The Trouble with Tracey
One year ago she burned to death in her shopping cart. What's been done to save the next Tracey from a similar fate?
Tracey died in this cart on Dec. 19, 2008.
Dawn Amanda Bergman burned to death one year ago tonight. The man who called 911 said he could see her sitting upright as flames engulfed the shopping cart she called home.
"Tracey" was Bergman's street name. And within days of her fiery death, Tracey had become a posthumous poster child for Vancouver's vexing hoards of homeless. The mayor and the minister invoked her nom de guerre as they opened new shelters and passed a law to compel the homeless to use them.
In life, Tracey was a troubled soul. Her mental health challenges were evident, even to strangers she cheerily panhandled at the 7-Eleven store on Davie Street. She never learned to control her emotions, or her drug use.
In death, the trouble with Tracey -- and thousands like her -- is that those challenges continue to be misdiagnosed as housing problems.
"For people like Tracey, homelessness isn't so much about a lack of housing," said Nancy Hall, B.C.'s former mental health advocate. "It's about a lack of mental health care."
A cozy nest, a deadly gift
The temperature dipped to 10 degrees below zero (Celsius) on the night of Dec. 18, 2008. The city was blanketed in deep snow. An "extreme weather alert" had been declared and outreach workers were combing the West End for homeless in distress. They found Tracey's cart parked on Davie Street, near Hornby. Tracey was tucked inside.
"She had quite the setup," said Ellen Silvergieter, who directs the advocacy office at St. Paul's Anglican Church. "Her cart had cardboard on the sides to block the wind. She had blankets and tarps all rigged up. She'd made quite a little nest for herself, all right there in her cart."
The outreach team offered to take Tracey to a shelter. She declined, as she had done many times before.
"Shelters are... well, they're pretty scary places for a woman on her own," Silvergieter explained. "People get robbed. People get raped. Maybe something happened to Tracey. I don't know."
The St. Paul's team gave her some hot chocolate, a heavy coat, and a plush quilt.
"It had been my quilt," Silvergieter mused. "I'd brought it in a couple days before. It had mauve and blue flowers on a felt background. It was really warm."
Tracey asked if they would bring her some more candles. The outreach worker declined.
"We didn't think candles in the cart was such a great idea," Silvergieter said. "She got candles from someone, though. I'm sure it was well-intentioned, but it was a deadly gift nonetheless."
Crying inside her cart
The Vancouver Police Department also checked on Tracey that fateful night.
"Officers offered to assist her in finding shelter off the street," reported Coroner Kate Corcoran, who investigated Bergman's death for the B.C. Coroner's Office. "However, she refused, stating shelters around Vancouver did not allow for carts. She stated she was warm and refused extra blankets; was angry at being woken up and wanted to be left alone."
Police can force the homeless into shelters if they are under-age, intoxicated, or in "imminent danger." Bergman, 46, was described by police as "coherent, able to make decisions and to answer questions directed her way," according to the coroner's report.
"She was checked three times, owing to reports of someone crying inside her shelter," Corcoran wrote. "Bergman acknowledged it was she who was making noise, because the two candles she used to keep warm had gone out. She borrowed an officer's lighter to light them."
The 911 call came at 4:28 the next morning. The caller reported a "fully involved fire" and stated "he could see a body sitting upright in the flames, arms at their side and knees slightly bent."
The autopsy found high levels of carbon monoxide in Bergman's body, along with low levels of cocaine.
"Given there were no signs that Ms. Bergman made any attempt to escape the blaze, it is likely that as she slept, the burning candles came in contact with material that smoldered for a period of time, leading to a significant level of carbon monoxide," which "could have impaired the brain's ability to react."
Smoke inhalation and thermal injury were listed as the cause of death.
A homeless death every 12 days
Tracey was hardly the only homeless person to die last year. She wasn't even the only high-profile homeless death. Darrell Mickasko burned to death the previous winter while trying to warm himself with a Coleman stove. And Curtis Brick died of heat exposure at an East Vancouver park during an exceptionally hot day last July.
