Profile: B.C.’s Charles Montgomery, the 2010 Olympics and the Struggle Against Homelessness

Posted on 21. Oct, 2009 by BCAA in People

In search of happiness, charity and Olympic accommodations

by Tyee Bridge

In his 2004 travel memoir The Last Heathen, Charles Montgomery followed the trail of his great-grandfather, a 19th-century Anglican missionary, to the Melanesian Islands of the South Pacific. (Praised by critics at the New York Times and the Globe & Mail, among many other publications, the book won the 2005 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction.) Five years later, in talking about his current projects, Montgomery recounts one of the book’s early scenes: “There was this village of grass huts at the base of a volcano on the island of Tanna, where I arrived at sunset, alone, not knowing anybody. Some young men saw me and led me to a clearing in the woods, their sacred kava drinking grounds, and greeted me by letting me take part in their kava ritual.”

The generosity of the locals on Tanna Island led to Montgomery's latest project: a 2010 Olympic Games program benefitting both travellers to Vancouver and the city's homeless population.

After he was pleasantly drunk – the root of a local pepper plant, kava has relaxant and anaesthetic properties – the villagers then escorted him, head spinning, to a hut for a plate of steaming root vegetables and a warm bed. It was a pivotal moment. “I was amazed and impressed that these people would be so generous to a stranger,” says Montgomery. And though The Last Heathen includes far more bizarre experiences, it’s that generosity and hospitality that are most on his mind these days. In fact, the villagers’ open-heartedness is what has led Montgomery to his most recent initiatives: a book in progress, tentatively titled Happy City, and a 2010 Olympic Games program benefiting both travellers to Vancouver and the city’s homeless population.

Montgomery grew up in Vancouver Island’s North Cowichan, on a hobby farm with chickens, turkeys and a few cows. “Looking back, I suppose that was my introduction to the culture of exchange. The rule was, when you come to the farm, you work. But that wasn’t a bad thing. My relatives loved it. They’d fix fences, clear Scotch broom from the fields and till the garden in spring.”

After journalism school and an internship at B.C.’s regional Lillooet Bridge River News, Montgomery then followed a long line of Canadian journalists to a Hong Kong expatriate community where he reported on stories in Southeast Asia from 1996 to 1998. Travelling abroad led to inevitable comparisons with his own culture, and by the time he was writing The Last Heathen four years later, a clear question had emerged. “When I came back to Vancouver I wanted to know, what makes people around the world so generous and trusting, and what stops many of us in North America from being that way?”

“We want folks across Canada to know

they’ve got a place to stay for the Games, and

that just by coming and having a great time,

they’ll be helping Vancouver deal with homelessness.”

–Charles Montgomery

In 2006, Montgomery discovered a group of UBC economists and psychologists, led by professor emeritus of economics John Helliwell, who were studying the nature of happiness and the economics of trust. “The single most powerful correlate of human happiness, they said, is the quality and number of trusting relationships we have with others. So the best way to be happy is to be generous – not just with money, but by giving of yourself, by being open to other people.”

That premise is the core of Happy City, which is set in Colombia, Paris and Mexico City. In Montgomery’s words, the book “explores the intersection of the design of cities and the design of our minds . . . and how cities can make or break happiness.” His encounter with Helliwell also led Montgomery to launch Home for the Games, a project that opens Vancouver homes to Olympic visitors while raising money to combat homelessness in the city.

“At the time I was asking these questions, everyone in Vancouver was talking about the Olympics. So I asked Helliwell, ‘Will the Olympics make Vancouver happy?’ He said the most powerful effect the Games could have on happiness is if they fostered a culture of engagement and generosity. That got me thinking.”

Later, at his kitchen table, Montgomery and a few friends took two related problems – Vancouver’s growing homeless population and the lack of hotel rooms for thousands of 2010 Olympic visitors – and cracked them together like a pair of walnuts. The resulting project, Home for the Games, will enable residents to share their homes in return for modest compensation, with more than half the proceeds donated to two local charities focused on homelessness (Covenant House and Streetohome Foundation). The payoff? Not just money saved and donated, but the chance for visitors and hosts to celebrate together – and get happy.

Get Mobilized for the Games – and Homelessness

Launched in August 2009, the Home for the Games website lists everything needed to register (free for homeowners and visitors) and get connected — whether you’re a Vancouver home-owner or an Olympic visitor.

For more information see: “Lodge in the Heart.”

Lead image courtesy Charles Montgomery

Tags: 2010 Winter Olympics, Charles Montgomery, homelessness, The Happy City, The Last Heathen, Vancouver