I visited one of our country’s many and burgeoning homeless tent encampments last week. None of the residents wanted me to take a photograph of their face.
“I don’t want my mom to see me like this,” said one man who appeared in his thirties. Another would only allow photos of the unbandaged and bleeding venous ulcers on both of his shins, a familiar sight from my days of outreach nursing in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. It seemed important to him that I share the evidence of his physical deterioration. But absolutely not his face.
If anyone deserves to feel shame over the fact that Canada — rich as it is — has thousands of citizens subsisting in squalor on our streets, it’s not those surviving this unnecessary and intolerable hell. This grand failure cannot be blamed on our suffering masses. Nationally, we have an estimated 235,000 homeless persons — and more every year.
We are days from a provincial election in B.C., and a year — or less — away from a federal election. Both provincial and federal Conservative parties have laid the blame for homelessness and tent encampments at the feet of Canada’s left.
The political right blames the excesses of “harm reduction” (including B.C.’s “safe supply” programs and our scandalously terrible drug decriminalization “pilot project”), a dearth of detox and treatment beds, the dreadful state of our post-pandemic economy, rampant immigration, and lethargic housing starts (the latter two causing a supply and demand crisis). The left blames “stigma,” inadequate “safe supply,” and greedy capitalist landlords. The truth might lie somewhere in between on housing costs, but plainly skews right. Things are worsening under a Liberal and New Democratic watch. It’s a ludicrous argument that we need more of the same to fix what’s broken.
At 3030 Gordon Ave. in Coquitlam, B.C., adjacent to a shelter and supportive housing facility run by non-profit RainCity Housing, is an entire city block lined with more than a dozen tents and their sickly residents. Behind them, a chain-link fence cordons off a verdant park with aged cedars. The serene backdrop offers a cruel contrast to the shanty town on the sidewalk.
Every camper I met was friendly and warm. Oddly, I was met with suspicion — and even hostility — from the shelter staff who offer limited outreach services within the encampment. I noticed one staff member carried a clipboard with a paper titled “B.C. Conservatives Housing Policy.” I asked her outright if she was speaking to the residents about politics. She refused to answer, and instead laughed before walking away. On this, RainCity Housing has not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.
I saw two female residents. Tess, 29, didn’t want to show her face, either. She is pretty, with bright eyes. She has lived in her tent for more than six months while waiting to get help for her opioid addiction. There are no treatment beds, despite her desperate willingness to change her life. She has a two-year-old daughter in the custody of her own mother.
Her goal is commendable: to get clean and regain custody of her little girl, then move into an apartment with her. “When it comes down to it, you can’t afford it unless you’re working two f–king full-time jobs,” Tess said. She hopes she can find subsidized housing.
Tess hasn’t been able to get sober on her own and worries she’ll die if she tries, because the drugs she uses are laced with benzodiazepines. She’s right: coming off “benzos” is dangerous and requires medical oversight.
Tess keeps her tent immaculate. There’s a padlock hanging on the zipper of the main door. Clothing hangs neatly inside. She agreed to stand with her back turned for a photograph. First, she swept the entryway and remade her bed. Her daughter has never been to the tent. Tess admitted she hasn’t seen her since last Christmas. “Obviously it’s hard. It’s Christmas already, and I …” Tess said, trailing off. Her eyes brimmed with tears. “Well …” she said, looking away.
On everyday life, Tess told me that she sees overdoses daily, and an overdose death approximately every month. Police, ambulance, firefighters, and the coroner show up — and remove the body in a white bag. Recently, the campers were invited inside the shelter when someone named “Les” died; Tess said most were happy to go in for a hot meal.
She wants to leave for winter but doesn’t know where she can go. “Winter? I’m getting the f–k out of here,” she said.
In 2023, there were more than 500 police visits to the site. It’s a municipal menace, with regular overdoses even spilling over into a nearby public library.
Across from Tess’s immaculate tent is what the residents refer to as “shit alley”: a communal toilet spot. Tess appeared embarrassed and clarified that she prefers to walk to a nearby Superstore or a 24-hour Subway to use the bathroom. The staff occasionally let her in, she said, particularly if she begs that “it’s a girl emergency.” It’s hard not to wince at the thought of a young woman begging for the dignity of a clean and private toilet to use.
None of this is justifiable. No Canadian belongs in a padlocked tent, fighting to keep rats at bay, languishing — at terrible risk of dying — on a waitlist for drug treatment. No toddler should be kept from her mother due to our failed drug and housing policies. How many generations of pain will result from this?
Nearby, a white-noise-like sound filled the air. Before I saw an open flame, I realized it was the sound of fire; as I walked closer, warmth emanated from a dingy tent with burn marks on its walls. Through a rip along one of its seams, a blowtorch — running full throttle — was visible inside the cluttered space, attached to a camping chair, a propane tank below. There’s no doubt that a fire would rapidly engulf the entire block if started.
Inside was Mike, 48. “This is a mini-Vancouver. Everywhere the SkyTrain goes, this is what happens,” he said. He cannot recall how many months he has been on Gordon Avenue. Market housing is out of the question. “You can’t afford anything,” Mike said. “A two-bedroom house is what — 3,400 bucks? Welfare gives you, what, 600 bucks to rent a place?” He told me he used to work as a heavy-equipment operator. Like Tess, he’s addicted to opioids — the result of an injury that landed him an opioid prescription. A commonplace story.
Mike spoke in the fashion of someone suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. He believed our conversation was being monitored by the police and that some of his homeless neighbours are informants. He described the encampment as violent. Fights and assaults happen daily. Regarding his blowtorch, he claimed it doubles as a weapon. “That’s for burning somebody’s face off,” he said.
Again, I’m left in disbelief that I am standing on a sidewalk in Canada.
It has been eight years since I worked as an outreach nurse. It’s not that I’ve forgotten how terrible or shocking the streets can be. It’s that the misery has scaled up in its abominable operations. It’s that there was a time when things were very bad indeed, but not this bad. Not this heartbreaking.
So, while Canada’s ruling left blathers on about their inexorable “progressive” march towards a stigma-free, free-drug utopia, ask yourself why they just cannot seem to offer anything other than increased entropy and suffering. Clearly, it’s time for something new.
National Post