On Dec. 29 at 11 p.m., just before the start of a new year, RCMP in Kelowna, B.C., found a dead man who had been living in a tent. Probable cause of death: hypothermia. The 34-year-old had frozen to death.
Amid the freezing December temperatures, the police had been routinely checking those in makeshift shelters to make sure they were OK. This man wasn’t.
A different man being interviewed on CBC two weeks ago broke down as he described how they had to shut down the only warming center in Barrie, Ont., because RCMP had received a complaint from a resident of this affluent city. The person speaking had been the facility’s director and was describing how one of its clients — a 75-year-old with mental health issues — would be looking for a stairway in which to spend the night. The warming centre had been the one place where he could go during the day for coffee and a hot meal before braving the bitter cold that swept the country last month.
In New Brunswick, the RCMP made the decision to shut down some tent dwellings after a chimney was found protruding and exhaling from one. The inhabitants were huddled around a wood stove trying to keep warm in blood-chilling temperatures. They had decided to risk a fire or carbon monoxide poisoning rather than freeze in the frigid night air.
We hear stories such as these from across Canada when extreme weather events make life so much harder for marginalized people during the winter, particularly those living in makeshift shelters because the regular ones were full. Too often, those without homes are conveniently forgotten, overlooked or harshly judged, as we saw even in Yellowknife when city council turned down an application to approve a shelter on main street. We prefer not to see those who remind us of our own shadow side and vulnerability. We are afraid of ourselves.
As incidents of extreme weather increase, those living on the streets also become climate change casualties, which is not a reflection on them but on those who refuse to deal with the growing and deadly crisis.
We too often forget that homelessness was, in part, caused by federal, provincial and territorial governments cutting back on social programs, eliminating psychiatric institutions, group homes and treatment centres as cost-saving measures. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people were displaced and forced onto the streets because the governments decided not to pay for their care anymore. All of this was exacerbated by housing costs that have spiraled out of control, making finding housing and being able to afford it impossible for many. We created this … not the homeless. They are the casualties of our lifestyles and blind spots.
Where we used to provide shelter to the mentally troubled, ill and handicapped, we now force them onto the streets, providing them with food and sleeping spaces on the floor. What is in question here is not their humanity – it’s ours.
Where we used to provide psychiatric care, we now treat the broken among us like criminals.
This is merely a reflection on a consumer culture that measures success by possessions and status, forgetting that our purpose here is to help others, not hurt them. We are all called on to be doctors to the hurting, but too often we fail in our calling.
Our greed, possessions and monetary accumulations will not save us — our decency will.
And now, in addition to the indignity of having few safe spaces to sleep when they need them the most, fewer avenues for recovery and treatment and even basic amenities, we let them deal with harsh weather conditions on their own. Threatened by pandemics, floods and snow storms, they fall victim to our failures. As climate change conditions become more frequent, the need for adequate housing for everyone grows. This is a basic human right everywhere, including in an affluent country such as our own. Failing that, we will see more deaths as its consequence, and those are the result of our failure to address our responsibility as decent human beings.
If Norway, Finland and Wales can reduce their homeless numbers and feel pride in what they did and who they are, why can’t we?
We created this situation — it is our responsibility to end it.