All posts by James W. Breckenridge

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Be as a drop of rain…

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I am getting to old for homelessness or perhaps having a bed to sleep in spoiled me. Either way my new living arrangements have me stiffer than the proverbial board, feeling over 100 years old and moving very sloooooooooooow.

I admit I was definitely remiss in not focusing on making sure I got a station wagon or van during my sojourn indoors – and a laptop computer. I suppose I should have kept my priorities focused on the car and computer and not let things like classes, earning certifications, working, volunteering and pursuing mental health distract me from preparations for being on the street again.

With our out of balance housing market and economy it is a fact of life that more and more people, many of them working poor, are going to experience homelessness for at least some period(s) of time.

In fact we are now and have been for a while seeing even people with full time jobs who do not earn enough to pay all their bills because increasing housing costs have consumed a larger and larger portion of their disposable income. The working poor have the additional burden that their jobs prevent them from getting to the food bank to be able to save on food costs and therefore have more money available for housing.

As a society we can behave in our normal manner ignoring the problem, letting it worsen into crisis, having politicians and pundits make political footballs out of the matter etc. OR we could try a new approach – rational behaviour. Personally I am solidly in favour of acknowledging reality and behaving rationally as I have no wish to inflict on or share homelessness with anyone.

I admit I do not have a nice neat solution, probably because there isn’t one. From the Tao of James: always be suspicious of anyone who claims nice neat solutions to complex problems that involve people – they are lying or delusional.

Affordable housing is just such a complex problem. But by starting to work on it sooner rather than later, by being open-minded and flexible we can avoid having more and more citizens thrown onto the streets.

So as you prepare to sit down to eat or are going to bed or are listening to the rain pound down – ask yourself what you can do or better yet will do about addressing this question of affordable housing. There are lots of little actions that can be taken to help, remember little actions all add up. And a good idea shared or put into action will spread.

We all know rain/water can wear away mountains. It does not do this in a massive wall of water but through countless little drops falling over time in different places. For affordable housing and other “too big” problems if many of us choose to be as that single drop of rain, we can and will wear away the “mountains” our inaction has made many issues into.

Homeless, Municipal

Homeless and Maxine Wilson, Mayor of Coquitlam

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I must acknowledge that this is not my writing but that of Fred Johns of Something Cool News (http://www.somethingcool.ca/). it was just such an interesting piece I felt that as well as putting it on the Other People’s Words page it needed to be on View From the Street.

In order to remain true to the editorial comment flavour of the page: Oh what we could accomplsih if Abbotsford had such a Mayor!

At first, he’s just another man sitting in the trash. His face is layered in dirt, his clothes are in even worse shape and judging by his choice of associates, he is a man who has truly hit rock bottom. Sitting on a log near Coquitlam River, he is sandwiched between a woman who seems to be constantly twitching and another man who is clearly drunk. And yet something separates this man from his company – his eyes seem slightly more vibrant and for a moment, it seems almost like he doesn’t belong here.

That’s because he doesn’t. (Indeed, does anyone?) This man has a home, an apartment somewhere – or so he says. He admits he used to call this forest home, but those days are behind him. He boasts that he is one of the lucky ones that escaped this life of despair, but has ties here still which brings him back to his former stomping grounds from time to time. But the real surprise comes when he is asked how he got his house. He smiles and then says proudly, “The Mayor got it for me.”

As this conversation is taking place in Port Coquitlam, one naturally assumes it is the Mayor of PoCo that is responsible for helping this man, but that assumption would be wrong. The man explains that it wasn’t Scott Young that helped him out, but the Mayor of a neighbouring city that helped out. “Maxine Wilson helped me,” he says, referring to the Mayor of Coquitlam. Then he adds, scathingly, “She actually cares about people.”

Does she now? I think to myself. It’s rare to hear someone who used to be homeless say something nice about politicians, so this indeed something unique. The man seems to suggest that Mayor Wilson is different than other mayors, as evidenced by what she did for him. But I have only this man’s word to go on – I’ve never spoken to the Mayor of Coquitlam. I have a feeling that is about to change.

