My name is Seamus Rahman and I am a freelance journalist. I often write about social issues, which is why I think they reached out to me- especially after my investigative piece into one of our local development companies, Abilon, which went national.
This isn’t for the media though- I am too scared for that. Tensions are high in our city right now, and I can’t risk stoking things. But I can’t be silent either. I have to put pen to paper. The right time will come for greater publicity, but now is not the time.
It started with an email- to one of my old addresses which somehow bounced into my inbox. It was brief and to the point.
“thyre killing us. U have to investigte its ur job. At camp north & queens”
I knew exactly what the email was referring to- the numbers of homeless people in our city had skyrocketed, and it seemed that there were makeshift rickety camps and tents mushrooming on every corner and municipal green space. There had been all sorts of opinion pieces about why this was happening and who was responsible and how they spread disease and crime. As it so happened, crime was at an all time low in our city, although infectious diseases remained high and by many counts escalating, although as usual there was official fudging of the numbers and it was hard to get the real picture.
I responded to the email saying I will look into it. I had been intending to do a piece- a kind of natural segue from the Abilon article, focusing on homelessness, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Of course I took no note of the “killing”- people can say all sorts of crazy shit when out of their minds on the streets.
I was so wrong and ignorant. I hope I may be forgiven.
Anyway I made a few phone calls -I know from experience that it’s always good to get the “official” side of the story first. Somebody from Public Health confirmed that homeless people were being rounded up and taken to hotels “again, both for their own good and for the health and safety of the city”. That was fine- it had been ongoing policy for a couple of years now. City Housing confirmed that they were being given adequate meals and medical attention and “harm reduction policies were in place”. All good.
But my spidey senses were tingling- you don’t get to be national journalist if you are not reading between the lines and ready to take some risks- I changed my clothes, went out, did some shopping, and within a couple of hours arrived at North and Queens and marked out my place.
It was a quiet evening. Folk were just laying round, not doing or saying much. There was a fair amount of sneezing and sniffling. I nosed around a bit, but nobody was speaking and I felt it was a waste of time. But it was warm, and I decided to hang out until morning.
The police raided at around 4am. They didn’t need to use force, people were groggy and half asleep anyway. They loaded us into two minivans, and took us to one of the larger city shelters. I was surprised because I had been told that was full.
I kept my hoodie on tight over my face.
The police didn’t leave. They told us they would be “processed” at the shelter and then removed to the next destination.
There were Public Health nurses at the shelter as well as the usual intake officers, in starch white uniforms. They asked a whole bunch of extra questions, about vaccines and timelines and symptoms. And then they divided us into groups.
I shuffled joined the group re-entering the police vans. A nurse accompanied us.
We drove quite a while through the dawn-grey streets. There was silence, punctuated only by the sound of occasional coughing. Nobody asked where we were going. As we continued driving, I dozed off.
I woke up with a jolt, we had arrived, and the police were ushering us out. I was expecting some out-of-town motel or something like that. But I saw we were at an old train station, which I thought had been abandoned many years ago.
Apparently not. We were herded onto the train, and I saw other police vans arriving, from neighbouring cities. There over a hundred of us boarding the train, vagrants and vagabonds and others fallen onto the margins of society. I noticed at this point that the police left, to be taken over by security crew who I assumed were private. I managed to shuffle up to one and get a closer look at his uniform, and I glimpsed the Abilon logo, tiny and without the words but still unmistakable, stitched below his shoulder.
Another trip took us further away from town, but it was a shorter one. And then we got out, and finally as I stared at the rows of small concrete huts before us, growing visible in the morning light, I had to acknowledge my gnawing suspicions were true.
They were indeed literally going to kill the homeless.
The security started crowding everybody towards the huts.
The realization spread through the crowd like a ripple through water, and almost in the same instant, a large group of us made a break for it. Even though there had been no planning.
Chaos broke out. The security guards had no compunction about using violence- they seemed to go feral. I have covered my fair share of violence and policy brutality, but nothing I had ever seen was like what I saw that moment.
I was agile and healthy, I was able to dodge the worst of it - I dashed back to the station and into the bathrooms and hid in a stall.
I heard screaming and shouting and yelling for what seemed like hours, but of course it must have been only minutes.
I cowered in the stall, my phone silenced, for a very long time.
Finally there was complete stillness.
I crawled back out. It was already turning dark.
I started walking.