All told, the B.C. Coroner's Service counted 32 homeless deaths in 2006, another 34 in 2007 and 30 in 2008, according to a report provided to The Tyee.
The average age at death was 45 years. The leading causes of death were disease, drug poisoning, blunt injuries, hanging and drowning.
For the purposes of these statistics, an individual was considered homeless if they were living on the streets, staying at an emergency shelter, or being provided temporary (30 days or less) shelter by friends or family. Individuals living in long-term shelters were excluded, as was anyone couch-surfing for more than a month.
By this definition, an average of 32 homeless British Columbians die each year. That translates to a dead homeless person every 12 days.
'Exactly what we had on the night Tracey died'
Coincidence catapulted Tracey into the political spotlight. She happened to die just blocks away from where a new mayor was preparing a new homeless shelter. And she died on the day before it opened.
Mayor Gregor Robertson, who was elected on a promise to end street homelessness by 2015, told Vancouver media that he was "horrified" to hear of Tracey's death.
"It's a great tragedy for the city, it's a great tragedy for all of us here in the community who have been working hard to right a terrible wrong in our city," Robertson told reporters.
Robertson opened several new homeless shelters during his first few months in office. The first two were in the Downtown Eastside. The third, at 1435 Granville Street, opened on Dec. 20. Some were even set up with places where clients like Tracey were able to securely stow their shopping carts.
But the Granville Street shelter was closed on July 1, in response to complaints from nearby residents. It has yet to be replaced.
"We have tonight exactly what we had on the night Tracey died," Silvergieter complained.
"The only shelter in this area is First Baptist. And that's only open on Tuesday nights, unless a weather emergency is declared," the West End advocate continued.
"Tracey wouldn't have gone to the Downtown Eastside" where several other shelters remain open. "That's why she was living up here."
Earlier this week, the city allotted $500,000 to set up another four shelters. With $1.2 million in operating funds from the province, Vancouver hopes to provide another 140 shelter beds for the winter.
"I think we could get some open by Christmas," Coun. Kerry Jang said.
"I don't know if it will be enough," Jang added. "Honestly, I don't think it will be. I think that we're going to see a high number of turn-aways, like we did last year."
Would new police 'tool' have killed Tracey?
Housing Minister Rich Coleman has invoked Tracey's story repeatedly in the year since her death. Coleman, a former RCMP officer, felt for the police officers who were unable to bring her inside.
"With this Tracey situation," he told The Tyee in September, "there was actually a police officer who knew there was a shelter bed, and couldn't get her to go... who is now living with the fact that that person died overnight on their watch."
Coleman concluded that police needed better "tools" to deal with situations like Tracey's, and he brought forward the controversial Assistance to Shelter Act, which empowers officers to take homeless people to shelters during periods of extreme cold or wet weather.
Activists dubbed it the "Kidnap the Homeless Act," and speculated it will be used as a way to sweep homeless people off the streets during the 2010 Winter Games. Hundreds marched through the Downtown Eastside last weekend in protest.
The Vancouver Police Department has elected to use the act lightly. A new policy instructs constables to "state their authority under the Assistance to Shelter Act," but refrain from anything more than "non-forceful touching" to compel cooperation.
"If met with more than passive resistance, the member shall not escalate to a higher level of force but instead shall disengage and release the person," the policy states.
Silvergieter supported Vancouver's decision not to fully enforce the new law.
"Tracey likely would have frozen to death as a result of being moved by the police," she said.
"Even if she stayed in the shelter that night -- which I doubt -- she'd have come back to the street within a day or two. But she'd have no cart, no quilt, no tarp... so by 'saving' her life on that one night, they may well have killed her a few nights later."
A generation without treatment
Nancy Hall said B.C. is now home to "a generation of people without treatment" who are now too disabled to avail themselves of the type of homeless housing on offer from the province.
"We have some very, very disabled people who've been untreated for many years," Hall told The Tyee.
