Scenes like the one on my streetcar, and often far worse, have become common in our cities as Canada suffers through a triple epidemic of mental illness, addiction and homelessness
Deciding that nothing happened or is happening is pretty damned privileged in my opinion.
A good friend and her toddler needed public transit the other week and had to deal with a guy smoking hard drugs at the bus stop who, after boarding the bus and started yelling gay slurs at someone. Is she ever going to be okay putting her kid on public transit alone? Or will she need to take extra time off work to escort her kid everywhere? Or work extra to afford to uber the kid to everything? Or just not leave?
That’s a pretty sketchy but not entirely unusual occurrence here in Vancouver. My heart bleeds for those struggling but that also includes those who need to walk downtown, those who are vulnerable (more than a few girls I know are worried, with good reason, if they have to leave their places alone at night) or the small business owners who’ve given up after replacing their glass windows for the third time in a month. As a reasonable sized dude, I’m fine kind of wherever but I think it’s essential to remember that empathy goes both ways.
Deciding that nothing happened or is happening is pretty damned privileged in my opinion.
A good friend and her toddler needed public transit the other week and had to deal with a guy smoking hard drugs at the bus stop who, after boarding the bus and started yelling gay slurs at someone. Is she ever going to be okay putting her kid on public transit alone? Or will she need to take extra time off work to escort her kid everywhere? Or work extra to afford to uber the kid to everything? Or just not leave?
That’s a pretty sketchy but not entirely unusual occurrence here in Vancouver. My heart bleeds for those struggling but that also includes those who need to walk downtown, those who are vulnerable (more than a few girls I know are worried, with good reason, if they have to leave their places alone at night) or the small business owners who’ve given up after replacing their glass windows for the third time in a month. As a reasonable sized dude, I’m fine kind of wherever but I think it’s essential to remember that empathy goes both ways.