Category Archives: Homeless

Consider, Issues, Provincial

Healthcare

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Watching Adrian Dix (Health Critic), Carole James and the NDP performance on the issue of Healthcare is a clear illustration of why, despite the overwhelming baggage carried by Gordon Campbell and the Liberals, the NDP were rejected in the last election; managing to lose an election that was theirs to lose.

In scrambling to remain leader of the NDP Carole James has abandoned issue based policy that focuses on the needs of the province, its citizens and solutions, to pursue a course that is based on: Can we score political points here? Will this bump up NDP popularity and push down Liberal popularity? Will this serve my desperate need to remain leader of the NDP?

Healthcare is a serious issue with no easy answers and a leader, as opposed to a politician, would be focused on finding workable solutions to the issue – not scoring political points.

Watching Adrian Dix’s performance night after night one is left to conclude that the NDP either do not understand the realities and implications of this problem or else have no clue as to how to go about addressing this looming crisis, other than desperately throwing money at it – causing a domino effect and triggering crises across all provincial programs and their budgets.

Gordon Campbell and the Liberals deserve to be taken to task (have their asses solidly kicked – repeatedly until they act responsibly) over their response to the growing problems in healthcare. Indeed the appointment of Kevin Falcon as Minister of Health suggests Campbell and the Liberals are going to stay the course and simply manage how fast the healthcare system moves from growing problems into crisis. Campbell and his Liberals have shown no ideas, leadership or intention of acting to avoid a healthcare crisis with its serious repercussions for citizen’s access to healthcare and citizens pocketbooks.

No doubt the need for funds to feed healthcare’s voracious appetite for funds helped persuade the Liberals to agree to the HST and the billion plus dollars this agreement will put in BC’s treasury.

Faced with serious challenges to our healthcare system, faced with the serious repercussions such a crisis would have on all aspects of government and government programs neither party leader nor their party caucuses or the parties themselves demonstrate an interest or ability to find workable solutions that will reform the current healthcare system from it’s current Rube Goldberg machine status to an efficient deliverer of services. The healthcare system in BC has become a complex, convoluted bureaucracy whose hallmark is inefficiency.

Aside: Rube Goldberg is best known for a series of popular cartoons he created depicting complex devices that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways. Indeed Goldberg is the inspiration for various international competitions, known as Rube Goldberg contests, which challenge participants to make a complex machine to perform a simple task. Government has turned the healthcare system into such a needlessly indirect, convoluted system.

The “we want healthcare, we want it now, we want it for free and we do not want to be bothered to have to think, make choices or make decisions’ current attitude of citizens has led to the current (escalating) problems that threaten to topple the unsustainable house of cards we have built or allowed to be built by government to deliver healthcare.

Citizens have to become engaged in making decisions, seeking solutions and making choices, even if hard, or risk having our currently unsustainable healthcare system collapse.

An examination of past and current budgets shows unsustainable increases in healthcare costs. If the trend continues it will not be long, even with the Liberals delaying tactics, before healthcare will need 100% of the provincial budget.

Remember that the Liberal government increased the healthcare budget by $500,000,000.00 and that this huge increase was still not sufficient to feed the voracious appetite for the increasing large sums money that the healthcare delivery system has developed.

$500,000,000.00 and the system demand hundreds of millions more dollars. What would the demands of the health care system been if the Liberal government had not imposed the $500,000,000.00 cap on increased funding?
A $1,000,000,000.00? More that a billion dollars?

The Carole James/Adrian Dix/NDP plan of throwing money at healthcare simply moves the day of reckoning for healthcare up a few years as opposed to when the day of reckoning will come under the Liberals.

With a healthcare system needing yearly increases in the neighbourhood of $1,000,000,000.00, any BC provincial government faces some combination of reducing monies to other programs and tax increases to feed the insatiable appetite healthcare has developed for funding. Even with cuts and tax increases healthcare will reach 100% of the budget in at most a decade.

Just to hold the funding for all programs other than healthcare at this years levels the province would have to raise taxes every year by the amount of the increase needed to fund healthcare. Freezing programs at current levels is the same as cutting funding to these programs every year their funding remains frozen.

Under the course of action being followed or proposed by either the Liberals or NDP the province will, in a few short years, reach the point where 100% of the budget will be spent on healthcare and all other programs will get $0 funding.

Examination of the financial and operating realities of BC’s budget and healthcare system leads to a troublesome conclusion:

Indisputably, the way we currently deliver healthcare in BC is unsustainable.