***

The walls on her office seem to suggest a connection to people. On all sides of the giant desk that Mrs. Wilson sits behind whenever she is actually in her office, are pictures of her surrounded by giant clumps of humanity. In one picture, she is seen smiling with a group of Asians, in other she is seen grinning with her City Council. But perhaps the most telling portrait of Maxine Wilson is the one of her and her daughter as the watched the last election results come in. Her daughter is clasping her hand over her mouth and Maxine is looking on expectantly. It’s a picture a newspaper photographer captured and sent to Maxine who proudly posted it on her wall.

“How old do you think my daughter is?” she asks me as I study the picture closely. She’s a very young-looking girl, with a youthful face that could easily fit into any high school hallway. I venture a guess of sixteen. She laughs. Turns out the young woman is actually in her thirties. “Everyone gets that wrong,” she says.

She sits down in one of the seats that surrounds a small table in the other end of her office. I sit down next to her and begin explaining why I wanted to interview her, which means telling her about the man in the forest. When I had called her the day previous, I had left a message with her secretary that I wanted to discuss “homelessness” and that she could return my call whenever it was convenient. Less than an hour later, my phone rang and it was her.

Right away, she expressed her interest in the interview. “How does tomorrow sound?” she asked me. I was caught off guard, but maybe that’s because I am permanently scarred from my Mary Reeves ordeal. I said that it was fine. “How does 1:30 work for you?” I politely asked if I could bump that up to 2:00. “Sure, that’s fine. Whatever works best for you.”

I couldn’t conceal my surprise and quickly agreed to the interview. A phone call made to Scott Young last week was still not returned (but would be an hour later) and already I had an interview set up with the Mayor of Coquitlam for the next day. And remember, Mrs. Wilson and I had never met, and she had probably never even heard of SomethingCool News. Colour me impressed.
I mentioned Scott Young’s name at the start of the interview, explaining that I had spoken to him many times regarding the homeless problem in PoCo and expressed my view that until any sort of conviction appeared, he deserved the benefit of the doubt. She seemed to agree.

“People are products of their environment,” Wilson said calmly. “Scott’s had a difficult life. He’s a very easy Mayor to work with and remember, I am a woman saying that. He’s got some issues and he has to deal with them.”

What she didn’t agree with so much was PoCo’s policy of dealing with the homeless – i.e., tearing down their camps 85 times so far this year. “What PoCo is facing – and what we face – are residents who are afraid for their safety and are worried that they will be robbed so they phone the City and want something done,” she said. “But the only thing that will ever change it is to change the societal attitudes from being ones that are fear-based to realizing that we all have needs and we all need to support each other.”

Indeed, one resident of PoCo who watched the SCN mini-documentary The Displaced, wrote, “I live in this area and if your going to do a story about this then get all facts straight. The majority of these people are also drug addicts and we as residents are being affected greatly because they break into our homes, vehicles and steal and or vandalize our belongings. Drug deals are made in front of our children and homes. So tell the down side we as residents have to endure in the area; this is a huge problem and they create it!”

Those must the societal attitudes Mrs. Wilson is talking about. PoCo’s solution has been to destroy the camps only to watch them spring up on the other side of the trail. Maxine suggests a different solution: “The way I see we attack this is person by person and find the champions who will spread the word and mobilize so gradually people in the community help each other to be supportive.”

Okay, so I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking this all sounds like another episode of Sesame Street. It’s just another Mayor spouting off a feel-good message about humanity coming together and facing all challenges and blah blah blah. It’s the stuff someone who has never experienced the problem says from their comfy office armchair. I thought that too, but then I remembered that guy in the forest.

“Sure, I know a few people I have helped,” Mrs. Wilson replied when I inquired about this man. “I give suggestions all the time as to who people should connect up with. You know I never intended to get involved with politics, but through my years I have come to know a lot of people form a lot of different agencies.” She chuckles. “My staff always jokes that I am a walking encyclopedia because I know who to connect to what.”

She decides to give me an example. “We just had a family traumatized because their son is a cocaine addict who is facing trial. The mother has two other kids and she wasn’t able to manage her own life or the rest of the family’s and she didn’t know what to do. I know Diane Sowden from the Children of the Streets Society. I gave her Diane’s number and told her to call her and to tell her that she needed help. And she did. The next time I saw her she was beaming and her son was there too. So they are going to help their son and get past all that.”

