A topic no one around here now's how to deal with.... Please read and a slight warning this is not for the faint of heart

So I doubt this has or will make national news.... Though it should!

two days ago or so.... the towns only homeless man lost his life because no one seems to know how to or is set up to deal with homelessness in rural areas. Though it was not natural causes. It's some you might see in the movies and never think happens in real life... For some of the bigger provinces this would be a drop in the bucket but in NS big news like this really does not happen. Now I am pretty emotionless - this story makes me sad for the guy. He had a lot of challenges. I served him at work when I worked at the berwick store. Not the friendliest guy... I tried to make attempts to get to know him when I worked.

While his death is suspicious.... I do know that he did smoke, but this would not have caused his death.

Here are the links

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While his story is sad, it should not be in vain

I heard this story on CBC. I am sad and speechless.

Call Ducks, these things are sad. Small communities are not as immune to this as large cities. In small communities you know and see the citizens so when one of them is lost, it's more personal. In cities, since no one knows you, you don't matter.

This is not a one size fits all problem and will not have a one size fits all solution. BUt just from reading the link you put up a few things come to mind.

There were agencies in place to help. Those agencies need information. He would give no information. Paranoia. Paranoia characterizes several mental illnesses. Many of the homeless are mentally ill. In Canada, it is not against the law to be mentally ill. Read that again, it is not against the law to be mentally ill. Thus, these people who refuse what services they might use because of their paranoia or what have you, even though they place themselves at risk...because of our rights and freedoms...we must step aside and allow them to harm themselves if that's what they want.

All we can do is offer help. Many small communities have agencies and societies who are indeed on the look out for those in need. In fact, smaller communities have a much better handle on this situation than cities! We might not have the facilities, but we have the grapevine and people KNOW who needs help. But...we have no way of taking anyone to a safe place against their will unless they are being arrested. To be arrested you must commit a crime. Insanity and mental illness are not crimes!

This is a long way of saying that despite all our good intentions and all the help that IS available, until we FORCE help upon people, these awful things will continue to happen. It is a HUGE issue and it is mortifying. But there are no doubt people in your community (or this community) that knew of the problem and tried everything in their power to help. But after a certain point, their hands are tied. It's that awful position between a rock and a hard place.

Back home in Smithers B.C. We've had homeless die behind businesses on main street. Usually from a combination of alcohol and exposure. One guy that died on the street, in a previous event was molesting another homeless man in front of supervalue food mart on a bench. To address the situation town counsel decided to remove the bench, but both men still remained homeless only now without a bench.
A couple weeks back a native man entered Smither's Canadian Tire and slit his own throat with one of their exacto knives and died in front of an isle of shocked witnesses. He made a three inch column in bottom right hand corner in the newspaper. While the whole front page was all about a recycling debate!

I think what is really shocking this town is not the death of a homeless man, but that one or more of their own citizens may have set the fire that burned him to death.

I am not sure where people are getting that he was mentally ill... I did talk to him I mean he could communicate fine. Does not mean he was not but. To me it's up for debate... I think he was just a stubborn hard headed person.

Now I have herd some names... If they are correct I have went to school with at least one of them. Now he was crazy....

And it's more so-- No one around here knows how to deal with it.... We used to have a homeless shelter but that would be three towns and 30 km's away. I remember hearing it closed or something. he was very much an outcast by some of the town people.

As sad as it is to say... I am not that much concerned about this incident - it's awful but i have not let it affect me.

The town no longer has policing services they come from kingston and that is a good 10-15 min drive (though might be faster with light's and sirens). The police left and crime went up (one drug store was being constantly broke into until they built a new store). I can speak from experience the only way you can get a hold of police at 2 am is by calling 911 (and that's not always needed). This happened right across from the old police station.

It's one of these things... In a province that can hardly support the systems we currently have (not a lot where it counts. The old government striped 65 million from the education budget just last year), and than the local economy is mostly seasonal agriculture... So yah our rural economies in NS are not suited to take care of homeless... Mostly we don't need shelters ( good in one way, but bad in another), also the government can't support more than it has right now.....

