Category Archives: Homeless

Caveat emptor, Homeless

RE: Valley neighbours setting an example.

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I sit here shaking my head, dismayed that this piece is what the News considers an opinion worthy of expression on such a complex issue.

Anyone reading your totally misleading “reporting and opinion” on the British success in achieving a 35% reduction in crime, would come away with the thoroughly erroneous impression of what measures the British used in accomplishing this notable reduction. Only those who had seen balanced and fair reports of Mayor Watts’s trip from other sources would know the British had wisely decided to try the unique approach of focusing on addressing the root causes of their crime problem. As with any weed, you can waste all the time and money you want on the symptoms of the problem (the leaves) such as car theft, B & E, prostitution and drug trafficking, and it just grows back. In fact, this approach often permits the weed to flourish and spread. You want to kill off the weed, you better get at the root.

The British, recognizing this reality, chose to focus on Cause rather than the effect. Not that anyone reading your “reporting” of the British experience would learn this. More accurate reporting elsewhere made clear that the British used innovative social programs and approaches to help the people involved, their fellow citizens who were in need of assistance, to address their personal problems and issues in order to permit these marginalized people to begin leading productive lives.

With all the innovation involved in the British approach that achieved these highly desirable results, the News chose to report and focus on the old and trite surveillance camera red herring of a “plan”? Further we are suppose to be amazed that citizens are complaining and upset about the activities in Jubilee Park? I suppose the News would favour using the ”miracle of surveillance” to drive these people out of the Park. Then in a few months the News can “report and opine” the problem some other area of Abbotsford is having with those previously displaced from Jubilee. Then repeat then process over and over and over as is the current policy.

Then blundering onward to the subject of transition housing regulation, you give any of the public depending on the News for informed opinion the entirely wrong impression that this is an easy question to deal with.

You offer a few misleading lines on issues that, to even begin to give the citizens of Abbotsford a basis for thinking about and making decisions on, need as series of articles (for each point/issue) to convey the many complexities of these problems.

The News wagging a finger at the council, no matter that the council fully deserves to be severely chastised for its lack of imagination and action, is the pot calling the kettle black. It is hubris to point a finger at the council for lack of being proactive when the News itself fails to invest the time, space and writing needed to be act in a proactive manner by informing the community of the intricacies of these issues, fermenting debate and involving the community in a situation that can only be addressed and solutions derived with the involvement of the entire community. Enough “drivel”, let us have some “meat and potatoes” from the News.

Homeless

RE: Christina

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I was speaking with her today and she said her son, living on the East Coast phoned her after reading about her on this website. She did not get his phone number or email and asked if I could do anything to help. So, in case he is unable to resist the superlative writing taking place on this site I ask he drop me a line with his phone number, but especially his e-mail address – since e-mail is such a fast and inexpensive way to get in touch. Just click on the JWB email link.

When I was a kid my parents moved a lot, but I always found them.
Rodney Dangerfield

Addiction

He had no fear of publically revealing Benightedness

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I butted into a loud discussion outside the library because the line about shooting down those who use illegal drugs in public contained a level of stupidity that exceeded a level I could tolerate. It turned out that he was upset about those who feed their illegal drug addictions in public and were not being rounded up and tossed into jail. I assume he saw the news reports about the Economist article about the drug use and poverty on the east side and in a unthinking, knee-jerk reaction decided the solution was to retreat into stupidity and avoid the pain of actually thinking about such things as cause and effect. The way so much of the public chooses to react unthinkingly to complex issues would almost make you think that using their brains for something other than a spacer between their ears caused them great pain.

From what I could determine from his ravings, he was upset that this illegal drug use was taking place in public and that something should be done to drive this activity out of sight. I have to agree that it is an unpleasant sight, but I would argue it is necessary that it occur out in full view for it is this openness that denies the majority of public their favourite refuge from complex, messy, thought requiring issues – Denial. For all too much of the public out of sight is also out of mind. Even if we must endure the ignorant and feebleminded ramblings of those who are unable to understand complex problems and that the complexity of the problem is going to require creative and many faceted approaches in address these complex problems. This in your face openness generates discussion – some of which will be cognizant and directed to taking effective actions.