I ask her if she feels gratified and fulfilled having partaken in such a success story. She doesn’t smile or nod – she just shrugs. “That’s my job,” is all she says and patiently waits for me to ask my next question.

There’s a lot going on in Coquitlam – the problem of homelessness may not be as bad as PoCo’s but it could one day be. It’s for that reason, that Coquitlam is working on getting some churches together to help provide shelter for some of them over the winter months and has a long term plan to lease land from the City to help house women and children who are living on the streets. It’s a place she hopes those who want help will finally be able to get it.

“My idea is not to trap anyone in a cycle of dependency,” she elaborates. “We want to help every person that wants it. We are all co-dependent, symbiotic. We all need each other. Each person should be given the chance to be as resilient and independent as they can manage.”

I tell her about the disturbing information I came across when filming the mini-documentary – that there may be a pregnant woman living in the forest. She counters that she has heard there may as many as forty women living in the woods. About the pregnant woman, she asks, “Who can she learn to trust again and how can she learn to stay together with her family? It doesn’t do us any good to blame anyone – each of us must step up to the plate and take personal responsibility. These people are not numbers. Each has a different story and needs to be supported.”

Like the man in the forest? “That’s right,” she says, again refusing to congratulate herself. So I ask again how it makes her feel to know there is one man who feels he owes Mayor Maxine Wilson something. “It means that one person ahs been able to progress in life,” she responds passively. “But there are many more we need to support. I’m not great. I’m just another ordinary person. There are so many other people out there who are doing good things, much greater than what I am doing. I’m just an average person who as an accident of circumstances ended up being Mayor.”

She paints herself – like the pictures on her wall do – as a woman who is just part of something much larger. “We all need to pull it together,” she continues. “We all need to make sure that everyone is included in our society. Put simply, if you see there needs to be change, change it.” I notice for the first time she looks nothing like a Mayor is supposed to. And then she says, “That’s all of our jobs.”

Homeless, Municipal

Maxine Wilson, Mayor of Coquitlam

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At first, he’s just another man sitting in the trash. His face is layered in dirt, his clothes are in even worse shape and judging by his choice of associates, he is a man who has truly hit rock bottom. Sitting on a log near Coquitlam River, he is sandwiched between a woman who seems to be constantly twitching and another man who is clearly drunk. And yet something separates this man from his company – his eyes seem slightly more vibrant and for a moment, it seems almost like he doesn’t belong here.

That’s because he doesn’t. (Indeed, does anyone?) This man has a home, an apartment somewhere – or so he says. He admits he used to call this forest home, but those days are behind him. He boasts that he is one of the lucky ones that escaped this life of despair, but has ties here still which brings him back to his former stomping grounds from time to time. But the real surprise comes when he is asked how he got his house. He smiles and then says proudly, “The Mayor got it for me.”

As this conversation is taking place in Port Coquitlam, one naturally assumes it is the Mayor of PoCo that is responsible for helping this man, but that assumption would be wrong. The man explains that it wasn’t Scott Young that helped him out, but the Mayor of a neighbouring city that helped out. “Maxine Wilson helped me,” he says, referring to the Mayor of Coquitlam. Then he adds, scathingly, “She actually cares about people.”

Does she now? I think to myself. It’s rare to hear someone who used to be homeless say something nice about politicians, so this indeed something unique. The man seems to suggest that Mayor Wilson is different than other mayors, as evidenced by what she did for him. But I have only this man’s word to go on – I’ve never spoken to the Mayor of Coquitlam. I have a feeling that is about to change.

***

The walls on her office seem to suggest a connection to people. On all sides of the giant desk that Mrs. Wilson sits behind whenever she is actually in her office, are pictures of her surrounded by giant clumps of humanity. In one picture, she is seen smiling with a group of Asians, in other she is seen grinning with her City Council. But perhaps the most telling portrait of Maxine Wilson is the one of her and her daughter as the watched the last election results come in. Her daughter is clasping her hand over her mouth and Maxine is looking on expectantly. It’s a picture a newspaper photographer captured and sent to Maxine who proudly posted it on her wall.

