This was the second edition of annual memorial dedicated to someone who's said to have helped more people find a home that any given BC government official—the hard way.
Three dozen mourners took to the streets of Victoria this afternoon to celebrate the life of Chrissy Brett, a homeless activist whose name is associated with the defence of encampments and the rallying of an otherwise fragmented community.
This was the second edition of the event, the first which I covered last year. This year saw the memorial event dedicated to Michael “Mikey” Henning as well, a notable Pandora longtimer and advocate who was killed earlier this month.
Volunteers helped set up the site at Centennial Square from 11AM, and while the event was scheduled to start at noon, talks started only at 12:45PM. Which left plenty of time for participants to mingle while eating lunch, including enough pizza for everyone, courtesy of Neighbourhood Solidarity with Unhoused Neighbours (NSUN).
Multiple speakers offered their take on the legacy of someone who needed little introduction in the community. She was said to have helped house more people than any given BC government official, a claim which from experience I consider highly credible. What’s truly notable is that she did it the hard way, by butting heads with those same government officials.
This year the march took us via a detour on Johnson Street to Pandora Avenue’s 1000 block where Mikey died. Participants performed a short memorial ceremony in his honour. The procession returned to Centennial Square through Pandora Avenue’s notorious 900 block, makeshift home to roughly three dozen residents sleeping in tents and under tarps every night, a testament to every level of government’s abject failure at keeping its constituents housed and safe.
Chrissy’s shoes are proving hard to fill. Another fight is set to unfold this fall amid a projected catastrophic failure to even open shelter space this winter. Would the next Chrissy Brett come forward at once?
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Although the event was a relative success, its outcome leaves me most apprehensive. Regretfully, we had to end it early.
