Poverty will come knocking at your door

Re: Man dies of suspected overdose inside Peterborough police station washroom, Oct. 6

A recent newspaper article tells of the death of Andrew Phillips in the washroom at the Water Street police station. This morning I reached out to friends and to the YWCA on account of a woman at my door.

I arrived here May 2018 and have had three women consistently at my door politely asking for money, one also doing outdoor chores.

Tali Nolan was the first. Aged out of foster care and struggling to survive. But she didn’t. You reported her still unsolved murder, two blocks away. The second woman I will not name, but she now seems to be in a housing situation with her boyfriend’s family. The third woman came in recent weeks, said she had a broken jaw, lived in a Water Street rooming house until she was evicted, apparently because of a gas leak. I met her on the street and she told me she had head lice. So here she comes later that day at 11 p.m. to my door. Nowhere to go.

This is not good, folks. This will not change. Temperatures are dropping. As Andrew Phillips’s sister said, “We were not close because of the addiction, but he didn’t deserve to die like that.” Nobody does.

My own mother died like that, a depressed alcoholic with two doctors as sons. So did my niece in 2000, the addicted daughter of two doctors. What are the resources for this woman at my door? Help me to help her and the inevitable others that will follow at my door. They are at your door too. PLEASE!

Margie Sumadh, Dublin Street