At this time of writing, the name, age or gender of the person found deceased on 52 Street on Jan. 12 have not been disclosed.
We are told that even though it was early afternoon on a busy Friday, the victim was unresponsive when found. Foul play is not suspected. It was also noted that the weather was extreme, hitting the minus-40s and because of mechanical problems, the street outreach van was not on the road. This is not to suggest this person needed the van, only that it wasn’t available on the coldest day of the year.
When I met with an advocate for the homeless population Saturday afternoon at Javaroma, a small group had gathered in the lobby trying to figure out what to do with a person passed out there.
Lydia Bardak, the woman I met, suggested leaving him since no one knew whether the van was running which meant the RCMP or paramedics would have to respond. She questioned the use of resources.
As it was, because he was intoxicated, the only place to go at 2 p.m. was the sobering centre several blocks away. He couldn’t walk more than 2 ft. unaided, let alone many blocks. It was too cold, anyway.
The RCMP did respond and while they were attempting to rouse him, the outreach van arrived.
Unlike the person who died the day before, this guy would pull through.
The sobering centre is the only place in Yellowknife where people can go when they are under influence. Sober folks can go to the drop-in trailers at the old Visitor’s Centre site but now that, sadly, has shut down because of water issues.
At Shoppers Drug Mart an hour later, another inebriated woman was sitting in the main entrance eating and greeting shoppers. The RCMP came for her, too.
Having so few services for those without homes in Yellowknife in this extreme cold is not new nor is a city and GNWT administrations that are slow to respond. That there is extreme cold warnings is no surprise here in the Arctic. What is a surprise is that after repeated calls for action, there is still nowhere for them that is easily accessible and where their lives are not put at risk moving from one location in the city to another. There were plans for one large facility in the centre core, but Covid slowed that, a petition slowed that and now an election. So they suffer.
We know that despite these frigid temperatures, those without shelter are not allowed to loiter in banks, malls or store lobbies, leaving them to battle the elements on their own. This, when they are in poor health, poorly nourished, possibly inebriated or on drugs and typically avoided by the rest of us.
It is our way of coping — we don’t. We do not consider the threat posed to them, only to ourselves. And so they die or suffer health effects that lead to permanent physical, mental or emotional disabilities.
We judge them based on how they appear to our cultural conditioning, not understanding that their backgrounds are a mix of abuse, neglect, loss and intergenerational trauma that most of us could not survive.
One example, pointed out by Bardak, is the traumatized unhoused person who, as a six-year-old, attempted to find comfort from his mother lying on the kitchen floor. Problem was she was dead.
And then there is the person who has lost several family members to suicide within the last few years. These are tragic losses that most of us could not recover from either.
It is rare indeed that any of them live to 65 years of age, so beaten down by the harshness of life. While we are still curled up in our warm beds, they are out on the streets often being pushed from one shelter to another in their constant search for sustenance and warmth.
At this time of writing, again, we are not sure if the person who succumbed on Friday afternoon was one of this group, but we have our fears and have heard the rumours.
All we know is that the emergency shelter is closed due to water issues and there is a GoFundMe campaign to raise enough money to fix the street outreach van. Something is clearly wrong, something that needed to be fixed a long time ago. Maybe before the blasting for the new swimming pool began.
Though not a Rolling Stones groupie, in one of rock and roll’s more iconic lines, Mick Jagger once said, (paraphrasing) “We wonder who killed John F. Kennedy when in fact it was you and me.” Perhaps this parable applies to the death of this woman on Friday or those passed out in mall lobbies.
Perhaps this is on us, not them.
—Nancy Vail is a longtime Yellowknifer concerned with social justice.