This was one of my favourite pieces that I've done so far among the seven I've now done for the Times Colonist this year, as I top 22,000 words on homelessness since January. This piece ran today, July 26. It was just so nice to spend all those hours out talking to people who so rarely get talked to, if you don't count being yelled at. Link is here , where you can enjoy a nice layout. Words and a few photos of mine are below: One city block. So many heated opinions. Mayor Marianne Alto called it “a hive of misery.” A pastor at a downtown church told media that while it troubled him to go against the gospel by shutting out the people who live there, he’d rather do that than let them in. A place of “rampant public disorder, open drug use and filth,” filled with “violent addicts” needing to be locked up. A place so bad that the “chaos spiraling outward” from it would soon destroy Victoria’s entire downtown, as the Globe and Mail phrased it last year in a particularly inflam...
I'm a communications strategist and writer with a journalism background, a drifter's spirit, and a growing sense of alarm at where this world is going. I am happiest when writing pieces that identify, contextualize and background societal problems big and small in hopes of helping us at least slow our deepening crises.