All posts by James W. Breckenridge

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Saying Thank You.

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We all to often forget how important it is to say thank you to others, forgetting how good it feels to us when someone expresses thanks for something we have done.

I did not realize, did not appreciate at the time, the gift my mother and father gave me when they made me sit down during the Christmas holidays and write thank you notes for gifts received. At the kitchen table it was “Please pass …” and “Thank you.” In public it was “What do you say? Please or Thank You.”

It left me with a set of manners that is an integral part of my nature. I was reminded of this today by feedback on how pleased a note of thanks had made the people who had given me a much needed and treasured helping hand.

I am not good at asking for help and sometimes struggle to find the right words to say “Thank you” appropriately. But give me a pen or keyboard and I produce a thank you note grounded in those Christmas holiday (wasting) notes of my youth.

So I was glad that taking a little time to express my thoughts and feelings about how much I valued the help and friendship I received pleased those who I wrote the note for.

Ii also got me to thinking about what would happen if we all took the time to ask “Please…” and say “Thank you”. I would certainly disperse a great deal more civility into our society. Which begs the question of what would flow from this civility? Courtesy, consideration, concern, caring, compassion, contemplation, consequence?

We are always going on about how bad society is getting, all the problems in the country and world and… and… and …

What if part of the solution is as simple as an increased level of civility? I see no reason not to experiment with this propitious proposition – join me?

Please and Thank You.

Homeless, Municipal

Eradicating Homelessness … why not in Abbotsford?

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For my mental health we left Kamloops and the conference on community supported housing for the homeless and people with addictions, without attending the final session. The person I was travelling with felt that letting me sit through the panel: “Kamloops in Action: How to eradicate homelessness in Kamloops” would severely depress me. I am not sure if he was more worried about my mental state or facing the long drive back to Abbotsford with a severely depressed travelling companion. He was right though, listening to all the progress and positive things going on in Kamloops would have been depressing for anyone in the audience facing a return to the current status quo in Abbotsford.

As conferences are, this one was opened on Wednesday by a local politician, the mayor of Kamloops Terry Lake. As I expected, based on experience with conferences on housing in Abbotsford, Kamloop’s Mayor Terry Lake started out by laying out the tax and cash realities of municipal, provincial and federal governments. But from there … these fiscal realities were not used as an excuse for doing nothing nor for pointing the finger and stating “it was the responsibility of more senior levels of government to address these issues”. Rather than see fiscal reality as an excuse to do nothing, Mayor Lake and his council see fiscal reality as requiring them to form partnerships with provincial and federal governments in order to obtain the needed funds.

This attitude no doubt explains why it is that the City of Kamloops with a population of 80,376 (2006 census) has received millions of $dollars$ in provincial and federal funding; has completed housing projects, has housing projects under way, has a ground-breaking for a new project about to take place, has a new project to preserve affordable housing stock sitting there awaiting the City facilitating the right partnerships; why BC Housing is anxious to work more with and provide more funding to Kamloops; Kamloops is attracting so much money for affordable housing projects.

Such clear evidence that the only reason that Abbotsford, with its population of 123,864 versus Kamloops 80,376 (2006 census) does not have millions of $dollars$ to invest in affordable housing projects is that Abbotsford’s elected officials are to lazy or to bumbling to get off their keisters and perform the ridiculously simple task required to get those millions of $dollars$ of funding – ask – is depressing.

Undoubtedly Abbotsford City Hall and Council will claim “its not that simple”. The reality is that yes, it is pretty much that simple. It is really no more difficult for a municipality to secure funding for homeless housing initiatives than it is for a municipality to secure funding for capital projects undertaken by the municipality. I admit that Abbotsford City Council has demonstrated itself to be challenged in the area of capital grants/funding, but the successes of Langley, Chilliwack, Kamloops etc. demonstrate that this is quite doable. Kamloops demonstrates funding is not a function of size but of the fight, the leadership in the City Council.

Throughout the conference attendees were going up to Kamloop’s city councillors (yes there were Kamloop’s city councillors who attended the entire conference) and seeking their advice about getting housing projects up and funded. Boggles the mind does it not, people seeking city councils advice on a matter because of council’s demonstrated ability on any matter? Kamloops City Council is not arguing about the extent of homelessness, researching, awaiting a report from planning or social advisory committees reports. Kamloops City Council is working on “Kamloops in Action: How to eradicate homelessness in Kamloops”.

Sitting through the panel session, listening to Kamloops city council on eliminating homelessness, listening to the litany of all that had been accomplished, was being planned and would be accomplished in Kamloop’s would have been very, very depressing. To know that the only true reason progress is NOT occurring in Abbotsford, but is being made in communities all around us and around the province, is a lack of leadership and will. To know that with leadership we could have BC Housing fund the purchase and renovation of the housing stock in the Fraser Valley Inn, a start.

At least the next time city council begins to claim there is nothing they can do, we have merely to demand: “If Kamloop’s and others can accomplish all this, why can you accomplish nothing but excuses? Some leadership please.”

Federal, Municipal, Provincial

Politician Boot camp.

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I have started collecting the bits of paper that seem to be demanded these days for employment, such as First Aid level 1. While reading some of the recent comments by various politicians at all levels it occurred to me that it would benefit citizens immensely if politicians were required to complete a boot camp to reacquaint them with the reality most of their constituents face daily.

Instead of orientation that focuses on the ins and outs of bureaucracy and power, boot camp would ensure a solid understanding of the reality of life for the average citizen. All elected politicians would be required to be certified as having successfully completed boot camp in order to hold the position for which they were elected.

We would start by testing ingenuity, adaptability and fortitude by dropping politicians into an unknown city and requiring them to survive homeless and at the mercy of the systems they are or will be responsible for. By starting with the toughest challenge first we quickly weed out those wretches unfit to hold responsible office. This test also needs to be first because fairness requires we send the politicians onto the street with the highest reserves of stored energy (fat) and rest possible.

The second stage of training requires the aspiring politician to hold a minimum wage cleaning position and to survive on the wages earned at the minimum wage. This will reacquaint the aspirant with the concept of “working for ones keep” and provide direct experience with the difference between a minimum wage and a living wage you can actually live on. It also holds the promise of teaching the aspirant the value of a dollar and to clean up the messes they so often leave lying around the political, financial and spiritual landscapes.

The final stage is to hold a sales/service position at $15 an hour. This will hopefully provide instruction in the concepts of budgeting and avoiding wasteful spending. A sales/service position was chosen in hopes of giving experience and instruction in what is meant by service.

At the end of the process the politicians would be granted a certificate for a “Reality Check”.

I can hear the politicians claiming this would be a waste of taxpayers money. The certification already providing beneficial effects – the politicians have developed a concern for wasting taxpayers money! Further, with all the reality shows on television by filming and syndicating this process we can not only pay for the certification process but with skillful marketing make a profit.

Watching and listening to politicians these days it is clear they have no understanding of the reality most Canadians deal with and live in day to day, with no interest in gaining understanding. If they want to be in government of Canadians they should be required to have an understanding of all Canadians – not just the wealthy, big business, special interests and their own self-interests.

Homeless

Victoria’s Homeless Report

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Breaking the Cycle of Mental Illness, Addictions and Homelessness T
The City of Victoria released its homelessness report on October 19. http://www.victoria.ca/cityhall/tskfrc_brcycl.shtml

High Cost of Inaction
http://www.victoria.ca/cityhall/pdfs/tskfrc_brcycl_inactn.pdf
From the report. Reference citations are provided for these figures.

