lot of people coming and taking him out. He
met his third adoptive parents that way.
They were from Kitimat, and a couple of
months after meeting them he moved to
_ Kitimat to live. Joe says life got progressively

‘worse from the time he was nine until he

was 18 years old.

. Joe could not handle authority and con-
tinued to get into fights, including with

- teachers. He wouldn't. listen to anyone in
authority, skipped school and refused to do 7

anything to help out at home. When he was

_.13 his parents put him in a foster home for

_ the summer so they could all have a break,
as they were still not getting along.

Several criminal charges were being

_. brought up against Joe at the time he was to

. go back to his parents, but he:says they did

‘not want to deal with it, and at that time

2S _ Signed him over to Social Services.

Joe's next residence was a group home in

. :: Kitimat. He says he started vandalizing
' about that time, ‘as well as drinking and
hanging out with a bad crowd and was con-

Terrace Review — March 13, 1992

stantly in trouble with the police. —

Joe was convicted on the charges brought
against him and spent three years between
Willingdon Youth Detention Centre and the
Maples Adolescent Treatment Centre in Bur-
naby.

Joe was 15 when he was released from
detention and placed into a new group home

in Terrace. He lived there for two years but
. continued to be in constant trouble. He felt

then that the rules — like a 10 o’clock curfew
and not being allowed to get his drivers
licence when he wanted to — were unfair.
Joe says he still feels some of the rules were
somewhat unfair, but now he realizes he was
being unfair as well. If he had compromised,
the situation could have been better.

Joe now recognizes he has had a big
problem with accepting authority through his

. entire life,

He was sent on a six-week Outward
Bound program last. spring as one of the
penalties for offenses he had committed. He
really enjoyed the program and everything
went well after that, up until the time
he left the Terrace group home in Octo-
ber of last year.

He lived more or less on the streets
for six weeks in October and November
with a friend. They stayed with various
people; at one: point they both went
four days without food. They started
committing crimes 3 to support them-
selves.

He and his friend were arrested on
charges of fraudulently obtaining food.
The charge was dismissed for lack of
evidence. Joe says that during this
period he was in constant contact with
his social worker, who was trying to
find a placement for him. There was
nothing available at the time. He says
he felt he was not getting any help
from Social Services and he did not
want to go back to the group home,
where he did not feel happy or safe.

Joe was eventually taken in by Pat
Sorensen, a woman he knew from
Dolly's dance hall, a weekly teen cab-
aret that operated for a time in the
basement of the Terrace Inn. He is still
staying with her, on a room-and-board
basis paid by Social Services.

He says the best thing that has
ever happened to him is going to live
with Pat — that’s when his life started

_ to turn around. When he described Pat,
_ Joe says he "sees her as almost as a

SO Geet HO RR RE Rat A eT gia