Category Archives: Homeless

behaviour, Consider, Homeless, Issues, Life, Municipal

Pond Scum

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Yin – Yang; Balance; The Good – The Ugly.

The Good.

The attention of the media to the City of Abbotsford’s use of chicken sh*t as a biological weapon against the homeless in Abbotsford got the chicken sh*t mostly cleaned up and it accomplished the more important task of preventing the use of chicken sh*t from becoming the city’s policy for dealing with the homeless and homeless camps.

The Ugly.

Media coverage of this issue resulted in several of the homeless appearing on television as part of the media coverage.

One such person was approached after his appearance on television by someone who stated there was an elderly gentleman who had won multi-millions of dollars on a lotto ticket several years ago. This wealthy gentleman had a policy of using his lotto wealth to awarded $500,000 to people down on their luck and needing help such as this homeless individual.

Just think what he could do with $500,000. Previous recipients have flourished after receiving their $500,000, what would he do with his $500,000?

The people who had approached him had visions of sugar plums dancing in his head along with dreams of what he was going to do with the $500,000 and the changes this would make in his life. He could own his own home.

And all that was needed for him to receive this $500,000 was a $1,000 to them so they could make sure the gentleman who awards $500,000 was aware of this homeless person so he would be awarded $500,000.

Fortunately greed meant there was a need to come up with $1,000 which led to this situation being shared and recognized as a scam. Given the speed with which this spread throughout the homeless community any others who were or scheduled to be targets will be warned.

Too many see the most vulnerable, such as the homeless, of our fellow citizens as a problem to be ignored; or as disposable trash, or as prey.

People constantly moan about the state of society carrying on as if their actions have nothing to do with the society we have.

Society is built by the behaviour and choices of each and every citizen. All the fancy, self-satisfied words and labels people employ about themselves are meaningless given the vast difference between their words and their actions.

“The True Measure of Any Society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members” – Ghandi

We have the society we have chosen to build, the society we deserve.

Addiction, behaviour, Consider, Issues, Municipal, Politics

U, ME & ASS

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“Assumption is the mother of the screw-up” Angelo Donghia

Homelessness, addiction, mental healthcare and poverty are a complex, convoluted entanglement of interrelated issues. Like an onion there are multiple layers that need to be peeled away to get to the core.

The dominant barrier to making headway against homelessness, addiction, mental healthcare and poverty is the fact that the majority of people confuse their assumptions with knowledge, fact and reality.

Alfred Adler was a physician, psychotherapist, and the founder of Individual psychology and is often considered one of the most important figures in psychology history who stated:

“The human mind shows an urge to capture into fixed forms through unreal assumptions, that is, fictions, that which is chaotic, always in flux, and incomprehensible.”    

“that which is chaotic, always in flux, and incomprehensible”  is an accurate reflection of the reality one faces in tackling the muddle that is homelessness, addiction, mental healthcare and poverty.

People assume there is a solution when there isn’t; we can address the individual issues and challenges but there is no ‘solution’.

People assume the existence of one (or a few) ‘one size fits all’ approaches when the reality is that, while there are shared needs, each individuals journey to wellness is unique and your support system has to be flexible enough to deliver support reflecting an individual’s needs.

People assume that all that is needed is to go to treatment when the evidence is overwhelming that on its own our current system of treatment fails those who go to treatment. There is an interview available online where the interviewer is shocked when Dr. Gabor Mate speaks of 5% sober at the end of their first year as being excellent results – using our current approach.

People assume the current method is the approach we should be using. Our current system of treatment gets people sober and somewhat stable. The key to an individual’s success is what occurs after they leave treatment. The vast bulk of what an individual needs to do to achieve wellness remains to be done after they leave treatment and will require years of work. We know what community based supports and programs a person requires to achieve wellness; best practices elsewhere provide examples and guides as to how to dramatically increase a person’s probability of achieving wellness.

People assume dealing with addiction, mental health, poverty or those homeless is easy. I once had a chain smoker stand there puffing through cigarette after cigarette while explaining that all an addict needed to do was quit, never seeing the absurdity of the situation. Did you know that more people are addicted to nicotine after their first use than are addicted to heroin after first use?

