On Sunday, I had a few errands to run in downtown Sydney on Charlotte Street. I parked next to a vacant lot close to the Highland Arts Theatre and under a staircase, I saw a spot where someone had obviously slept the night before.
I know times are tough for everyone with the pandemic. Times are tough for me. But times are getting tougher for the poor in both the Cape Breton Regional Municipality and the rest of Cape Breton. Families who had relied on a member travelling west for work in the oilfields have seen their income drastically cut. Hospitality workers who saw their livelihood evaporate because of the devastation of the tourism industry are facing another season of uncertainty and losing hope.
One of the axioms I've always lived by is: "there but for the grace of God go I" which I've always taken to mean that another's misfortune could be one's own. As a society, we can't just turn a blind eye to the poor in our communities because with a trick of the light that could be you or I sleeping under a stairwell.
I urge the leaders of our community to unite and address the growing poverty issue in Cape Breton. If you do not I am afraid that more and more of our people will be sleeping rough across our island in the near future.
Rod Gale
South Bar
