He once skated with the Vernon Vipers. He was married with a beautiful baby daughter. But today you'll find him on the streets of Kelowna with no place to live and a heroin addiction. Kevyn Kirbyson is homeless, but he's not hopeless.
Kirbyson might be written-off by some. He admits to selling small amounts of drugs to support his addiction. But listen to his story and you might change your mind. Things went off the rails for him after his marriage broke down. "I was drinking and partying for a few days," recalled Kirbyson, "and using some other drugs, cocaine at the time."
17 months later, Kirbyson is hooked on heroin. He wants to turn things around, but he's struggling to find a way out. "This has gone on too long," said the 29-year-old. "I miss my family. I miss my daughter." When he talks about his 3 and a half-year-old child, he gets choked-up. "It's pretty hard to talk about," he told us in our interview studio at NowMedia. He wants to make this moment a motivator. He's agreed to a follow-up interview in three months and promises to have made some positive changes by then. "The first thing for me is I want to put a roof back over my head," he said. "I want to get a home and start working on my recovery and getting back to where I was before."
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