“How old do you think my daughter is?” she asks me as I study the picture closely. She’s a very young-looking girl, with a youthful face that could easily fit into any high school hallway. I venture a guess of sixteen. She laughs. Turns out the young woman is actually in her thirties. “Everyone gets that wrong,” she says.

She sits down in one of the seats that surrounds a small table in the other end of her office. I sit down next to her and begin explaining why I wanted to interview her, which means telling her about the man in the forest. When I had called her the day previous, I had left a message with her secretary that I wanted to discuss “homelessness” and that she could return my call whenever it was convenient. Less than an hour later, my phone rang and it was her.

Right away, she expressed her interest in the interview. “How does tomorrow sound?” she asked me. I was caught off guard, but maybe that’s because I am permanently scarred from my Mary Reeves ordeal. I said that it was fine. “How does 1:30 work for you?” I politely asked if I could bump that up to 2:00. “Sure, that’s fine. Whatever works best for you.”

I couldn’t conceal my surprise and quickly agreed to the interview. A phone call made to Scott Young last week was still not returned (but would be an hour later) and already I had an interview set up with the Mayor of Coquitlam for the next day. And remember, Mrs. Wilson and I had never met, and she had probably never even heard of SomethingCool News. Colour me impressed.
I mentioned Scott Young’s name at the start of the interview, explaining that I had spoken to him many times regarding the homeless problem in PoCo and expressed my view that until any sort of conviction appeared, he deserved the benefit of the doubt. She seemed to agree.

“People are products of their environment,” Wilson said calmly. “Scott’s had a difficult life. He’s a very easy Mayor to work with and remember, I am a woman saying that. He’s got some issues and he has to deal with them.”

What she didn’t agree with so much was PoCo’s policy of dealing with the homeless – i.e., tearing down their camps 85 times so far this year. “What PoCo is facing – and what we face – are residents who are afraid for their safety and are worried that they will be robbed so they phone the City and want something done,” she said. “But the only thing that will ever change it is to change the societal attitudes from being ones that are fear-based to realizing that we all have needs and we all need to support each other.”

Indeed, one resident of PoCo who watched the SCN mini-documentary The Displaced, wrote, “I live in this area and if your going to do a story about this then get all facts straight. The majority of these people are also drug addicts and we as residents are being affected greatly because they break into our homes, vehicles and steal and or vandalize our belongings. Drug deals are made in front of our children and homes. So tell the down side we as residents have to endure in the area; this is a huge problem and they create it!”

Those must the societal attitudes Mrs. Wilson is talking about. PoCo’s solution has been to destroy the camps only to watch them spring up on the other side of the trail. Maxine suggests a different solution: “The way I see we attack this is person by person and find the champions who will spread the word and mobilize so gradually people in the community help each other to be supportive.”

Okay, so I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking this all sounds like another episode of Sesame Street. It’s just another Mayor spouting off a feel-good message about humanity coming together and facing all challenges and blah blah blah. It’s the stuff someone who has never experienced the problem says from their comfy office armchair. I thought that too, but then I remembered that guy in the forest.

“Sure, I know a few people I have helped,” Mrs. Wilson replied when I inquired about this man. “I give suggestions all the time as to who people should connect up with. You know I never intended to get involved with politics, but through my years I have come to know a lot of people form a lot of different agencies.” She chuckles. “My staff always jokes that I am a walking encyclopedia because I know who to connect to what.”

She decides to give me an example. “We just had a family traumatized because their son is a cocaine addict who is facing trial. The mother has two other kids and she wasn’t able to manage her own life or the rest of the family’s and she didn’t know what to do. I know Diane Sowden from the Children of the Streets Society. I gave her Diane’s number and told her to call her and to tell her that she needed help. And she did. The next time I saw her she was beaming and her son was there too. So they are going to help their son and get past all that.”

I ask her if she feels gratified and fulfilled having partaken in such a success story. She doesn’t smile or nod – she just shrugs. “That’s my job,” is all she says and patiently waits for me to ask my next question.