While denial may seem a more comfortable way to deal with this reality, it makes no sense to continue to ignore the ever growing monster healthcare has become until healthcare/other programs/the budget/the province collapse under the appetite for funding that healthcare currently has.

The intelligent, the rational approach, indeed the only way to avoid losing healthcare, is to address healthcare’s many issues; continuing to pretending everything is and will be fine is a path that will lead only to disaster.

A disaster it is possible to avoid if we choose to act now.

Look around; there are many healthcare systems around the world that manage to deliver healthcare effectively without wiping out all other programs or bankrupting governments and citizens.

To achieve delivery of healthcare to the citizens of BC effectively and affordably BC’s healthcare system is going to require restructuring, drastic restructuring. To accomplish this will require ‘thinking outside the box’, something politicians are loathe to do because of the risks involved.

Politicians love being able to exert control and eliminate surprises. How do you exert control and eliminate surprises in a healthcare system? You build a many layered bureaucracy as BC has done with regionalization.

Bureaucracies are about exerting control and eliminating surprises. Since these are major wants of our current politicians it is not surprising that government become a series of isolated, convoluted bureaucracies that compete, not cooperate, among the differing Ministries.

Unfortunately, while politicians and bureaucrats love bureaucracies, a bureaucracy by its very nature is inefficient, and to varying degrees ineffective.
The more complexity involved in the system to be controlled the more bureaucracy that is required to exert that control.

Bureaucracies, because of their goals of control and no surprises, resist/oppose change and innovation.

Newtonian physics tells us that inertia acts to keep an object at rest at rest. It further states that the more mass (the larger) an object has the more inertia the object has.

Consider the complexity of the task of delivering healthcare to the citizens of BC. As a result of that complexity, exerting control and preventing surprises requires a large bureaucracy that most closely resembles a labyrinth. This results in a healthcare system whose inertia is such that the system is in effect an immovable object when it comes to changes.

This large labyrinth of a bureaucracy not only resists and/or defeats the change and innovation necessary for the healthcare system to avoid ongoing rounds of service cuts and increased waiting times; it devours far to large of a portion of the healthcare budget and inflicts wasteful costs on the portion of the healthcare system that delivers actual hands-on healthcare. Thus much of the healthcare budget is spent on bureaucracy and bureaucrats rather than delivery of actual, hands-on healthcare.

This same money devouring bureaucracy prevents the innovation and change that must take place in order to avoid continuing rounds of cuts to healthcare services year after year or a budget crisis triggered by healthcare’s need for an ever increasing percentage of the BC budget – either of which will result in a healthcare crisis in BC.

The time has come where, in order to avoid a medical crisis for the system and the patients it is charged with providing healthcare to, healthcare in BC requires acute care.

What course do we need to pursue in order to save the healthcare system?

Keep in mind that the healthcare system comprises two components – the component charged with controlling the healthcare system and the component that is involved with the actual delivery of healthcare to citizens (i.e. your local hospital, clinic or doctor).

We have to deal with the bureaucracy that has grown so weighty it is crushing those components of the system that deliver the healthcare services.

How do we reform the bureaucracy?

Remember we are speaking of a large, complex bureaucracy that has evolved into a perplexing labyrinth with inertia such that the bureaucracy resists change, any change.

Part of Fraser Health recently was putting the finishing touches on a new ten year strategic plan since it had been 10 years since the last strategic plan was prepared.

And what happened with the earlier strategic plan? Nothing. Why? Because there was no funding to implement it.

What is the significance? Strategic planning is an organization’s process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy. In other words it is a plan of what you are going to do and how you are going to do it.

Even in a half-assed managed system there is no need of special funding to implement the strategic plan. This is what you are going to do, this is how you are going to do it and you do it. The healthcare bureaucracy is so set on course, so resistant to change that even if it has a change it wants to make – it cannot make it unless a new portion is added to the bureaucracy to try to change behaviour.

In instances where funding was budgeted to make changes, those changes literally take years just to begin to implement. Since all the changes, including ones set in motion more than a decade ago, I am aware of are still, at least to some degree, in process I cannot judge whether they will ever be fully implemented.

Based on my business and management experience I doubt that any plan, no matter how brilliant, would be able to change the current healthcare bureaucracy into the lean, efficient, effective and adaptable management system needed.

Moreover, the government is risk adverse and a control freak and so will support the status quo until crisis forces changes – or citizens do.

Does this mean healthcare is doomed?

