'We all deserve respect': Homeless memorial proposed for Kitchener

SuziGursoywas homeless and using drugs when she says she was nearly killed.

She was walking with a man she knew when he put a leather belt around her neck. She still doesn't know how she broke the belt that night or how she got away. But she did.

"I've seen my life flash in front of me," she said, adding that if she had died that night, no one would've known."I just feel for those people who don't have anybody because I live life so precariously that I had no family, no one in my life."

It's why she wants to build a memorial for homeless people who have died on the streets of Waterloo region.

"We're all human beings and we all deserve respect and to be honouredand a place for family and friends to go mourn and remember them,"Gursoysaid.

Backpack to hold 'everything'

Gursoyis now working with a group on the KW Homeless Memorial. They'recrowdfunding for the project on GoFundMeor through donations at Ray of Hope. It's estimatedthe sculpture will cost $25,000.

Thesculpture, titled Between a Rock and a Hard Place,wouldconsist of a bronze backpack with a plaque, placed on a rectangular red sandstone slab. It willbe created byvisual artist ErnestDaetwylerand they would like to see it be located in Kitchener's Victoria Park, next to the maintenance shed.

Gursoysays when she was homeless, her backpack would hold everything she had in life, including pictures and memories of her kids.

"It had everything that meant anything to me. You can see it in people experiencing homelessness now, everybody carries their life on their back," she said.

She says she wanted to create a memorial after she attended a homelessness conference in London, Ont., and saw the city reveal its homeless memorial.

She then did research and decided it was worth trying to create one.

"Itcould be transformative and it can help change someone's life, realizing the reality of being homeless."

Gursoysaysshe got help through the Step Home program and found stable housing and she said she encourages others who are living on the streets to seek out help.

"I came to a point in my life where I realized that I deserve to be happy and I'm worthy of being happy," she said.

Listen to the interview with SuziGursoy on The Morning Edition: