The Unhoused Woman-A Conversation Transcription

The below account has not been edited other than for anonymity's sake of the community partners. This account is a personal reflection based on lived experience and opinions. It is shared for the purpose of documentation, awareness, and critique of institutional practices. This story is not intended to incite harm or harassment toward any individual. Names and identifying details have been omitted or altered where appropriate to respect privacy and safety. All incidents are allegations not proven in a court of law, and the Archive does not investigate or vouch for the veracity of reported incidents.

Here are the separate stories from the transcript, with the text unaltered.

Story 1: Encampment Destruction
So one of the things that's interesting about doing street outreach is that we do have, like, I do have some experience with police violence, and most of it ends up being secondhand. And so one of the things that we hear about, often from people who are unhoused, is just like the way that police destroy encampments, and like the damage that this does to people's lives. And one of the things that, I think is really one of the incidents that really stands out to me was there was a guy who was camping down in the river valley, and he was camped out in the same place for three weeks, and just about every week, the police would come through and they would destroy all of his belongings. And you know, EPS always maintains you know, they don't slash tents and yada yada yada. And it's like, yeah, maybe they're not going through with a knife and literally slashing tents, but they're throwing them in the back of dumpsters like they're they're just putting them immediately into dump trucks like there's no no care given for people's belongings and people who are doing this to survive. But there was one incident that really, like, emphasized how just, like, pointless and cruel that practices. Because there was one day that his camp was taken down, and the, you know, the crew that attended it, took down his tent, put it back in the bag, and left it under a tree for him. And so when he came back his his camp had been cleared out, but his tent was still there, and so he was able to take it and move on somewhere else. And like, that incident just like, like, was a really, like, poignant note for me, of being like, this is all totally unnecessary. Like, all of the violence that gets done when encampments get cleared out is pointless. Like, we could just respect people's belongings and respect that they were trying to survive outside and recognizing that it's like, yeah, encampments have problems and pose risks, but like, there's no need to do it in like, just, like, pointlessly cruel way that it's done. So it's like, kind of funny, like, talking about, like, police violence. And it's like, what about if, like, the police weren't violent, like, with this, like, weird little opportunity to just be like, what if we had a bit of decency when we're dealing with the homeless?

Story 2: Person in Crisis on Whyte Avenue
But we have also encountered police violence like here directly as we were doing our work, one of the examples, and this one is actually on videotape as well, like it was featured in the very beginning of the safer for all documentary that was released recently put out by the John Humphrey center. And so we were here doing street outreach, and there was someone who was in crisis in the alleyways along white Ave, and they're very well known to the community. Everyone kind of knows this person and knows that, like, if they're not on their meds, or if they're having a bad day, they can be loud and, you know, difficult, but they're not a threat to anyone, like they have never hurt anyone, and they're just loud and sometimes wander out into the road, which is not the end of the world, right? And so, you know, three, one or two on one had been called, and like they tried to help, didn't want any help. Ambulance and fire arrived. Try to help, but, you know, they're not having a medical emergency. They're just having a bad day. And so they also, you know, they don't want to be incarcerated, in the sense of, like, they don't be dragged into the back of an ambulance and sedated, like it's just not something they're looking to do. And so they tell the ambulance drivers to fuck off. You know, they're aggressive and loud, but not violent. And I'm there watching all of this going on, and I'm like, There's no threat that this person poses. They just want to be left alone, and people are just not leaving them alone. And so we try to, like, intervene, and just try to be like, hey. Like, I will, like, you know, stand between, like, talk to people as you do as, like, a nice, white collar professional to other professionals. But someone calls the cops, and the cops arrive and they're just like, This person is causing a disturbance. Immediately tackle them to the ground and pull out, but do not deploy a taser, put this person in cuffs, and then start to, like, march them into a police van, and the person tries to, like, wiggle out, and the response from the police officers is to cut out their legs and slam them face first into the concrete in cuffs, like completely unprovoked, completely unnecessary violence, right? And and I was very glad that it's like we were here in the park at the time to, like, get that on video and make sure that it was recorded. But yeah, still just, like, really sticks out to me is like, one of the rare cases where it's like, oh, yeah, this like, firsthand experience of police violence as we're just, like, trying to be out here giving out food, yeah? And that's like, on the street in broad daylight, yeah, yeah. That's with cameras. Out that's with it was funny at the time we had, I think, about eight med students from the inner city health elective who were there also

