SURREY — Despite living within six feet of him for the past seven years, a local middle-class family from a nice, normal neighbourhood has only now become aware that the man who lives next door to them is in the ghetto and struggling to get out.
Joel Harrison, who lives with his wife and three kids in Surrey’s Newton area — an area they have always believed to be a pretty typical suburban town — was absolutely shocked when he found out that their 29-year-old neighbour, Duncan Stevens, lived in a “real shitty part of town.”
“I couldn’t believe it,” explained a flabbergasted Harrison, mystified by the revelation. “I always just figured since he lived on the same street as us, we were in the same place but now that I found out the truth, I thank God I don’t have to live where he does.”
According to Harrison, Stevens revealed his tough living conditions one night when they were all returning home at the same time.
“We had just been flying a kite at the park when we saw Duncan coming down the street complaining about an encounter he had on the bus,” Harrison said. “Although I wasn’t too shocked to hear that there was a homeless person yelling at a bus stop, which happens occasionally in my town too, I knew he must be from a different world when he mentioned how he ‘grew a thick skin living in the streets.’”
“It didn’t click for me right away and I asked him if he had grown up in Detroit or Somalia or something but when he said ‘no, I mean here . . . you know, it’s pretty damn ghetto’ I realized how close-minded I had been.”
It was then that Harrison said he realized that “the ghetto” isn’t really like on TV or in the movies or in the dictionary under the word “ghetto.”
“It’s not a fixed place, you don’t have to be part of a minority . . . anyone can find themselves in the ghetto if they’re not careful,” Harrison said, in a frightened voice. “I’m just relieved that the people who seem to get stuck in them near me are almost exclusively local rappers.”
As if the revelation about Stevens wasn’t enough of a shock, Harrison soon discovered that he and his family knew plenty of people who came from ghettos without having had any idea. While browsing through his Facebook page he discovered that Stevens wasn’t the only one listed as currently living in “the ghetto.”
“It’s insane, I couldn’t believe how many of my friends from the same socioeconomic class as me were so hard off,” Harrison continued, as he scrolled through page after page of people complaining about the “ghetto-ass” and “welfare” conditions they lived in. “Lots of them are really educated too. How do you end up in a ghetto after getting a degree from ‘The School of Hard Knocks: University of Life’? It’s ridiculous!”
Harrison said with the number of ghettos popping up all around BC, he’s now in constant fear about where he can safely take his family, who have never experienced these kinds of third-world conditions.
“It’s so hard to keep track. First I read from people in Newton that Newton is the most dangerous place in the world, but then I turn to my friends from Whalley and it turns out that Whalley is the worse” Harrison said, dumbfounded.
“Then I read from people in New Westminster who say that Surrey is nothing compared to the shit that goes down where they are, but then again that’s child’s play when matched up against what it’s like in East Pender Harbour according to this guy I know from East Pender Harbour . . .”
Exhausted by his discovery that he lives in such a dangerous world, Harrison quietly excused himself to rejoin his family for a backyard-barbeque, saying in conclusion, “It’s scary out there for a lot of people . . . I’m just so glad I live in a nice community. I can’t even imagine having to live in some of these places, like next-door, what a rough area!”
