{"id":158809,"date":"2023-06-08T17:33:21","date_gmt":"2023-06-08T21:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=158809"},"modified":"2023-06-08T17:33:21","modified_gmt":"2023-06-08T21:33:21","slug":"hundreds-attend-homeless-memorial-service-in-edmonton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/hundreds-attend-homeless-memorial-service-in-edmonton\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds attend Homeless Memorial Service in Edmonton"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"wixui-rich-text__text\"><span class=\"color_24 wixui-rich-text__text\">Over 200 attended the Edmonton Coalition on Housing &amp; Homelessness (ECOHH)'s annual <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ecohh.ca\/homeless-memorial\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Homeless Memorial Service<\/a> in downtown Edmonton on Wednesday.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"wixui-rich-text__text\"><span class=\"color_24 wixui-rich-text__text\">The ECOHH has been holding these yearly services since 2006.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"wixui-rich-text__text\"><span class=\"color_24 wixui-rich-text__text\">\"[It's] very important to have a memorial service for the people lost in the previous year's [due to homelessness]\", says Susan Watson, chair of the Homeless Memorial Committee with ECOHH.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In 2022, 156 people passed away in Edmonton due to homelessness, Watson says, adding that they believe that \"those numbers are much higher.\"<\/p>\n<p>The memorial service, held at the <span class=\"wixui-rich-text__text\"><span class=\"color_24 wixui-rich-text__text\">Homeless Memorial Plaza downtown, <\/span><\/span>saw a turnout of over 200 people. Flowers were laid to rest on the Homeless Memorial statue, people engaged in a smudge ceremony, and butterflies were released to help remember those who passed away due to homelessness.<\/p>\n<p>Watson said that the large turnout on Wednesday was so \"important\" because they are looking for more community engagement.<\/p>\n<p>\"Hopefully those people are aware and can encourage their politicians to take action, [and encourage] themselves to take action.\"<\/p>\n<p>\"It's not just awareness, something has to change so we don't have to be doing these memorials every year,\" Watson added.<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to what kind of action can be taken, Watson says that the best course of action is to \"just be mindful and hold our governments accountable.\"<\/p>\n<p>\"Hopefully they can build more housing, low-income housing, permanent supportive housing...and addiction resources that are quickly available to who need them, and when they need them,\" she continued.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Listen to the full CFWE interview with Susan Watson below:<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over 200 attended the Edmonton Coalition on Housing &amp; Homelessness (ECOHH)&#8217;s annual Homeless Memorial Service in downtown Edmonton on Wednesday. The ECOHH has been holding these yearly services since 2006. &#8220;[It&#8217;s] very important to have a memorial service for the people lost in the previous year&#8217;s [due to homelessness]&#8221;, says Susan Watson, chair of the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":158814,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,21655],"tags":[5998,8603,4149,370,26852],"radio":[9847],"origine":[268,267,228],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158809"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158809"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":159241,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158809\/revisions\/159241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158809"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=158809"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=158809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}