There’s a lot going on in Coquitlam – the problem of homelessness may not be as bad as PoCo’s but it could one day be. It’s for that reason, that Coquitlam is working on getting some churches together to help provide shelter for some of them over the winter months and has a long term plan to lease land from the City to help house women and children who are living on the streets. It’s a place she hopes those who want help will finally be able to get it.

“My idea is not to trap anyone in a cycle of dependency,” she elaborates. “We want to help every person that wants it. We are all co-dependent, symbiotic. We all need each other. Each person should be given the chance to be as resilient and independent as they can manage.”

I tell her about the disturbing information I came across when filming the mini-documentary – that there may be a pregnant woman living in the forest. She counters that she has heard there may as many as forty women living in the woods. About the pregnant woman, she asks, “Who can she learn to trust again and how can she learn to stay together with her family? It doesn’t do us any good to blame anyone – each of us must step up to the plate and take personal responsibility. These people are not numbers. Each has a different story and needs to be supported.”

Like the man in the forest? “That’s right,” she says, again refusing to congratulate herself. So I ask again how it makes her feel to know there is one man who feels he owes Mayor Maxine Wilson something. “It means that one person ahs been able to progress in life,” she responds passively. “But there are many more we need to support. I’m not great. I’m just another ordinary person. There are so many other people out there who are doing good things, much greater than what I am doing. I’m just an average person who as an accident of circumstances ended up being Mayor.”

She paints herself – like the pictures on her wall do – as a woman who is just part of something much larger. “We all need to pull it together,” she continues. “We all need to make sure that everyone is included in our society. Put simply, if you see there needs to be change, change it.” I notice for the first time she looks nothing like a Mayor is supposed to. And then she says, “That’s all of our jobs.”

Homeless, Provincial

“D’oh”

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For Gordon Campbell quoting Homer Simpson would have been a verbally succinct method of conveying his real message on Homelessness.

Instead, in the way of politicians, he wasted peoples time by making them wade through a sea of words to arrive at the same place: Campbell and the Liberals have none of the fresh ideas or approaches needed to begin to reduce the homeless and addicted on our streets. With homelessness growing so quickly and into such a major issue Campbell and the Liberals had to do something, no matter how “Homer Simpsonish” (i.e. REAL DUMB) the actions were.

In desperation the Liberals have fallen back on the old political strategy of wastefully throwing taxpayers $$$ at the problem to make it appear they are addressing the issue. After all, if they are spending millions of hard earned taxpayer $$$ it must be going to accomplish something positive, right?

Wrong. Wasting money to open shelter beds 24 hours does not create a single new space for the homeless, although I concede it will pump more dollars into the pockets of those in the homeless industry/economy.

Unless of course an unannounced part of the plan is to use the beds in shifts in order to double (12 hour shift) or triple (8 hour shift) the effective number of beds available? Or perhaps the unannounced plan is to chain them to the beds, keeping them out of the public eye in order to create the illusion the problem is disappearing and thus solved?

I used the wording “something positive” in speaking of what opening 24 hours will accomplish because I know the opening 24 hour policy will give rise to negative effects. In speaking with those who run operations open 24 hours a day in our area they have stated that the one big change they would make is not to be open 24 hours – for a host of reasons.

Experience with the longer hours (basically 24) that come during an extreme weather response demonstrated that with 24 hour operations came/comes a host of headaches. These problems could be endured for the length of an extreme weather alert, but can be expected to compound at shelters that run 24 hours a day. The discussions I have witnessed among those experienced with shelter operations have always given rise to lots of problems and no real benefits – at least to the homeless.

What will this government, obviously bankrupt of any new and effective ideas, turn to next as a “solution” – internment camps in the interior?

We do need both more shelter beds and drop-in facilities for the homeless. Most of all we need to change how we deliver aid services to the homeless in order to help them recover themselves and their lives.

But such a course will require creativity, accepting reality as it is, risk, patience and change. In judging the likelihood of this based on Gordon Campbell’s recent statements I can only conclude:

D’oh.

Consider

Love is a selfless emotion.

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As I walked past the television an advertisement for the Alanon/Alateen Family Groups came on. This organization is about helping the families and children of alcoholism and addiction get healthy.

In recovering my own mental health I have come to an appreciation how much how we think affects our behaviour. I know that even if there had been a magic pill to cure my mental illness, taking it would have changed nothing. Having lived with the illness so long my thinking, my thought patterns, had become warped. “Curing” the illness would have accomplished nothing because I would have continued to think and act in the warped ways I had learned.

I am an adult child of alcoholism; I grew up in a household with an alcoholic parent. Children learn from their parents, are directly influenced by the environment they grow up in. I learned lots of bad ways of thinking, acquired a multitude of “-isms” that influenced and ruled my life and behaviours. The interaction between the “stinking thinking” I learned in my home life and my mental illness proved devastating, eventually consuming my life, myself and resulting in homelessness.

Recovery has been an interesting journey of learning, self discovery, growth and change. A significant part of my recovery has been to learn about and deal with the effects that being raised in a household with alcoholism had on my ways of thinking and perceiving the world around me. This knowledge has given me a keen appreciation of just how important it is to acknowledge and deal with the effects alcoholic or addiction have on children raised in that environment.

With the path my life has taken over the past several years I have a keen awareness of the extent that alcoholism and addiction exist in our society. Couple that with the experience and knowledge of the effects alcoholism and addiction have on children and I am left wondering why the local Alateen meeting is not overflowing with the children that simple mathematics tells us there are in need of help in dealing with and recovery from the effects alcoholism and addiction have had on their young lives and minds.

When I posed this question to an Alateen group I got some interesting and thought provoking answers. There is of course a thread of denial, of various forms and degrees, running through the “reasons” for parents not insisting their children seek out Alateen.

The “I am alright now and therefore everyone else will be or is” syndrome, ignoring the reality that you getting help to recover in no way helps those affected by your behaviour to recover from the effects of that behaviour. We are speaking of real life, not a fairy tale land of make believe and live happily ever after.

There is guilt, embarrassment and shame. Perfectly understandable human reactions, but not acceptable as excuses for not taking the actions you should.

You only compound the guilt when you let it prevent you form acting as you should. Those affected by your behaviour should be at the top of your amends list; especially children for your behaviours will have life long consequences for them – if you do not act to help them recovery healthy behaviours. You cannot change the past, you need to let it go or you will find yourself anchored to the past and to bad behaviours from your past. As uncomfortable as it maybe or may make you feel the amends you need to make is to help people recover from the effect your behaviour has had on them – including mentally and spiritually.

You need to deal with shame and embarrassment in the same manner as quilt, and as with guilt a major part of truly healing yourself is to help those your behaviour wounded to heal themselves. Shame and embarrassment – secrets, and we know you are as sick as your secrets. Secrets can be so very poisonous and the only true way to deal with them is to accept you behaviours and the results of those behaviours, acknowledging them, making amends as needed and cutting them free behind you so they do not poison the future.

Fear of what the kids will say and share about themselves, family and YOU. They will share what they need to share to get well – live with it. Groups such as AA, Alanon and Alateen only really work when one is able to share the truth and in a metaphysical and indefinable way – what you need to share or someone else needs to hear. Afraid they will speak of your insane behaviour? Get over it – and yourself.

Alateen is not about the parents, it is about letting the kids get healthy both mentally and spirituality. Non-sane behaviour is one of the consequences of alcoholism and addiction. Parenting is about doing the best you can in raising your children. Your past behaviour is just that – past and nothing you do will change that past nor make it cease to exist.

You can change the future. If you have any doubt about how important that is for your children, just ask any Adult Child of Alcoholism how important they know it is. There are good reasons that mental health professionals study the effect being raised in a home with alcoholism or addiction has and continues to have on children into their adult lives – and the lives of their children. There are many books and studies on how crippling and devastating be raised in alcohol, addiction or other unhealthy circumstances are on children and their lives.

If you love your children or grandchildren freely and without reservation and they have been affected by alcohol or addiction – get them to Abbotsford’s Alateen meeting. As an after word let me say that if a group or meeting would like to hear this message from the horse’s mouth – I know an Alateen or two who would be willing to speak – just be sure you really want to hear what they have to say.