"For many of these people, prior contact with police or shelters or even outreach workers has led to them being brought to a hospital... where they've been forcibly medicated and restrained," Hall explained. "So they've learned to think of a hospital as a place to avoid. And they avoid anything they think might lead back to that hospital."
Tracey appears to have been one of these. Government records indicate she had successfully navigated and was receiving social support at the time of her death, but that she had not requested shelter support or sought placement in social housing.
Hall suggested that as a result of the investments made by BC Housing in the past couple years, many of the homeless who were merely down on their luck or perhaps just hitting bottom in some addiction have found housing.
"I think if you look at who's still on the street -- and we're talking about more than a thousand people here in Vancouver -- you'll see that the people who remain have significant mental health issues that are not being treated," Hall said.
The woman who served as B.C.'s first Mental Health Advocate suggested that the province is facing a mental health emergency.
"I don't think what happened to Tracey is really all that different than if you denied a cardiac patient care, and then they had a massive stroke," Hall said.
"If you had earlier on treated their high blood pressure, and helped them with diet and exercise, the massive stroke would have been avoided," she explained. "And if early on in life Tracey had been noted to have a mental illness, and if she'd received appropriate care, this might never have happened." ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
cboo44
18-12-2009
Drugs, Mental Illness, etc
And no place to go.... or be taken? Ah yes, I believe it was a "left-wing" government that decided that hospitals for the mentally ill was just plain WRONG, remember? So we spent tax dollars on the various "Associations for Community Living" that were instituted all over BC. House the dependent ill overnight then bus them down to a common are to sit around all day, or wander off and disappear into the dregs of Vancouver.Only to become "homeless", off their meds, onto some other drugs, wasting away in a shopping cart. Soooo much better than a hospital !
And nobody has the gonads to admit "It ain't working."
thebiggerpicture
18-12-2009
most the people in the gutter belong in the gutter ?
H.H. the Dalai Lama:
Compassion is the radicalism of our time.
Frank
18-12-2009
cboo44
It was your beloved Liberals that cut services to the mentally disabled. As for your belief we need to put them all back in places like Woodlands maybe you've forgotten why they were closed.
"McCallum's main finding was that the abuse at Woodlands was systemic.
"There seemed to be an assumption that these people didn't feel pain the same way or that they somehow should be treated like this. And it's very disturbing," she said. "
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070504/wfive_woodlands_070504/20070506?hub=WFive
SicPreFix
19-12-2009
A very sad story.
And, especially when combined with comments like EastVanMan's, an interesting if discouraging mini-portrait of society in decline.
mary jane
19-12-2009
Shame on gordo
Hey Bob Watts give us the facts and figures
For the $$ spent on shelters gordo could put all of them on welfare and give raises so they could have a room 24/7 and one meal a day
BC's towns and municipalities cheer the olympics which has caused many more deaths than just this poor Tracey.
Many seniors and disabled have died. Why these people weren't druggies should they have such shabby care that death happens. A mentally disability is still a disability. some druggies will tell you they take drugs to remove the hurt the attitudes of cruel and unkind people create, those who would not help anyone.
I believe gordo is a good example of selfishness, compassionless lout.
We allow outfits Salvation Army a big business with off shore bank accounts it seems if you read the web site closely to charge big bucks for a mat on the floor.
Old fashion right wing christian belief is to puunish anyone who doesn't fit into the shoulds of their compassionless ideas.
Those who have had the misfortune to need help from welfare or other gov agencies often get stonewalled.
To those who call the homeless down I can only hope you get a big dose of problems
realisticman
19-12-2009
Tragic
The law has been passed because government has been galvanized into action because of this tragedy. We must not allow people to die on our streets like this. Mistreatment in institutions has to be closely monitored and not accepted but these people must be housed and kept inside, even if they don't want to be, we must help them save themselves.
edh
19-12-2009
We could end illegal drug addiction very quickly.
Simply enforce the criminal code of Canada and insist that maximum sentences be imposed.
Simple and effective. Not as expensive as some other solutions.
alive
19-12-2009
we are not all alike!