Story 3: The Tactical Unit at Camp Pekiwewin
one of the really, like, interesting moments of just like, the way that police interact with our communities was also at Camp peck away win, which was a large homeless encampment down in the river valley, and prayer and relief camp. And one night, someone got sucker punched, someone called the cops, but every police officer in the city apparently was maintaining the exclusion zone around the Rogers place arena because the Oilers were playing, and this was like height of the pandemic. And so the only unit that could respond to the sucker punch was apparently the tactical unit. So that's who they send down to camp. They roll up in like an APC, they all get out of the van in their like military uniforms, and they stand around doing fuck all, except intimidating people and making it difficult for our, like, Med Team to go and, like, you know, care for this person who had been sucker punched. Because, like, the cops are trying to, like, maintain a cordon before the ambulance shows up, but there's, like, no ambulance in sight. They're nowhere. And like, the person doesn't really need an ambulance. They they were punched. They're a little bit out of it. But like, this is something that can be responded to by like, a nurse. But it just like it was such a bizarre, just like, exercise of force, and just like, it's utterly pointless, and yeah, that was the excuse that we got when we asked the police. It's like, Why the fuck did tactical show up? And they were like, yeah, it was the only unit that was available. Like, who knows if that's true, right? Who knows? But, like, either way, like, it was, it was terrifying. Like, people were really freaked out to have, you know, guys in military combat fatigues, you know, tromping through camp, and you just, like, why are you here? Totally unnecessary, yeah, but it's like, but this is, this is this is how, like, the standard operating procedure works, that it's like, you know, if there is a call that is involving violence, like police need to respond before ambulance can arrive, and like, that doesn't always end up being, like a proportional response. This is what happens with, like, that bureaucratic style of violence, where it's just like, oh yeah, we have to follow the rules. And so some cop has got to go out to attend this thing, even though there's like, it's not like there's an ongoing fight, it's not as though there is like a chronic case of violence in the area. It's just like there was one very brief altercation, and then the result of that is a dozen tactical right? Yeah,

Story 4: The Functional Role of Police and Harm Reduction
I mean, the challenge is that the functional role of police is to make societal problems invisible. And that really stands out when it comes to harm reduction, because it's like, there's this mentality that we need to stop drugs and, like, punish people who use drugs, but it the drug war has been lost, like, very decisively, it is obvious, I think, at this point that, like, you can't police your way out of drug use, at least not without, like, concentration camps filled with people whose only crime is, like being moderate, like unmedicated and trying to, like self soothe with narcotics. Like the the extent of destruction that you would need to do in in our communities to like police out of drug use is just like, comically absurd, and they're trying to do it down in the states, like fuck. And so the so the impact of policing, then, is just to make it invisible, is to push it out of areas where, like, nice people from the suburbs show up and, like, they don't really care if something is happening in, you know, corner of downtown where you don't get a lot of tourists, and you don't get a lot of, like, white collar professionals, and yeah, people from st Albert and yeah. And the impact is and but like that, process is not easy. It's not, you know, pleasant or kind. It ends up just being pointlessly cruel, where you have people who are just trying to survive, just getting constantly pushed around, and it makes things harder. Like it's one of the things that we really notice. And like, you can tell when someone's camp is hungry, because they'll come to outreach, and they will be miserable, and they will have so much less with and because they're having to completely rebuild their life, because, you know, a police officer came through and threw all of their stuff in a dumpster. And it's like, when we think about, when I think about that as someone who, like, owns a home, it's like, yeah, like, imagine if just like, every week someone came through my apartment and threw out everything and changed the lock and I had to, like, figure out how to get back in, right? It'd just be this absolutely catastrophic destruction of someone's life. But because they're forced to live on public land. Somehow this is okay. And I think that's been one of the, like, really noticeable things about encampments and sweeps and stuff like that, is that it's like we see police roaming through Chinatown, like trying to push out all the encampments, but they're pushing them out. They're not getting them off the street, they're not getting them into housing. They end up in Kingsway, and they end up downtown, and they end up in the river valley. And so then the, you know, the police crackdown ends. They say, mission accomplished. Put up the big banner, and then within a few weeks, all the encampments are back in Chinatown. There's been a really interesting there was a really interesting demonstration by Van do the Vancouver drug users union. And I think that's what the acronym stands for. They started to actually, like, build the city saying, like, this is the value of all of people's belongings that were destroyed in a suite.

