Mariska mourns the death of Kirsten Patrick, who spoke out about the plight of unhoused people in her community.
I first met Kirsten Patrick in 2019. She contacted me after the town cleared a homeless encampment on the corner of King Street and Highway 16.
She had been staying with her boyfriend, her mother, and her mother’s house for eight months. She told me there was no warning at the time. One day, when they returned home, their tent was gone. To add salt to the wound, his sister Jessica had passed away the year before, and there were several photos of her in the tent.
“It literally went to the dump,” Kirsten told me. “A big photo of my sister from her funeral last year and her wallet. Those were the last words we got from her. It really hurt, it was the only thing we had.”
After that, we sometimes bumped into each other on the street and started saying hello right away.
One day, she invited me to her sister Jessica’s memorial. We met where her family found her body on the Hudson Bay Mountain Trail. Kirsten proudly introduced me to her children, who at the time were in someone else’s care. She talked about how much she missed Jessica, her laugh, and how frustrated she was by not having answers.
Kirsten and I occasionally talked about the difficulty of finding housing and the hardships of living on the streets.
She bravely took a stand at the town’s 2023 open house on proposed park ordinance changes.
About 200 people gathered at the open house, many of whom spoke out against allowing temporary overnight shelters in local parks. Many people were very angry.
Kirsten stood up in front of the crowd and told everyone that she was currently living in an encampment at Veterans Peace Park, and that she was doing her best to keep her area clean. She faced the problem head on.
She was always willing to talk to me when changes occurred within the camp. At one point, the town put ATCO’s trailer on display. The town attempted to relocate the camp and then clean it up.
During the coronavirus pandemic, there was a time when tents were set up on the outskirts of town. Kirsten also gave the camp a say, even as she entered and exited it. She gave me insight when the town was trying to find a new encampment.
She also talked about her struggle to stay sober. It wasn’t easy for her. Luck never seemed to be on her side. There were also no resources to help her, she said.
I learned of her death through comments on social media posts. Someone accused her of stealing something, but Kirsten’s cousin pointed out that it couldn’t have been her because she was dead. When I read that, my heart sank. We found a reliable source that can confirm the news.
It’s very easy to walk by the encampment near City Hall and think about how messy it was. It’s easy to get irritated with people begging for money at the entrance of the supermarket. What is sometimes not easy is recognizing that these are humans. they have names. They are someone’s children. And some have children.
We need to improve more.
As a community, we need to advocate for more resources from higher levels of government, including local treatment resources such as detox centers and low-barrier shelters.
Kirsten is a member of our community and deserved better and more support.
