Mary Purdy died Jan. 17 of a fentanyl overdose at home. Her two boys sat beside her lifeless body for hours until they were discovered by an ex-boyfriend, who had come to check on her

Mary Purdy baked homemade cupcakes, played the piano and lived for her two young boys. Friends describe her as a leader in the Downtown Eastside, where she’s known by many as “Auntie Mary,” while her sister remembers her as a loving and generous spirit whose smile could light up a room. But on Jan. 17 Purdy died in her south Vancouver home — one of the latest victim’s of B.C.’s fentanyl crisis — leaving behind her two sons, a six-year-old and a four-year-old.  Read the rest of this article at The Vancouver Sun…

Store owner predicts that, without action to change what is happening in downtown Nanaimo, the area will become similar to Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside

On a sunny Saturday Nanaimo’s downtown is shining. But many business owners say it’s a daily struggle to keep their doors open here. “Well that one’s empty, that one’s empty. This one’s virtually empty,” says Cliff Wiltshire pointing at empty storefronts. Wiltshire runs the Rasta Troll pipe shop and says his female employees feel unsafe coming to work here.  Read the rest of this article and watch video at CHEK News…

“If someone is reading this story, and they’re in an unhealthy relationship, and they are feeling, ‘Maybe I am going through the same thing,’ I really want them to understand that getting out on your own and being independent is the very first step that you have to take.”

A few hours before dawn on April 17, 2010, Kenneth Irving, a favoured son in Canada’s third-wealthiest family, and the CEO of a multibillion-dollar energy empire, sat at the kitchen table in his forest-framed mansion outside Saint John. His wife and two youngest daughters were sleeping upstairs. From the windows of his house, he could see the grand sweep of the Kennebecasis River and the pine trees that he liked to plant in the mornings before heading off to Irving Oil, to take his place in the onetime office of his storied grandfather, K.C. Irving. By every standard, Kenneth knew he was a lucky man. And yet, alone in the dark, all he felt was anger and despair.  Read the rest of this article at The Globe and Mail…

Indigenous people, long over-represented among the homeless, were nine times more likely to be homeless than non-indigenous Canadians, the report found. Veterans comprised about five per cent, twice their proportion of the general population

OTTAWA — Chad Bouthillier is no stranger to couch surfing, homeless shelters, transitional housing and addiction issues — but until now, the rest of the country has been largely in the dark about the depth of homelessness in Canada. A new federal government report is shedding more light on the problem in 32 Canadian cities, exposing a need for a targeted approach to help vulnerable populations like veterans, indigenous people, and recent immigrants.  Read the rest of this article at MetroNews.ca…