She had a transplant, ended up on the streets, and died aged 47
Caitlin McDonald, a 47-year-old woman who struggled with homelessness in Christchurch, has died after a period of documenting her life on YouTube. Her story highlights the harsh realities of life on the streets and the personal struggles of those experiencing housing instability.
Why it matters
It sheds light on the systemic failures in social support systems and the human cost of the homelessness crisis in urban centers.
Tormented by transience, Caitlin McDonald's life was as fragile and fleeting as the butterflies she saved from the street. Surviving less than two years homeless in Christchurch, she chronicled her journey in hundreds of YouTube videos filmed on her phone. <i>Jean Edwards</i> reports on her tragic metamorphosis from radiant spirit to rough sleeper, dead at 47. <b>By Jean Edwards of </b><a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/regions_canterbury/723765/christchurch-is-my-tomb-from-homelessness-to-hopelessness" target="_blank"><b>RNZ</b></a><b> </b> On a cold Christchurch night, Caitlin McDonald curls up in a big op shop suitcase and closes the lid like a coffin. Homeless and bone-tired, a church graveyard seems as good a resting place as any. St Peter's floodlit façade casts a warm orange glow, giving a cosy illusion of comfort, while gargoyles watch on from above. "I don't know what the etiquette is for sleeping on people's graves," she later tells the camera in a video posted on YouTube.
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