Encampment fire victim's father frustrated with 'lapses in government'

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Winston Tyler doesn’t want his daughter’s death to be politicized, but if it means shining a light on homelessness, mental health and addictions issues then maybe there’s a silver lining in the loss of his 33-year-old daughter, he said.

Tyler’s daughter, Rae Tyler, was identified by police as one of two individuals found dead in a tent encampment fire in Saint John on March 25. Along with Rae, her 35-year-old boyfriend, Jonathan Calhoun, was found dead following the Paradise Row blaze. 

Speaking to Brunswick News, Tyler said his daughter had been homeless for roughly three years and battled both mental health and addiction issues. She had come to Saint John after she lost her children and her home in Hartland. That launched her struggle with housing and saw her sleeping in tents and, her father said, constantly fearing for her safety on the streets.

“She was scared all the time, homeless,” Tyler said. “She was actually terrified being out there. She was always looking for someone to share space with or get a room with, but she wasn’t too successful with it. A lot of time she spent by herself in a tent waiting for someone to come along and rip her off or try to burn her out.”

Through tears, Tyler recalled a conversation with his daughter roughly six months ago when she told him she thought she’d die and wouldn’t make it through the year. He said he shared her fear and was constantly worried something would happen to her, especially considering she had told him there had already been an incident involving fire in her tent.

“She’d actually had a fire in that tent maybe two weeks before that,” he said. “She messaged me and said the corner of their tent had caught fire but they had got it out and were just repairing it and waterproofing it.”

‘There’s so many lapses in government…’

Rae and Calhoun’s deaths prompted discussion in Fredericton just days after the fire when politicians in the legislature spent a large portion of Question Period debating issues surrounding homelessness. During those discussions Premier Blaine Higgs stated “the sad reality… is some people don’t want to come off the street, some people just refuse to do that.” 

Those comments struck a nerve with Tyler who decided to send an email to Higgs saying the comments made him “sick to my stomach.” In the email, which Tyler shared with Brunswick News, he expressed frustration with the provincial government, noting both he and Rae had gone to various departments in an effort to keep her three children out of the foster care system to no avail.

“To say these people want to stay on the street is the worse thing I’ve ever heard,” Tyler wrote in his email to the premier. “Mr. Higgs, I’m a father that has lost his child because you and your groverment (sic) has failed. The promise for mental health and to work to stop homeless (sic) is a lie nothing has been done and you point the finger at my child that burnt so bad they can’t ID her.”

Higgs, Tyler said, called him a day later but the premier’s phone call did nothing to alleviate his frustration. In fact, he said, it only added to it.

“He said he wasn’t going to retract his statement, that he stands by it and that even though he was sorry for what had happened…,” Tyler said, noting he took Higgs’s tone as “condescending.”

In a statement to Brunswick News, Higgs said his intent in speaking to Tyler had not been to offend the father.

“I want to again extend my sincere condolences to Mr. Tyler and his entire family, as I did when we spoke,” the statement read. “I am sorry if our conversation added further hurt of distress during this difficult time. That certainly was not my intention. “

Regardless of the premier’s intent, Tyler said it is frustrating to see his daughter’s death become political fodder for debate and discussion when, in his view, nothing is being done to help people like Rae.

“I’m really not too happy with it, to tell you the truth. It’s not something that should be directed to her in that manner but if it’s going to bring some awareness to the homeless and the problem not just in this city, but in the whole country… It’s crazy. We’ve got our own people that we have to look after,” Tyler said.

Adding to his frustration, Tyler said the government’s proposed Compassionate Intervention Act legislation that would force people struggling with addiction issues into rehabilitation is not the answer to the problem of homelessness. He said Rae did have “addiction problems and she was trying to get over it” but forced treatment won’t be a viable solution.

“You know what I thought when I first heard that?” Tyler asked. “I thought about the Second World War and taking people who were of a different race and forcing them into camps and holding them there against their will until we could verify they weren’t illegal. It’s a violation… completely. There’s so many lapses in the government right now.”

Johanne McCullough, founder of  Street Team SJ –  which assists and provides meals to the city’s unhoused- told Brunswick News she agrees with Tyler’s thoughts and questioned how the proposed legislation would actually work considering the province’s inability to help those who do want assistance.

“There’s not enough facilities available for rehabilitation for people who want it,” she said. “In the moment, when someone comes to that decision to go to rehab it’s not available today. So, to focus on people who are not ready for that at the moment… I don’t think that’s going to help them. You need to help the people who want to be helped right now.”

McCullough said using the word ‘compassionate’ in the act raises questions for herself. She said forcing someone into something doesn’t seem overly compassionate even if it is being sold as something that is for their own good. She further asked who will be determining who will be part of that program and what factors will be used to establish a list of patients.

“How exactly do we qualify or quantify that? Who gets to decide? Is it professionals? Is it a family member going to authorities saying they want this person sent into rehab by force? There’s still a lot of questions that need to be answered but, on the surface, knowing what I know, it doesn’t sound like it’s very positive,” she said.

A ray of sunshine

Tyler said regardless of whether his daughter’s death is being debated among politicians, it doesn’t change what happened and people need to know who Rae was.

“She was a daughter, she was a mother, she was a wife… It’s hard to describe exactly what she was just in words,” Tyler said. “You’d have to know her to feel the actual presence that she brought with her. It didn’t matter what was going on in her life, she was always trying to be positive. She had a smile that would just light up a room.”

Rae’s name, he said, summed up his daughter as, when she was born, her mother looked at her and called her her ray of sunshine. They named her for that and, he said, she lived up to it.

McCullough said her team of approximately 25 volunteers all knew Rae and were always impressed by their interactions with the woman.

“We dealt with her a lot,” she said. “Rae was a huge personality, larger than life. She was free-spirited. She was kind of like a mom to some of the younger people on the street. She always had a smile and a twinkle in her eye that really spoke to her personality.”

Calhoun, she added, wasn’t as well known to her, but her volunteers did praise his ability to be handy and make due with what items were available to him. She said he was known to “be always building something and learn new ways to use what he had.”