That depends entirely on the citizens of BC. If they continue to want and look for simple, easy and neat solutions; if they continue to prefer the platitudes and promises of the Liberals or the nonsensical braying of the NDP; we are going to have a healthcare crisis. A crisis that will trigger a budget crisis and crises in all provincial programs as the funding demands of healthcare drain money from all other programs.

If citizens recognize that we face a looming healthcare crisis, that we need to act to avoid this crisis, that the outcomes of actions that need to be taken are not going to be simple, easy and neat, can reach a consensus on the form change needs to take and demand/force the politicians to act we will need to slog our way through but can avoid the collapse of healthcare.

Caveat: There is another path to avoiding a crisis that needs to be put on the table. Taxes could be raised. Taxes would need to be raised by the amount needed to cover the increased funding needed by the healthcare system – at a minimum.

Should citizens not want to face large yearly tax increases to fund healthcare they need to get involved in the discussion of what course of action to follow, in coming up with ideas (the best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas. Linus Pauling) of what changes to make and how, and be involved where possible (hospital boards) in the new healthcare management system.

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex.
It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction. E. F. Schumacher

If we need to reduce the bureaucratic component but cannot reform the bureaucracy what needs to be done?

Surgery, the cancerous growth must be excised to save the patient, healthcare.

We want to achieve a management system that functions in the manner of a matrix system where there is one layer of management above those facets of the healthcare system that deliver, hands-on healthcare to people – and only one layer. Decision making needs to be pushed as close to the front lines as possible. Management needs to have citizens involved in the system for their input and so that citizens can understand challenges facing the healthcare system and help form the judgement of the best decision to make.

We need to encourage experimentation with best practices from other healthcare systems. If it is decided in different segments of the system to try different best practices – management should accommodate this and facilitate the evaluation and comparison or the results. If they both work then those who will have to implement and work with the best practice need to be allowed to choose the practice they feel would work best in their situation.

Bottom up decision making of what is needed and how things should run.

Flexible, adaptable, embracing of change – a team focused on accomplishing what needs to be done.

Healthcare in BC needs the type of management system the politicians will abhor because, in focusing on the needs of patients and the effective and efficient delivery of services to meet those needs, top down control, lack of change, an absence of ‘situations’ will not be a goal or likely outcome of such a system.

I concede that putting this change in place and managing the situation will not be neat and easy. It will not be as simple in implementation as it is in concept. It will be challenging and interesting.
Consider:

There is no way to play it safe given the current and future circumstances governing healthcare and the budget.

Necessity of action takes away the fear of the act, and makes bold resolution the favourite of fortune. Francis Quarles

Given the importance of healthcare, the complexity of the situation and short (a few years) timeframe we need to act boldly.

In difficult and desperate cases, the boldest counsels are the safest. Titus Livius

Given the need for bold action in cutting away the current bureaucracy, it will not be possible to anticipate and put in place all the people and systems. The people and the system will need to evolve to become the effective and efficient system required.

Sometimes you have to take the leap, and build your wings on the way down. Kobi Yamada

We’ve got serious problems, and we need serious people not our current crop of politicians whose interest is in managing the problems so that they get re-elected, not in solving our problems or providing true leadership.

Issues, Municipal, Poverty, Snafu

Preying on the Poor and Homeless

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Reprehensible, despicable, abominable, anathema?

Anathema, best begins to reflect the contempt I hold those who prey upon the poor in; a behaviour that is unfortunately neither unusual nor that rare in Abbotsford.

I spent time on July 31 paying rent and other bills which left me broke but secure for another month. I could do this because the monies due me were in fact deposited in my bank account.

I spent time on August 1 explaining to a gentleman what the rules were and what he needed to do to get a bed in the shelter that evening. He found himself in need of a bed at the emergency shelter because monies due him had not been paid. Sadly he was not the only person finding themselves in a bad situation because this “employer” had not paid people the wages they were due.

One of the other people who were on this job had been at the shelter when this “employment opportunity” came his way. Had been at the shelter because, with the long hours they were working, he had not returned to the shelter in order not to lose this “job” and the opportunity it represented to earn enough money to be able to afford an apartment and to start to get his feet back under him.

In doing the demolition on what had been the Grand Theatre in the Clearbrook Town Square Mall on South Fraser Way in Abbotsford they had been labouring hard 14+ hours a day to be done by the deadline.

These were not the only two victims who had the rug pulled out from under them once the job was finished. The friend I was sitting beside on August 1 had been telling me about others who had also been left owed a thousand plus dollars of wages for this job. After the gentleman had left my friend gave me a ‘what are you going to do about this’ look – a look he is very good at.

