Capitalist governments and callous societies treat unhoused people as expendables

Last summer, I wrote about the impending closure of Surrey’s Healthy Living Complex of Care due to a casualty of funding disagreements between city and provincial governments and a general lack of care much of society lends towards the unhoused. 

“The homeless are not real people under capitalism, they are an example to the working masses to keep their heads down [and] mouths shut,” I wrote in the article. A recent report from B.C. Chief Coroner Jatinder Baidwan reinforces this claim.

Over a four-year period, the annual death toll of unhoused people in the province has nearly tripled, according to the report. At least 458 people experiencing homelessness died in 2023, which is up 23 per cent from the year prior when 373 died. 

Of the 458 deaths, 86 per cent were due to toxic drug consumption, 91 per cent were accidental, more than half were between the ages of 30 and 49 years old, and 79 per cent were male. The Fraser Health Authority had the highest fatalities with 117, according to the report. 

In a statement, Baidwan said 1,940 unhoused people have died between 2016 and 2023, with 2016 also being the same year the B.C. government declared a public health emergency due to the toxic drug crisis.

I cannot stress enough that these are people — 458 deaths two years ago and 1,940 over a seven-year period. In nearly a decade, we’ve seen almost 2,000 human lives lost.

We see unhoused people just about every day. They may sit on the street panhandling for spare change, carrying every one of their worldly possessions in carts and bags. Their tents line the sidewalks and parks until a city ordinance sends the police to clear them out, often with no alternatives lined up. 

They may also live in their cars and park wherever they can for the night. A homeless life in a nomadic one is most concerned with finding hot food to eat and a dry place to sleep. Homeless shelters exist and offer refuge from the elements, but they are not for everyone and do not always have space to spare.

Where unhoused people exist, it is considered normal to pass by and pay them no mind — to pretend they are not there or simply a part of the urban scenery. When unhoused people are acknowledged, it is often with scorn and revulsion. 

They are reduced to negative stereotypes of violent vagrants, drug addicts, and those whose conditions are entirely their own fault. They are called “the homeless” because that is their most immediate and identifiable trait.  

Life circumstances are compressed into heuristics and humanity is stripped away. Without an address, they cannot work or collect social assistance, locking them out of society. 

Precariousness in housing and employment places many on the brink of becoming unhoused themselves. This fear further fuels the resentment against the unhoused as their existence, if it does not “sully” the neighbourhood, instead reminds the lower classes that they might become this panhandler or that shopping buggy’s pusher. The fear of becoming anonymous further worsens perceptions of the unhoused.

Capitalist governments and callous societies deny unhoused people the rights and dignities of personhood. They are used as examples of what could be if one does not obey the status quo and accept that alternatives do not exist. 

As a consequence, unhoused people are not afforded long-lasting relief. They are allowed to die on the streets because they are viewed as expendable and not worth helping. Human lives are discarded cheaply and society moves on, barely aware of the tragedy.