Street Level

Henry Leland froze to death last weekend.

It’s a tragedy for his family, his friends, his support network — and for all of us in Kamloops.

He lived on the streets — and he died on a street in Valleyview near the King’s Motor Inn.

He was only 42 years old.

The coroner’s office says there’s no obvious signs of trauma, of injury, of any other reason he died.

He was found in a sitting position, the snow piled around him. It’s possible, one friend said, people would have walked right by him as he froze to death in Kamloops.

Many people will mourn Henry. They will gather at a memorial service his friends are organizing to celebrate a life that was filled with turmoil, tragedy and yet reverberated with an undaunted sense of self.

As one of his friends put it when he passed on the news, it is a loss to the community.

Henry knew his lot in life hadn’t always been good but he didn’t hide from it.

He just accepted it for what it was, and did the best he could.

Unfortunately, for too many like Henry, that best just isn’t good enough without some help.

In Kamloops, there are myriad kind souls who reach out to provide assistance, from the street nurses to the social workers to all the agencies that try their best to patch together the social safety net that we have allowed to be ripped apart.

I had coffee with a friend earlier this week who is also watching her life fall apart because of a system that might look like it works on paper, but in practical terms, it really doesn’t for many.

My friend wants help.

She wants to feel safe.

She wants people to understand the horrific background she somehow survived but which led her, like Henry, to make some choices she wishes she could take back now.

She wants to get clean. She wants her life back, but she doesn’t fit the cookie-cutter mould of dependent client that the system has been set up to serve.

She’s the square peg in the round hole.

It makes her unique and, to my mind, it makes her admirable because she’s got the strength to admit that she just isn’t like all the rest of us.

But it means it’s hard for her to find help.

She’s afraid she’ll die on the streets.

What do you say to someone when you hear that kind of fear?

How can you not feel outrage that a person froze to death in our city?

Our provincial government is sitting on a surplus.

Our federal government is sitting on an even bigger surplus.

Yet social agencies must rely on government handouts through contracts that must be renewed just frequently enough to keep these vital links teetering on the edge of insolvency.

And we know what happens if they speak out against the hands that feed them.

They’re a necessity, however, providing shelter and services and, sometimes, just a caring ear to listen to a life’s story none of us want to experience.

They have to be there for those we call the marginalized, even though by doing so, we strip away some of their humanity.

People like my friend who, at this point, has a temporary place to stay while we try to get her into a residential program to help her fight the demons that keep her brain on constant vibration.

Maybe she’s lucky, because she has friends — and the number is small, but its might is powerful — who are pulling for her, who are there for her and who tell her she will not be allowed to die on the streets.

Henry had friends, too, who did what they could to help him.

But somehow, we all let him down.

Each of us who allows the system to cast out those square pegs shares some of the blame.

Henry froze to death in our city. If that doesn’t make you stop and wonder what kind of society we have become, perhaps nothing will.

dale@kamloopsthisweek.com

Posted by Dale at 7:46 a.m. Comments