The people hired to do the hard labour during the demolition were homeless or poor in need of the money for rent so as not to join the growing ranks of homeless on Abbotsford’s streets or to get off the streets into housing.

They are each owed $1,000+ apiece and have been told there is no money to pay them what is owed, that they may get 25% of what they earned. Often in these circumstances they get nothing. Or only get the small “advances” given by the “kind, understanding” boss to keep them coming back and working hard.

To quote Samuel Butler: Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
This kind of behaviour is why temporary labour agencies have long lines of workers at their doors – better to get minimum wage and actually be paid than to “earn” double the minimum wage but never see a cent.

The poor and homeless are seen as powerless victims who, lacking power, are helpless to do anything about collecting the monies owed them. Prey to be exploited to line someone’s pockets.

In this instance, even if they thought about filing a lien, could they fill out the paperwork and then file their class action suit in small claims court?

Except … for a certain ‘what are you going to do about this’ look. I told my friend to pass along the fact that we can, should, will file a lien to get their money. That I can and will help them fill out the paperwork and file their lien to get the monies they earned through hard work if necessary.

If city council feels the need to pull business licenses or deny the ability to do business in Abbotsford they should apply this principle to those who prey on the poor and powerless, not just to those who annoy the powerful. They should be telling those who seek wealth by preying on the poor that this is not an acceptable business practice in Abbotsford.

Hmmm, Poverty, Thanks

Cavalier’s Saga rolls on

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The Saga continues ……

Recapping: four trips to the insurance brokers to get the paperwork done; multiple jumpstarts to get it home; battery won’t hold charge; reconditioned battery not properly conditioned, strain burns out alternator leaving me stranded on Lakeview Terrace with a car that is not going anywhere under its own power without an alternator and a battery that will destroy any new (to the car) alternator; trade the VW I lived in while homeless for a used alternator and its installation, loaned a battery to get home, hooked up re-conditioned battery to trickle charger to charge and condition it, left 5 days because I was to nervous/wary/scared to drive car before that …

… and on the fifth day started the engine and drove to sign over ownership of the VW. Before stepping into the Insurance Brokers the battery was tested and proved to be fully charged, staying cool when charging and the alternator/battery was charging fine.

Driving away … the engine started overheating. The following day it overheated on the way to lunch. Discussing this state of affairs with my things mechanical advisory board over lunch I was advised to purchase and install a new thermostat. Returning home and switching to the dependable Duster, I drove to get the new thermostat for the Cavalier.

The next day I drove down to meet with the person who offered to install the thermostat if I bought and brought a thermostat to lunch Saturday. Unfortunately they were unable to be there to change the thermostat. Fortune did provide someone who could install the thermostat – after they finished work. Patience … Patience … Patience … and the old thermostat comes out in two pieces to be replaced with a shiny new thermostat.

With the new thermostat installed I drive away filled with trepidation, Which proved unfounded as the engine heated up properly and remained cool.

With the engine running at the proper temperature and my attention no longer focused so singularly on the engine temperature my senses were open to notice that there was hesitancy in the engine and its response, like a runner short of energy or oxygen.

Consulting with my advisors I secured new sparkplugs but when we went to install them it developed that my sparkplug tool lacked the depth of reach to change the Cavaliers sparkplugs. Once I had followed the advice on where to obtain appropriate tools to do the job, at an good (affordable to me price), we pulled the first plug. When that plug, and a subsequent sparkplug checked just to be sure, proved in very good shape I was off to return the plugs and secure air and fuel filters.

When we went to install the air filter it proved to be the wrong size. A return trip to Lordco revealed that the computer showed that air filter as the correct air filter for the Cavalier. Stymied, the person helping me was forced to resort to desperate measures – the actual paper catalogue. The printed catalogue showed the same air filter as in the computer … and a second air filter that proved to be the correct size. Books are such useful and entertaining friends to have around – you should take a book out for a read today.

The new air filter was installed, replacing the completely black old filter.

Then it was on to the fuel filter which is located under the car between the fuel tank and the rear axle. Fortunately I had looked up the location on the internet; unfortunately it was where it was.

With the location and design it is impossible not to have a volume of gasoline spill out when changing the filter. Indeed the gentleman who shimmied under the car to change the filter had to take a fresh air break before finishing the installation.

When we drained the remaining fuel out of the old filter the gas was dirty; suggesting that it might be a good idea at some future point to drop the gas tank and drain/clean it.

