A fuller picture is being drawn Monday of the life of a wheelchair-bound man who was found murdered in a Vancouver schoolyard last week. A father of two, he became homeless after drug problems and the loss of his leg.

Parents dropping off their children at the Sir Guy Carleton Elementary School grounds discovered the body of Michael Ciro Nestoruk, 41, lying near the entrance of the school.

When his body was found, it was naked from the waist down, police said. Nestoruk's pants and shoes were found nearby.

Police won't say how he died.

An interview Nestoruk made with a local newspaper two years ago sheds some light on a man who had tried to turn his life around for the sake of his daughters.

Nestoruk, in the Feburary 2007 interview, said he had suffered from years of heroin and cocaine addiction.

The interview was a followup to a 2006 front-page story which had featured a photo of Nesturuk sleeping rough in Vancouver's Victory Park with his possessions around him.

The father of two said he wanted to turn his life around after being confronted by the image of him lying in the park. He told the magazine he had become homeless after drug abuse, family problems and losing his leg.

This had spurred him to accept help from social workers from the B.C. Paraplegic Association.

At the time of the interview it appeared Nestoruk taken huge strides, getting off drugs and trying out a new prosthetic leg. He had even been selected for the provincial wheelchair tennis team.

But apparently Nestoruk had fallen off the wagon and was once again homeless at the time of his death.

Friends say he was a good guy.

"He had a nice place, too, in the Mayberry apartments. It was really nice, I went there," said Nestoruk's friend Jerry, another homeless man. "He lost it because he was a drug user."

Meanwhile, politicians representing the area around Sir Guy Carleton School federally, provincially and municipally banded together Monday to criticize the response to local homelessness, which they said had doubled in the past eight years.

Don Davies, the NDP MP for Vancouver Kingsway, joined Adrian Dix, the provincial NDP MLA for the area, and Vancouver Councillor Kerry Jang.

"The killing of Michael Nestoruk has affected this community profoundly," said Dix. "For us as representatives this is a truly important event. It is unacceptable to us that this sort of violence happens."

Davies said the three were going door-to-door speaking to residents to discuss what the murder means to the neighbourhood.

"Crime, safety and homelessness all require a co-ordinated and comprehensive approach by all three levels of government," he said.

With reports by CTV British Columbia's Lisa Rossington and St. John Alexander.