People assume that people can be forced or motivated to find wellness. You can lock people up and deny them access to drugs [although drug smuggling and use in prison demonstrate the futility of trying to deal with medical issues outside of the medical system] but unless you plan to lock them up permanently…….. “please daddy, please dear if you loved me…” does not provide the will needed to slog along the path to wellness. The level of motivation needed to keep moving forward; even on the days the headwinds are pushing you backwards can only come from within, deep within, the individual.

“You can’t make assumptions when you’re dealing with health issues.”

Assumptions have mired us in the insanity of doing the same behaviour over and over as though somehow the results will be different next time.

The abundance of quotes available addressing the consequences of assumptions demonstrates the truth of Christopher Meloni’s observation “Too often, people find it easier to make assumptions and stick with what they believe……. it makes their job easier. The good people constantly search for something different.”

If we want to stop letting homelessness, addiction, mental healthcare and poverty ‘drive the bus’ and to take control of the bus we need to set aside assumptions [and what we want to be true] and focus on the realities.          

“If we worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true really is true, then there would be little hope for advance”              Orville Wright

Assume: to make an ass out of U and ME.

 

*****************************************

An Assumption Example from The James Commentary:

Stardate:        91041.31

Sol III Date:    13/06/08/22.02

On the matter of assumptions I offer for your consideration:

Thrifty:        practicing economy or economical management; frugal: a thrifty shopper

Thrift Store:   a retail store that sells secondhand goods at reduced prices.

We assume that shopping at thrift stores is frugal; after all they are thrift stores, how can a Thrift Store not be a frugal place to shop”

Caveat emptor: let the buyer beware:

Sometimes Thrift Stores are not very thrifty places to shop.

“The least questioned assumptions are often the most questionable.” 

Paul Broca

Consider, Issues, Municipal, Politics

Words of Apology…

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… are for those who speak them, not for those to whom the words are spoken.

The City of Abbotsford has issued an apology, assigned blame and exonerated the mayor, council and city manager in connection with the city’s use of chicken fecal matter against the homeless.

Is the City of Abbotsford apologizing for the policy that led, inevitably to this or some other scurrilous action against the homeless? Or is the City of Abbotsford apologizing for getting caught?

What reason is there for the homeless to think this apology and any promises attached to this apology are, or will be, any more meaningful that the apologies and broken promises made by mayors and councils to the homeless in the past?

The wolf was sick, he vowed a monk to be:

But when he got well, a wolf once more was he.

Walter Brower

The question is what will the behaviour of the City of Abbotsford towards the homeless be once the media is not watching and phoning the mayor about the City’s behaviour?

It is much easier to repent of sins that we have committed,

than to repent of those that we intend to commit.

Josh Billings

 The true crux of the matter of the City’s use of chicken fecal matter as a weapon against the homeless is not the deployment of chicken fecal matter but the City policies – the policies of the mayor, council and city manager vis–à–vis the homeless and homelessness – that culminated in the use of chicken fecal matter as a chemical weapon against the homeless.

Otherwise, while the City may not ever deploy chicken fecal matter against the homeless again, the policy that led to the use of chicken fecal matter now, will inevitably lead to future actions by or on behalf of mayor and council that are as or more reprehensible that the City’s current abuse of the homeless with chicken fecal matter.

Mayor and council have totally ignored the apology they owe the citizens of Abbotsford for the scurrilous actions against the homeless mayor and council have made them party too. There is also the matter of the total disregard for the health and welfare of all the citizens of Abbotsford that the city’s action in spreading this toxic material where it would be tracked throughout the City of Abbotsford.

Bad men are full of repentance. Aristotle

If you speak to the homeless themselves their concern is not with the chicken sh*t current behaviour that the mayor and council’s homeless policies have resulted in, but with the future policies of the mayor and council with regard to the homeless and the future actions by city staff towards – or against – the homeless that mayor and council’s policies bring about.

In regard to the City’s current media driven apology, the homeless will tell you that they are in agreement with Tryon Edwards:

Right actions in the future are the best apologies for bad actions in the past.

Consider, Issues, Municipal, This is so Stupid

This Stinks.