Driving away, the engine was running better. So much better that it blew the (rusted?) baffles in the muffler; leaving a muffler that looks fine to an exterior inspection but that, when shaken, rattles to reveal its lack of interior soundness.

Primal Scream; hang and slowly shake head. Take a very deep breath hold it and slowly release it – repeat as needed to reach a state of calmness.

I found myself reluctant to replace the muffler, wondering once the muffler was fixed what next? Hey – it’s not paranoia if the Universe is really out to get you.

However one of the things they do not warn you about when they encourage you to seek mental health recovery and wellness is that it severely compromises your ability to procrastinate. I use to be able to procrastinate with the best of procrastinators. But now healthy ways of thinking do not permit me to procrastinate until something simple turns into a crisis of mountainous proportions.

Being reluctant to discover what would (will) happen after the muffler was repaired I decided to take care of a small repair that should have no consequences. So I headed off to the auto wreckers to find a replacement licence plate holder since the one on the Cavalier was broken, leaving the front plate held by a single screw and flapping in the wind.

Better to take care of the matter before I paid the procrastination price on this by getting a ticket and fine for driving without a front licence plate.

It developed that the Universe was not about to let me procrastinate on the muffler front. At the wreckers I ran into a friend who, having heard me drive in, said he could get me a new muffler cheap. He made a phone call and I was off and procured a new muffler for $40. How could I say no to a new muffler at that price? I may be crazy, but I’m not stupid.

With the new muffler in the trunk I headed off to the library. All the way to the library the muffler was whispering to me – ‘I’m here in the trunk all shiny and new, anxious to be installed and muffle ….’ It kept up its whispering campaign while I was in the library; reaching the point I was forced, for the sake of my sanity and peace-and-quiet in my head, to e-mail a friend with a floor jack asking whether he would be able to install the muffler.

Shortly after I arrived home I received an e-mail suggesting a time the next morning which I accepted with alacrity.

I arrived at his place the next morning, backed in, blocked the front tire; he jacked up the rear end, set up the support brace and proceeded to remove the old muffler. Using his van I made a quick trip to get two new clamps to attach the muffler and Voila! it was done.

A piece of advice: you want to make sure that among your friends who know their way around cars that at least one of them has a set of tools (air/impact wrenches, SawAll, hand held grinder, sockets and wrenches up the wazoo, etc…) that is the envy of every guy.

After a cold pop and conversation on what is going on with homelessness around Abbotsford it was time to fire up the Cavalier. After which I drove quietly home.

As I finish typing this the Cavalier sits in front while I sit here hoping that repairing the muffler does not cause some other domino to fall; that the Universe is through testing or playing with me vis-à-vis the Cavalier and that this is the end of the Saga of Repairs and Headaches.

Afterword: People tend to give me strange looks when I say that I do not regret my journey through mental illness. But while this journey may have replaced the richness of my bank account with poverty, it has also replaced my poverty of friends with a richness of friends and people in my life who will lend me a helping hand when a ‘Never look a gift horse in the mouth’ gift horse turns out to be a bit of a Trojan horse

Post Script: To those who so generosity lent a hand a sincere Thank You.

Homeless, Issues, Municipal

My Integrity, Emerson Housing and Mayor Peary’s Statements

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Writing a response (see below) to Mayor Peary’s recent statements concerning the status of the $33,750,000 (capital plus operational funding) the province had put on the table to develop affordable housing on Emerson left me feeling unsettled.

As a practitioner of good mental hygiene this unsettled feeling meant I needed to take some quiet/meditation time to gain understanding of what it was about my response that was unsettling my inner balance, my inner peace.

I determined that taking the convenient, safe, easy way out on the status of the Emerson project, by appearing to accept the Mayor’s statements about the project as if I had no doubts as to their accuracy, my response lacked integrity.

No wonder I felt unsettled – when you feel very deeply about something, it’s not possible to sacrifice your integrity about that. Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn’t blow in the wind or change with the weather.

Being an advocate for affordable housing means I have been following the fate of the Emerson project and its status.

A variety of sources have told and continue to tell me that the Emerson project was/is dead despite Council’s claims otherwise; that the actions of Abbotsford’s City Council had resulted in the loss of the $33,750,000 funding for this project. One such source was BC Housing itself which stated that BC Housing had only one project in Abbotsford – the housing project on Clearbrook.

I have no doubt that Mayor and Council will insist that this is not the case, that they have not ‘blown off’ the province and its $33,750,000. Even by Council’s standards, walking away from $33,750,000 is intolerably wasteful and costly behaviour.