This is why I get mad when people yell because an oil company wants to drill for oil off the coast, but also complain that our economy sucks! Drilling the oil off our coast would really put a lot of much needed dollars in everyone's pocket.  Sigh if I could only be premier for a day


Sue, yes you nailed it... It's the fact that two people had the audacity to do this... The employees stocking the shelves at the local grocery store, the newspaper diverlery people that saw him moments before sleeping, and came back only moments latter to see the shelter up in flames, the fire fighters, they are all going to be effected more than the general public.

The death was not so shocking, people tried to poison him multiple times, people poured cold water on him at night, etc.

What a tragic thing to happen.

Call ducks, didn't realise you were in Berwick. My nephew and his family live just outside of town.
They seem to have been rocked a bit by this as well. From what I can tell they feel kinad of the way you do.

coopslave wrote:Call ducks, didn't realise you were in Berwick.  My nephew and his family live just outside of town.
They seem to have been rocked a bit by this as well.  From what I can tell they feel kinad of the way you do.

I live in waterville/cambridge thats about 10 outside. Is it your nephew that owns north mountain coffee? If so my sister worked with your nephews wife. Small world eh?

call ducks wrote:

coopslave wrote:Call ducks, didn't realise you were in Berwick.  My nephew and his family live just outside of town.
They seem to have been rocked a bit by this as well.  From what I can tell they feel kinad of the way you do.

I live in waterville/cambridge thats about 10 outside. Is it your nephew that owns north mountain coffee? If so my sister worked with your nephews wife. Small world eh?

Yep, that's him. It is a very small world indeed! Did she work at the coffee shop or before that?

coopslave wrote:

call ducks wrote:

coopslave wrote:Call ducks, didn't realise you were in Berwick.  My nephew and his family live just outside of town.
They seem to have been rocked a bit by this as well.  From what I can tell they feel kinad of the way you do.

I live in waterville/cambridge thats about 10 outside. Is it your nephew that owns north mountain coffee? If so my sister worked with your nephews wife. Small world eh?

Yep, that's him.  It is a very small world indeed!  Did she work at the coffee shop or before that?

Before that at Union Street Cafe.

cool.....

This is very unfortunate...There are shelters for homeless people, and usually lots of places to get food; soup kitchens, churches etc. There are also a lot of mental health problems with people who are homeless...they just don't fit in, and will not go to shelters because they just can't be around people they don't know, or crouds or what ever their thing is. Esindale closed some time ago and all the mental health patients were sent out into the community without proper supports in place...it is funny (not) that over the years there are more and more people who end up being cared for by humanity and not the government. Welfare rates are unchanged after more than 30 years....
This story reminded me of this pioneer woman named "Chiwid" who left society after being severely abused by her spouse. She never felt safe anywhere but the wilderness and lived in the wilderness for 50 years until in her aged years the community built her a house. Hunters would come across her covered in feet of snow and thinking her dead would uncover her. She would wake, and stand up shaking all the snow off herself.
Also reminded me of the homeless person in Vancouver who was burned to death in a dumpster with cardboard...now they are locked
and humanity!...what people are these to think it would be amusing to burn someone..alas

call ducks wrote:I am not sure where people are getting that he was mentally ill... I did talk to him I mean he could communicate fine. Does not mean he was not but. To me it's up for debate... I think he was just a stubborn hard headed person.

We've been hearing it on the news up here and it is shocking.

Heard on the radio where they were talking with a couple of guys who had known him for a long time. Although they said they weren't professionals, they did personally believe that he had some sort of mental issues. But then so do a lot of people who find themselves in those situations. For all our brains, our society doesn't seem to know how to help them (or doesn't want to).

One guy told a story of how he was in the street and someone went by and passed him a brown paper bag. The police spied him and threw him against a van so hard that it dented the side. When they checked the bag, it contained a sandwich, some cookies and a bit of cash for some work he had done that morning.

We've got a long way to go.

Fowler, I agree we have a long way to go. It's just sick that people would harm these people that are so down and out.

Seems like more help is given to other countries, than ours. They all need help, but charity begins at home, to me anyway.