If ever there was a grim reminder of the need for action on homelessness, this was it.
Just in time for Homelessness Action Week in Canada, police were called to a wooded area off North Road where a body was found in a ravine near a homeless camp.
Little is known, thus far, about what caused the death of 56-year-old Kevin William Knuff. It’s not yet clear whether he was, in fact, living in the homeless camp. But his death certainly serves as a stark reminder of the realities of life for homeless people.
Wanda Mulholland, coordinator of the Society to End Homelessness in Burnaby, has spoken up to remind people that the dangers of being homeless are very real. Beyond concerns over the fall and winter weather, people who are homeless are also at a greater risk of exposure to crime, drugs and other dangers.
Unlike those of us with roofs over our heads, they can’t simply go inside and lock the door against those dangers. Their existence, every day, is precarious in a way the rest of us cannot hope to understand.
What we can understand, though, is that this simply isn’t acceptable.
It’s not acceptable that, in a city as prosperous as Burnaby, in a country as well-off as Canada, there are so many people who are homeless or vulnerable to becoming homeless.
It’s not acceptable that affordable housing is disappearing more rapidly than we can write stories about it; that, with every “demoviction” headline, more people lose their sometimes tenuous hold on secure housing.
And it’s especially not acceptable that politicians at all levels would rather play the “point-the-finger-at-the-other-guy” game than actually sit down and come up with real solutions to this very real – and growing – societal problem.
It’s time for our leaders at all levels to get past being partisan. It’s time to get real and get down to the urgent business of making sure all of our citizens have homes they can afford.
We don’t want to write any more headlines about deaths this winter – especially if those deaths could have been prevented.