Making Council’s desire to avoid responsibility for the multi-million dollar cost of their actions and the Mayor’s recent statements at least understandable, even if unacceptable.

How many times have taxpayers been told that Council cannot provide any solid information, for a variety of reasons, when Council wants to avoid providing facts and figures in response to inquiries from taxpayers?

One can state/imply that $millions$ will need to be taken out of capital reserves to purchase the property and hope that taxpayers scream against this so it can be claimed the $33,750,000 project was rejected by taxpayers, that Council was only listening to taxpayers in losing these millions.

As a point of fact: have not all the cost overruns of Plan A reduced the capital reserves to Zero?

Or one could state one had chosen a location “further away from residential areas and would not generate “a public backlash.”” and when such a site, as must any site meeting such conditions, fails to meet the location criteria set out by BC Housing as part of the original agreement between the City and BC Housing for funding the two affordable housing projects – well then it is BC Housing’s fault.

I expect that my words on the status/fate of the Emerson affordable housing project to be … displeasing.

It was the potential for conflict to arise from the difference between the Mayor’s recent statements on this matter and information I have received on this matter, which tempted me to respond to the Mayor’s statements taking the easy path by ignoring the differences.

A betrayal of those in need of affordable housing – and an advocate; a betrayal of my own integrity; little wonder my actions unsettled me internally.

You are in integrity when the life you are living on the outside matches who you are on the inside. Alan Cohen

Sigh, as Admiral David Farragut is purported to have said: “Damn the Torpedoes! Full Speed Ahead.”

Reading Mayor Peary’s comments concerning the province’s second offer of $11 million plus $650,000 per year for support services for affordable housing brought to mind George Orwell’s 1984 and ‘Newspeak’.

“The snag … is that the city would have to buy the land.” That is not the snag. The snag to addressing the overwhelming, even desperate need in Abbotsford for affordable housing was and is that City Council has demonstrated neither the desire nor the will to address this pressing issue.

Indeed, the City’s behaviour on this issue supports the observation of a homeless friend that City Council must be happy with the social and criminal problems that arise from a lack of affordable housing since they have failed to act in a manner to effectively address the need for affordable housing.

It is Council’s lack of will that has Abbotsford facing purchasing land or blowing off the $11 million and $650,000 a year for 35 years of support services.

“The Emerson proposal collapsed … amid strong public opposition.” The Emerson proposal collapsed because Council lacks the desire and the Will to begin dealing with affordable housing issues. It was this lack of desire and Will that had Council fold when faced with fear mongering and screaming NIMBYism.

Since nobody knew or knows who was proposing to develop the Emerson site and what they proposed for the Emerson site there was no rational reason for the opposition. In turning tail and running council behaved as irrationally as the panicky public.

Personally I would be very interested in knowing who and what proposal was chosen for the Emerson site by BC Housing in conjunction with the City? Exactly what housing was lost as a result of Council’s lack of intestinal fortitude?

It is exactly this kind of lack of planning and acting for the future that led to “… the city owns very little vacant land suitable … the result of a decision made by [previous] council … in which the city sold much of its acreage to private developers in order to collect tax dollars.”

Rather than paying for its spending as it should have through tax revenue Council unwisely chose to sell assets to enable its addiction to spending beyond its income.

Note: selling off land assets is not collecting tax dollars.

I suppose nobody should be surprised that Abbotsford is mired in debt, financial woes and social problems when Mayor and Council think along the lines of “… that would likely make more sense than turning down $11 million.”

As if turning down $11 million made any sense. Especially in light of the fact that it is Council’s lack of Will and rational behaviour that makes it necessary to purchase land at all.

Note: it was/is not just $11 million but $11 million plus $22, 750,000 ($650,000 for 35 years) for a total of $33,750,000.

Consider, Issues, Poverty

I am so poor …

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… I can’t even afford a free automobile.

I found myself dealing with this twisted irony of poverty: that for those living in poverty the cost of a free car is prohibitively expensive.

Now one would think that ‘free car’ and ‘prohibitively expensive’ are mutually exclusive phrases. Not so for those who are living in poverty, or the poorest in our wealthy society.

When fate offered me a new to me car that is younger and in better shape than my 1987 Duster it was this reality I found myself facing.

For me and others a car is a wellness tool that is integral to recovery by allowing us to be involved in programs, community, part-time employment etc as we seek wellness and to become self-sufficient. It is having a car that permits me to be as involved in the community (Abbotsford) as I am and to work; to get to and from a variety of widely spaced locations in a timely manner that is just not possible with the current bus system in Abbotsford.

When the Duster was incapacitated for almost a week while I dealt with an alternator replacement it had a devastating effect on my life. I became housebound and isolated which was not only unproductive but was/is a situation detrimental to my mental health.

Sunday evening the phone rang and I was offered a 1991 Cavalier which had to be moved out of the apartment parking lot by Tuesday, Tuesday being both the last day of the month and moving day.

My first thought was not of the costs associated with a free car but of Fate. The last time I was offered a great deal on a car, the faithful Duster, I said ‘No thanks’. Within ten days the VW was not running and the cost of repairs was well beyond my means. It was only luck that the Duster was still available for me to purchase.

With the offer of a “free” car my first thought was that the offer meant the Duster was on its last legs if I said no to the Cavalier and kept driving the Duster. Even now, days later, I am hesitant to tempt fate by abandoning the Cavalier even with the headaches and problems that have come along with getting it running and on the road.

It was sober second thought that considered the cost associated with getting the “free” Cavalier on the road.

I found myself on the horns of a dilemma; offered a car in better shape and with a (probable) longer life than the Duster, but I could not cover the expense of getting a free car.

My budget is such that at the end of the month, next months rent and my bills are paid and I have $20 to spend as I choose. I estimated I would need a minimum injection of $2001 into my budget to get the Cavalier on the road.

Though I had no plan for where the $200 would or could possibly come from I said Yes.

Not automatically saying no, feeling the fear and doing it anyway, is a measure of progress into recovery and wellness. It was not that many years ago that confronted with such an offer and such a situation a panic attack would have been triggered.

So I found myself at 2:30 AM, very early Monday morning, contemplating not only the logistics of getting the car out of the apartment garage by Tuesday evening but where I was going to find the money to cover the costs of the ‘free car’.

During my 25 years as a Chartered Accountant in public practice and business $200 was pocket change. Now, a $40 oil change is a major budget item that must be planned for and for which money must be set aside to pay.

Until I experienced it (an experience I would gladly end) I had no idea or appreciation for just how grinding poverty is on someone. Poverty grinds away at you physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually; grinding you down and down, robbing you of will and spirit.

The plan that I came up with was to ask for help in the form of a loan or loans and I sent out an email request explaining the situation; the backup plan was panhandling.

It turned out that while I may be living in poverty with respect to money, I have a richness of people in my life that will help me out. By the time I got up the next morning and checked my email for any replies to my request for help I had offers that covered the $200.

It turned out that obtaining the $200, which I had seen as the major obstacle, was the easy part.

Once I had the $200 in hand the Testing and Lessoning began. Testing? Lessoning? Every so often it seems as if the Universe feels the need to test my progress on my journey of recovery and wellness and/or teach lessons I need to progress on that journey.

And so the Saga of the Cavalier began in earnest.

Unfortunately the Universe seems to deal with me in a manner in keeping with my own skewed sense of humour and the absurd. Giving one the impression the Universe is playing with my head in an absurdist assault on my Sanity.

I met with the owner and picked up the signed documents needed to transfer the car to me… at least in theory. Arriving at the insurance broker revealed the registration papers were missing. A phone call determined they were lost, requiring a trip to the seller’s insurance agent to secure a new registration.

Quickly zipping the seller back to the move and with registration in hand I returned to the insurance agency only to find out that a correction made on the transfer document made the document invalid. Being a legal document ICBC insists that the transfer document be perfect.

Filling out a new transfer document, with a great attention to detail, I once again returned to the seller to get the new (and perfect) transfer document signed.

Returning to the insurance office I got a 3 day insurance permit since a 3 day permit was cheaper than 2 permits good for a single day. The Cavalier had to be moved Tuesday but it was now late on Tuesday and with Wednesday being Canada Day the Cavalier could not be run through AirCare until Thursday.

Armed with the insurance permit I sent out a request for someone to meet me at the owner’s old apartment building to jumpstart the Cavalier; being grateful that, considering the delays, I had not scheduled this activity.

Mr. Doug answered my appeal but in order to jumpstart the car, we had to push the Cavalier out of the garage as his truck was too tall to fit in the garage. It took patience to get the car started and running since it had been sitting for a year, but we succeeded.

Getting the car started revealed the car was a 5 speed. Fortunately I not only can drive a stick, but prefer it over an automatic. Happily Doug provided an escort back to my place; in the process providing jumpstarts as needed (ie after a stop to add fresh gas to the tank – which helped the car to run better).

