Remembering 209

Imagine losing 5 friendly faces out of your life every week.

Yesterday, the staff of the Bissell Centre and the Inner City Pastoral Ministry team gathered to remember the 209 people who died in the inner-city between February 1 and October 31. If you do the math, that's 5 people a week, more or less, depending on the week.

In my role as ICPM lunch coordinator, I don't often have enough time to ask people their names in the 10-second interaction as they collect snack bags and coffee outside the Bissell's doors on a Sunday morning, but I try to look them in the eye, greet them, and ask how they're doing. And if they come around regularly, I know their faces, if not their names.

We shed many tears during our ceremony, especially when Jeremiah from the Mustard Seed put his heart and soul into singing one of the best anthems of lament -- Gone Away by The Offspring -- "And it feels, and it feels like heaven is so far away, and it feels, and it feels like the world is so cold now that you've gone away."

Things are not getting better for homeless folks downtown. Today, I'm sending a very short letter with the picture above to the Prime Minister, my Premier, provincial health and housing ministers, and as many MLAs as I can with the request that they spend public dollars on 1) safe consumption sites and 2) affordable housing.

I just don't know what else to do. 

209 is too many. Even one is.