Homeless abuse incidents show that many see them as less than human

We walk past homeless people all the time. We look through them, ignoring requests for spare change, pretending they’re not there.

But we’d never egg a homeless man into setting his hair on fire in exchange for a cigarette. Or urinate on one passed out in the street. Or set one on fire while he’s sleeping in a bus shelter.

All those things happened in Canada and it just may be at the far end of the continuum of our willingness not to acknowledge their existence as people.

A video of a downtown Vancouver panhandler setting a lighter to the back of his own head, encouraged by some faceless, drunken louts, went viral this week.

The incident predictably appalled most who saw it. But those who work with the homeless say it’s only an extreme example of the dehumanized existence homeless people face. People get angrier if a pet dog is mistreated.

“Not to say abused animals aren’t important,” says Bruce Curtiss, manager of Hastings Chaplaincy and Outreach for Vancouver’s Union Gospel Mission.

“But when abused and abandoned animals take precedence and tug at our heartstrings more than an abused and abandoned human being, I think that’s a sad state of affairs.”

Vancouverites regularly rally to support the mission’s seasonal drive for donations of money, blankets and clothing for the homeless, Curtiss told Yahoo Canada News on Wednesday. But for some reason many of us find it hard to communicate compassion and fellow feeling when we meet homelessness face to face.

“There’s a benevolence in us somewhere,” said Curtiss. “But I think a lot of times on our daily grind … it’s not something in our forefront of thought.”

Incidents of abuse of the homeless are an outgrowth of attempts to separate the homeless from the rest of society, said Doug King, a lawyer for Vancouver’s Pivot Legal Society, which advocates for disadvantaged groups.

“The language the media use to describe individuals who are homeless and addicted to substances is very much designed to create an ‘other’ class of people in our society that are very different from what we consider to be normal,” he said in an interview.

“I think of it [the hair-lighting] as a symptom of that. It’s a little bit dehumanizing when we characterize individuals based on their state of being rather than the fact that they’re individuals.”

The incident, which apparently took place last weekend in the downtown’s Gastown district, came a few months after another street person in the city’s Granville club district was persuaded to let someone kick him in the groin in exchange for some cash.

That, too, was caught on video. Police investigated but laid no charges. They’re looking into this incident as well but aren’t sure a crime was committed this time either.

“We have identified the man in the video but have not been able to speak with him yet,” Const. Brian Montague said in an email to Yahoo Canada News.

“The incident does not appear to meet the requirements of a criminal offence but we will make that final determination after we speak with him.”

Montague said police also have information identifying those who may have been involved in recording the incident.

[ Related: Vancouver police investigate video showing homeless being kicked in groin for money ]

King said he’s not surprised by the police response, despite the fact the Criminal Code sections on assault are pretty broad.

“We just haven’t seen them step in in situations like this,” he said.

King said the man in the video actually lives in nearby social housing run by the Lookout Society. Pivot plans to meet with him to see if he wants to pursue any action or simply give his version of events.

“What we’re being told by the Lookout Society, which helps this guy, this is not a situation where he consented as a normal person would to this happening and he’s pretty upset about what happened to him,” the lawyer said.

The group involved had apparently been thrown out of a nearby restaurant for being intoxicated, said King. A restaurant employee stepped in and put a stop to the incident but not before the man’s hair was afire. It’s not known how badly he might have been hurt, though there have been unconfirmed reports on social media that he does this regularly for money.

The fact someone did intervene is important, said King. The homeless typically aren’t used to having someone try to protect them, as if they mattered like other members of society, he said.

“We work with a large group of marginalized individuals, many of which who are homeless, and this is not the first time we’ve seen some pretty graphic violence against homeless people,” said King.

For every incident that’s caught on video and become a flashpoint, dozens more happen out of sight of smartphones, he said. For example, he said, Pivot tried in vain to get police to look into complaints a group was attacking homeless people camping in Stanley Park.

“I think it’s pretty safe to say from our perspective and the people that we talk to that for homeless individuals living on street especially, verbal if not physical violence is a reality of their life,” said King.

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That’s Curtiss’s experience, too. He sees the active taunting of some of the 1,500 people who come daily to the mission’s Hastings Street outreach centre for help.

“We have people drive by sometimes and honk and yell ‘you loser.’ That’s ingraining the belief that they’re nothing,” he said.

The man in the hair-lighting video was a familiar face to staff, said Curtiss.

“Good guy. Broken, hurt, all of these things, but he doesn’t deserve that,” he said. “A gentle guy, a quiet guy.

“When I saw this, I have to tell you I was indignant. I was angry; I can’t even begin to explain how angry this stuff makes me. It’s just wrong and, I can’t think of another word but evil and depraved.”

Such acts might be less likely to happen if we looked the homeless in the eye when we encounter them, said Curtiss, even if we don’t want to give them any money.

“I’m honest and say, I don’t have change but how you doing today?” he said. “If you’ve got no change, say hi. Given them the dignity of hey, you’re a human being. I’m going to acknowledge your alive.”

Sometimes it pays off, said Curtiss. He once encountered a panhandler after parking his car to dash into a store, not having plugged the meter because he truly had no change, which he explained to the panhandler.

When he got out, he discovered the panhandler had put two quarters into the meter for him. Simply because Curtiss treated him like a fellow human being.

“I think it comes down to changing our paradigm,” he said. “It’s a human life that has intrinsic value and getting that back into the forefront and culture of our society is enormous.”