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The most recent steps on the path to this wickedness began about six days ago when City employees, as part of the city’s ongoing war on the homeless, stopped by a local homeless camp. The city truck brought along to cart off any belongings the homeless failed to rescue, contained plunder from prior stops at other homeless camps.

I was working on the words to speak, once again, about the utter pointlessness of trying to cleanse the city of the homeless when the city has failed [or been successful in denying] to provide a viable housing alternative to camping for the homeless, when the city employees and truck returned the next day.

And the next day, and the next day, and the next day………….

After being driven from spot to spot around Abbotsford like nuisance animals [think the rabbits at the University of Victoria] several Canadian citizens who unfortunately have found themselves members of Abbotsford’s homeless community, had come together at a common location.. Being together provided the ability to have someone to guard their belongings and prevent the city hitting the camp when no one was there to rescue belongings.

The location also provided access to people who would help maximize the belongings rescued from the city and has a sanctuary nearby to which any belongings rescued could be taken.

Hence the need for the city to return day after day after day after day………….

I decided not to write anything until revelation of the city’s next tactic, once frustration with the failure of the homeless to disappear drove the city to escalate to a new level.

Today [Tuesday June 4, 2013] the city’s frustration reached the exploding point .

 

I have, and have had, differences with the decisions of Abbotsford’s mayor and council and the consequences the decisions have had, the burdens they  imposed, on Abbotsford’s taxpayers.

Even so I would never have expected, would never have anticipated, Abbotsford’s mayor and council sinking so low.

The City did not sow the earth with salt. Instead the city sowed this patch of earth with a covering of chicken waste – AKA chicken shit.

What is the next step? Capturing the homeless and having the Abbotsford Police Department transport and release them in some non-Abbotsford locality?

And when the homeless find their way home, and Abbotsford is their home, will council decide to follow the University of Victoria’s example and cull them?

I am not sure that either option would necessarily be worse than the contempt, the depraved indifference, of using chicken shit as a weapon, a chemical weapon I suppose, against the homeless?

I know the spring of 2004 was nearly a decade ago but did nobody remember the need for a cull of 1.3 million birds on 42 infected properties.

Speaking of culls, why did nobody reconsider the use of chicken shit as a weapon in light of the 27.5% death rate in China’s current outbreak of bird flu? A flu transmitted to China’s citizens from China’s chickens?

I wonder how Fraser Health’s local Health Protection Office and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency will view Abbotsford’s  deployment of their chicken shit weapon?

Of more concern is the consequences of the city ignoring the fact that this noxious material was spread across [on] a major thoroughfare used by the homeless. As a consequence this material has been being tracked throughout Abbotsford since it was spread.

Given the ethical bankruptcy of this action and the callous disregard of negative health consequences the bylaw officers, bylaw manager and city manager have achieved a level of incompetence that demands their replacement.

With the need for a by-election to fill Simon Gibson’s council spot, it will not cost any more to replace the members of council responsible for this twisted action.

You ignore reality and keep acting without though for a long enough period of time and simple mathematical probabilities mean it is only a matter of time until you do something truly asinine.

Addiction, behaviour, Consider, Municipal

War? Terrorism?

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I stopped in for a coffee, but as soon as I stepped through the door I felt compelled to play Bingo. So I grabbed a pair of cards and joined in the next game.

Which I won.

Looking over the prizes a new tarp (for camping) spoke up and said it was what I was suppose to choose – so I did.

Sitting back down I found I had no interest in more Bingo so I started writing about the inadequacy of ‘April Fool’s Day’ and the overwhelming need for a ‘Stupid’s Day’.

When the time for smoke break arrived I asked if anyone had a need for the tarp. “Yes” said a voice from the doorway behind me.

While the gentleman was eating his daily meal (lunch at the Meal Center) the city had stopped by and, in accordance with their current scorched earth homeless policy, had misappropriated his and another gentleman’s belongings into a city garbage truck.

 “ASDAC [Abbotsford Social Development Advisory Committee] was created in 2006 through an extensive consultation with community and social agencies……”

The question is not simply When or How was ASDAC created but WHY?

