributing to its own problems making things worse ruining lives that were already ruined before one had a fair chance.
If they wanted to rehabilitate people and help people get out of that lifestyle. There could be structures in place to help someone like that, but there isn’t. And the structures in place now, Dont work and contribute the the problem, Jail just turns a lost person that made a mistake, that was out of their control, Into a hardened criminal. That’s what the jail system does to a Man/Youth. It does not make him/her better. It adds to the issue, increases the crime rate and the need for more resources,tax dollars spent, and no change is being made by the systems in place already. The government statistics are inaccurate fabricated altered and false.
Instead, it was a cyclical loop that keeps you stuck in jail.
Distorting your view of justice fairness the system and the law. Then once again, Being Punished For Being Punished.
TURNING POINT
*Father passed away
Lack of compassion in the courtroom.
Seeing death made me want to have a good life,
Just couldn’t handle this life anymore, it was disgusting.
I’m done suffering. I need change.
Moved somewhere else and started over.
ADULT HOMELESSNESS
18 years old. Start a new life somewhere else, First time ever in an adult homeless shelter in Kitchener
Feeling scared and alone
Went to the unemployment centre EVERY DAY,
Got a job at the working centre.
YSL Program 6-month full-time minimum wage
Lost the place because the job ended.
Realized that I was damaged in a way that I couldn’t fit into a normal way of life
Emotional trauma was hitting me
Addiction of alchohol cycle was going to continue
Wanted to give up.
Homeless again and have stayed up until this point
At the age of 28.
STIGMA
Stigma in school- special behaviour class, that had no context on what was going on behind the scenes. Being punished for being punished.
Disability Stigma-Got on disability as a survival tactic because I didn’t want to sell drugs again
“I don’t want to hurt people”
*Speaking to stigma around disability
-behaviour disability, ADHD, BIPOLAR DISORDER, CHRONIC ANXIETY, DEPRESSION AND POSTDRAMATTIC STRESS DISORDER. PTSD.
-People think that you are using the system, not knowing what I went through without doing anything that I’ve done.
The system turns us against each other without even knowing.
Self-stigma, feel ashamed,
-Makes it harder to relate to people, harder to get connections, harder to feel compassion for yourself.
Employment stigma: Criminal record,
Landlords stigma:
-Can’t survive without these things but these barriers exist, so how am I supposed to overcome? How can you get a job or apartment from this position? Also when you had no family or parents. No references when you need references. The system is designed to keep a certain class of people under once they have fallen under that line aka tax bracket. Low income, people with criminal records, Mentally ill & disabled.
People with addictions get more support than people who are sober and are more ready for an opportunity. The shelters only get funding for those who have addiction issues, so those who don’t are of no value to the shelter or their system. More corruption and distortion within the system creating more issues for all.
-Medical system
Homelessness Benefits the system because there is a financial cycle or reyclinging of government income assistance funds that are re-directed towards pharmaceutical drugs prescribed by doctors to mask disorders & Trauma caused by poor system structure, early bad influences and corrupted society influences with Stigma against the lost broken & homeless population,
Creating more and more patients needing a doctor, or a prescription medication. The pharmaceutical industry, Half of the welfare/Income assistance or disability checks go back to the government through homeless shelters like the salvation army which charges the homeless $550 per month to stay there in a dorm with 30 other men who are homeless in Victoria BC Canada.
This is illogical. Therefore the government takes no loss from the distribution of income assistance/welfare or disability checks. The other half of A homeless person’s check goes to medical or pharmaceutical drugs $$ or street drugs that the homeless take to numb their trauma which then requires one to take another drug, Prescribed by a doctor like methadone. A Pharmaceutical drug. To get off the other drug. The street drug.. All perfectly by designe to benefit the system and deteriorate the homeless and lower-income class. they’re not investing in losses,
Half goes back to the system another half to pharmaceutical drugs. So really your tax dollars are going right back into the government’s pocket but they make it appear as if our tax dollars go to the homeless so we work for them to just live free and indulge into their drug addictions, adding to the stigma against the homeless. All perfectly by design could never happen by mistake. This is what I got to experience learn and understand after 28 years of being victimized by this world that I did not create or ask to be apart of, Then be put down hated and abused by society in return.
RESPONSIBILITY
I do take responsibility for what I’ve done. But it’s a proven fact. You can set people up for failure and convince them it’s for their own good. Then tell them to take responsibility for their own actions and stop blaming others or the government. Smart. Establishment or system.
This is more than my opinion it’s just fact. Real-life experience.
Wisdom knowledge and truth come from actual experience. If you haven’t personally experienced it. Then. Does your statement become an opinion?
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MENTALLY ILL EXPERIENCE.
Were Dealing with anxiety and depression. People look at you like you’re a disease.
I was at a youth shelter, and 2 women came in with a girl wearing an all blue hospital gown. Appeared to be mentally ill just being released from a Sych ward or mental institution most likely from overflow or lack of space because the female clearly couldn’t talk communicate properly, she made no sense therefor she couldn’t take care of herself. But lots of tax dollars and funding go to these jobs & programs.. Millions.