Story 5: The Cost of Tent Destruction
And it's staggering. It's like hundreds of dollars of people's lives that are just being like routinely destroyed. And we think about the same thing too... like, we think about that as well. Like, one of the things that we really like to give out when we have the money is we buy bulk tents and we give them out to people. And it's like, that is, you know, a pretty big outlay of money. Like, if we give out, I think at one point we had about, like, 10 or 15 tents we were able to bring out about a month. It's like $600 of like, little two person tents, and realizing that it's like, yeah, we give them out one week, and then two weeks later we're giving them out to the same person, because the police trashed the tent. When we think about that from like, How much money do we end up? Because people talk about, you know, the nonprofit industrial complex, just like, spends money on stuff, it doesn't matter, and how much of that is that we are spending money on stuff just to have it destroyed by the police, that it's like we are spending money to restabilize people's lives that are being destabilized by some other public service. It's, it's just like, this game of, like, whack a mole, and we're kind of happy to, kind of like, do that, sort of like, yeah, like, we spend money for EPs to destroy it, and that's fine. And but like, they could not, yeah, they could, like, help us make sure that, like, people's lives are actually getting back together, that we can give them, you know, a good tent, some like fire, safe ways of heating up their like, where they're staying. We can give them, like, food and clothes that they are actually able to, like, store and maintain and eat. And it's like, how much less conflict would there be in our communities if, like, we just provided those things for people.

Story 6: Public Bathrooms and Historical Context
Yeah, I think about that all the time, especially, like, We're here on like, white Ave, and there's businesses that are always just like, all these homeless people, like peeing on the back of our stores, breaking our windows, causing a scene, and it's like, and how much of that, though, is because it's like, you know, how many times can you be told, No, you can't go to the bathroom here before you break like, I think about that all the time that you know we have the privilege of being able to go in to private to do our business. This is like, sometimes we just can't. And, yeah, and it's just like, how many, how many little, tiny indignities could you suffer before you were like, fuck you. And I think a lot of people actually have a pretty short fuse for that. And like in my day job, I interact with public quite frequently. And it's staggering how many people have like, freak outs every, every single day. But they have their freak outs at home, or they're, you know, they're freaking out, but they have enough money that they can get in their car and drive away once things get heated, like they don't have to have these crises in public. And so no one really notices or cares, but someone has a crisis in public, and suddenly they're getting thrown into the concrete face first by a police officer and. It's just like this ridiculous double standard, and from a harm reduction perspective, it really doesn't need to exist. Like one of the campaigns that we had a few years ago was like potties, not police that think about how much better our communities would be, especially like white Avenue downtown, if we had public bathrooms everywhere. Like, how much less conflict would there be if people weren't being turned away from businesses all the time? If they weren't, like, forced to take a poop behind a dumpster because they wanted, just like, any kind of privacy whatsoever, our streets would be way safer. Like, people would be like, much nicer to one another, and it would also be nice even for just like everybody else, but it's not provided. One of my favorite little things that I found in the archives is that in 1921 the city council passed like a little like construction passed a budget item to build a public rest house on Jasper avenue of 100 bathroom stalls. This was in like 19 the 1920s the population of Edmonton was like 10,000 people. But the what they identified was that there were lots of people who are just now getting cars, and like driving into Jasper, Ave from outlying communities, and they didn't have anywhere to go to the bathroom, and so they said, We will build a rest house so that all of these people coming into Edmonton, and like anyone who is just like coming to Jasper, ave to do their shopping, has some of that they can go to the bathroom, and they don't have to bother a shopkeeper to use the bathroom in the Back or something like that, if the shops even happened at the time. And like, we don't have that many public bathrooms in the entire city of Edmonton in 2025 like, there is not 100 stalls of public bathrooms in the entire city. And 100 years ago, we had that many on Jasper Avenue alone. Yeah. And it's just like, It's little things like that where you're like, This is what would make our community safer. This is what would reduce tension, what would reduce anger, what would make people, just like, have a nicer time being in public with one another.

Story 7: Conflict Over Public Space and Supervised Consumption
I think about that sometimes too, because like, conflict does happen when we're doing street outreach, and a lot of that conflict happens because there is, like, it happens over the use of public space that it's like, there are people who just, like, want to be here for some other purpose, and then there are people who are forced to live here in public and like, of course, that's going to cause friction. Like, if you had someone who had to walk through your house every day in order to, like, get to work, you would also probably be pretty pissed, like it would feel like a violation and and so it's like we are forcing people to navigate those just like constant small level conflicts and constant small level frustrations, and those build up over time, and then they explode. And you don't need a police officer to prevent that from happening. A police officer is going to attend way too late when all of those little frustrations have already built up and now someone is freaking out in public. And from a harm reduction perspective, what if instead, we just didn't have all those frustrations like, what if, instead of people having to deal with someone smoking meth on the train. We had adequate amount of supervised consumption sites for inhalation, which we have literally zero of in the city. There's nowhere that you can do supervised consumption of inhalation drugs. Does not exist. And so people are like, why are people using on the train? Where else is there? Where else is there to go? And it's like, and then again, so the police officer has to attend and get this person who is just trying to survive in public to go somewhere else. And like, that's yet another frustration is that it's like, once again, like, Oh, great. Someone has called the cops on me for just fucking trying to have a normal day and building up more and more of those little like points of anger and frustration between people who are housed people are unhoused.

Story 8: The Unhoused Old Woman
I was trying to think of like some other like cases of police violence that we've kind of been like, a bit more proximal to. And one of the ones was just like, there was a old woman who, I think now she is like in hospice care, but she was staying in a tent, kind of like by the train tracks south of white Ave. And it was really quite obvious that, like everybody in this situation, really wanted to get her into housing, even the cops and like the cops who were involved were always like, trying to be you. Like, as as good as they could be, but like, at a certain point they just, they're like, we, we have to do our job. And like, we have to, like, kick this woman out of her tent and move her somewhere else. And they even acknowledged how, just, like, pointlessly Sisyphean, this was because they were like, we will. We need to move you from this spot. I We will take your belongings in the back of the police car and move you to somewhere else that we think people are less likely to complain about because, like, we can't get you into housing right now. Everyone can recognize this like old lady who is like sick and clearly needs help, should not be on the street, but also, they got the complaint, they have to move her. And so it's just like, even when they were being nice, even when it's like, yes, we're gonna pick up all your belongings, we're gonna help you move them to a new spot, it's still just like, you just didn't have to move her, though, like, there's even when they're, like, trying to engage their humanity. It's just like their job is to be bastards and to do violence. And that one really, like, stuck out at me again, similar to that other case, where it's like they took someone's tent, put it back together and put it underneath a tree. It's like all of this is totally pointless. There's no reason other than like our desire to be cruel, right? This has to happen.

Recording of conversation with harm reduction community organizer - includes description of multiple incidents and general impacts of police violence.

Edmonton Police Service

Edmonton

Anonymous

Recording of conversation with harm reduction community organizer - includes description of multiple incidents and general impacts of police violence.

The Unhoused Woman-A Conversation Transcription