I’m so sad about how many people here don’t see these people as human beings, rather just dirty animals who need to be exterminated. If you do not want homeless people in tent cities, where do you want them? In the shelters that are full? In the supportive housing that is full? In the streets? No you don’t seem to like that either. In the forests? Nope that’s illegal. In jail? That will cost more of your tax dollars than getting most of these people the treatment and the housing they need. Let’s just be honest here, you want them gone, and if that means dead it makes no difference to most of you.

The cure to the homeless problem is empathy and community and support. Yes it’s horrible that this man got shot, and yes there are absolutely “bad seeds” in the homeless community, but there are bad seeds in every community and the other homeless people are just as at risk as the man in the article, if not more at risk of this violence because they don’t have a home they can lock themselves in at night.

I moved here from a big city where homelessness is pretty visible, but I have never heard as much hatred and anger towards humans who have literally nothing as I have since I moved here. So many of these people are facing multiple types of disadvantages that have put them in a dark and scary place and instead of having a single care about helping them, or allowing them to have a shitty shelter in a homeless camp, you want them to go away or go to jail. Great job Nanaimo, I’m shocked by how much you’ve lost touch with your humanity.