On Thursday, May 16, Pandora Avenue was buzzing with emotion. The encampments were being torn down and people’s belongings were being thrown into dumpsters. Since I work at one of Victoria’s safe-consumption sites, I was there to witness it all. However, it was nothing new to me. In fact, every time I arrive at work I see exactly this same thing. So I was slightly amazed that the news was buzzing this particular day.
Do people think that this kind of thing actually changes what is happening there? I read many comments on the news that upset me. Not very many people had empathy for those involved. Comments talking about “the human filth” and “lazy homeless” were just the tip of the iceberg.
This small section of downtown Victoria—The Block, as it’s known—is reserved for the people of the city that no one wants to acknowledge, with its social destitution, open drug use, and poverty. This is where I work. The majority of the people living there are unhoused, with varying levels of functionality. Comorbidity between substance-use disorder and other mental illnesses are high among the unhoused, whose behaviours are often unpredictable. People are not washed very well; they are often volatile, aggressive, or “flailing.” If they speak it might not be easy to understand. I’ve noticed that either there is a great deal of mumbling or they might not make much sense.
To someone who isn’t familiar with this sort of scene, it can seem scary, even horrifying. Harm reduction can be hard to understand, and it’s a movement that brings on much controversy.
The whole premise of harm reduction is not about promoting or enabling drug use. It does, however, recognize that drug use and homelessness is a problem that’s not going away, and that the people who are in these situations are worthy and deserving of respect.
If someone has a life-threatening illness, for instance, the idea is to try and make the sufferer as comfortable as possible and let them live their life with dignity. Harm reduction works with the same idea in mind. Any time we fully grasp the notion that we need to help others to live their lives with comfort, without as much chaos and hardship, that’s when we might actually see people start to want to make some changes. But even if that doesn’t happen, at least their current world won’t be filled with so much darkness if people just showed more empathy.