Below is a letter sent to me via www.homelessinabbotsford.com by Anonymous.
What the letter has to say is important as more and more citizens are finding themselves in Anonymous’s circumstances. It is also important because it paints a very different picture of who the homeless or those teetering on the edge of homelessness are, a very different picture than that most people carry in their minds.

I have included my comments in brackets in hopes the Anonymous writer visits and has an opportunity to read them and know she is not alone, there are far to many of us in similar circumstances who understand and who are suffering the same indifferent fate at the hands of the government and fellow citizens.

Since the letter was Anonymous and I could not ask permission to share it I have edited out any references I felt may contain clues to the writer. Otherwise it is included as written. I have highlighted the letter in blue to make it clear which is the letter contents and which are my comments.

Many people are a month or so away from homelessness and nothing will save them but a ‘miracle’. I can testify personally to this after over a year of 24/7 job hunting in Abbotsford which yielded zero results. (I’m highly qualified and experienced in corporate communications and office administration and ran my own successful business for almost 8 years; too qualified, was the excuse trotted out if they bothered to respond at all, but not qualified enough for other things.

(I too have been told I am “over qualified”, an incredibly frustrating experience – especially when my having dealt with mental health issues makes them very nervous about hiring me for those positions I am qualified for.)

I, too, am staring homelessness in the face. I am trying to move to Vancouver (where I know no one) but where there are more job opportunities and I think possibly more support. Abbotsford, a closed society, is no place for the desperate. To say it’s scary is an understatement.

I, for one, haven’t a clue how to manage being homeless, in Abbotsford or elsewhere. I have a small income, enough to feed me and buy necessary toiletries, etc., but not enough for rent, hydro, phone, internet — the necessities of life which allow you to look for work intelligently and to actually report for work, once hired, looking and acting like a professional. And you won’t be allowed in a supermarket if you’re dirty and stinking because you couldn’t do laundry or bathe, so where do you turn …

(I have repeatedly posed those types of questions to the Ministry (and minister) of Employment and Income Assistance and gotten no intelligent answers. Perhaps a more accurate name for the Ministry would be – Employment Barriers and Inadequate Income Assistance)

I certainly cannot be only one in THAT predicament, so I think words of wisdom on how to be ‘successfully’ homeless would be well received by many.

(You definitely are not alone in your situation as I have met many people suffering the same government indifference and lack of help.)

The ranks of the homeless are going to swell exponentially. It is unfortunate that so many are mental patients and/or addicted to drugs or alcohol, because they have little to no hope and make the whole situation even more terrifying for those of us who are not.

(While they may make the possibility of homelessness more terrifying for you, they are also victims of lack of care by their country and government – and from their fellow citizens for not demanding that the government intelligently and with will and intent address homelessness, mental health and addiction. It has been demonstrated in other very similar jurisdictions (Portland and Seattle) that all that is required to help the addicted and mentally ill is realistic and intelligent decisions. It is the waste of human lives and the current immense waste of government funds, funds that could build the system of care needed to deal with these social ills, that has me advocating for these people (many of who are friends).

NOTE: any system that has the capacity to help those most in need will have the capacity to help people in less dire circumstances.

The rest, those of us who would like to work and live decently, need somehow to band together and cooperate with each other, watching each other’s backs, so to speak, and forming a mini-community somehow, each bringing something to the table others lack, and perhaps somehow getting people in the group working and living in decent housing. Just a thought and probably an impossibility.

(Nothing is impossible has to be ones mantra if you are going to bring about positive change. This is a free country, by definition we can bring about change. We just need more sane behaviour from people. If you are complaining about government all the time why keep voting for the same old parties? Repeating the same action over and over hoping for a different outcome is the AA definition of insanity. People can choose who ever they want to represent them. Maybe it is time that rather than stick with the same old choices citizens banded together to get other independent people to run for office and /or to exercise their right to “write in” whoever they want to represent them.)

(If you feel such a group of people looking for work is needed to cover each others backs and help each other – create it. Co-operative ventures have a long and distinguished history in Canada.)

There would be only opposition from the powers that be in Abbotsford however, so better to find out what’s available in more progressive cities like Vancouver or Kamloops.

(While I agree that Abbotsford is hide bound and continues to behave as though it were a small country town, remember that the provincial government is miserably failing to meet its Duty of Care to those citizens finding themselves in your circumstances and in need of Assistance – not more and higher Barriers. Remember that in November you, all the citizens of Abbotsford will have your chance to send the current council home (taking away their part-time salaries that are higher than many citizens earn full time) and replacing them with competent people with caring and vision for all citizens and Abbotsford’s future)

(Whatever you do, don’t give up and let them win – remember the best revenge is a life well lived.)

Driving along in my car the argument in the papers last January concerning the income level in Abbotsford came to mind.

Listening to the radio one cannot help but hear the provincial government’s advertisements for their low income level rent subsidy program.

The income level the provincial government considers low enough to need rent subsidies? $35,000. The income level in the original report setting off our local kerfuffle? $26,000.

I have no interest in getting lost in a debate about the exact nature of those whose income levels are under $26,000. No matter how one argues that point, the numbers clearly highlight the fact that there are a significant number of people and families in Abbotsford below the $26,000 income level. This is $9,000 under the point at which the provincial government acknowledges the need for rent subsidization.

However much of an apologist or economist one may be, only a complete denial of reality would allow one to refuse to acknowledge the significant, disturbing and unacceptable levels of poverty and economic hardship these numbers evidence exists in Abbotsford.