http://www.ottawasun.com/2016/12/20/egan-half-blind-unemployed-in-housing-jam--a-crime-victims-christmas
Egan: Half-blind, unemployed, in housing jam — a crime victim's Christmas
BY KELLY EGAN DECEMBER 21, 2016
Born in Eritrea, displaced to Sudan, Nabute Ghebrehiwet left his parched upbringing and arrived in Canada on Jan. 26, 1984, landing in Calgary in a blizzard.
It was the first time he’d ever seen snow. “I was fascinated,” he said this week, recalling the excitement of a 23-year-old in a new land, where anything was possible. “I went outside and I was playing with it.”
The country was good to him, until the horrible thing arrived. On Dec. 9, 2014 — now well-established in Ottawa — he was attacked by a deranged man swinging a hammer near the corner of Bank and Somerset streets.
Ghebrehiwet remembers the time quite precisely: between 6:30 and 7 p.m., his customary time for a smoke and walk around his apartment — just before Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!, two of his favourite shows. “I never miss them.”
The attacker, Jeffrey Weber, approached Ghebrehiwet from behind and struck him around the head and face. He was hospitalized for six days, left permanently blind in his left eye, forced to take months off work, and rely on counselling.
“He came from my blind side. He hit me. I blacked out. The first time I saw him was in court.”
On Sept. 29, Weber was found not criminally responsible for the act, the fourth time this ruling was delivered to the schizophrenic man since 2007.
On Dec. 12, the Ontario Review Board assigned Weber, 33, to a secure unit at the Royal Ottawa’s Brockville Mental Health Centre. A program of detention and rehabilitation is to be designed. If history is any guide, it will involve intensive psychiatric monitoring, possibly one-on-one behavioural counselling and, when ready, supervised visits outside the hospital.
And Ghebrehiwet? Well, he gets nothing. In fact, less than nothing.
Since the attack, he is visually impaired, left with facial scars, been laid off from his $55,000 job at the Canada Revenue Agency and is now in danger of losing his apartment. Without an income since March (except for unemployment benefits), he’s burned through about $5,000 in savings.
“I have a few savings, that might last a few months, but after that I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
He rents a one-bedroom from Ottawa Community Housing, but at market rates, $940 a month. Throw in hydro, and he’s up to a grand before he eats a thing. He likes his small, modest place, where get-well cards, two years later, still sit on the TV.
He is comforted by the surveillance cameras in the lobby, the cameras at the nearby grocery store. (They captured Weber in the act.) This is his home, where he has lived alone for six years. “It makes me feel safe.”
Is the final indignity from this insane act of violence the gradual, unofficial eviction from the home he worked so hard to earn?
He has asked OCH if he can pay a subsidized rent — to reflect his diminished income — like many of his neighbours. He has written to the mayor. The answer is a little shocking: to get a subsidized unit, he has to join the waiting list of thousands and attempt to qualify. And the waiting period for some is about seven years.
Strangely, he is not bitter, which says much about him.
“I am not discouraged yet,” he says. “I was in shock for a long time. But time has taken care a little bit of that now. They say time heals everything. Maybe that’s why.”
He is still not satisfied with the NCR ruling, in which court heard Ghebrehiwet was attacked partly because he is black. “Justice is not served (that day). Deep down, I don’t accept that.”
He’s been directed to apply to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board but is not hopeful this will result in much. “There might be a little money coming, but sight is priceless.”
When he first arrived in Ottawa in 2004, Ghebrehiwet says he briefly stayed at the Ottawa Mission. He soon found a job at H&R Block, took night accounting courses and was hired by the revenue agency in 2008. He is still grateful to the Mission and says he donates back, usually visiting during the holidays.
One of 10 children, his siblings are scattered across the world, with his mother and sister in Philadelphia. He has no big Christmas plans this year.
“This year, I might just hang out and watch a movie.”
Christmas is not a Hallmark card. But maybe there will be snow, to leave things white and fresh, blanketed and unbroken, like the day it all began.
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email kegan_at_postmedia.com
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Nabute Ghebrehiwet was the victim of a hammer attacker who was found NCR in September (Jean Levac, Postmedia)
Received on Wed Dec 21 2016 - 12:19:37 EST