In the two years it took Abbotsford City Council to go from council’s decision to create ASDAC to ASDAC’s first meeting council’s reply to Abbotsford’s increasing homelessness, the need for affordable housing and associated social issues was “We cannot do anything until ASDAC tells us what to do”. But ASDAC doesn’t exist! “We cannot do anything until ASDAC exists and tells us what to do”. That irrational argument bought city council two years of doing nothing.

In the case of homelessness that irrational argument bought city council two years to continue their irrational and pointless policy of chasing the homeless from spot to spot around Abbotsford – until the homeless being pursued by the city, arrived back at the spot the pursuit had begun.

Since even politicians can only drag their feet so long, eventually a point where council need to give [at least] the impression of taking action was reached, council appointed citizens to ASDAC and ASDAC was born.

Instead of fading away after ASDAC was finally formed, the advocates seeking support and housing for the homeless continued to meet and pursue support and housing funding from the provincial and federal governments and to raise the level of awareness in the community on issues related homelessness.

When it was decided ASDAC needed a housing subcommittee those who were pursuing housing were invited to attend sub-committee meetings. Which often featured city council’s representative explaining why it was not possible to do this…. or that…… or much of anything beyond talking.

Two items stick out. Well, three…….OK, let’s make it four and cut it off there.

The first was city council loudly blowing their own horn, proclaiming how wondrous the city’s misnamed affordable housing project, Harmony Flex Housing, was. The project was an 11 townhouse development using city property to reduce the cost of “homeownership units” to lower the down payment and income needed to qualify for a mortgage.

Misnamed because this project was about homeownership for people already housed and not providing affordable housing for the homeless or those at risk of becoming homeless.

City property, help and timeliness as opposed to city hall’s usual foot dragging and obstacle raising behaviours, effort, support, action….. spent on homeownership not affordable housing.

The second item that sticks out was the call by BC Housing for proposals to build a men’s housing project and a women’s housing project with the province putting up $22 million ($11 million for each project) in capital funding for the construction of the buildings and an additional $650,000 (adjusted for inflation) to fund programs to provide the needed supports to aid the residents in getting their lives together.

City council’s actions resulted in the loss of the $11 million capital funding and $650,000 per year for the men’s housing – and gave every evidence of blowing the woman’s project. However the prospect of having to explain why city council chased away $22 million in provincial capital contributions apparently provided sufficient motivation for council to rezone the property for the women’s project.

Council insisted that the $11 million for the men’s project was only ‘delayed’ – at this point in time apparently indefinitely delayed.

It was very hard work by several of the self invited members of the ASDAC housing subcommittee that brought about the province’s call for proposals to access the $22 million in capital funding and addition funding for support programs. Following the success in obtaining $22 million of provincial funding council decided the housing subcommittee was unnecessary.

The third item that sticks out was city councils favourite excuse for failing to address homeless issues and for why ideas, proposals and suggestions from the housing subcommittee vis-à-vis homelessness and housing could not be done – poverty.

Yet the city had $1.5+ million for a garden; $100 million to build an arena for a professional hockey team to play in; $ millions for yearly subsidies to the owners of the team; $ millions more in yearly subsidies for operating expenses to operate the hockey rink for said profession hockey team and its ownership; and $17.5 million for the Y to create competition for city facilities, thereby reducing the revenue of city facilities and creating the need for additional subsidies by taxpayers.

Which brings us to item 4 – the land the old Abbotsford Hospital was built on, now sitting there empty.

When the new hospital opened using the old hospital was advocated by numerous groups who stated the old hospital would provide a variety of facilities with which to address a number of homeless, substance use, mental health and the growing issues related to poverty.

When Fraser Health’s red herring – asbestos – did not appear to be carrying the day (not surprising since, as anyone who watches Mike Holmes is aware, asbestos left undisturbed is not a problem. Asbestos becomes a problem when you disturb it by……tearing down a building containing asbestos) Fraser Health pledged that significant affordable housing would be part of redevelopment of the site.

What has happened to the affordable housing promised, solemnly sworn to, by Fraser Health? Why did Abbotsford City Council sign off on Fraser Health’s failure to provide the promised affordable housing by committing to provide a $17.5 million subsidy to the YMCA?

