Vancouver homeless man spends final dying hours inside Tim Hortons
VANCOUVER — The death of an ill senior who lived inside a 24-hour Tim Hortons is drawing new attention to Vancouver’s housing crisis and raising questions about health supports for homeless people.
Friends say the man in his 70s, who they knew only as Ted, was a kind and easygoing guy who began sleeping, eating and spending all his time in the coffee shop about 10 years ago. He had cancer and appeared to be hallucinating the day before he died on May 31, said his friend John Bingham.
“He looked pretty rough,” said Bingham, who sleeps outside the Tim Hortons, adding he had never seen Ted hallucinate in the decade he’d known him.
“I think he was getting ready to go, to pass on. … He’s saying things that he never said before.”