Today I attended the funeral of a man who for the past few years had lived on the streets of this city. It was the single most saddest thing I've had to do in a very long time. His name was Kelly. I knew him from seeing him downtown and from volunteering with Inn From the Cold, a program that's run here during the winter to provide street people a safe, warm place to sleep.

Kelly was the kindest, most big-hearted person I've ever met. He went out of his way to be generous and do things for others. Every night he came in to Inn From the Cold, he always made sure everyone else was taken care of and bedded down and fed before he did anything for himself. He was especially concerned for the more elderly guests and making sure they were going to be alright.

But Kelly had a history of alcohol abuse, and a DUI conviction a few years back. His mode of transportation was by bicycle.

Friday night he was struck and killed by a police car. Niether parties were at fault, it was completely accidental and unpreventable. The local media at first only reported that a cyclist had been in involved in a fatal accident with an undercover police car on the highway, but then as more details were revealed the reporting became more nasty. Suddenly he was no longer a victim of a tragic accident, but a vagrant and a drunk who'd been known to police. There's also been implication that he rode out into traffic or darted purposely to scare the officer. Kelly'd have never done something like that.

For the past few years the media and city hall have been launching an all-out attack on the vermin; the blight of downtown. All those crackheads and whores are an eyesore, they say. They're scare away the tourists, they say. They bring crime and corruption, they say.

It's very distressing and upsetting to read column after column of nasty attacks against the city's poorest, side-by-side with reports on "the drunk who wrecked the cop's life".

Can someone please PLEASE explain to me what's going on here? Why is there so much hate and bile directed at the homeless? I know my city's not alone in it's deplorable attitude. I don't understand it.





Rest in Peace, Kelly. You're soaring with the Eagles now.

What a sad story!

PANDURITO said:

I wish I was more eloquent. I can't even begin to put into words how I feel about all this. Just...heavy, somehow. Like there's a weight on me.

You explained it perfectly.

And yes, sadly this happens everywhere like they're an annoyance

not just for kelly but allt he others like him out there on the streets

It said on the tv yesterday that there are 150,000 homeless children on the streets of the UK today. thats just fucked up and in todays world that should not be happening.

Sweet dreams brother

People treat the homeless like this out of fear. It's easier for people to believe that they are drunks or drug addicts than face the fact that three absent paychecks could put you on the street yourself.

RIP Kelly

You know we never really know what circumstances brings people to the place they are in life. My brother is homeless right now, basically because he can't live with anyone, can't sustain relationships, stay off drugs, not be violent etc... Most times he thinks he's freer on the streets. I thank God for people like you who take care of those who need you.

People are quick to point and judge and yes it is fear that makes the reaction so strong, fear because we all know but for the grace there we are. I used to work in loaves and fishes occassionally, it was sad for me to see the people my age with their babies standing in line, trying to hold on to their diginty yet humbling thenselves enough to be in line asking for help. Yes there are mentally ill people, criminals, vagrants and vagabonds on the streets, but many of them were just like us once, safe and secure. We mustn't forget that.

thank you for posting this and thank you for caring.

Don't stress too much about it Erin, it's just another one of those horribly unfair things that are everywhere. People just don't see the truth when you want them to, and it's so frustrating, but there's not a lot we can do. The world is full of people that only believe what they're told. I'm sure Kelly knew this, and I know you do too.

Like you say, he is just fine now I hope peace comes to you too hon

sj1600 said:

Thank you. I'm closer than that at this time, and remind myself of it regularly.

PANDURITO said:

I can't even remember the last time the local media referred to them as homeless people. They're at best just "the homeless", and at worst called bums, crackheads, panhandlers, beggars, druggies, etc.

Sure, some of them have drug or alcohol problems, or mental illness, or made poor choices. And yeah, some really are out there because they're lazy. But before all that they're human beings, and that's a fact that's all too easy for people to forget. If they're just bums we don't have to care. It's not convenient to think of the man in the alley or the lady with the shopping cart as a person. Then people might have to give a shit about them, and not just ignore them or avoid them until it comes time to "clean up the streets".

That's somebody's baby out there.

3121 said:

According to a recent study here, there are over 400 homeless in Kelowna, a city with a population of only 113,000. To put that in perspective, Kelowna's black population doesn't quite breach 300 people.

Most of the people living on the streets here are First Nations people, and there's said to be a higher than average percentage being women and teenagers.

sj1600 said:

But what about the doctors, lawyers, city council members; prominent people in the community who are known to either abuse drugs or alcohol themselves or have immediate family (usually kids) who do? They aren't treated the same way. Why should the fact that one crack addict lives in the shelter and the other lives in a mansion make any difference?

susannah said:

I hope Kelly gets to meet my dad up in heaven or whereever they are. I think they'd have gotten along.