Homelessinabbotsford.com was created in 2005 to share, to communicate, the insights, experience and knowledge gained as a result of experiencing homelessness as a consequence of decades of slowly intensifying mental illness; to advocate for rational responses, actions and behaviours to the issues arising from homelessness, mental illness, substance use and poverty; and to share the outrage my accountant’s soul (having become a Chartered Accountant in 1981) at the waste, the pointless waste, in continuously doing the same thing over and over and over – hoping for a different result.  

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”

George Santayana (Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás)

One of the first, if not the first, items the housing subcommittee of the Abbotsford Social Development Advisory Committee advised city council was that chasing the homeless, in particular the hard to house homeless, from camp to camp around the city time after time was pointless when there was no housing available to house them.

In response to the ASDAC housing sub-committee on this it was decided that city staff would take the belongings of the homeless to the works yard and the homeless would be able to make arrangements to pick up their property or where it would be delivered to.

Of course the homeless, having no place to go would use their property to set up a new camp in another location. Which at some point would be found, the belongings of the homeless taken to the works yard, the belongings would then be picked up or delivered to the person who they belonged to who would……….use the belongings to set an new camp. Which at some point would be found, the belongings of the homeless taken to the works yard, the belongings would then be picked up or delivered to the person who they belonged to who would……….use the belongings to set an new camp. Which at some point would be found, the belongings of the homeless taken to the works yard, the belongings would then be picked up or delivered to the person who they belonged to who would……….use the belongings to set an new camp. Which at some point would be found, the belongings of the homeless taken to the works yard, the belongings would then be picked up or delivered to the person who they belonged to who would……….use the belongings to set an new camp. Which at some point would be found, the belongings of the homeless taken to the works yard, the belongings would then be picked up or delivered to the person who they belonged to who would……….use the belongings to set an new camp. Which at some point would be found, the belongings of the homeless taken to the works yard, the belongings would then be picked up or delivered to the person who they belonged to who would……….use the belongings to set an new camp. Which at some point would be found, the belongings of the homeless taken to the works yard, the belongings would then be picked up or delivered to the person who they belonged to who would……….use the belongings to set an new camp. And so on and so on and so one………………………………………..

A process that would make a fair definition of frustrating (in addition to pointless); it is hardly surprising that over time frustration has caused this purpose to deteriorate into the current policy of tossing the belongings into a City of Abbotsford garbage truck.

Under the old policy one of the homeless was able to go to the works yard and rescue his cat from where it had been trapped in his tent by city staff. These days the cat would have run out of lives. Sadly, a cat getting killed as a result of the City’s new scorched earth policy would do more to end the current garbage truck policy than the fact this policy will at some point result in the death of a person. Albeit the person is a member of the homeless community.

November 25, 2013

At least until he can find another patch of bush to pitch his tent in – until he is rousted from the new location…… and so on, and so on, and so on.

**Shake my head** The question is where else do they go? They are homeless with no other choices.

Reality is that the homeless do not just cease to exist when displaced they just have to find another spot, then another … and so on, and so on, and so on. You can displace and move them along all you want, but until you begin to deal with the underlying causes and they have housing of some form they are going to be an Unsightly Sight.

February 10, 2013

….chasing the homeless from place to place around the city until they were back to where the chase had begun and then beginning the chase again was pointless when there was a lack of viable housing options for the homeless.

“The City cleaned out my camp and left me with nothing to survive with but what I am wearing.”…silence…“James — Why would the City want to cut a man’s chances of survival so low?”

On my way to lunch on May 4, 2013 I spotted a tent. I commented to a friend who is homeless that  about whether someone should warn the owner of the tent about the city and their garbage truck. “It is Saturday and the office is closed” was the reply evidencing the homeless adapting to the reality of the city’s behaviour.

If only the city would be so open to adapting behaviour to reality. Until action is taken to provide housing or other viable options the homeless have no option but to go back to the streets

War:                noun 5. active hostility or contention; conflict;

Terrorism:      noun 1. the use of threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes. 2. The state of fear and submission produced by terrorization.