  • It costs taxpayers more than $50,000 per year to support each homeless resident in British Columbia.
  • With a homeless population growth factor estimated at 30 per cent, compounded for each year of inadequate housing stock and supports, Victoria’s homeless population could double by 2010.
  • The Victoria Police Department has identified a group of 324 homeless residents—many of whom are mentally ill and suffer from substance use problems or a dual diagnosis—who are responsible for 23,033 police encounters over a period of 40 months, at a cost of $9.2 million to the City of Victoria.
  • The City of Victoria has spent over $1.4 million already this year in expenditures associated with homelessness; including clean-up costs, needle pick-up, damages to sensitive ecosystems, security and responses to complaints.
  • Without proper access to health services, homeless residents rely on emergency and acute care health services—66 per cent of all homeless residents admitted to hospital by Vancouver Island Health Authority have a mental health or substance use related condition.
  • The Task Force found that there are over 200 organizations in the Greater Victoria area currently engaged in addressing the needs of homeless, addicted and/or mentally ill people in our community. Over 20 funding agencies already spend an estimated $76 million annually on housing, mental health and addiction services.
  • By not addressing the needs of the homeless population in Greater Victoria, we are spending at least $62 million in other services, such as policing, prisons, hospital services, emergency shelter, clean up, etc.
  • A study conducted by the province of B.C. in 2001 showed that the cost of service use under the status quo was 33 per cent higher than the cost of housing and supporting individuals.

Help for the homeless
$7.6 million pledged to help deal with homelessness, mental illness, addictions
Carolyn Heiman
Victoria Times Colonist
Saturday, October 20, 2007

The Vancouver Island Health Authority will supply $7.6 million for measures to ease Victoria’s homeless crisis, including new detox beds and specialized outreach teams.

The announcement was made yesterday, moments after the unveiling of the City of Victoria task-force report “Breaking the Cycle of Mental Illness, Addictions and Homelessness”, aimed at finding ways to reduce the number of people living on the street.

The largest chunk of cash is earmarked for 15 adult detox/residential treatment beds ($1.7 million) and creation of four community/treatment outreach teams, at a cost of $3.35 million. The teams, a cornerstone recommendation of the task force, will offer support and treatment for clients where they live, be that in parks, on the street, in shelters or in supportive housing.

A “housing-first” strategy, in which priority is given to finding homes for people on the street, regardless of their mental-health and substance-abuse issues, is the other cornerstone of the recommendations.

The outreach teams, to be established in the next year, are to include mental-health, substance-abuse and social-service specialists with shared caseloads and low staff-to-client ratios. They will be on call 24 hours a day. One team will focus on individuals with significant criminal records and a history of behavioural problems.

The expert panel on the task force said similar outreach teams were credited with reducing hospital admissions in Ontario by 62 per cent after one year, and 83 per cent after six years.

Victoria police found that 324 homeless residents — many with mental-illness or substance-abuse problems or both — were behind 23,033 police encounters over a period of 40 months, at an estimated cost to the city of $9.2 million.

Supporting the teams will be two new case managers assigned to help those leaving the hospital and correctional facilities, at a cost of $200,000.

Dr. Perry Kendall, provincial health officer and chairman of the expert panel, said the current system for delivering services is complex and difficult to negotiate, especially for people with mental illness and substance-abuse problems. Because they’re required to move from one service to another, they often fall through the cracks. He noted a study of injection-drug users showed that half had obtained treatment in the previous year, while 30 per cent tried unsuccessfully to obtain treatment.

The health authority also earmarked $1 million toward building the $4.6-million Downtown Health Access Centre, a Victoria Cool Aid Society project planned for its Johnson Street building. The centre will provide one-stop health services to homeless people. It replaces a program that Cool Aid board chairman Andrew Benson said is “bursting at the seams” at its Swift Street location.

Benson said he is pleased with the VIHA commitment but anxiously awaiting word on applications for another $1.5 million from the province and $500,00 to $700,000 from the Capital Regional District before construction can begin in March. The balance would be raised through donations.

A home and day detox program will receive $240,000, while a similar amount will go to train 10 homeless people who are ready to rejoin the workforce for jobs with the health authority.

The funding announcement also earmarked $600,000 to help the hard-to-house homeless, who will take up residence at a new 45-bed facility on Pandora Street. The facility, run by Our Place Society, is scheduled to open in November.