Poor people are expected to fit in the mold that society created for them, but if you have money then any behaviour is accepted and often adored.
We need to realize that some people have no use for our way of rationalizing everything; they may live on a day to day basis and yes they may die as a result!
Let us concentrate on helping anyone who wants to be helped!
Create facilities that can offer services without any religious or overbearing attitudes.
SicPreFix
19-12-2009
edh ...
I suspect you may be forgetting the incredibley high cost of keeping someone in prison, As far as I can recall, it's well over $50,000 per year.
Bob Watts
19-12-2009
For Mary Jane
You want some numbers, OK! The city will spend $500k and the BC Gov will add another $1.2 million = $1.7 million for 140 beds for about 5 months. That's $12,142.85 per bed/mat, or $2,428.57 per month per bed/mat. More math... in my small town, which just takes a $100 bus ticket to get here!!! Well we have 3 bedroom 2 bathroom all newly renovated townhouses to purchase at $700 per month.
The new shelter rates are $103 per night per bed/mat now. Here is why. The Welfare ministry now pays $56 million per year for 1,500 shelter beds, It works out to $37,333.33 per bed/mat.
Can we afford to house the homeless? Listen I have 2 spare rooms, I could put in bunkbeds with 8 beds and I'll take that $298,666.66 per year.
Like I say we import 45,000 foriegn workers non of whom are homeless, we then discard our own citizens, which costs us $55,000 per year per person, then we bitch and whine, insult and abuse people on welfare.
Just looking at the numbers we can see it cost more to put a person in a shelter than it is to buy them a new house. We need to train and help our own people and close the boarders till there is a REAL need to bring in other people. EG: I live in a small town surounded by 3 First Nations communities, only Overwaitea hires a few of them, yet in the sandwich shop etc, no one speaks english. Our society is run and ruled by the business community, who just see dollars for themselfs and the hell with the poor, how about lets send our poor to the Phillipines, or does that idea add up. We spend 3 times as much to keep a person in poverty, as is does to end poverty, but that's just to simple isn't it?
cboo44
19-12-2009
FRANK,
Your assumptions are all wrong. The Lieberals are most certainly not "my beloved". The care and protection of the mentally ill has gone to hell over the past 20 years, and is not just "recently". If one objectively examines the mental health issues and ignores the media's "catastrophe of the week", one could observe that ALL governments made cuts and ALL have failed at providing services. Closing hospitals and dumping patients onto the street is NOT a solution. There HAS to be a solution somewhere in between a padded cell and a shopping cart.
Whether we like it or not, Riverview was a GOOD facility, for SOME cases(not all), community "immersion" is great, for some(as long as there is supervision and someone insuring that patients actually take their meds and are able to develop a comfortable routine). Dumping people out on the street has been going on for some time and it is the "care contractors" who are responsible for that.
SicPreFix
19-12-2009
Bob Watts ...
I suspect you are quite right, but do you by any chance have some links we could peruse?
Thanks.
mary jane
19-12-2009
Thanks Bob
Lets not forget welfare gives an employable person gets under $10,000 per year to live on and a disabled person gets slightly more. The extras are in medical items if they can prove beyond a shodow of a doubt they need it and they have luck in getting a worker at the welfare office to do the proper thing.
So 2 or 3 people can survive in an apartment and be ready to go to work because they are bathed and have clean clothes
YES it cost far more to keep a person in jail.
Most frug rehabs are private since the fiberals have shut down many free drug and alcohol programs. Now these programs cost about $10,000 per month to attend
gordo / carol anyone stop threating our BC'ers like throw away people
Bobby Peru
20-12-2009
Tracey Doesn't Live Here Anymore
In the case of Tracey and all the other homeless who are derelict for whatever reason, there's nothing we can do under the current system but offer them comfort as they slowly die. Unless they accept full time hospitalization or institutionalization of some sort it's unlikely they can function normally and productively in mainstream society.
It's about time that the left stopped politicizing the problem and engineered an objective, cold hearted solution. Stop trying to make it everyone's problem, forcing ordinary, hard working BC families to change their lifestyles, pay more taxes or make the homeless the new focus of their lives. Working people who are struggling with their own mortgages have other problems and are insulted to provide free housing to all the homeless in one of the most expensive places in Canada.
And let's admit it, giving addicts and mentally challenged people their own apartments is only going to lead to the formation of a ghetto. What they need is housing and full time medical treatment- that is institutionalization. But before we start building these rehab and mental institutions, we need to determine the makeup of our homeless population. It's an expensive proposition, but necessary as the only way to permanently rid the streets of the homeless.
The left ought to lighten up with the venom. It was their NDP that closed institutions- part of another well meaning, but poorly conceived solution that concluded that mental hospitals were cruel and that addicts and the mentally ill would be cured faster if they were among normal people. For heroin addicts, it's more of a case of managing their eventual death in a hospital setting rather than letting them spiral downhill while robbing and wandering our streets.
Well, if the left can't conclude that solution has failed then our homeless problem will be our permanent blight. The homeless are not normal insofar they are fellow humans with serious problems. And those serious problems mostly require varying degrees of hospital treatment. It's time we planned to build these hospitals.
And if EastVan Man is truly from East Van, I totally get where he is coming from both in district and frame of mind. Most hard working people have little sympathy for addicts who couldn't control themselves. Life is full of individual moral choices that are good and bad, but you have to take responsibility for all of them. Tracey shouldn't be turned into a martyr. BC has real heroes who deserved to be featured.
Chris Keam
20-12-2009
Peruvian Flake
"For heroin addicts, it's more of a case of managing their eventual death in a hospital setting rather than letting them spiral downhill while robbing and wandering our streets."
Your understanding of the issue clearly has some gaps. If we managed people's heroin addictions in a hospital they would live for decades with little or no ill-effects. To take just one example among many of long-lived heroin addicts, William Burroughs used for most of his adult life and lived to the ripe old age of 83. Along the way he published a rather well-regarded book or two.
Your assertion that people end up addicted and homeless because of laziness or character flaws is also for the most part a display of ignorance that's breath-taking in its scope. I recommended Gabor Mate's books to you before, when will you go read them and educate yourself as to the underpinnings of most addictions? To accuse others of politicizing the issue when you spread misinformation is laughable.
mary jane
20-12-2009
Bobby Peru
Instead of saying they can be helped why not prevent the problem to start with.
There are models that work but the change is hard.
It won't be cheap but it won't cost as much as the crap thats paid for now.
The problem is that everyone must look long and hard at themselves first and then be prepare to change. Then have a system that supports healthy families. No crap about welfare, no limits on stopping violence, far better trained doctors. Hang or turf any politian that spends funds on junk like the olympics. I think you get the picture. gordo and cohorts be gone with tar and feathers
Bob Watts
20-12-2009
More welfare numbers to Peruse.
I just love researching poverty info so here is one, $28.8 million for 129 apartments that = $223,255.81 per each one in Vancouver. Come to my town and buy a newly renovated 3 bed 2 bath for $89,000 plus $10,000 off at time of purchase. Oh well our leaders know better, don’t they? http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2009-2013/2009HSD0087-000770.htm
Next $32 million for 120 units in Victoria that = $266,666.66 each. http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2009-2013/2009HSD0079-000737.htm
Shelter funding news release 2009 $56 million for 1,500 beds/mats this year.
http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2009-2013/2009HSD0063-000545.pdf It works out to $103 per night per bed. Here is a good one, a man moved to my town and buys a 2 story building for $169k the following year the Sally Ann moves in the bottom floor and welfare gives them about $250k just to put in their offices, plus yearly operating expenses. The Sally Ann also puts in a shelter in another location, charging that $103 per night per mat. Here is the good part the owner of the building puts in a Deluxe Hostel up stairs and beds start at $25 per night, I just love this crap, Oh well what do I know, and now what do you know!!!
YA, YA, YA the homeless need guards….how about if 90% of the homeless are just nice people that just need a home, and what if only 10% of them want to leave the cities we could save millions.
Lets see in the cities welfare homes are costing up to $266k and in my town nice homes start at $79k a difference of $187k, could that money pay for drug treatment, and job training etc.
PS: Those welfare apartments also have about another $1,000 per month each in maintenance and security fees. Surprise!!!
How do I know this stuff, I’m disabled I own my paid off house, my shelter costs per month are about $250 per month, hydro, taxes, and insurance…compare that to a person in a shelter costing ($103 per night) X (30 days) = $3090.00 for a mat on the floor. What is a non-profit??? Hell if I know. Need some help with your budget Rich Coleman?
Bobby Peru
20-12-2009
We Are The World (Not)
No, I think I understand the problem. Of course there are plenty of functional addicts of heroin, coke, alcohol.. I'm talking about those addicts who clearly cannot function, such as the ones who are homeless. If you use clean needles you can live for years on heroin as long as you don't OD. Unfortunately, in reality many heroin addicts can't function and end up sharing needles so the leading cause of death among them are diseases.
People become addicts for many reasons. My opinion isn't a moral judgement. I'm simply saying we ought to provide institutions so that those who want drug treatment can receive it. Some of them need a place segregate from mainstream society. Some can cope with outpatient service. And some will need to be wards of the state and a decision will have to be made for them.
Mary Jane is living in the fairy tale land of the BC Left. A land which doesn't articulate workable policies. Instead, there's only sloganeering with empty statements about social justice. Followed by a predictable side swipe against Gordon Campbell and the latest whipping boy, the Olympics. Sure, the world would be better if we lstopped violence and if every govt expenditure was wise and correct. But, that world will never exist. We don't need hopes and dreams, we need policies that can be implemented now, that deal with the problems pragmatically and that the working people can support and understand.
The problems are the growing ranks homeless people who are either addicts and/or mentally debilitated. Regardless of income, race or religion. And as I've said before, and I can't see how anyone who spends time in the Downtown Eastside can disagree, alot of them need medical treatment and housing in a medical institution. They can't take care of themselves.
The govt needs to build long term care institutions in a cheap area outside metro- Vancouver. So let go of the dream of doing this in the downtown eastside neighbourhood. I know the poverty pimps and advocates say that treatment in a familiar setting is important, but this is simply foolish and expensive. Unless you call a drug infested ghetto that is a gold mine for drug dealers a 'healthy neighbourhood', it's about time to clean it up.
It's time to get real and bring back mental institutions although it sounds cruel. And yes, I have visited friends trying to recover from an overdose in those settings. It's horrible; the person in the bed next to them is wailing away and talking in tongues like Linda Blair in the Exorcist while the other guy thinks he's either Groucho Marx or Adolf Hitler. But, then would you rather let them loose on the street? And do you really think they can cope in a halfway house in any neighbourhood?
The opponents on the Left always say the problem is too complicated, that it requires big social change. That's totally untrue. If they leave their political baggage behind we can all see the problem with clarity.
mary jane
20-12-2009
We don't have a left wing to vote for
We have a bunch of lazy selfish bumkins runing the province.
I am a humanitarian - its because I hope more people see people need to be treated like human beings not sheep to heard to some lock up so gordo + friends can have parties
It needs people to stand up together and demand tax dollars are spent properly. Everyone must see past the effort the individual must make. We have done it before. Province wide strikes etc but if many are keeping their butt covered ??
Until you face the delema, the cruelty, the insaneness of it because of work / car accidents, family crisis, etc only a humanitarian gets it.
Its called protecting our community for all
realisticman
20-12-2009
Well said Bobby.
Any one of the poor wretched wasted souls that does manage to get out of the downtown East Side and gives an interview, without exception, says that getting away from the bad destructive influences was an essential factor in them reintegrating into society and stopping their downward spiral.
The tragedy is clearly compounded by those that insist on a continuation of this so-called 'community', with its million dollar a day cost.