February 24, 2005

Fewer Street People in Yaletown?, Part 2

This is a continuation of a previous post...

It's funny - since before Christmas I have been quite worried about where all the street people have seemingly disappeared to. I haven't seen this one guy in particular - I'll call him Michael, but for the life of me, I cannot recall his name.

I wondered if he had (A) gotten really sick, or died (B) found some kind of regular housing or (C) been chased away from Yaletown by the cops and the so-called "Safe Streets" by-law.

The answer (at least in Michael's case) was much simpler: he had suffered some severe frostbite on his right foot (almost lost it!) and so had been in hospital for weeks recovering. When I saw him yesterday (the first time since Christmas), he was in a new-looking wheelchair and had a big bandage on his right foot, but otherwise looked quite a lot healthier than before.

It was good to see him back on his feet, er, wheels.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i hardly saw any panhandlers around yaletown even last year...
i don't think there's a need to chase them away...

that neighbourhood is so nice...
missed it a great deal...

btw, good to see ur blog, John...