Editor,
Last night I witnessed a disturbing incident outside my home. A group of older men had started harassing two youths who had been spending time in a public walkway. In the couple of hours they had been there, they had not been disruptive or unsafe in any observable way.
The sight of a group of men crowding in on them was immediately alarming and I stepped in, asking the two young people if they were OK and if they felt safe.
They told me that the men were intimidating them, demanding to know their business in the neighbourhood, following them, and saying vaguely threatening things like 鈥渨e don鈥檛 want any trouble."
They also told me that they were, like an increasing number of our community members, homeless. They were justifiably shaken, and had just been trying to find a safe place to spend the evening.
In 2015, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that homeless people have the same rights to public areas as anyone else, and barring anyone from sleeping in public spaces is a violation of those rights. Just as I have a right to spend the evening in a local green space, so do unhoused people.
Homelessness is a preventable problem, but it is getting worse. We all know that the cost of living is astronomical; surely we can have empathy with those who are most disadvantaged. It is shameful to judge and harass people just for looking out of place, and for simply existing in public while homeless.
If these men are so against homeless people sharing their neighbourhood, they should use their voice and their vote to help enact evidence-based policies to end homelessness. Because simply being unhoused does not make someone dangerous. But choosing to intimidate and harass others? That does make our communities unsafe.
Liza Rader, 性视界传媒