He also, most kindly, returned latter that evening with a battery charger to breathe some life into the dead battery.

I spent Wednesday afternoon making hats, bookmarks and/or colouring while volunteering at the Canada Day celebrations after which I went home and took the Cavalier out for run in preparation for AirCare the next day.

Thursday morning Cavalier barely started, demonstrating the battery’s inability to hold a charge overnight. After taking the Cavalier out for a highway runI proceeded directly to AirCare where the Cavalier passed muster.

Having several places I needed to be from noon on I did not get the plates and insurance until late Friday afternoon; which turned out to be lucky.

With the plates on I limped to auto wreckers in search of a used battery. Alas there were no appropriate batteries at the auto wreckers forcing the purchase of a reconditioned battery. With the battery installed I thought that that was that, that I was done. It developed the Universe was not through with the Saga of the Cavalier and I.

Saturday I found I could not remember whether or not Thursday had been payday. Given the way things were going with respect to the Saga of the Cavalier, I decided that it would be wise to check that there was enough money in the bank to cover the insurance.

Checking revealed a $25 Cr(edit) balance. As an accountant a credit represents a debt owed, so I thought I needed to find money enough to cover not only the insurance tab, but the $25 Cr overdraft.

Making for a pleasant surprise when, after cashing cans, raiding my piggy bank etc I returned to deposit $70 I had managed to scrap up. I could have danced a jig out the door when the teller’s statement of the account balance reminded me that a Cr was the bank recording the money it owed me and that after depositing the $70 there were sufficient funds to cover the insurance charge.

As I said, it turned out to be lucky I was running late on Friday since the insurance charge against my bank account was not processed until Monday and I avoided being guilty of having insufficient funds.

Leaving the bank Saturday I was relived, pleased and relaxed; which made the emotional crash and mental stress of the car stopping and refusing to run – leaving me stranded on Lakeview Terrace most upsetting.

With no money for a tow truck or anything else what was I to do?

Call a skilled mechanic I know who was interested in my old VW. While a non-running metal sculpture for me, it was a puzzle and a project for him. A deal was struck and in exchange for the VW I ended up with a used, but working alternator, and the ability to get the car home.

Aside: Best friends know how crazy you are and choose to be seen with you in public. They also lend you driveway space to store a VW; understanding your having an emotion bond with a VW you lived in while homeless in abbotsford and the need for time to be able to let go before disposing of the VW.

Now back to our Saga: starting the car up resulted in the battery quickly getting hot as did the alternator. I was told to turn the car off and was loaned a battery to get the car home. He explained that if not properly conditioned, reconditioned batteries can be hard to charge, causing the battery to heat up. This situation also puts a lot of strain on the alternator – in this instance frying the old alternator and leaving me stranded.

Getting back to my home Saturday evening we switched out batteries and I was lent a trickle battery charger. I got several phone calls during the evening sending me out to check on whether the battery was getting hot. It was not.

The fact the Duster is running and insured made this situation much easier to be sanguine about; allowing me to leave the Cavalier charging. Which I am told, will deal with the sulphides in the battery resulting in the battery functioning much better and (hopefully) sparing the replacement alternator the fate of its predecessor.

Of course, in keeping with the spirit of the Saga of the Cavalier, the Duster has been temperamental, threatening to cease to run any second. Indeed, I have no doubt that if I continue to drive the Duster it will gasp out its life quickly. If I pass it on to someone else the Duster will likely run for years.

The final twist of irony is that the Cavalier has been sitting there with charger hooked up since late Saturday evening inasmuch as I have been to apprehensive (or is that superstitious?) to tempt fate and start up the Cavalier.

So tomorrow (Thursday) I will force myself to see if this phase of the Saga of the Cavalier is done. Unplugging the battery charger, firing up the Cavalier and finding out if the road ahead will be smooth or whether the Universe is not through testing and tempering me yet.

As an addendum I want to take some of the 86,400 seconds I have available today to say thanks to those without whose generosity and assistance I would have been left wondering what “could have been” the Saga of the Cavalier.

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1Actual Cash Outlay

$$$
28 Transfer fee
53 3 day insurance permit
30 Gas
23 AirCare
134

55 Battery
88 Insurance
277

100 Alternator*

377

* a price of $100 had been agreed to as the sales price for the VW traded for the replacement alternator; this resulted in the removal of the $100 from my budget in the same manner as paying the $100 for an alternator would have.