Locking the drug users up is not a cost effective approach to reducing the scourge of addiction and the side effects caused by our current drug policies. I say cost effect as failing to consider costs vs. benefits not only results in the waste of vast sums on money, but prevents basing actions on approaches that can be effective. In calling for the police and courts to be throwing all the drug users in jail the question becomes “who is going to pay all the costs”, the $1,000.000,000s needed. When I posed the question of paying to the “shoot ‘em” advocate above, once he had shifted to the “I only want to shot ‘em because the courts will not lock them up” line of defending his demonstrated lack of ability to cogitate, I got a tirade about government waste. All of this taking place as he stood in public feeding his addiction, which fortunately for him is nicotine and legal (at least at this point in time).

They speak of a “drug problem” and a “drug war” Some are wrong or some are lying (or spinning the truth) in order to pursue their agendas or protect their vested interests. Have you ever seen drugs run up someone’s body and force themselves up their nose? When was the last time you saw a drug turn itself into smoke and force its way into an innocent bystanders lungs? No this is a people problem. When you wage this war you are waging it on people, as though their addiction was not enough of a burden and punishment. Reality is that because at its very roots this is a people problem, it is going to be extremely messy and lacking in neat, easy answers. In truth, given the nature of people, there is no actual solution. There are decisions we can make and actions we can take that will be more effective than others – provided we are willing to see the reality of the situation for what it is, and not as we want it to be. Without any solution, outside of human extinction, we have to look at what set of problems we can best achieve effective actions against and what set of insolvable effects we would rather live with.
It is not neat, tidy and definitely not a reality we like – but that is Life.

Homeless

Real Coffee! Thanks Starbucks!

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Sometimes the best laid plans …. You may recall that I felt that the good people at the Open Door Seventh Day Adventist church deserved special praise for the effort they made during this summer to keep their commitment to providing Sunday lunch to the homeless and hungry. Even to the point of a grown son turning to his mother to cover for him and serve Sunday lunch. No matter how old a child is still a child and a mother is forever your MOM.

This week the keeper of the coffee urn was away on holiday. In preparation for this he provided a house key for access to the coffee urn. However, he did forget one little thing, a sad fact of modern life, – the alarm code. I am afraid that when I see him I will have to give him a ribbing about the “trust issues” inherent in this oversight.

Be that as it may, the outcome was that those in charge of lunch Sunday found themselves without the ability to brew coffee. Among those they serve lunch to on Sunday I for one am willing to acknowledge my coffee addiction and I am not alone in my need for Java. Most fortunately a local coffee franchise stepped in to provide not just coffee but REAL coffee.

Starbucks donated the coffee, real actual cream (a nice treat), cups, stir sticks and provided the container to serve the hot coffee from. A nice BIG container so we all could have more than one cup and those of us with the need could sate our desire for caffeine with extra servings of a most excellent brew. Yummy! Not to mention the energy and ability to focus to get several writing projects written.

We sometimes tend to overlook that some of the franchises and franchisees, as well as other corporate citizens, in our midst take an active role as “citizens” of our community providing support for charities and other good causes in a variety of ways and products. People have come to take this so for granted that it is often forgotten to say “Thank You”.

So to those corporate citizens who understand the importance of charity and contributing to their community, we of the homeless and hungry communities want to express our thanks. With a special big Thank You, for coming through on such short notice, to Starbucks. Real cream, real coffee = a real treat.

Homeless

Going a little Squirrelly.

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I was sitting the other day when a rather surreal conversation about a plague of squirrels broke out. It seems these rodents are driving gardeners and bird lovers…. Well… Squirrelly. Whether eating plant roots or bird seed both groups are being driven to contemplate squirrel-cide,

Hmmm. A rather interesting question of poetic justice occurs to me. Is this plague a result of a population explosion or a population displacement? In the mindless drive to drive the homeless anywhere but in my backyard many patches of trees and brush were ripped out and left bare. Trees and brush that also served as home to wildlife such as – squirrels.

If this habitat destruction is in fact contributing to this plague of squirrelly behaviour it serves to underline the dangers of unthinking reaction. No one bothered to ask just where it was they expected the homeless to go when driven from where they were residing. Their habitat destruction just forced the homeless into view on the streets and into residential neighbourhoods. Just as the homeless were forced into residential neighbourhoods, the squirrels were forced to relocate as well.

When you do not think about how to actually accomplish the results you want, all to often you waste resources and at best accomplish nothing or set in motion a whole series of new, more aggravating and complex problems. Which suggests the police may want to seriously reconsider their return to harassing and moving from one spot to another the homeless. Otherwise they will just have to live with any unwanted or unintended consequences, running the risk of driving themselves squirrelly.