In return, the mentally ill are released into the community street and society prematurely with no care or monitoring. Causing an increase of calls to the police more pressure in hospitals, homeless shelters, society etc. Using up more resources for those who are in need.
MORE NOTE POINTS
Societal Stigma,
Blindspot of not allowing the normal civilian to connect with a government official directly. If you are never approached with a real-life experience from someone on the street, if you never seek it out you won’t care about it because you yourself we’re never directly effected by it or the emotional reaction. If you did, you’d feel more obligated to push funding towards it & programs that are run by people who truly care and aren’t just there for a paycheck, many using their power over the homeless abusing them in many psychological ways without being caught, That are supposed to be working in these fields to help the homeless population, like shelter staff. Welfare office staff, government staff etc.
Very hostile and abusive to those who are hanging on by a thread to survive and living off of a $700 per month government check. Already desperate abused hated and psychologically damaged by society as a whole, The way the system treats you and the parental influences in ones life as an infant up.
How did I survive? – What I’ve learned about the system.
Honesty got me nowhere. People didn’t believe or care about my back story.
How can I survive? I had to lie.
Gave up and just left the system. Turned my back on it and society.
I’ve watched normal people not make it. I was The only one that didn’t fold.
END GOAL.
RESILIENCY
I survived drug addiction, jail, the criminal system, homelessness as a youth, overcame abuse, stigma having the influences of the streets, mental illness.
Inner strength to get through that
I should’ve been dead or in jail.
I go to restaurants just to feel normal even when Im homeless or have little money. I take care of myself and that’s how I survive. Even If that means going to a restaurant when I cant afford to.
I want to get involved, wanting to take care of past trauma
Hearing Dennis’s story, A recent graduate of the Anawim House in Victoria BC, Which inspired me to partake and do the same. Tell my story about my life. Stigma. Homelessness and experience in corruption within the system speaking for the homeless in places like Anawim House a recovery hhome, Working with The Existence Project & The Greater Victoria Coalition To End Homelessness.
NOTE POINTS
The growing time – Letting my experiences empower me instead of making me feel bad, use it as fuel and drive to be Resilient & save others traps I fell in.
With every problem, I knew that there was a solution. I believe through my own work that I can help empower others & overcome all that I have in my past, present, & will in my future. As Cory Resilient. Using my platform “YouTube” to reach the masses with my story document my life, expose corruption & truth while I still have life on this planet to do meaningful and purposeful things to return the resilience and blessings.
That would be the best use of the struggle and hardships I’ve been through instead of have gone through it in vain, For Nothing, Turning it into strength for myself and many others. That’s true purpose. That’s being Resilient.
I seek intelligence and knowledge in a way that I could challenge the system & create real impactful change where it’s truly needed most and proper more deserving use of funding.
They won’t take you seriously otherwise, You have to speak their language, The System that dances around truth and intimidates with corrupt authority and unessacery intentionally complexed legal defences & laws protecting their money-making cheating & unhonest tactics to prevail over the people, but making the people believe they have the control. Influence, Say, or the power over their lives. Influenced to turn on each other & hate one another to take the attention off the entity responsible for this evil and greed that creates disorder and chaos. Distortion & un balancement, unfairness & lack of compassion for the homeless population.
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WHERE YOU’RE AT NOW / NEXT STEPS / VISION
I have Compassion for people on the street, I made my YouTube channel
Cory Resilient. To show my experiences and connect with people with a similar past. Or similar traumas to empower inspire and show them a way out. A better quality way of thinking and lifestyle based off of my own growth personal experience and development.
Currently still experiencing homelessness
Trying to get into Anawim house for a step up closer towards more stability, rehabilitation, routine & structure that’s very much needed in one’s life'
I need to get off the street, To even be well enough to take the next steps towards progression.
An opportunity for me to have that structure in my life and connect me with people that are truly going help me.
Doing things differently, things that I’m scared to do. Outside of my comfort zone or what I know. Which is hard.
I asked the question: What does good feel like?
A car, a dog a nice place and a woman in my life. A Family, Stability. Love. Healing. Unity. Healthy fulfilling Friendships, To progress and prosper as a young man the way a man is designed to do. I’ve been held from my potential and true purpose from the burdens in the system and failure of outside influences and guardians. Lack of love. Support, Fairness. proper structure and response to homeless people, the lost & broken. Gods children
I am going to be well grounded, I am going to have a solid foundation.
I am going to be financially stable, I am going to be emotionally supported by people, and this is what I’ve never had but deserved like any other human being. We are the forgotten. Abused. Hated and confused. I will lead by good example. The true proof of a way out for those like myself,
To be part of something bigger that can have some impact in society
Be an example of making it through & being Resilient. Cory Resilient.
That is my only desire for my future. To experience the good side of life I never had. YouTube — Cory Resilient https://m.youtube.com/CoryResilient?uid=J9k-lKqVubK8Bl3LraR0JQ
Buy my book on Amazon to support me & Rank my story letting it reach more people! — https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B085BXVQ9Y/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?_encoding=UTF8&keywords=Cory+Weagant&qid=1583126229&refinements=p_27%3ACory+Weagant&s=digital-text&sr=1-1
My Story mentioned on Resilient People! — https://www.resilientpeople.ca/story-links/knowing-homelessness-firsthand