There's a strong "clean up the streets" attitude in Vancouver too. I think it's partly because it's such a generally clean and orderly city that a spot like Hastings Street sticks out like a sore thumb (even though it wouldn't even have been noticable in a messier city) and partly because they want the city squeaky clean for the upcoming Olympics. I agree that it's a very unfortunate attitiude, and the problem is that the more "normalized" a society gets, the more those who are not normalized will become outcasts and alienated and almost dehumanized in the public opinion.

meow85 said:

I am sure that they will be looking for each other then

retina said:

What's your take on what the anti-poverty protestors have been doing out there? At first when I heard they'd raided the VANOC offices, my initial reaction was that they were taking it too far; making a mistake. Something like that could only hurt their cause. But then I let the story sink and thought about it longer, and though you won't find me trashing offices anytime soon, I understand and support what they did. When theirs and others demands for social justice have been ignored and shut down every time a legal route was taken, whether by a peaceful protest or a petition or whathaveyou; when pleas for change have been denied, the only remaining course of action just might be civil disobedience. Will it hurt their cause? I don't think so. The general public, and more importantly, those with power to effect change and the VANOC officials, already see them as rabble-rousers and trouble-makers out to get in the way of the Games and tourism. But sometimes it takes a real movement to get any change to happen. Gathering signatures and writing letters hasn't worked, and never will.

meow85 said:

Did this happen fairly recently? I haven't read about it in the papers since I'm not currently in Vancouver, but judging by your description it sounds like it touches upon some of the thorny central issues of democracy; What do you do when a democratically elected majority does not represent the will of the people? And if they do represent the will of the people but are morally wrong, what do you do then?

In the first case I'd say one should allow for some discrepancies since public opinion changes continuously, and it's better to look at long-term trends than short-term ones. If the long-term trends are constantly inconsistent with the actions of those in power, then it might be time for a change of power, or at least acts of civil disobedience.

If, however, we are talking about the second case, then it becomes a whole lot more tricky because who's to decide what is morally wrong? The whole democratic model is based on the assumption that majority rule is the fairest way to rule, so if you go against that, you've disqualified the system. On the other hand, minorities repeatedly get shafted and it could well be that despite being outnumbered, they might still be "right". That's an inherent problem in all democracies (I even started a thread on that in P&R a while ago) that is difficult to solve. We don't want a system that's slow or completely unwilling to respond to specific injustices, but we don't want a society where self-righteous minority crusaders take the law into their own hands either.

I personally place what I feel is fair and right higher than the law on my list of priorities, especially since I never signed on for the political system I live in (it's something we're simply born into), but you could easily argue that this is a dangerous and arrogant attitude since I'm a self-appointed judge and juror with no other validation than the one I've assigned to myself.

I know this was probably not the kind of answer you were looking for, and it's barely an answer at all, but it's the best I could do right now.

retina said:

It's happened in just the past few days. Members of the anti-poverty protest group had threatened a few days before to take the fight out of the poor neighbourhoods and squatter's buildings and into the offices and homes of VANOC members, but no one took them seriously.

The members of these anti-poverty groups and others -including myself -feel having the Olympic Games in Vancouver is wrong because the money the province and the country is using to finance them are essentially coming out of budget cuts to health care and social programs. This was never said directly by the government, of course, but it's no coincidence that soon after it was announced the 2010 Games would be in Van. that budgets cuts were announced for these essential services. With beds closing down in psych units, staffing being cut for transition houses and the like, there was a huge surge in the homeless population in BC. Now the needs of the few who were being unmet (and we both know how crap the Lower Eastside's been for a long time) is now the unmet needs of many.

You raise some interesting questions. The will of the people seems to ignore the problem and hope it'll go away, and that's how it's been handled up to this point. Ideally the majority gets it's say and that's fair enough, but what happens when the minority not only isn't treated fairly, but is largely not even acknowledged?

meow85 said:

I bet you were overjoyed when Steven Harper came to power.

As for the funding of the Olympics, isn't the government obligated by law to state where they're getting it from? That's how it is in Sweden at least. Money is just money so it's easy to cover up the real source, but at least it would be interesting to see if it seemed at all reasonable that they would have gotten it from wherever they say they're getting it from.



Yeah, that is a problem built into every democracy. The majority gets 100% of what they want and the minority gets 0% of what they want. The decisions rarely reflect the true balance between the majority and the minority. My thread on these things is somewhere in the P&R forum, on maybe page ten or something by now in case you want to check it out. The thread title is "Problems with Democracy".

retina said:

Overjoyed.


The official statement was that the funds came from budget surplus. Though conveniently, this surplus didn't show up until after cuts had been made to education, health care, and social services. It doesn't take a genius to figure that one out.



I'm at a buddy's house right now, but when I get home I'll be sure to check it out.

I'm so sorry to hear about this. May Kelly rest in Peace.

meow85 said: