Who Are Our Lepers Today?

Anyone who knows the Bible, or has even heard some of the stories, probably knows about the lepers.

People with leprosy were feared and pushed away from society. Disease and suffering were often connected to ideas about sin, punishment and being unclean. People wondered what someone had done, or what their family had done, for this to happen to them.

Then we have the stories of Jesus doing something very different.

He touched them.

He went toward people everyone else was trying to stay away from.

Today we know leprosy, also called Hansen disease, is an infection caused by bacteria. It isn't caused by sin. It isn't some moral punishment. It isn't simply caused by being dirty. Today it is treatable and curable.

We understand the disease differently now.

But I'm not sure we understand people all that differently.

Who are our lepers today?

You don't need to know what city this picture was taken in.

That's part of the point.

I took this picture downtown, but you can find scenes like this in cities and communities all over Canada now.

A tent on a sidewalk. Someone carrying everything they have. Someone sleeping outside while thousands of people drive or walk past them every day.

We see the tent before we see the person.

We might see addiction. Mental illness. Homelessness. Crime. Disorder. Something uncomfortable. Something we don't want in our neighbourhood or downtown.

But somewhere inside that tent is a human story we know almost nothing about.

Maybe addiction brought them there. Maybe mental illness did. Maybe trauma. Disability. Family breakdown. Poverty. The cost of housing. Maybe they made some really bad choices.

Probably, for a lot of people, it isn't one thing at all.

I took this picture because we've become used to seeing this.

I don't want to become used to it.

Not because I don't want to see the tents.

Because I don't want us to stop seeing the people.

That's what keeps bringing me back to those old stories about the lepers.

Once we reduce somebody to their condition, it becomes very easy to stop seeing the human being.

They're an addict.

They're homeless.

They're mentally ill.

They're a criminal.

They're a problem.

Get them off the street.

Clean up downtown.

Put them somewhere.

I understand some of that frustration too.

Businesses shouldn't have to deal with dangerous behaviour every day. Families should be able to use parks and public spaces. People should feel safe walking downtown. Communities have rights too.

There are also families watching someone they love disappear into addiction.

Imagine watching your child slowly dying and being told there is nothing anyone can do until that person decides for themselves that they want help.

I don't know what I would do.

That's why I'm not going to pretend I know whether mandatory treatment is right or wrong in every circumstance.

I don't.

Maybe there are situations where intervention saves someone's life.

Maybe leaving someone severely addicted, psychotic, sick and dying on a sidewalk isn't compassion either.

These are hard questions.

I understand why governments are looking for different answers. We should be willing to try different things, look at what actually works, and be willing to change when something doesn't.

But I keep coming back to another question.

How do we stop fentanyl?

People are going to do drugs.

Human beings have used intoxicating substances for thousands of years. We're not going to suddenly change human nature.

We've gone hard on drugs and crime.

We've tried less punitive approaches.

We've tried prohibition, policing, treatment, harm reduction and different combinations of all of it.

Some of those things help people. Some save lives.

But none of them has made this problem disappear.

People are still dying.

So what do we do?

I genuinely don't know.

It also makes me think about something Alberta is famous for.

Rats.

Before somebody completely misunderstands what I'm saying, I'm obviously not comparing people suffering from addiction or homelessness to rats.

I'm talking about prevention.

Alberta has spent decades preventing an established rat population from taking hold. We watch for them. We control them. We respond when they're found.

It makes me wonder what it would take to bring that same determination to fentanyl.

How do we stop more fentanyl and the chemicals used to manufacture it before they ever reach our communities?

How do we go harder after the people making fortunes from this misery?

How do we disrupt organized crime while still recognizing that the person addicted to the product isn't the same as the person profiting from selling it?

And I'm not blaming this on one government or one political party.

It isn't that simple.

There are international supply chains, organized crime, domestic production, precursor chemicals, border enforcement, policing, health care, mental health, housing, treatment and recovery. Different levels of government are responsible for different pieces.

There isn't one politician who can fix this.

There isn't one government that can fix this.

Maybe we need to stop expecting one answer.

Because even if we somehow stopped fentanyl tomorrow, addiction wouldn't disappear.

Then we have to ask why so many people are trying so desperately to escape their own lives in the first place.

Trauma matters.

Mental illness matters.

Housing matters.

Belonging matters.

Employment matters.

Education matters.

Family matters.

The cost of living matters.

Look at what it costs just to exist now.

Housing. Food. Transportation. Education.

Wages haven't kept up for a lot of people.

Someone living on disability or income assistance is somehow expected to construct a life out of an income that may barely cover housing.

Even someone working a minimum wage job can look at rent and wonder how the math is supposed to work.

Families are struggling too.

Some people are doing well. Of course they are.

But the fact that the system is working for some of us doesn't mean it's working for everyone.

Sometimes when we're doing okay ourselves, it becomes very easy to look at somebody sitting on a sidewalk and ask:

What's wrong with them?

Maybe we need to ask:

What happened to them?

And maybe we also need to ask:

What happened to us?

Personal responsibility still matters.

I believe that.

Recovery requires responsibility. At some point we all have to take responsibility for the lives we build and the choices we make.

But responsibility doesn't exist in a vacuum.

We can hold someone accountable and still have compassion.

We can protect communities and still protect human dignity.

We can support police going after traffickers while supporting treatment for the people they're selling to.

We can consider intervention when somebody is dying while still asking difficult questions about liberty and whether that intervention actually leads to long term recovery.

These things don't have to be left versus right.

Maybe that's part of our problem.

We turn incredibly complicated human problems into political camps and then defend our side.

Hard on crime.

Soft on crime.

Mandatory treatment.

Voluntary treatment.

Harm reduction.

Abstinence.

Housing first.

Recovery first.

Everybody picks a corner.

Meanwhile somebody is dying.

Maybe the answer isn't hiding entirely inside one of those corners.

Maybe we need pieces from several of them.

I don't know.

And I'm okay saying I don't know.

What I do know is that putting somebody through detox or treatment and then sending them back into exactly the same circumstances they came from doesn't make much sense.

Where are they supposed to go?

What are they going back to?

The same trauma?

The same mental illness?

The same poverty?

The same loneliness?

The same people they used drugs with?

No housing?

No job?

No sense of belonging?

Getting someone sober is one thing.

Building a life someone actually wants to stay sober for is something else.

That's where I think recovery has to become bigger than treatment.

It has to include community. Housing. Purpose. Employment. Mental health care. Relationships. Belonging. And time.

Then I look back at this picture.

There is a tent.

There is a street.

There is a city going about its day around it.

But there is also a person.

Someone's child.

Maybe someone's parent.

Someone's brother or sister.

Someone's friend.

Maybe they once had a career.

Maybe they once helped other people.

Maybe they had dreams that looked a lot like ours.

Maybe they still do.

I don't know their story.

That's the point.

We don't know.

We can debate what governments should do. We should.

We can debate public safety, policing, involuntary treatment, harm reduction, recovery, housing and personal responsibility.

We should debate all of it.

But we should be able to do that without stripping the person we're talking about of their humanity.

That's what I take from those stories about Jesus and the lepers.

He didn't have to pretend there wasn't a disease.

He didn't have to pretend suffering wasn't real.

He simply refused to let the suffering person become less human because of it.

Thousands of years later, maybe we're still trying to learn that lesson.

I don't know how we solve addiction.

I don't know how we stop every person from ending up in a tent.

I don't know exactly where personal freedom ends and intervention should begin when somebody is dying.

And I don't know how we stop fentanyl.

But I think those are questions worth asking.

And while we try to find the answers, maybe the first thing we can do is stop talking about "those people."

They're not those people.

They're our people.

They're us.