The great outdoor

This person looks too clean cut to be one of the Lower Mainland's numerous street people. Yet he is sleeping by the grassy area of a new development and shoeless. He can't be sunning since it is cloudy.

Tragedy

A tragedy happened on a Vancouver street the other day. Tracey, a street person, burnt to death trying to keep warm. She rejected a bed in the local shelter because they wouldn't allowed her cart inside. Leaving it outside means losing her entire worldly possession, what little she had.

The Globe and Mail reported this tragedy on Saturday, December 20. The report, however, appeared right next to a Royal De Versailies ad, advertising diamond rings. I find this very ironic in that we are seeing the two extremes of Canadian society. One of these rings is worth how many times Tracey's entire worldly possession?

Was this intended or just an accident on the Globe and Mail's part?

Shelter

Statistics Canada tells us that the BC economy is booming, the provincial government tables a surplus budget, and employers complain of labour shortage but we are seeing more homeless people wondering our streets. Vancouver's winter is mild when compared to the rest of the country but there is the persistent rain.

Why can't we provide shelters for those who need it? Is it because as a rule they don't vote so the politicians don;t need to take their interests seriously? Is it because they don't run for office therefore have nobody to represent them and to fight for their rights?

In two years time when the Winter Olympics come to town will the government, provincial and municipal, get them off the street by busing them off to another part of the province, out of sight out of mind?