Kendall said the current system lacks co-ordination between mental-health and addiction services. Clients trying to obtain mental-health services are often rejected because they have addictions, while the same is true for those with mental-health problems trying to obtain addiction services.

VIHA yesterday earmarked $100,000 to train outreach workers to support clients with both mental-health and addiction problems.

cheiman@tc.canwest.com

Municipal

City Councilor questions median income ranking

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An Abbotsford city councilor emailed to ask about my source for the statement about Abbotsford having the highest median income. The table included with the email was for families which I questioned. The second table the councillor sent, while for individuals, was not the data I had used. Unfortunately having become homeless again means my computers and notes are stored and not accessible.

But the few data points and notes I have access to make clear that the numbers from the councilor’s chart are much lower than the numbers I had used/calculated. My first thought when I looked at the chart sent by the councilor was that the income levels seemed far to low and against logic. In fact the median individual income from the chart supplied is barely above the salary paid to a councilor for part time work and thousands of $$$ lower than council’s salary after the approved raise takes affect.

Fortunately being homeless does not deny you access to your brain, nor does it mean you suddenly lost ability to cerebrate. Which is very good news as being homeless the ability to use and exercise the mind with one’s power of reason in order to make inferences, decisions, or arrive at a solution or judgments is a must if you have any hope of escaping the system and getting your life back.

My mind tends to chew over interesting facts or ideas as well as questions raised – would that our “leaders” minds worked that way. Apparently my subconscious has been chewing on this matter and when a quiet mental moment came tossed points up for consideration. I liked to review the “unsolvable” situation/problem then sleep with a pen and paper, beside the bed because my subconscious was so good at untangling complex puzzles and problems. I would wake up, write it down in detail and when I got up in the I had my solution.

Tonight as I was relaxing after my swim, with my mind quiet, up drifted the resolution. Leaving me shaking my head at how dense I had been. The table of individual income sent by the councilor had quantifiers applied to the table. I read the quantifiers and and simply failed to note what needed to be noted: “Government transfers represented the second largest source of income; All income data for individuals are … after the receipt of transfers”.

This is why there was such a difference between the councilor’s chart(s) and the data I had been using. Remember median is the middle, not the average. The more very low income individuals added to the bottom end of the “pile” the lower the median (middle point) moves on the pile.

The councilor’s chart included “… after the receipt of transfers”. Thus the councilor’s income pile includes individuals whose income is GST, OAS, CPP, welfare and any other government transfer which is classed as income and we have a situation where “Government transfers represented the second largest source of income”. This results in a very large number of very low incomes with the effect of pulling the median income to unexpected low levels.

The numbers I was working with were based on wages earned with the effect that the median income was several times higher since all the low “incomes” resulting from government transfers were eliminated moving the median (middle point) much higher on the incomes pile.

I think that it is reasonable to argue that individual median incomes based on wages is a more realistic chart to use when speaking of donations, rather than a chart distorted severely downwards by the inclusion of people whose incomes are solely government transfers. This is not to imply the poor are of less generous spirit, but merely acknowledges the reality that with the lack of affordable housing in this city the poor simply have no money to donate and must instead give of their time.

One of the other points that bubbled up is that in fact this number says nothing about the generosity of a city. What do you need for a median donation of $620? The median or middle income needs to be $620 so you could have a median donation with donations of $1 + $620 + $621 = $1242. Compare that to a city with a median donation of $1 made up of 50,000 $0.99 + $1.00 + 50,000 $1.01 = $100,001. Which city is “more generous”, the median of $620 and a total of $1242 or median of $1 and a total of $100,001? A median donation of $620 tells us nothing about the total the city gave or anything about the generosity of the city.

To me the concept of median donation has no real meaning or value outside of bragging rights. When it comes to bragging I was always told: “actions speak louder than words”. The proof of a city’s generosity or lack of generosity lies on the city’s streets among its homeless, among families, children and seniors who struggle to find food, clothing, shelter and other necessities and in the hunger of women, children and seniors. Do not be fooled by this meaningless number, median donation. Look around the city, see the need that grows daily in our city and then consider just how generous Abbotsford really is?