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Rich and Lori led me through the brush to a small campsite near the centre of the lot. Rich called out to anyone who might still [be] inside the tent, but no one replied. I reached down and placed my hand over the propane cook stove. It was still hot.

Rich joked that they’ve been finding “a better class” of homeless people this year. By that he meant people who are still working, and who had not yet slipped into the well of addiction or mental illness.

“They’re just poor,” he said. “They simply don’t earn enough money to live in this society.”

From where I squatted, I could see into the living rooms of the townhouses across the street. Had I been there at night, I probably could have smelled what they ate for dinner, or watched them watching TV.

“When they are living in this condition, and they see the guy across the street in the expensive home — the guy who’s not doing anything to help them — you can see how they begin to develop the mindset that society is against them,” Rich said.

I asked whether they thought the families across the street watched back.

“I doubt it,” Lori replied. “Most people just don’t realize how close to their backyard other people are sleeping.”

As both a wage worker and a labour activist, I’ve witnessed and lived so much struggle. At this point in my life, a story like this no longer moves me as it once did.